Kyle watched Rayne and Sagan part. Judging by their body language and their facial expressions, some tension from their last conversation still lingered. Rayne started back to the hospital proper.

Kyle tossed his drink and followed. He always followed Rayne. He worried about her reckless habit of running headlong into danger, so he stuck close. Better to protect her.

“Hey, nice distraction.” Kyle enjoyed ribbing Rayne.

She glanced at him, asking, “Where’s Lucas?” Okay. Not acknowledging his barbs was normal for her. He preferred baiting Tameka. She never resisted a verbal throw down.

Kyle shrugged and peered around the crowd as they rushed through it. “He grabbed a drink, and some guy started chatting him up. I didn’t want to get in the way of anything, so I made myself scarce.” Everyone, even the Icari, needed a break and a date.

“Something doesn’t feel right,” Rayne muttered. Her eyes passed over the rooflines of the building. Probably counting the bricks. She asked, “Did you see any children?”

Kyle recalled their entire tour experience in his recently perfected memory. “No.” A chill went down his spine, and the hair raised on his arms. He opened his mouth to share his suspicion when Sagan’s voice called over their earpieces. All his instincts screamed for him to grab Rayne and get the fuck out of there.

Apparently, she had other ideas because Rayne ran right back into the hospital.

Kyle shouted as he followed, “Are you fucking crazy?!” The less than friendly faces of the creepy camp counselors morphed into downright malicious and threatening as he and Rayne charged for the building.

She wrenched the double doors open and entered the dark, eerie lobby.

Kyle called out, “Can somebody turn on the lights?”

Rayne spun on him with her eyes wide and placed a finger to her lips.

Whatever. This reeked of a trap, anyway. They might as well go in with some bluster. Before Kyle popped off another hilarious comment, a groan echoed through the space.

Rayne walked further in.

Kyle followed, keeping an eye out. He scanned the door behind them and the gated areas. Her breath hitching brought his attention back to her. She approached a large lumpy thing on the floor.

“Lucas,” Rayne whispered. She brushed his hair from his face. The Icarus sported some bruises and at least one black eye. But the Icari healed super fast, so that couldn’t be him.

Kyle took a step to get a closer look, but Rayne held out her good hand to stop him with a glance over her shoulder. Her blue eyes flashed in the dark.

Kyle stayed back, guessing at Rayne’s intentions and trusting her instincts despite being at odds with his own. She turned back to Lucas with tender hands and triaged him.

Rayne asked, “Can you hear me? How did this happen?”

“We happened.” The bad guy’s voice echoed ominously throughout the low room. Camp counselors sprung up from their hiding spots holding—gulp—big ass guns.

“Whoa, we’re here to help you guys,” Kyle argued until a gun muzzle was shoved into his fantastic jaw. A Glock. “Nice.”

The smarmy bastard gave Kyle a smug grin. Kyle raised his hands slowly to eye level, watching for the opportunity to knock the smirk off the guy’s face.

The doors burst open, and one by one the villains escorted their outfit in. Colton and Cypher were absent. They pushed Sagan, Xelan, and Tameka through. Each of them glared at the guns to their backs. They arranged the group so that they circled Rayne in the center of the lobby.

One generic guy said, “Ma’am, we can’t find the other two.”

Mercy ordered, “Keep looking and when you find them, kill them. We don’t need them alive.”

Rayne actually growled from the floor. “What the fuck did you do to Lucas?”

Kyle frowned. Next time he wouldn’t separate from his partner. Lesson learned.

Only a few paces away from him, Mercy swept aside her jacket to reveal an old-fashioned apothecary bottle and a Desert Eagle. She said, “Friends supplied us with it.”

Lucas groaned at the sound of her voice, and Rayne leaned down to whisper to him. The situation looked pretty dire.

The psychopathic cult leader cried unnecessarily loud, “Now!”

Cracking, creaking, groaning rode on the resonance of Mercy’s shouting. Then the ceiling came down around them. Specifically, around Rayne. Black panels flew aside and a loud clang erupted, reverberating off the walls. A stupid iron cage surrounded their leader and Lucas.

“Rayne!” Tameka shouted. A goon swatted her in the face with a rifle. When Xelan bared his fangs at him, the piece of shit pointed the muzzle at Tameka’s teeth.

Light from the stars poured in through a glass atrium above, hidden all this time by the ugly faux ceiling. Rayne tested the perimeter of the cage like a hungry tiger.

Mercy said, “Your pet Icarus wouldn’t give up how to disarm the weapon. He’s very brave, even with his nacre disabled.”

“You what?!” Rayne charged the bars. “Is it permanent? What weapon?”

A bead of sweat trickled down Kyle’s back as he considered how much of this was on him. If he’d just stayed with their friend, maybe Rayne wouldn’t be in a cage. Now, he weighed the options of how to get her out. He glanced at Xelan, who shook his head.

