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I shout over him, continuing with my stupid motif, apparently. “They could be lying. You think I’m going to trust kidnappers and terrorists? I want to speak to him, and then I’ll call Powell.”

“Bossy bitch. Shut her up.”

“Yes, sir.”

I feel the punch coming before it connects. I drop sideways just as it glances off my temple, pretending to be a senseless heap.

That ought to buy me some time. Since they don’t seem to know that Reggie is actually my personal security , they probably left him alone. That means he’ll come for me.

I know it in my heart. Reggie will come for me, and he’ll never let me out of his sight again. I’m fine with that. I don’t want to let him out of my sight, either.

As I lie in a huddle on the bed, I get to eavesdrop.

“Where is he now? This Reggie Gray?”

“I doubt if he’d still be at the store now . He’ll have realized his wife is missing. He has probably called the police.”

The second thug rustles something. “She has two phones.”

“One of them must have the husband’s number.”

“Stop talking in front of her.”

They haven’t turned off the speaker, which I guess makes sense, seeing as there are two of them that need to hear Estrada’s instructions.

“She’s out cold, boss. When I hit, they stay down.”

I try not to smirk or move, even though my arm is twisted under me and I’m desperate to take the pressure off of it.

Why am I being so brave? I shouldn’t be brave. I’m going into shock, that’s it.

Or... I’m waiting.

Because Reggie already told me that he could find me no matter how well WITSEC hid me.

I’m sure these goons are no match for him.

These knuckleheads probably didn’t even take me that far.

They didn’t know they were dealing with Reginald Gray.

They thought he was just Mr. Joe Normal, hapless second husband.

“Get her husband on the phone, then have her call Powell.”

“What about after that?”

“We’ll keep her under wraps for a few days to make sure Matteo is released.” There’s a pause. “I have a boat nearby. I’ll send it up the river today. You’ll put the bodies on it, and they’ll take it from there.”

So much for not panicking.

Don’t come for me, Reggie. You’ll get hurt.

The tears are back, and I can’t stop them. I could have been the one woman who never hurt him. I could have been the woman who admitted she loved him back as hard and fast as he loved her. We could have run together.

Now, he’s going to lose me or lose his life.

I WAS SMART ENOUGH to get Powell’s direct number, and I dial it as I sit in the car, heart beating out of my chest and adrenaline higher than it’s ever been in my life. Higher than the first time I smuggled children to safety, in more pain than my first bullet, first blast, first anything.

Because she is my first love. Only love.

I hate to admit what happened. That I failed. Something is off, and I cannot sense it, even with all of my powers.

Maybe when golems get their souls, they finally are unmade. They die? No longer immortal? No longer all-powerful servants?

Maybe that’s why Therese was taken. I lost my powers when I began to live for myself, not merely as a weapon, a shield. I did my job so well that it was taken from me, along with the one who made me real.

What a cruel joke.

Well, I don’t care. I don’t care if I end now, even when I most want to live, when I finally know what life is like, with all the beauty and riches that exist because of love and family... I will gladly go, as long as I get Therese back first.

“Agent Powell.” His voice is suave and unconcerned, and that makes me want to punch through the hood of a car.

“Someone took Therese. You have location tracking set up on her phone, right?” I have both phones set up with tracking—as long as they’re on. I’m praying that they haven’t thrown out her purse or smashed her phone yet. Even as I have Powell on speaker, I’m pulling up the “Find Your Friend” feature.

That’s right. I don’t need Powell, but his answer is about to tell me a lot.

After some cursing and shouting, Powell goes quiet. I know that people are mobilizing in his office, which is nice, but they’ll take hours. I want seconds.

“I— It’s malfunctioning. They must have disabled her phone.”

I’m silent, watching a little red circle move on a map and stop—only about ten minutes from me, just off an I-81 Southbound on-ramp.

“Someone in your office shut it off. The phone is working. Not only that, but I haven’t seen any agents on detail near us. Did Teri tell you where we were?” I throw the car in reverse, narrowly missing a minivan.

“No! Oh. She mentioned a restaurant near you, but that was only minutes ago!”

“That’s right. And you told her that you couldn’t call her personally—which means you think someone followed your instructions to call—and they didn’t.

Someone in your office is either listening in on your calls or getting you to talk freely.

That same someone is changing patrol schedules and deactivating GPS trackers.

I’m getting Therese back. You catch your mole. ”

“Getting her back is a matter for the U.S. Marshals Service. Agents are mobilizing.”

