She was holding a military-quality MP5, a Heckler & Koch machine pistol that Bryn knew would cut her in half at this distance. Wouldn’t kill her, most likely, but it would damn sure put her down for the fight. Jane wasn’t pointing it, but it was an easy swing up and left on the strap, and boom.
So she stayed very still. “Using kids,” she said. “That’s low, Jane. Even for you.”
Jane shrugged. “They’re Revived,” she said. “Not really much risk for them, even if you went Cannibal Queen on them.”
That shook Bryn, deep down, the idea that someone, somewhere, had decided to Revive children. But then, of all the situations where desperate, bereaved people would have paid to have their loved ones brought back, children were the most probable.
And the most awful, because those children would never progress beyond that age. Ten years old, forever. Their brains and bodies were developmentally stalled, and before too long, the child inside would stagnate, twist, become something else, like fruit left too long canned on a shelf. Her revulsion must have shown, because Jane laughed. A hollow kind of a sound, one without any real humor. “Weird that we agree,” she said. “I wouldn’t have done it, either. And we both know there’s not much I won’t do, right? But even for me, there are limits. I might kill a kid, but I wouldn’t be that cruel to one.” Bryn must have twitched, or looked as if she was thinking about killing Jane bare-handed, because Jane’s right hand moved and brought the machine pistol up to a dead aim. “Ah, ah, let’s not fight, sweetheart. I’m enjoying the moment.”
“Where’s Reynolds?”
“Oh, that’s really him upstairs,” Jane said. “He volunteered—of course, we told him it really was all about internal matters, hence his audit spiel. Didn’t see any reason to alarm him with the full details. He set up this place a long time ago, on the off chance Calvin Thorpe decided to turn on us . . . and it’s his only known address, these days, though of course he doesn’t live here. We caught you on facial recognition in California, and an alarm tripped when someone started looking for an address—not either of you. Nice subcontracting, by the way. But still, two and two equals four in this world.”
“Is Reynolds one of the Revived?” Bryn asked. Jane cocked her head a little and raised her eyebrows. “Just wondering.”
“Most of the Fountain Group have taken the treatment.”
“That what they’re calling having a plastic bag over your head and suffocating to death, then crawling out of hell?”
“Well, you know the medical profession. They never tell you the nasty stuff about the procedures ahead of time.” Jane leaned against the wall and gave the room a quick, unimpressed look. “Looks like catalogs had an orgy in here, don’t you think?”
She did. That was actually almost funny, and Bryn had to suppress the smile, but she knew Jane would see the impulse, the micro-twitch at the corners of her mouth. And that made her angry. She did not want Jane to make her laugh. That was more of a violation than Jane making her bleed. “So,” Bryn said. “What now?”
“Now, kiddo, I kill you—temporarily, of course—and go upstairs to get Patrick. If I can take him alive, I will. If not . . . hope you had Paris. Ah, ah, don’t do that. Just don’t.” Jane’s eyes sharpened focus, and the tremor of Bryn’s hand toward her pistol was the focus. “Go for that gun and all this goes south very fast.”
“You just said you were going to kill Patrick.”
“Of course I will, but I’m not cruel. I’d put him into the Revival program. And unlike you, he’d get the right dose of nanite programming, so he’d stay . . . compliant.”
“And me?” Bryn asked. “Because you damn sure know I won’t be compliant.”
“Yeah, I damn sure do,” Jane agreed. “Tell me, have you felt the hunger yet? Gotten your teeth into living skin? Felt the rush of the hunt?” Bryn was silent, and Jane gave her a slow, intimate, greasy smile. “I see you have. Impressive, isn’t it? That human beings could engineer that kind of savagery in, and call it progress. But then, we’ve always been capable of that kind of cognitive dissonance. Killing for God, for the master race, always some kind of bullshit to ease our consciences. Sit down, Bryn. Right there on that model-home bed. Then take your weapons out, two-finger touch—you know the drill. Kick them over to me.”
Jane could ramble, but she was never distracted, and Bryn knew it was a fool’s errand to assume differently. She walked to the bed, sat down, and took off her jacket. Then she pulled the sidearm from its concealment, using two fingers, and dropped it to the primary-colored throw rug. After a second’s hesitation, she added the knife from the small of her back, too. Then she kicked them both across the room toward Jane’s booted feet. She was hoping Jane would take a split-second’s attention from her to pick them up, but Pat’s ex was wiser than that; she just kicked them onward, toward the far wall. “Facedown on the bed,” Jane said. “Hands laced on your head, ankles crossed. Any struggle, and you get a bullet in the skull.”
There wasn’t much choice. Jane was too good to make a careless mistake. She’d chosen the bed instead of the floor to avoid having to alter her center of gravity so much, and to make it that much harder for Bryn to react fast; mattresses and springs were designed for comfort, not for precise motion. Any attack she’d try to mount would flounder, and she would die.
So Bryn, seething with fury, silently got on the bed, turned facedown, laced her fingers together on the back of her head, and crossed her ankles. Only when she was still did Jane approach and dig a knee painfully into her back, then drag her wrists down and zip-tie them firmly.
The bony knee went away, thankfully. “Up,” Jane said. “Slow.”
It wasn’t as easy with her hands pinned, but Bryn rolled over and put her legs out, and leveraged her way to a sitting position on the edge of the bed. “What now?” Bryn asked, without getting up. “You march me into an oven somewhere? Problem solved?”
“You’re the kind of problem that doesn’t get solved any other way,” Jane said. “Take that as a compliment. Up.”
Bryn shook her head. “Why should I?”
“Bitch—” Jane checked herself as she started to take a step closer, and a slow, demented smile spread across her lips. “You’re buying time for Patrick. You think he’s going to figure it out.”
“Why not? I did.”
That wiped the smile from Jane’s lips, and she activated a hands-free radio with a tap on the choke-band around her neck. “Who’s got eyes on McCallister and Reynolds?” She continued to stare straight at Bryn as she listened to the reply. “How do you know they’re still there? . . . Shit. Get somebody in here to watch this bitch.”
That sounded promising. Bryn kept her attention close on Jane, but there wasn’t any kind of a slip she could take advantage of. . . . Jane stayed very still until another soldier—dressed in the same nonuniform rugged clothing that Jane favored—came in the door and took up a position with his MP4 at the ready and trained on Bryn.
“Watch her,” Jane said. “She makes a move, even a wiggle, you shoot her in the fucking head a whole lot, understand? Bryn, you play nice, now. I’m going to see what my beloved hubby’s up to.”
“News flash, you’re still divorced!” Bryn called after her. “And he still hates you!” She gave the soldier guarding her a full-on eye roll, bringing him into it with the motion. “Bet he’s not the only one in this house. So do you hate her guts or are you just terrified of her? You can pick both.”