K A N E

"He must have taken an extremely high dosage of cyanide," Riley said as we all stared down at the dead body. "That was a fast death."

Delphinium sighed defeatedly. "The ONNT will take one look at this situation and think that it was all Hundsen's idea. They'll say that it was the same assassin he hired to kill Hunt in Boston."

"We can still bring the body to headquarters," Hunt said suddenly, resting a hand on his still-healing wound. Finn walked in next to him after making sure that he was okay. "I'll have them run tests on his body and see what they can find out."

They began making plans to transport the body back to the ONNT. Glancing over at Riley, I saw that she had a hand rested on the dog's head as it sat compliantly at her side.

"Good boy," she crooned, stroking the dog's shiny fur. "Now go back to your owner." The animal bended to her will and ran out the open door as quickly as he'd come in.

She sighed as she watched the dog disappear into the night. "Now, why can't all men be so obedient?"

"Because we're not animals," I pointed out flatly.

"I can't say that I completely agree with you," she said, half a smile on her face. "You should have seen some of the boys I used to go out with."

I frowned. Her grin widened. "You're different though, don't worry."

"I wasn't worried."

The others righted chairs and tables and mopped up the spilled blood on the floor. "Can you two stop flirting and help me with this table?" Arlo asked, struggling with the heavy piece of furniture.

"I was not flirting," I corrected him and reluctantly went to help him lift the table.

▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂

"Well, that plan failed spectacularly," Jaxon stared as he flopped down in an armchair back at the compound.

"You can say that again," Arlo agreed as he slouched back, twiddling his thumbs.

"If you think about it, the plan didn't actually fail," Finn pointed out, ever the optimist. "We did catch an Imperium operative. He just killed himself before we could get any information out of him."

"And now we're right back where we started," Delphinium finished, staring out the window at the sunset.

"I have a plan," Jake announced dramatically after suddenly entering the living room. "This time, it's guaranteed to get us the whereabouts on the masked assassin, specifically."

"Why didn't you tell us about this plan before you went with the one that might not work?" Finn questioned, raising a skeptical eyebrow.

"Because this is a last resort. It's risky, but it will get results."

"But we're supposed to be meeting authorities tonight, remember?" Riley cut in. "They want eyewitness accounts of what happened to Hunt and we were all there. The ONNT is sending cars to pick us up and everything."

Jake waved a dismissal hand. "Fine, I don't need all of you for this to work. Tesla, Williams and Shires, come with me. The rest of you are free to speak with the police or whatever else you need to do as Hunt's lapdogs."

Why did he choose me? The last place I wanted to be going was to an unnamed informant at night with Jake. I glanced towards Riley, but she just gave a nod of her head, telling me to follow them.

I trudged after the other three as they went to the garage. "Shotgun!" called Jaxon as he claimed the passenger seat.

So I sat in the back with Delphinium, directly behind Jake. I was not looking forward to this mission. The other night, I'd gone with Jake to Adiago Hundsen's house because he'd wanted me to help him reprogram the security cameras. The ruthless look in his eyes then had caused me to give him safe distance after that. I didn't know the twisted passageways of his brain and I doubted that I'd ever want to.

"So," Jaxon said, propping his feet up on the dashboard. "Wherever are we going?" He sounded much too chipper for someone that was going to be a pawn in Jake's games.

"Shires, do you remember that night that you saw one of Hundsen's men speaking with the masked assassin in an abandoned house?"

So much had happened since then, I'd almost forgotten. "Yes, Francin Johnson."

"We're about to pay that same man a visit."

"How'd you get his address?" Delphinium asked curiously, crossing her legs. "Was it in those papers you stole?"

"As a matter of fact, no. When I was the leader of the Club, I took some particular liberties."

"You found out where they lived and recorded it," she summarized and sat back in her seat.

"You were the leader of the Club?" I let the information turn over in my brain. He'd been their king before Hundsen. How old had he been then? He couldn't have been older than seventeen or eighteen at the time. Now, he was terrifying as an opponent, but what had he been like when he had a criminal army and massive amounts of money rolling in every day?

"I was," he answered curtly. "For a time."

I glanced over at Delphinium, who wore a neutral expression. "You already knew about this?"

"Yes, but only because I practically forced the information out of him."

"Why am I always the last one to find things out?" I muttered under my breath.

I turned my head to look at our surroundings. Though the sky was turning shades of deep purple and crimson, it wasn't yet dark enough to mask the neighborhood Jake had just pulled into. It was a well-kept community with white-picket fences and houses that all matched. It was the kind of place I'd used to wish I could have grown up in.

My mother worked long hours every day of the week to support my large family. Even then, her income couldn't support any more than a two bedroom house for my numerous siblings.

When I was first taken by Hunt, I felt strangely happy because my Mama had one less child to worry about. I was her oldest now, and it was better for me to be here and bring in money that they needed.

But as we drove through the upscale neighborhood, I found myself repeating that same mixture of envy and distain that I'd felt when I still had to share a bed with my two brothers. How was it fair that my hardworking mother could barely make enough money to live off of while one of Hundsen's criminals could live comfortably? It almost made me glad to think of what Jake was inevitably going to do to him tonight.

What was the point of being good and honest if the evildoers would always be on top, no matter what? We had to hold ourselves to a moral code that they didn't need to worry about.

I let out a sigh. My thoughts were as dark as the night sky above us. Though I was sometimes skeptical, I knew that we still had to try. We still had to fight against Hundsen, the Club, Imperium, along with any other enemies that might be coming our way; if we didn't, then who would?

I only realized that we'd arrived once the others were getting out of the car. The soft slam of Jake's door snapped me out of my mind. I got out and went to stand with them as they lined up, staring up at the house.

"We'll go in through the right side gate," Jake told us, "Follow my lead."

He crossed the street with firm, almost marching, steps, and with a determination as if he was leading an army and not just the three of us. When we got there, Delphinium opened the gate with her mind. It didn't make a single sound as it swung out toward us.

The side-yard was filled with a random assortment of items that didn't seem to have s place in the house: a stack of new tires, a garden hose and a child's plastic playhouse. It made Johnson seem surprisingly normal, like he was just another citizen caught up in the trivial things in life.

Jake pointed at a window above us on the second story. "That's the one we're going to go through."

After a moment of silence, Jaxon finally gave in. "Okay, I'll bite. How are we supposed to get up there?"

"We climb," Delphinium said softly, shrugging her shoulders. "I'll go first." She scrambled up the side of the house with surprising swiftness, using windowsills and decorations on the wall to pull herself up. When she reached the window Jake had pointed out, she pushed it open and climbed inside.

Jaxon followed her but with much less grace and agility. Once he had disappeared into the darkness above, Jake pointed his open palms toward the ground and, with whirling streams of ice flowing from his hands, he formed a makeshift staircase up to the window.

Jaxon poked his head out the window as Jake walked up the icy stairs, me following closely behind. "You couldn't have made that before I went up there?"

Jake said nothing as he calmly stepped over the windowsill. When I'd entered the room after him, it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness. After I blinked my eyes a few times, I realized where we were.

The four of us stood in the corner of a nursery decorated with furry stuffed animals and pastel-colored wallpaper. My gaze slowly traveled over the childish room until it laid on the crib on the other side of the room. Inside it laid a peacefully sleeping baby girl.

My heart sank when I realized what Jake was about to do.