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25

THE ALARM

I fumbled to put my earpiece back in my ear. I’d ripped it out when the alarm started, mostly because it shocked me so badly, it felt like an assault.

I got it back in and clicked it on in time to hear Black’s voice, loud on the line.

“…you’re sure it’s him? Dalejem?” he growled. A bare pause passed while someone else came onto the line with a click. “Where? Where did he trip it?”

“Inside the penthouse,” a deep voice said. I recognized it immediately as belonging to Dex. He sounded grim, even disturbed. “We’re checking every camera in the building now. But there’s definitely a view on Jem breaking into your room. The alarm went off a few seconds later. Looks like he tripped one of your secondaries, likely the one that tracks you and Miri by your location, and knew someone unauthorized was in there.”

I felt the blood drain from my face.

I hadn’t even known Black had something like that in our apartment.

He must have activated it when he got worried Jem might go looking for Aura. There’s no way that level of security was on all the time, or we’d set it off every time someone went in there to grab Panther for a walk.

“Who’s closest?” Black barked.

“Jax and Kiko are over there.”

“Have them guard the door until we get there. They can’t take him alone.”

I felt sick. Take him? This was Jem we were talking about.

Jem, who had broken into our penthouse.

That meant using his sight to hack the bio-lock. Even Jem wouldn’t have been able to break down the door. Not without a bazooka, or maybe one of those shockwave guns I’d seen Black and the others experiment with, mostly in a “boys will be boys” kind of way, knocking down cement walls and blasting boulders apart just to see what the weapon could do.

Gods. Would Jem really hurt her?

Would he even kill her, if he decided he needed to?

When I’d told Black there was a risk of that, I’d been speaking from the theoretical, purely logical side of my mind. I hadn’t let myself contemplate him actually doing it. But now it suddenly felt like a real possibility, and what the hell were we going to do? We’d have to lock Jem up. Nick was going to lose his mind.

More than that, Aura would be dead. Jem would have killed a child.

A child I felt strangely attached to, even in only a few days.

“Tell them to go in.” I could feel Black focused on me, on my light. “Tell them I’ll be right behind them, but they have to go in. They can’t wait. He could be killing the girl right now. Tell them they’re authorized to shoot if necessary… stopping power only.”

I was already running towards the office door.

I only stopped once, to bend down and yank the gun out of my ankle-holster.

J ax entered the apartment ahead of her, walking soundlessly.

He more or less insisted on going in first, which probably should have annoyed Kiko, given who she was, how long she’d been running full-blown military ops, how many pacification and extraction jobs she’d done for Black in war-torn countries, not to mention her years of military service before she entered the private sector… but somehow she wasn’t annoyed, which managed to amuse her and irritate her at the same time.

She knew it was only because it was Jax.

Maybe it was proof enough that they were still in the honeymoon stage.

Jax had been through his own world of shit, including a planet-wide war on Old Earth that ended with the destruction of an entire civilization. She knew little scared Jax more than losing another person he cared about, especially through a careless mistake.

For the same reason, he lived in fear of miscalculating on how serious a threat was, or how vulnerable someone he loved might be, or just how badly things could go sideways and how quickly and how irreversibly.

Kiko got that.

She’d been in wars, too. She’d lost friends.

She knew that fear.

As much as she hated to admit it, there might also be some acknowledgement in the back of her mind that a seer as formidable as Dalejem going off the deep end wasn’t something she could handle on her own.

Frankly, she doubted Jax could handle him, either, which is why she followed closely behind him, gun drawn, if still mostly pointed at the floor.

She’d heard enough in Black’s voice when he gave the order to know they had no time to waste. Whatever was going on with Nick and his “boyfriend,” this wasn’t normal seer craziness. Black certainly didn’t think it was normal. He hadn’t sounded afraid, exactly, but only because Black never really sounded afraid.

On Black, fear came through as a kind of hyper-aggressive caution.

Given the new orders they’d gotten just now, Black clearly thought someone might need to take Jem down with a tranquilizer rifle… or maybe a bullet to the knee, and then a tranquilizer rifle.

At the thought, she wondered why a tranq gun hadn’t occurred to her or Jax.

She continued to follow Jax steadily, only with her back to him now, as they ventured deeper into Black and Miri’s penthouse.

Kiko knew Black would likely burst into the room any second.

She and Jax had been closest, but the boss and the others would be right on their heels. The thought that Dalejem might be in here, killing the girl with his bare hands, or maybe with a knife to her throat, had been enough for Black to order them in ahead.

She checked the corners, her gun held higher now.

She used her earpiece to listen for sounds her human ears couldn’t pick up, but got no hint of a living being in any part of the penthouse apartment at all, much less in the parts she could see. She switched over to infrared and looked again, but still nothing.

Despite everything, Kiko couldn’t help being glad it was Jem they were told to be cautious of––warm-blooded, seer Dalejem––versus Nick, the cold-blooded vampire.

Frankly, vampires still scared the shit out of her.

