{Earth}

“The future, Pablo. It’s our future.”

“My only future is with you.”

Lynn felt like dog shit. Her man loved and supported her. And this was how she repaid him? Placing her job first and putting his ass on the line with Fury? She’d never forget the look on his face as the Seamswalker took him to the meeting. Alone. Oh, Lynn was going to Hell—

“It’ll work out, boss,” Smith muttered beside her. He seemed right at home in the covert operations gear. All black.

They waited in the lab for The Brethren’s guards to cuff Twenty-One. The Icarus’ body made for an impressive medical chart of every experiment performed on him at the Ecology. If he fell into the wrong hands, so would Pablo’s research. Everything about this swap was so clandestine and shady. It gnawed at Lynn’s nerves. And her heart.

“How can you be so sure?” She traced her fingers over the tattoo and pulled the necklace’s chain in a one-two nervous tic.

Smith pulled his own chain out of his collar as proof. “Because we’re the Shadow, and we will always remain.”

“Right.”

The Brethren’s guards escorted the gigantic Icarus through the lab. Seriously. The guy was almost as massive as Nox. Lynn called out to the giant, “How ya doin, Twenty-One?”

The prisoner looked over his shoulder at her as they climbed the stairs. “Just fine, Chief Renee.” The sincerity in his brown eyes arrested her. Were all Icari so repentant? He even smiled warmly in reassurance once they reached the front exit.

The glass walls afforded them an uninterrupted view of quite the lightning storm outside. The night sky flashed and split apart. Not a trace of thunder. Eerie.

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Once outside, the light breeze teased Lynn’s dark locs. Ozone carried on the wind with the fresh ocean salt from below. Something in the night bothered her. A whisper. A touch. Something.

“Do you feel that?” Smith muttered to her.

Oh, Hell no. When the Anthrax Guy got a case of the nerves, something was up. She signaled, and they rushed to either side of Twenty-One. Lynn ordered, “We need to go back. Now.”

One guard shook his head. “We’re only thirty feet from the conduit. Why would we stop?”

“Because there’s something—”

A whistle pierced the night. Strange and lonesome. Tuneless.

“What the fuck?” The second guard gripped his sword. “Come on. Let’s go back.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Smith scoffed with a side glance at the guards.

As they turned back, the whistle dropped pitch. Low. The hair rose on the back of Lynn’s neck.

“Steady,” Smith commanded. “Almost there.”

The whistle stopped.

“Chief. No matter what happens. I promise I won’t let you and the Doc down.” The timing of Twenty-One’s assurance frightened her.

Every muscle in Lynn’s body seized. Only her logic and her bones kept her going. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that—”

White light—bright and vast—blinded her. By their cries, it sounded as if it blinded everyone in the night. She shielded her eyes because even with them closed it seared her retinas to the point of tears. Lynn never thought she’d wish for the nacre glasses from Volcano Day.

“God damn!” Smith shouted.

Twenty-One growled, “Will it ever—”

The light vanished as suddenly as it came.

“—stop?”

“What the hell just happened?” Guard one asked.

“We did.”

They whirled to find a team of humans dressed in embarrassingly similar covert gear. Lynn blinked through tears. Her eyes hurt like a bruise.

“What was the point of that entrance, if you planned to let us know you were here?” Lynn couldn’t make out any of their features. Maybe if she tried bigger blinks. “Who are you with?”

“Someone interested in your research.” That was a man. White by the sound of his voice. But she couldn’t make anything else out.

Smith muttered to the guards, “Get him through the door and activate the emergency locks.”

“Sir.” They headed for the entrance.

Lynn stepped up. “Whose first?” She hoped to come across as intimidating despite the excessive blinking and tears. Unsheathing her weapons, she found it terribly disconcerting that they just stood there.

From the Ecology’s entrance, someone cried, “What the fuck just happened?”

The lightning freaked Lynn out. The whistle definitely raised her hackles. But the sound of her own voice from behind almost made her piss herself.

Turning, she wiped her eyes. Twice. Through the blur, a woman stood between Twenty-One and the Ecology.

And it was Lynn.