Not yet.

“Don’t play with me,” the next bit Mercy ground out, “General.”

Rayne glanced back to Xelan who answered, “We don’t have any weapon.”

An ugly, hateful grin smeared Mercy’s face as she glared at Rayne. “You’re the weapon.”

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Rayne stepped away from the bars, a fine tremor crawling up her body. “I’m no weapon, lady.”

“Quiet!” Mercy shouted. “The master told us to acquire you for our side, and now we have you. His gratitude will be infinite.”

A creepy, kinda sexy giggle cracked from the cage. Rayne’s good shoulder shook, and her eyes flashed as she laughed in Mercy’s face.

The older woman had accumulated enough good sense to look concerned.

Rayne asked, “You think I’m a weapon? Then what makes you think it’s a good idea to torture my friend, use him as bait, and lock me in a cage?” She peered at the connections of the bars. “You CoN morons—”

Mercy’s face contorted into a grimace at the pronunciation of ‘con.’

Rayne continued, “Oh, I’m sorry. You never noticed your acronym before? ‘Cult of Night.’ ‘CoN.’ Anyway. None of you understand how much Nox is using you. Conning you, if you will.” She approached the iron boundary. “And you’re all so gullible. These stupid demonstrations. I have to hold back so much now because you always forget—” She gripped the bottom of the cage with her good hand, pulled it up, and pressed it over her head. “I’m not human.”

Then Rayne ran so fast that her movements barely tracked. She held a wicked-looking obsidian blade to Mercy’s throat before the cage crashed back to the ground. The men pointing guns fell with their throats gushing a waterfall of arterial blood.

Two seconds. Had to be.

Kyle lowered his arms and took the Glock off the body. “Fucker.” He looked back at Rayne. “Satisfied with the sheath improvements?”

She smiled more into Mercy’s face than for his benefit.

Sagan rushed to the cage. “Xelan?” He lifted it and tossed it aside with a metallic clash. Sagan knelt next to Lucas and checked over his injuries.

“Ambush Team, this is Wingmaster. Execute. Over.” Xelan helped Tameka off the floor and the sucker checked her face for bruising. Been there. Done that.

Glass shattered from the atrium ceiling, and three large Icari landed. Their combat boots sounded like thunder in the lobby. Fortunately, they were with the good guys. Caedes pointed an M16 at the doors to the courtyard. The other two Icari stood back to back, covering the other entrances.

Rayne asked Mercy, “Where are the children?”

Kyle glanced intensely between the two.

Spittle foamed from Mercy’s mouth. Her eyes grew wider than saucers. But she gave no answer.

“Rayne,” Xelan called. Tameka glanced from Rayne to Xelan with her mouth open in horror. Something wasn’t right.

“The children. We’re taking them with us. Where are they?!” Rayne pressed the knife harder against Mercy’s throat. Blood slipped from the wound and trickled away.

Xelan’s voice bellowed, “Rayne!” A lead weight sank in Kyle’s gut at the forlorn expression on the Icarus’ face. Turning to him one painful inch at a time, the color had drained from Rayne. He said, “We found the children. Outside.” The thick emotion in his voice raised Kyle’s hackles.

Tameka finished for him, “They killed them all. Maybe three hours ago. The children died by firing squad and were left in an open grave.”

“Killed them all?” Sagan repeated. Her hands gripped her hair in disbelief.

A strangled sound escaped Rayne’s throat. Her eyes swam in tears which fell down her cheeks, smudging the makeup she’d worn. She squeezed out, “Your own children?”

These CoN people were pretty fucked up.

Mercy turned a shade of pale green. Her throat bobbed against the knife as she attempted to swallow her fear. “On orders by King Nox. If you selected our compound for infiltration, we had to spare our children indoctrination into your filthy way of living.”

The knife pressed harder the more Rayne listened.

Mercy squeezed the last of her speech out. Her last words. “Refusing to cull humanity to the most genetically superior specimen. Disrespecting our Gods who fly among us. What more proof do you need, child? This is it. This is the Rapture. And you’re lucky the master considers you worthy. If you’d left us alone, our children would still be alive.” During this crazy bitch’s speech, a tension had escalated until Kyle’s ears wanted to pop.

Rayne’s face morphed from abject horror to vicious volcanic rage. Into her earpiece, she said, “Pride. This is Progeny Alpha One. Commence Operation Kerosene. Over.”

“Progeny Alpha One. Copy. Over and Out,” Colton verified over the channel.

Maniacal laughter bubbled out of Mercy, but Rayne ignored her. She said, “Caedes.”

“General,” he replied.

