Page 70 of Remnants
“Don’t tell me she’s already on their side,” I mutter irritably. That’s going to make rescuing her for Reid twice as hard. I’ve already failed trying to get my sister back from them.She’d been with them for most of her life, though. They’ve only had Tinsley for a couple of weeks.
It just goes to show how fucking strong Raegan is for holding out against Gordon for as long as she did.
“Now!” Aiden shouts, and I jump to my feet at his command, racing after him.
He throws his arm out, his whip sword lengthening and rounding its sharp edges. Tinsley dives under it mid-run, picking back up on her feet without missing a beat. Aiden tries again, sending a shield of metal at the end of his sword to trap her against the wall. She scurries up the wall, her speed keeping her feet moving until she’s standing on top of a beam high over the room.
She plants her hands on her hips andtsksat Aiden, her finger clocking back and forth. “Can’t catch me!” Tinsley yells at him, hervoice taunting and playful at the same time.
“I should get rubber bullets,” I grumble while staring up at her. I don’t think Aiden has enough metal to reach her up there. Not unless he pulls some from the floor.
Someone grabs my wrist that has the gun. I turn, yanking my hand back on instinct and then freezing when I see Vera there.
“Ver…” I breathe, my chest constricting. It doesn’t matter that I’ve decided to stop chasing after her. Or that I’ve accepted she’s the enemy. One of them.
“We have to go, Dane.” She smiles at me. I follow the scar that runs from her eye to her lips, and then her words register.
I twist my wrist to break her hold, jerking myself free. “No.”
Her face darkens, and she reaches for me again. “You never listen,” Vera snaps.
I dodge her hand with a scowl. “If I go back, I’m dead. Do you get that? Or maybe you don’t care. Maybe there’s nothing left of my sister, and I’m just talking to apuppet.”
Where the fuck is Aiden?
Taking a step back to put some distance between us, I look for Aiden and find a blur spinning around him, trapping him in the middle. Fuck. Tinsley was the bait to draw us out.
“Don’tcall me that!”
Sharp pain flares in my arm. “Aargh! What the fuck?!” Vera pulls something away from my arm, and I stare at the bleeding pricks there. “What was that?”
Before she can say anything, knives swerve in her direction, and I react before I realize what I’m doing, tackling her to the groundbefore they reach her. She yells beneath me, but mine are louder when pain in my side tells me I didn’t get us out of the way in time and a knife buries into my side.
“Dane!”
Raegan’s voice pierces through the agony. My eyes fly open as she runs toward me, and I throw a hand up, struggling to my knees and off Vera even as the pain in my side sharpens at the movement. “Stay back!” I can’t risk Vera hurting her. Whatever she’d jammed into my skin could hurt her. Or she could have another one. I shift myself between them to make sure Vera can’t get to her.
“Jack, don’t!” she cries, grabbing his arm before he can attack Vera again.
Vera scrambles out from under me, but instead of glaring at Raegan like I’d expected, she’s staring wide-eyed at me. “Why?” Her gaze drops to the knife buried in my side, then back to my face. “You picked her. Why would you take a knife for me? I thought...you saw me as your enemy.”
I cringe when the movement ofbreathingcauses the pain to intensify to white-hot levels, and I huff irritably. “You’re still…” Fuuuuuuck, this hurts. “…my sister,” I grit through clenched teeth. “Nothing will change that.”
Her face draws together in a mix of emotion, like she can’t figure out what she’s feeling as she watches me in pain on my knees before her. She takes a step back. And another. Vera casts a fearful look at Jackson and Raegan as she backs away. She taps a finger to her ear.
“Enough. Pull back,” she says, then touches her back pocket.
Water falls over us in a downpour, saturating the hall inseconds from the sprinklers. The remaining agents make their escape through the portal. I can’t help but watch as Vera does the same, her unsure expression branded in my mind even after she’s gone.
Chapter twenty
Raegan
“Wait.”Daneputshishand between him and Cassandra before she can touch him. “What’s in my arm? She did something.” He holds it out to her, and I see two pinpricks of red there. “Is it poison? A tracker?”
Cassandra’s face pinches, her eyes squeezed shut in concentration with her hands wrapping his arm.
“You can heal poison, right?” Dane continues.