“We need to check the bedrooms,” she murmured to Jax, without lowering her gun, and without taking her eyes off her half of the room. “Boss’s bedroom is in the back, but the kid’d be in the guest bedroom, wouldn’t she?” Kiko frowned. “That’s over there.” She jerked her head and the gun. “First door down the hall. I’m not getting anything on infrared, but there might be too much in the way. Can you see anything with your seer’s light?”

Jax frowned. His eyes shifted out of focus, and she knew he was looking.

Kiko thought of something else.

“Where’s the dog?” she asked in a whisper. “Wouldn’t the dog be barking?”

A ripple of fear went through her.

Could Jem have hurt Miri’s dog?

Miri would be fucking homicidal if anyone harmed a hair on Panther’s head. She and Black both adored that big, black, gangly, goodnatured wolfhound pup. Hell, most of the office did. He’d been the company mascot ever since Miriam brought him back from Moscow as a tiny puppy with the comically deep bark.

Jax finished scanning with his light, and probably his headset.

He motioned towards the guest bedroom with the gun he gripped in both hands.

Kiko’s jaw clenched. She didn’t ask if he’d seen anyone in there alive.

They began walking that way together, still roughly back to back.

She kept her gun up the whole way down the hall, and checked the corners as they passed alcoves and the boss’s private office. It only struck her as crazy later, when it occurred to her that she likely wouldn’t have been able to shoot Jem with enough precision to get him in the leg, much less the knee, not if he came running at her fast enough.

Even at the time, she hoped like hell the gun itself would be deterrence enough.

She didn’t like the idea of shooting him in the leg.

But what else could she do? Throw it at him?

Jax shoved open the door to the guest bedroom and darted inside, and Kiko turned around to follow him. They’d barely been in there twenty seconds when Jax lowered his gun.

“Nothing,” he said, sounding frustrated. “We’re too late.”

Kiko felt her heart sink.

She knew in her gut he was right, but some part of her remained briefly in denial.

She turned all the way around, taking in every part of the room she could see. She still gripped her gun as she walked down one side of the room, checking all of the corners and shadows as she went. Jax checked the bathroom, then clicked on the overhead light.

The room remained just as empty.

Jem wasn’t there.

The girl wasn’t there, either, which felt more ominous.

In the other room, Kiko heard the front door slam open. Another collection of sounds reached her ears as a much larger group of people rushed into the penthouse.

“In here!” she yelled out, not bothering with the coms.

She holstered her gun, exhaling a few choice swear words under her breath.

She walked around to the other side of the bed, looking for clues, for blood, for anything that might help them, and came to a dead stop, staring at the carpet. As soon as she made sense of what was lying there, she gasped, then got down on her hands and knees.

“Goddamn it,” she snapped.

Panther was sprawled out on his side, his long legs and big paws akimbo, his brown eyes closed, his mouth slightly open. Kiko laid a hand on the dog’s lean ribcage, and let out a relieved, angry breath when she felt the steady heartbeat, the rise and fall of his bones from the dog’s working lungs.

She felt all over the rest of the dog then, looking for injuries through his soft black fur. She was still doing that when Miri burst into the room, almost like she knew.

In seconds, the doc was down on the floor next to Kiko.

“He’s alive,” Kiko said at once, if only to head off Miri’s panic. “I haven’t found any injuries, but we should get him to the medical center and have Vanessa do some x-rays, just to be sure––”

“What happened?” Miri burst out. Her hands were careful on the dog, obviously feeling him over for injuries as well.

“We don’t know,” Kiko said. Her voice sounded defeated to her own ears. “We just got here, and the room looked exactly like this.”

Miri turned to look at her, her blue-green eyes wide. “Did you see Aura?”

Kiko bit her lip, and shook her head. “No, doc. No one.”

“Kiks,” a voice barked from the door.

She looked over and caught Black’s stare where she found him standing next to Jax. When he saw her looking, he jerked his jaw, indicating he wanted to talk to her. She exhaled as she climbed to her feet and straightened, pausing only to lay a comforting hand on the doc’s back.

She walked over to Black, Jax, and Dexter, blew her bangs that needed a trim out of her face, and glanced at Jax’s dark purple eyes.

He was watching her closely, concern in his handsome, angular face.

Jesus. He grew hotter to her almost daily. What was up with that? And why was she thinking about that now, in the middle of this mess?

A slow grin grew over his face, despite the worry in his eyes.

She aimed a warning finger at his face.

“Stop eavesdropping,” she retorted.

Black ignored both things, Jax’s smile and her words.

He was speaking to Dexter and Rafe, who Kiko hadn’t seen at first, standing next to Dex. “I want the building locked down,” Kiko heard him say. “Get someone on the security recordings right away. There’s no cameras in here, but check every exit and entrance, starting with the elevators. Check the time signatures, too. I’m thinking now he might have fucked with the surveillance records. We’re probably too late, but if she fought back, there’s some chance he hasn’t made it out of the building yet. He could be in the parking garage, or even the lobby.”

“Got it,” Dex said, touching his ear.

Black’s eyes shifted to Kiko.

“Did you see anything? On infrared?” Kiko shook her head, and Black looked at Jax. “Any Barrier imprints? Any sign he’d been here within the last few minutes?”