Rayne’s voice sounded hollow and strained as she ordered, “In pieces. I want everyone in pieces. You and all the Icari eat your fill and rip them apart. Don’t waste bullets on them.”

Caedes shouted, “Ambush team, you heard General Callahan. With me!”

“Hell yeah!” Kyle shouted. Finally! They always went so easy on these pieces of shit, but it wasn’t like they were recruiting any of them to their side. This time, no survivors.

“Wait, Rayne,” Xelan called to her.

Mercy cackled in Rayne’s face.

Rayne replied to Xelan, “Child killers don’t deserve quick deaths, Xelan.”

He said, “I agree, but this isn’t right.”

From the open double doors, cries and gurgles erupted as Caedes and the Ambush team went to work. Kyle jutted his thumb at the door and called, “Xelan, you’d better get out there and eat. I think our General rang the dinner bell.”

Xelan winced, and Tameka got in Kyle’s face. Again. God, she’d gotten so much worse after dating Xelan. She said, “Don’t talk to him like that. Ever. He won’t kick you out on your ass like you deserve, and I respect that. But I will break your femur if you ever disrespect him, again. Am I clear?”

Kyle rolled his eyes and found his ass on the linoleum. She’d roundhouse kicked him, landing him a Tameka-sized boot print on his chest. His chest was sore, and his breath was gone. “What the fuck?!” he let out in a hoarse cry.

Tameka repeated, “Am I fucking clear?”

“Yeah! Fuck!” Kyle refused the hand she offered it. He’d rather stay on the fucking ground. Must be that time of the month. He overheard Xelan quietly admonishing her, but Xelan’s usual zeal wasn’t there. Maybe Kyle was isolating himself with an increase of dickishness, lately.

Sagan stood over him, frowning.

Yeah, Kyle definitely needed to cool it with the asshole tendencies. She held her hand out to him, and he took it, marveling at her strength as she lifted him from the ground with ease.

Sagan muttered, “I thought you’d learned your lesson after the last time.”

Ouch. Yeah. Time to cool down.

“What’re you doing with her?” Sagan asked Rayne all but pointing at Mercy.

Rayne said, “Feeding her to Lucas.” She tossed the bottle of tablets to Xelan, who set to work examining them.

Damn, Rayne was out for blood. Kyle shook his head. He’d never saw her eyes so stormy quite like this. Peering over at Mercy, he wondered how her faith was holding up.

Xelan explained, “These aren’t possible outside of Cinder. Only Nox’s council would have access to these.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he checked over Lucas. “Fortunately, the effects are temporary.”

Relief washed over Kyle. “So, he’ll be all right? Can I help?”

Rayne wound her hand in Mercy’s mousy-brown hair, saying to the zealot, “You’ll help him. You owe him that much.” She dragged the bitch off the floor and over to their fallen Icarus. “Lucas. Lucas, can you hear me?”

Mercy wailed, “Don’t let her feed me to him! It’s a sin for an Icarus to taste our blood. Don’t do this!” She kicked and clawed at Rayne, who ignored every bit.

Xelan shook his head and distanced himself from the scene. Tameka followed, rubbing slow circles on his back. Even Sagan grimaced and locked eyes on the floor.

Whatever. Kyle would not miss this. He stepped over to the friend he’d abandoned earlier in the night and took Lucas’ head in his hands.

Rayne said, “Thank you.” The softness was there in her eyes. She didn’t like what she was doing anymore than Xelan. So why the show?

Their forlorn General pressed her thumb into the side of Mercy’s neck, and the woman turned into rubber. No more movements. No more screams. Just glassy eyes entreating Kyle for help. He shook his head with a grin and guided Lucas’ face to the open wound in Mercy’s neck.

Blood smeared on the Icarus’ lips. The woman’s chest pounded heavy and fast as teeth scraped at her skin. “It’s okay, Lucas. Let’s get you better,” Rayne soothed.

That bit of coaxing did the trick. Lucas plunged canines into the woman’s carotid. Sucking and gulping sounds filled the silent lobby. Three minutes. Four.

Before Kyle had realized it, Lucas had drained Mercy dry.

Rayne dropped the corpse and checked on Lucas’ vitals. She said, “I think he’s doing better. Xelan, can you check, please?”

Kyle stepped away and watched the situation unfold. He beamed with pride for the progress Rayne had made as their General. Getting stronger, unifying the group, making decisions regardless of Xelan’s approval. She’d really come into her own. But this capture attempt wouldn’t be the last one.

They were lucky Nox seemed uninterested in Rayne these last three months, but clearly, he’d changed his stance on that.

A weapon.

Rayne’s speed, agility, and strength definitely qualified as weapon status. Even if Nox wasn’t serious about the CoN compounds capturing her, he had other motivations for this BS power-play right here.

It made Kyle wonder, what if they couldn’t protect her?