Slow Agony (Assassins, #2)(80)

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s true.”

“Do whatever you can not to think about it,” she said.

I didn’t say anything. I could see why she was saying it, and I could see why she felt like she needed to follow the advice she gave me. But I didn’t know if I could simply bury this. I didn’t think— Sloane’s phone rang.

“Can you answer that?” she said. “Put it on speaker.”

I got her phone out of the center cup holder. It was Silas calling. I answered it. “Hey, Silas.”

“What’s up?” said Sloane.

“Oh good,” said Silas. “You’re both there.”

“Silas just had an epiphany,” said Griffin.

“Well, I don’t know if I’d go that far,” said Silas.

“What is it?” I said.

“You know how Sloane said that French wants us to go to her? That she thinks she can re-brainwash us?” said Griffin.

“Yeah,” said Sloane.

“Well, Silas was thinking that a personal attack probably plays right into her hands.”

“Right,” said Silas. “I’m thinking we just blow the bitch up.”

“Blow her up?” I said.

“Yeah,” said Griffin. “We’re going to have to make a pit stop for supplies, but we can put together a pretty decent explosive, I think. We’ll level AXU along with French.”

“But my father is working with her,” I said. “He’ll be there too.”

“That a problem?” said Griffin.

I hesitated. I looked out the window. I’d erased my father’s memory, or so I’d thought. He’d been as good as dead. But now they wanted me to participate in killing him for real. Kill my father. I drew in breath. “I guess not.”

“Doll, if you want us to get him out—”

“He’s been helping French. He probably helped her sick Marcel on us. He... doesn’t deserve to be my father. I don’t care what happens to him.” I sank down into my seat and stared out at the headlights flashing by again. I didn’t want to think anymore. The lights were pretty.





Chapter Seventeen


I pushed the leaves out of the way to find a hidden vent, just like Griffin had told me I’d find. I was out in the woods in upstate New York, kneeling on the wet ground. It had rained earlier and the air still smelled like early summer. I took the contraption that Griffin and Silas had put together out of the pack I was carrying.

Each of us had one. They were all controlled by one timed detonation, which Silas was in charge of. He’d rigged it up. I didn’t understand how. But we had to place the bombs, so that was why we’d split up.

AXU was underground in much the same way that the main Op Wraith headquarters had been. Dropping these bombs into the vents would get them in place. Once we’d done that, Silas would make a call and everything would go boom.

It would be over soon.

I pushed several buttons on the bomb, activating it the way Griffin had shown me. Then I dropped it into the vent.

I winced when I heard it hit, but it didn’t explode, so that was good.

Quickly, I got to my feet. I needed to meet everyone else at the agreed-upon spot, out of the blast radius.

But I didn’t make it.

I was hurrying away when I felt a sharp point of pain in my shoulder. I gasped as everything started to go black. What had I been hit with?

*

“It was only a tranquilizer,” said a soothing voice.

I opened my eyes to find myself gazing at the face of Jolene French. She was smiling.

“Don’t worry, Leigh, you’re fine,” said French.

I sat up, panicked. I expected to find myself bound and imprisoned, but instead, I was lying on a couch underneath a blanket. I was inside a room with Monet prints on the walls and a desk in the corner. It looked like an office. That’s where I must be. French’s office.

She held up both her hands. “Now, now. It’s okay. We wouldn’t have used the tranq, but we didn’t think you’d come with us willingly.”

“Am I inside AXU?” I said.

“Yes,” she said, “but you’re hardly a prisoner. Think of yourself more as a guest.”

When was the bomb going to go off? Was I going to get blown up? I needed to get out of here. “If I’m not a prisoner, then I can leave.”

“Wait a moment, Leigh,” said French. “We’ve barely had a chance to talk here. Can you tell me why you were wandering around in the woods by yourself?”

Why had she seen me and not the others? Probably because I was spectacularly bad at moving quietly through the woods. Damn it.

“Were you trying to get away from Griffin?”  “What?” I said. “No. Don’t be ridiculous.” Okay, so sure I was feeling a little bit weird about what Griffin and I had done to Marcel. But that didn’t mean that any part of me wanted away from him. I couldn’t have been moving noisily through the woods on purpose. Could I?

“It’s okay if you were,” she said. She settled down on a chair across from the couch where I sat. “You forget that I know Griffin very well. I know all his secrets. I know exactly what he’s capable of.”

She wasn’t blocking my path to the door. I got up and started for it.