LITMIR.BIZ

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going to ask you, General.” Max gave me a frosty glare. “I just hadn’t gotten around to it.”

      “The Oracle is useless. I do not believe she has made an accurate prediction to date. And she is…unpredictable. We cannot risk a civilian in contact with her.”

      “I think I can handle myself!” It was definitely the wrong tactic to take with him. I realized it too late.

      The general shook his head. “We are finished here. See yourselves out, please.”

      Max put his hand on my arm. “Let’s go, Carrie.”

      Before I knew what I was doing, I reached for the kill order. “Fine. If someone is going to kill him, it might as well be me.”

      “You’re not Movement.” Breton offered no further explanation.

      “I’m his fledgling!” I pounded my fist on the table. There was no sense keeping it secret if he were going to be killed, anyway.

      The general looked to Max, an expression somewhere between anger and mirth crossing his face. “Harrison? You told me she was sired by Simon Seymour.”

      “I was!” In my anger I’d forgotten the trouble Max would get into for knowing—and not reporting—that Nathan had revived me. “Cyrus tried to kill me. Nathan gave me his blood to revive me. But Max didn’t know.”

      “Is this true, Harrison?” Breton looked at Max the way a venomous snake looks at its next meal.

      Max nodded, giving me a terse glance. “I don’t doubt it for a minute. Maybe you should let her go after Nathan herself. She’d know best where to find him.”

      The general shook his head. “We can’t trust a non-Movement vampire to carry out this kind of job. Especially not if he is her sire. You know as well as I do the kind of pain that causes. She is not likely to inflict it on herself.”

      “I’m sorry, Carrie,” Max said, taking my hand and squeezing it.

      It couldn’t end like this. My mind raced. Nathan had given me some training, but I would be no match in a fight with an assassin. On top of that, I had no idea where I’d find Nathan or if I’d find him in time. For all I knew, another assassin might be headed for him this very moment.

      “Let Max do it, then,” I blurted.

      Max started, as though he’d just woken to find himself in an unfamiliar room. “What?”

      “Please, General.” I gripped the edge of the desk until my knuckles turned white, silently willing him to bend. “Max and Nathan were friends. I trust him to get the job done. I know he won’t let Nathan suffer.”

      “Your trust in Harrison does not concern me.” The comment seemed even colder in Breton’s crisp, British accent. He took a deep breath, frowning. When he exhaled, his expression lightened. “Fine. Harrison, tomorrow evening you’re on a flight back. But I don’t want her within a ten-mile radius of the final kill. Do I make myself clear?”

      “Crystal.” Max picked up the kill order from the desk and folded it, slipping it into the pocket of his worn leather coat.

      “Good. I trust you both know the way out.” Breton handed the pictures to Max, but I took them.

      We were nearly at the door when the general spoke again. “And, Harrison, if you fail to do your duty by the Movement, I’ll send someone who won’t.”

      Numb, I followed Max to the hallway. “Don’t do it,” I said flatly, once the door had closed behind us.

      Max gripped my shoulders and twisted me to face him. His fingers dug painfully into my flesh, and I protested with a loud, “Ow!”

      “This is not a game, Carrie.” He held his face inches from mine. “I’m going to have to kill Nathan. I don’t know what you were thinking in there, but I still have a job to do.”

      He released me and turned to walk away. I rubbed one sore shoulder. “Yeah, but you don’t know where he is yet. You can stall for time while I figure out what’s going on.”

      He laughed, the way someone would laugh at a child’s overly simple solution to a serious problem. “And how do you plan on doing that? You’ve got no resources, no one willing to help you. Even if you can magically cure Nathan of whatever has a hold on him, I’m still under orders to kill on sight. You’re on your own here. Nathan is as good as dead, and you’re fooling yourself if you think otherwise.”

      “So that’s it then?” I shook my head in disbelief. “You’re just giving up?”

      “I’m watching my own back!”

      I closed my eyes. This was not the Max I knew. This was a complete stranger standing before me. “Max, please trust me. Trust that I’m not going to do anything that would put you in harm’s way.”

      “You’re going to do what you need to do for yourself, Carrie.” He wiped his sleeve across his forehead. “It’s what survivors do.”

      I looked at the pictures he held. Breton hadn’t bothered to put them in an envelope. The cadaver’s empty stare bore into me from the glossy surface of the photo.

      “I’m not interested in helping myself,” I said, choking back tears. “I just want to save Nathan.”

      “It’s too late for that,” Max said softly. “The Movement has made their decision, and no matter what happens, they’ll just keep coming.”

      I shook my head. “Not from the Movement. I want to save him from himself.”

      6

       Oracle

      Max needed to gather some supplies before we headed out. I had no idea what kind of equipment he needed to kill my sire, but I refused to help him retrieve it. He headed to the armory after giving me strict orders to go directly to the reception area.

      Not that I had a choice. As soon as he walked away, a guard came from seemingly nowhere and steered me toward the lobby.

      “Nothing personal,” he said as he guided me through the doors. “Just can’t have non-Movement vampires roaming the halls.”

      Anne had returned to her post at the desk, and she looked up when the doors closed. Her face brightened. “So, how’d it go with the general?”

      “Not well.” Normally, I would have resented having to spill to a total stranger, but she wasn’t exactly wheedling me for information. In fact, her casual interest made me want her to wheedle. I’d never realized I was such an attention whore. “He basically shot me down.”

      “What a prick.” She sounded genuinely sorry. “That’s too bad.”

      I scuffed my toes on the carpet as I went to one of the plush chairs. “He’s a very stubborn man, isn’t he?”

      Anne stood and came around the front of the desk, where she dropped to the floor and sat cross-legged. The shiny buckles on her knee-high combat boots caught the light as she made herself comfortable. “Well, you don’t get far in this organization if you’re not stubborn.”

      “I don’t know.” I watched her toy with the black rubber bracelets that looped her wrist. “You seem to do okay.”

      With a crooked smile, she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m a great receptionist. Where’s Max?”

      “Loading up on gadgets and supplies with which to kill my sire.” I slumped down in the chair. “I’m insane, to be waiting for him. I should be tearing off to the States.”

      “Yeah, on a commercial airliner? Good luck.” She shook her head. “Max has to look tough and serious about the job. I doubt he’ll actually kill him.”

      “Won’t he be penalized?” The Movement seemed to dole out “probation” like candy on Halloween.

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