Killer Instinct
Page 53

I read the implication in those words: Agent Sterling thought that there was at least a chance—and possibly a good one—that Christopher Simms had met with foul play. Had Redding somehow managed to have him killed?
Or had the person who had killed Emerson Cole—and maybe even Clark—come back to finish the job?
Three UNSUBs. Two of them are dead.
If there was a third, if someone was still out there…
Agent Sterling slammed her suitcase open.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Getting dressed,” she said tautly. “If there’s even a sliver of a chance that this case isn’t over, I’m working it.”
“I’ll go with you.”
She didn’t even look up at the offer. “Thank you, but no. I still have a few scruples. If there’s a killer still out there, I’m not putting your life on the line.”
But it’s okay to risk yours? I wanted to ask, but I didn’t. Instead, I went upstairs and changed clothes myself. I caught Agent Sterling in the driveway, headed toward her car.
“At least have Briggs meet you there,” I called after her, running to catch up. “Wherever there is.”
She hit the unlock button on the car. The headlights flashed once, then darkness set back in.
“It’s two o’clock in the morning,” Agent Sterling said, clipping the words. “Just go to bed.”
A week ago, I would have argued with her. I would have resented her for shoving me onto the sidelines. But somehow, a part of me understood—even after everything she’d had us do, her first instinct was still to protect me. She’d take risks with her own life, but not with mine.
Who’s going to protect you? I thought.
“Call Briggs, and I’ll go to bed,” I promised.
Even in the dark, I could make out the annoyance on her face. “Fine,” she said finally, pulling out her phone and waving it at me. “I’ll call him.”
“No,” a voice said, directly behind me. “You won’t.”
I didn’t have time to turn, to think, to process the words. An arm locked around my throat, cutting off my air supply and jerking me to the tips of my toes. My body was pulled flat against my assailant’s. I clawed at the arm around my neck. It tightened.
I couldn’t breathe.
Something metal and cool grazed my cheek and came to rest at my temple.
“Put your gun on the ground. Now.” It took me a moment to realize that those words were aimed at Agent Sterling. A second after that, I realized that I had a gun at my head, that Sterling was doing exactly as she’d been instructed.
She’d risk her life, but she wouldn’t risk mine.
“Stop struggling,” the silky voice whispered in my ear. He pressed the gun harder into my temple. My whole body hurt. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t stop struggling.
“I’m doing what you asked. Let the girl go.” Sterling sounded so calm. So far away.
It was dark outside, but things were getting darker as my vision blurred and inky blackness began to close in on me.
“Take me. That’s what you came here for. I’m the one who got away from Redding. Proving you’re better than his other apprentices, killing them isn’t enough. You want to prove you’re better than him. To show him.”
The grip on my neck relaxed, but the gun never wavered. I sucked air into my burning lungs, gasping for just one breath, then two.
“Eyes on me, Cassie.” Sterling shifted her focus from the UNSUB to me just long enough to issue that instruction. It took me a moment to realize why.
She doesn’t want me to see him.
“Knock her out. Leave her here. She wasn’t part of the plan. Your plan.” Sterling’s voice was steady, but her hands were shaking. She was playing a dangerous game. One wrong word and the UNSUB could kill me as easily as he could knock me out. “She can’t identify you. By the time she wakes up, you’ll be long gone, and I’ll be yours. You won’t lose me, the way Redding did. You’ll take your time. You’ll do it your way, but they won’t find you. They won’t find me if you stick to the plan.”
Sterling was targeting her words at the UNSUB, playing on his fears, his desires, but I heard what she was saying, too, and the real kicker was, I believed her. If I couldn’t identify the UNSUB, if he took her, if they left me in the driveway unconscious, by the time I woke up, it would be too late.
He’d have too much of a head start.
But there was one way to make sure that Briggs knew immediately that something was amiss. One way to make sure that he could find her.
The UNSUB let go of my neck.
“Look here, Cassie. Look right here.” I could hear the desperation in Agent Sterling’s voice. She needed this, needed me to keep looking right at her.
I turned around. Even in the dark, I was close enough to make out the features of the UNSUB’s face. He was young, early twenties. Tall and built like a runner. I recognized him.
The guard from the prison. Webber. The one who’d been disgusted by Dean’s very existence, who had a problem with female FBI agents. The one who’d refused to allow us to stay in the car.
The pieces fell into place in a single, horrible moment: why the man hadn’t let us stay in the car, how Redding had known I existed, how our third UNSUB had been able to kill Christopher Simms in prison.
“Redding would take me, too. He’d kill me, too.” My voice was scratchy and barely audible. “You work at the prison. You know he asked for me. You’re probably even the one who delivered the message.”
He could shoot me. Right now, he could shoot me. Or my gamble could pay off.
All I saw was a flash of movement, the glint of metal. And then everything went black.
YOU
The gun cracks against her skull with a sickening thwack.
It doesn’t sicken you.
The girl’s body crumples to the ground. You aim your gun at the pretty FBI agent. She looked down her nose at you when she visited Redding. She dared to tell you what to do.
She probably laughs at boys rejected from the FBI Academy, let alone the local police force.
“Pick her up,” you say.
She hesitates. You aim the gun at the girl. “Either you pick her up, or I shoot her. Your choice.”
Your heart is thudding in your ears. Your breaths are coming faster. There’s a taste to the night air—almost metallic. You could run a marathon right now. You could dive off Niagara Falls.
The FBI agent picks up the girl. You pocket her gun. They’re yours. You’re taking them both. And that’s when you know.
You’re not going to hang them. You’re not going to brand them. You’re not going to cut them.
You have the One Who Got Away. You have his useless little son’s girl. This time, you think, we’re doing it my way.
You make the FBI agent put the girl in your trunk, climb in herself. You knock her out—and oh, it feels good. It feels right.
You slam the trunk. You climb into the car. You drive away.
The student has become the master.
Consciousness came slowly. The pain came all at once. The entire right side of my face was white-hot agony: throbbing, aching, needles jabbing down to the bone. My left eyelid fluttered, but my right eye was swollen shut. Bits and pieces of the world came into focus—rotted floorboards, heavy rope encircling my body, the post I was tied to.
“You’re awake.”
My good eye searched for the source of the voice and found Agent Sterling. There was blood crusted to her temple.
“Where are we?” I asked. My arms were bound behind my back. I twisted my neck, trying to catch a glimpse of them. The zip ties digging into my flesh looked uncomfortably tight, but I couldn’t feel anything beyond the blinding pain radiating out from my cheekbone.
“He hit you with his gun, knocked you out. How’s your head?”
The fact that she’d ignored my question did not go unnoticed. A moan escaped my lips, but I covered it as best I could. “How’s yours?”
Her dry lips parted into a tiny, broken smile. “I woke up in the trunk of his car,” she said after a few seconds. “He didn’t get as good a hit in on me. I pretended I was unconscious when he brought us in here. As best I can tell, we’re in an abandoned cabin of some type. The surrounding area is completely wooded.”