“Then tell them to be discreet about it and meet me at the Good Nights Inn off I-81 Southbound. Exit 12.” I tap the image on the phone and reveal one of those bedbug magnets, the kind where the clerk hands out battered keys to battered rooms from behind a bulletproof partition. “Who can turn tracking on and off?”

“Well... Anyone in the technology support division. Of course, we can access it, but—”

“I don’t have time to learn the inner workings now. Get someone you trust to turn the location tracking back on for Therese’s phone! Watch them do it, and see if you can get a record of who last activated it or deactivated it. That’s going to help you catch the rat.”

I hang up, muttering about rodents, hearing my engine roar and the tires squeal as I break speed limits and pass recklessly.

Slow down. Don’t get caught by a cop. No time. Therese is in danger. Idiot.

I blame Estrada, Delgado, and their agents, who must have some dark powers, or they wouldn’t have been able to thwart me so effectively.

I blame myself more than them, for letting us leave the house, for falling in love and letting it go to my head while I dreamed rosy dreams, but I blame Powell the most. He was complacent, sure that he knew all the different ways this could pan out.

Instead of worrying about Therese, his agents have been scrambling, worrying about what to do with Delgado.

He’s the better catch, the bigger fish with more to spill.

They had Therese’s evidence, and so... They dropped the ball.

She was no longer the big prize. That—and the mole.

I pretty much just handed them the evidence they’ll need for an Internal Affairs investigation, but that doesn’t help Therese now.

“Stupid fuck!” I curse myself out as I keep one eye on the road and the other on the tiny red dot. It’s no longer moving. That could be where they dumped her purse.

Or her body.

A choking, panicked sound comes from my throat, and I drag my wrist over my eyes. Her beautiful, perfect body, carrying that sweet, beautiful soul. I failed to keep her safe. I didn’t protect her.

Shouldn’t have accepted the job. I wanted out. Wanted to be done. I got sloppy.

I’m on the same level as Powell now, down in the dumb shits of the world, the ones who got soft and sloppy, complacent because they thought they had it handled.

I was so enthralled with her, so in love with finding love, that I missed so many red flags.

I was looking for ways to be sure she loved me, that this was real, when I should have been studying the terrain and the other players!

Why didn’t I see tails? Patrols? Because I was busy in the bedroom, the shower, the living room, looking at her.

Why didn’t Powell phone in? Why didn’t that trigger some kind of warning in my gut?

The mole was probably manipulating things ever since Teri got into the area.

When I get off the exit ramp, I see the sign above the run-down motel. My speed drops, and I let the car amble to its destination, looking for any police or signs of activity.

Everything seems to be business as usual. There are plenty of cars on the street, people arguing in front of the taco-fried chicken joint on the corner, and trash blowing across sagging cars that aren’t worth stealing.

The motel is one of the two-story sticks.

Two dozen rooms on the top, two dozen rooms underneath, and a maltreated office in peeling tan stucco.

The parking lot on the front side has a few cars, but I don’t recognize any of them—I let out a frustrated growl before remembering the back.

That’s right, this concrete vermin trap has a strip for cars on the front and the back, all the room they have with the street and other equally dilapidated businesses encroaching.

I park in the front, cursing my ill-preparedness. I could run home and grab what I need. I could wait.

Yeah, right.

What if I don’t have powers against these guys?

I sit for a minute and try to let my instincts connect. Resurface.

Nothing.

All these decades of being able to save people with my inhuman abilities, wishing to be human—and now that I’m more human-like, I can’t sense a damn thing.

I think I’m still strong, but there’s no time to test it. I exit the car slowly, and on a whim, I see if I can lift it.

I can. One-handed. But who knows how long that will last? I yank the small fire extinguisher from the trunk of the vehicle and pat my thigh. One knife. One blunt object. One massive desire to rescue Teri that far outweighs my desire to be alive at the end of it.

Striding to the back of the building and searching for a familiar car, I hear Artie’s voice in my head, soft and soothing. “Don’t give up, Reg. One day, it’ll feel right. It’ll feel right, here .” He had tapped my chest all those years ago, a young father with two children at that point.

I put my hand over the spot he tapped, over words he anointed me with.

Calmness settles over me.

Therese is my right place. She is what makes things right in my world, in my life. She is what makes me right as a being. I am no longer just a shell with sigils. I am something—no, someone , with a soul.

I just have to get to her.