“What? No, it’s okay. I’ve got this,” I reassured them. They’d already done enough.
“You look like you’ve barely slept. Don’t argue,” Tami said. “Do what you need to do. We’ve got this.”
“Thank you,” I choked out, feeling like I was letting Mandy and Leena down on the one thing I’d said I’d do for them.
I wanted to escape. Into science and my numbers. I wanted to see Jada, and hug her, and reassure myself that she hadn’t flatlined again. I wanted to hold Dawson so he couldn’t put back the wall between us, thinking he didn’t deserve me. Us.
I could only do one of those things until I heard from Dawson again, so I went to the lab, scrubbed up, and put on my protective gear. When I pushed through the plastic, I didn’t quite feel the level of excitement I’d been feeling every time I’d entered the lab since I’d made it. There was too much else on my brain that I was worried about. Things that seemed bigger than what I had going on here.
I double-checked all the seals on the petri dishes and test tubes as I slid them under the microscope. I turned on the recorder on the laptop since I still didn’t have my phone. It was stuck in Jada’s room at her house. I began recording, verbalizing the microorganism counts. And it was then that I felt a twinge of excitement come back. At eight degrees, twenty-five degrees, and thirty-six degrees Celsius, the rate of growth was almost zero.
I let the hope fill me.
I might actually be doing this.
It wasn’t taking down a crime syndicate or curing cancer, but it was something that could still make a difference.
My heart thumped as I put everything back under the various heat lamps and into the refrigerator. My eyes landed on a piece of paper Jada had been scribbling on before she’d gone back to her house. It was a logo forForce de la Violette.In the center of the violet, she’d drawn a stone I was pretty sure was supposed to be jade. The violet was poking through a bramble of thorns. Jada and Violet. Showing the world our strength. I smiled. I hoped we truly could continue this venture the FBI had pretended to start for us. I wasn’t sure what the steps were to take it from a fake enterprise into a real one, but I had a feeling Jada would know. She could be the face and the business smarts to my science geek.
It brought a smile to my lips I hadn’t felt when I’d entered the lab.
I’d just turned off the recording when a shape emerged from behind the plastic. I backed into the table, fingers moving to try and turn the recording back on only to still as Ken’Ichi’s voice reached me. “Don’t move.”
My body obeyed, but my mind was rebelling.
Ken’Ichi’s face was red and scaly. He had a patch over one eye, and he’d changed his hair color to blond. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the bleach I’d thrown at him or because he was dodging the authorities. It didn’t suit him, and the entire combination added another layer of evil to him. He’d sent chills up my spine in the past, but now the darkness of his aura made fear spike through every single atom of my body.
“Langley is a bigger fool than I thought if he left you here alone,” he commented, a sneer of disdain in his voice as he pointed a gun in my direction.
“You’re a bigger fool than any of us suspected if you think I’m alone,” I said. Dawson had called the house earlier, letting me know he was going to get my things and was stopping to see Dax, but he’d reassured me that someone was watching the B&B if I needed them. I wasn’t sure how Ken’Ichi had even made it past them.
He snorted. “I am not a fool, Miss Banner. I’ve dispatched the idiot in the sedan, and Langley himself has been gone for hours. You are alone.”
My heart thudded. What did he mean bydispatched? Had he killed the man out front? Why did he even want me? I was nothing to him.
The reality of my situation hit me, sending waves of adrenaline through my veins. I was alone. I was alone and unarmed. But I had my lab. Things I could use that might do even greater harm than the bleach had already done.
My mind was already a whirl of chemical formulas. I just had to snatch the right one out of the air.
“Jada’s father assured her no one would touch us. Are you ready to go against your boss? Against theKyodaina?” I asked, stalling.
Anger flooded his face before it was swallowed once again by a calm that terrified me. “Oyabunis no longer on my side. You?all of you?have seen to that. I, however, still understand the meaning of the words loyalty and honor. I will do what blood prevents him from doing. I will cast out the fox in the henhouse. And you, Miss Banner, are my bait.”
He pushed aside the plastic again and waved his gun. “Let’s go.”
When I didn’t move, he stepped forward menacingly. “On your own or partly broken. Which way will it be?”
I forced my legs to move, inching toward him and the door instead of away like I wanted.
“Good girl,” he said.
But I wasn’t a girl. I was a woman. And that was his mistake.
As I went by him, I shoved my elbow as hard as I could into his stomach. His gun hand jerked upward, discharging into the ceiling as he grunted, and I used the moment to fly out the door.
Fear tried to swallow me whole, attempting to stall my feet, but I shoved it aside to run down the driveway. I didn’t go into the house because I didn’t want to put Saul and Tami or the guests in danger. I had to lead him away.
I wasn’t athletic on a good day, and my breathing was already fast and furious as adrenaline flooded me. I was tired and sore and achy, to boot, but the terror of him and his gun was enough to keep me pushing forward.
