“We need a little more information before we can agree or disagree with you,” Ethan answered. He rather indelicately knocked Holt out of the way.
Connor followed Ethan into the small crowd. They were looking at a body.
The girl’s throat had been cut deeply and cleanly. No doubt she’d died within the space of a minute. And Connor recognized her.
Ethan said it first. “She was in the living room.”
“I know.” Connor turned away, not wanting to see the girl’s glassy eyes for another second.
“Do you agree with me now?” Holt thrust himself in Connor’s path.
“Haven’t decided,” Connor told him. “That girl was with Logan and another boy. My money was on her being one of them. Her being dead on the beach doesn’t quite add up.”
“What more do you need to know than that she’s dead?” Holt argued. “Obviously murdered.”
Connor couldn’t deny that. The girl had died violently. What Connor didn’t understand was why.
What are you up to, Logan?
Holt gave up on Connor and returned to the beach. Ethan fell into step beside his friend.
“What do you make of it?”
Connor just shook his head.
“I know,” Ethan said quietly. “I know.”
Behind them, Holt’s voice rose to compete with the waves hitting the shore. Connor couldn’t make out what he was saying, but he didn’t expect he’d want to hear it anyway.
Loud voices rose to answer Holt’s shouting. The shouts became a chant, and Connor turned around.
“What the—”
He grabbed Ethan’s arm and jerked them both out of the path of the sudden onslaught of Searchers tearing up from the beach. Paying no mind to Connor or Ethan, the mob surged into the house. The sounds of breaking glass and smashing objects joined their frenzied cries.
Ethan started toward the house, but Connor held him back.
“That’s a riot, friend,” Connor said. “Better not get in its way.”
“Are you telling me you’re okay with that happening?” Ethan glared at him.
“Far from it,” Connor replied. “But going in there now would be like trying to calm a rabid dog by petting it. We’ll deal with this, but not now.”
While a sizable group of Searchers had taken up with Holt in destroying the house, Connor was reassured to see others hanging back. When he spotted the Weaver from Eydis, Hernan, among them, he quietly rounded up Shiloh and Ethan.
They couldn’t stop the violent rampage now, but they didn’t have to watch it happen.
Hernan quietly opened a door and the silent objectors passed through it one by one.
Connor stood watch over Hernan until only he, Ethan, and Shiloh remained.
“You should come with us,” Connor told the Weaver. “Once Anika has been updated, we’ll send a team back to deal with this.”
Hernan shook his head and pointed at the house. “My brother has been taken in by that madness. I won’t leave without him.”
“I understand,” Connor said.
Ethan went through the door, but Shiloh paused beside Connor.
“When we don’t have a war to fight, is this what we become?”
Connor didn’t have an answer, but as Shiloh passed into the portal, Connor was overcome with the feeling that the walls of his world were being pulled down on top of him. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.
IN ALL THE TIME Adne had known Connor, he’d been at war, but this was the first time she’d ever seen him beaten down by a mission. His face was world-weary and his every movement stilted by frustration. At least he was telling her it was about the mission and nothing else. He didn’t bring up the training session. Neither did she.
“It’s not your fault he got away,” Adne told Connor. “Logan’s always been slippery. Saving his own skin is his raison d’être.”
“I know that,” Connor said, shrugging off his duster. “I don’t even know if we should bother chasing down Keepers. In fact, because it’s what Holt wants us to be doing, I’m kind of convinced it must be a terrible idea. And given the way he ransacked that house tonight, I’d almost be afraid to see him catch up with a Keeper. But I can’t help thinking . . .”
“What?” Adne knew Connor too well not to notice that he’d cut his thought off prematurely, which meant he was hiding something.
Connor shook his head. “It’s nothing.”
“The nothing is bothering you,” Adne replied. “Just tell me.”
With a sigh, Connor smiled at her. “No secrets with you.”
Adne swallowed what felt a stone lodged in her throat, but she forced herself to nod.
“We found a girl,” Connor said. “The same one we saw with Logan and the other Keeper boy during the reconnaissance mission.”
“So you didn’t come back empty-handed after all,” Adne said. “You know what they say, a bird in the hand.”
Connor went very quiet.
“That was my attempt to cheer you on,” Adne offered, frowning at him.
“She was dead, Adne,” Connor said, his expression bleak. “We found her on the beach near the house. Her throat was cut.”
Adne’s heart thudded, her pulse suddenly loud in her ears. “What do you think happened?”
“Nothing good,” Connor answered.
“You think it was Logan,” Adne said. “But she was a Keeper, like him. Why would he kill one of his own? And since when does Logan have the guts to kill someone? I thought he hired people to do that.”
“He does.” Connor rubbed his temples and Adne noticed how tired he looked.
I haven’t been helping with that, Adne thought. I probably bring him more worry than comfort these days.
“Or at least he did,” Connor continued. “I don’t know what happened, and without having Logan here to question, there’s no way for us to find out. What I do know is that I have a very bad feeling about all of this.”
Adne agreed but she didn’t trust herself to say so. She could barely hear her own thoughts over the roar of blood in her head. It was making her dizzy.
Connor stripped off his shirt, revealing hard muscle and scars won by years as a Striker. Suddenly uncomfortable, Adne turned away.
What the hell is wrong with me? She’d wanted Connor more than anything for the last two years, and now he was hers. Had her feelings been nothing more than childish infatuation? Had winning him been the only real goal, and now that she had him, had her interest waned?