Page 156 of Cold-Blooded Creatures

What the leader had to do was stand straight, issue orders, and pull on the strings controlling others’ lives. Cut the first one, make an incision in the second, tangle up the third with the fourth, paint the fifth in red, all the while his own thread had been severed years ago because of his own fatal mistake.

“Let’s begin with the upcoming auctions.” I pulled out a sheet of paper from the stack and grabbed a pencil. Making notes by hand grounded me. Create enough of them and their pile would resemble an unbound book.

“We have the dates of the next two scheduled,” Ryder said. “The first is planned in three months. My guess is that the auction won't be hosted in the same building, though. But the software I planted should let us access their system remotely, and if they detail the locations on it like before, we’ll know it.”

If I was in their place, I would not only change the location, but wait for the enemy’s arrival. Set a trap.

However, most ploys functioned using three levels: an entrance point, a bait in the middle to entice you, and a false exit. Kind of like an obstacle course we used as a training method. You would get thrown in without a clue of what your opposition had planned for you, but there were always loopholes, things they had brushed off as irrelevant. Same with the auctions.Ilasall could switch them up, but we were going to put an end to each one, halt their supply chains of human cattle. Less fertile people—fewer people in general.

“Are they aware we are in their system?” I scribbled down the date of the upcoming auction—or the Matching, as the cities had named the detestable practice. “Can they detect it in any way? And can we know if they do?”

Ryder scratched his forehead, glancing at Zion as he cracked open a window and observed the late evening activity in the street. Chilly wind ruffled his hair, and a need to hold the wayward strands in my grip rose to the surface.

“Yes and no,” Ryder admitted. “They shouldn’t have been alerted of our presence, but if they search for us specifically, they’ll find us.”

“Will we know if they do?”

He shifted in his seat. “We should get a ping in such a case, but if they are smart enough, they could work around it, and we wouldn’t be notified.”

“So they could plant any information they want in the system and use it to set up a ruse,” Zion spoke up.

“They could,” Ryder confirmed.

“What about access to their other systems? Lists of residencies, resources, military, governance? Anything?” Coming up to my right side, Zion plucked his knife out of the sheath strapped to his upper arm and twirled it between his fingers, muscle memory alone preventing injuries.

He always did it when restlessness consumed him. Yet he did not seem to realize unrest would pull him back into the memory of losing his sister.

“Not yet.” Ryder sighed. “We ran out of time. I managed to leave something in place, but I can’t tell you more until Sadira and I look into it more deeply. We might need another chance togo into the city and access their systems directly. And for more than half an hour.”

Reclining in my chair, I twirled my charcoal pencil to distract myself from the pressure the next question carried. “What about the other thing we had discussed?Herwhereabouts?”

“I found her records.” Ryder’s shoulders slumped. “They have expired.”

The pencil in my hands snapped in half.

Zion stabbed his knife into my desk. The handle vibrated practically audibly from the impact, but I gave no shit about the groove he had certainly carved out in the wood. Not when the news meant the string of her life had been severed.

“Are you sure it washer?” I squeezed the broken ends of the pencil. Yet the jabs of pain they caused could not kill the nightmare that was going to destroy Kali.

“Yes,” Ryder said. “I checked every class from thirteen years ago, and the records of a year before and after. There was only one school with a person named Alora. It’s a unique name. She was assigned to a partner immediately after graduation and died due to complications during the labor of her fifth child.”

“She’s dead?” Kali’s voice leaked disbelief as she stood frozen in the doorway. “Alora is dead?” she repeated, scrunching the hem of her black t-shirt with Vice embroidered above her chest in white thread.

Zion strode toward her. “There was nothing you could do.”

She staggered back, holding up a hand to stop him. “No, I could have doneeverything. I could have taken her place. I wassupposedto be in her place. She’d be alive if it wasn’t because ofme.” She viciously swiped under her eyes. “I have to go to work.”

“Wait.” Ignoring Ryder, I slowly made my way to her. Small, leisurely steps, controlled pace, anything to avoid eliciting an unwanted emotion. Fight, freeze, or flee were the usual responses to danger, but knowing her, she would employ allthree. Fight Zion and I, flee her home, and then freeze in the clearing where she wandered to be alone. “Someone can take your shift.” I reached out to caress her cheek. “Stay.”

“Don’t touch me.” She evaded my touch. “And don’t follow me,” she hissed, then bolted down the hallway. Shortly, the echo of her footfalls faded into silence.

“I’ll check on her,” Zion promised, moving past me.

I grasped his bicep to prevent him from chasing her. “Let her be. We will find her after her shift.”

“She shouldn’t be alone right now.”

“She wants to be.” I was going to respect her choice. “Remember how you shut everyone out after your family perished?” Seeing the skin flayed off your parents’ backs by a spindly branch used as a sharp-as-a-scalpel whip would undoubtedly mess anyone up irreversibly. Not to mention the other things the military had done.