Page 159 of Specter Bred

“She is.”

Redwood went still.

Graves turned and held the pistol out to Maeve. Her eyes dropped to the weapon, then slowly lifted to his. A smile spread across her face as she took it from his hand. Redwood’s relief vanished.

“Wait.” He scrambled backward on his knees. “No. No, sir, please—”

Maeve stepped toward him.

Graves folded his arms across his chest. “She doesn't need me to finish this."

Maeve raised the pistol.

“She can handle herself.”

Chapter 23: Maeve Archer

Bodies were a pain in the ass to bury. You had to dig deep enough that no animal would come rooting around later and drag half of one back to the surface. Sammy took the shovel while Graves and I worked the clearing, wiping away tracks and anything else that might point to what had happened there.

“Sure, make the beta dig the holes,” Sammy muttered under his breath as he drove the shovel into the dirt. “Knew I was gonna get stuck with this job.”

By the time Graves and I finished, Sammy had made decent progress, so I took over for a while and helped him finish the graves.

Then came the bodies. We hauled Teller, Long, and Redwood into the holes and started covering them one shovelful at a time. I ripped up the polaroids of me and Stephanie and threw the camera in along with the bodies.

With every scoop of dirt that disappeared over Redwood, something inside me loosened. He was dead and I was alive. No matter what he’d tried to do to me, no matter what he’d threatened, he hadn’t won.

I had.

I was going to be a Specter.

And he was going to rot in the ground.

Dawn was already beginning to spill over the horizon, and training would start any minute. I checked my watch nervously as Sammy tamped down the last few shovelfuls of dirt.

“Have somewhere important to be, Teacup?” Graves asked, one brow raised.

“Actually, yes. And so do you, sir.”

“I spoke with Alvarez. We’re taking the day off.”

I frowned. “Won’t that raise suspicions? Especially when Redwood, Teller, and Long don’t show up?”

“I filled Alvarez in. He’ll back us up with Command. Officially, they deserted. We’ll put out an arrest warrant and a BOLO for all three.”

“You told him?” I asked, more sharply than I intended. “Are you sure we can trust him?”

“Alvarez? Absolutely,” Graves didn’t hesitate. “Let’s just say the reason he got into hot water with his old unit had something to do with helping me. He’s proven his loyalty more than once.”

“And Cutter?” Sammy asked, slightly out of breath as he slung the shovel over his shoulder.

“He’s fine. He’ll go along with whatever we tell him. No one’s going to miss those three. Trust me.”

“Are you sure our instructor is okay with us taking the day off?” I asked, looking up at Graves.

“I think he’ll let it slide this once.”

He bent toward me, pressing his face into the crook of my neck and breathing deeply. There was something different in the way he scented me this time, a mixture of relief and reverence that made me go still. He breathed me in slowly, committing my scent to memory, as though some part of him were still trapped in the moment he’d realized I was missing, terrified he might never get the chance to breathe me in again.