Jax shook his head, his jaw a touch hard. “There was nothing by the time we went in. We got nothing on the scanners. I didn’t feel him at all. Not just in here, but anywhere inside the construct. Which is weird as fuck…”

“Not really,” Black muttered darkly. “This is Jem we’re talking about.”

Kiko felt a shiver of unease at how he said it.

She cleared her throat, then did her best to make her voice businesslike.

“Now what?” She glanced at Jax before gazing up at Black. “Do you really think he got out of the building with her, boss? With no one seeing him? Meaning no offense, but how the fuck is that possible, even for him?”

Black frowned.

He looked at her, then at Jax.

His jaw slowly hardened.

“It’s not,” he growled.

He turned to Rafe and Dex, who were still talking out in the hall. “I want every single member of the team accounted for,” he growled. “Dexter? Are you hearing me? I want to know if anyone else is missing. As soon as possible.”

Black seemed to decide that would take too long, even as he said it. He touched his ear. He switched the coms to the public channel, so everyone in the building would hear what he said next, something he hadn’t done since the war ended.

“Roll-call,” he growled. “Now. I want every person who should be in this building to call in. I want someone to be checking every name against a list as they do it. We need to know if anyone else is missing beside Dalejem and the girl.”

“I’ve got the list,” Dex affirmed.

Names started coming through on the channel., soft so that other conversations could still take place around it. Kiko heard everyone she expected to hear. She tried to remember how many of them were working here today, but hadn’t worked it out until everyone had called in and the line had grown quiet once more.

“Angel, Cowboy, Holo, Dog, and Javier were checking the lower floors,” Michelle reported in next. “They’re probably out of range of the local network comms. I know there’s no reception in the parking area, and they were going to check that first.”

“Nick?” Dexter asked. “Anyone have eyes on Nick?”

Black spoke up before anyone else could.

“He’s not here,” he said, blunt. “I sent Tanaka, Mika, and Ace to do recon on Rania Gorren’s house, in case we decided to go forward with the surgery on her tonight. Although that’s a moot fucking point now that we don’t even have the girl,” he growled under his breath.

Black glanced around, seemed to notice the silence, then looked at Dexter. “They’re probably not back yet. They should be soon.”

Kiko’s eyebrows rose. So did Jax’s.

“I want someone to go down and find the downstairs team,” Black said next, before anyone could speak. “They might’ve found something and couldn’t call it in for some reason. I want everyone accounted for… including them.” He waited as Rueben pulled out his phone, then looked at Kiko next. “Call Nick, too, Kiks. See if they’re on their way back. He may not be able to answer, but I think we need to risk it.”

Kiko nodded, once, and pulled out her phone.

She scrolled through, found Nick’s name in her contacts, and hit his cell number.

It didn’t ring, though.

She got a strange beeping noise instead.

“My phone’s not working,” she announced. “Can someone else try?”

“Mine’s not working either,” Rueben said from the corridor.

Black scowled. He’d just yanked his own phone out of his back pocket when Mika suddenly ran into the guest bedroom.

She was wearing all black, her eyes shockingly wide, her face pale. Mika’s boyfriend, the tall Texan human, Ace, ran in behind her, close on her heels.

His eyes looked even wider than hers.

“They’re down in the parking lot!” Mika said loudly, her voice shaking. “We just got back! Nick’s with them––”

“You found what?” Black snapped. “Who?”

“Cowboy, Holo, and Dog,” Ace said, answering for Mika in his deep, Texas-accented voice. “Out cold on the asphalt when we drove in… we nearly ran over them. Nick was trying to revive them when we left. We tried to call the new doctor, Vanessa, and Nick tried calling 9-1-1. None of the phones are working. What the fuck’s going on?”

Kiko stared between them, half in disbelief. Neither Ace nor Mika were the panicking type. Seeing them both panic right in front of her was unnerving.

Then she thought of something else.

“What about Angel?” she asked. “You said Cowboy, Holo, and Dog. Angel and Javier should have been there, too. They were all together.”

Ace stared at her, uncomprehending, like she’d been speaking Russian.

He swallowed then, his eyes wide and panicked. “They weren’t there.”

“You’re sure?” Dex asked. “They weren’t in some other part of the garage, or––”

“I’m telling you, they weren’t fucking there!” Ace said.

Kiko felt the blood drain from her face.

Miriam walked forward, stepping between her and Jax. “What do you mean they weren’t there?” she asked Ace, her voice cold. “Did you check everywhere? What about outside?”

Ace blinked at her, almost like he was afraid.

“Nick and Mika looked, doc. Nick smelled Angel, and––”

“They’re gone,” Mika said, her voice loud and final. “Unless someone put a brain implant in their heads so we couldn’t see their light, they’re fucking gone. Nick couldn’t smell them, just the remnants of them. He’s the one who said Angel might be in trouble. I did a scan of that whole level. They weren’t anywhere from the lobby on down.”

Kiko looked between Mika and Ace, then at Miri and Black.

Holy fuck. What the hell was happening?