“No one enters,” he promised, stroking his beard. “Not without your permission. I’ll even have her meals delivered by mechanical tray.”

“Thank you.”

“Now get out of here,” he said, waving a hand through the air. “The sight of Dallas’s beat-up face is turning my stomach.” To Dallas he said, “A word of advice, sport. The next time you’re in a fight—duck.”

“Yeah, I’ll try to remember that,” Dallas said, his gaze darkening on me.

We pushed to our feet and filed out. The door closed behind us with a click. Then, silence. Benches and desks were empty, and only a few agents milled about. Most of the A.I.R. teams were patrolling the streets.

“Dallas,” I said, then paused. I noticed Ghost standing down the hall, motioning me over with the crook of his finger. His bald head gleamed in the overhead lighting.

“Don’t leave this building,” Dallas said. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

“You’re right.” He’d reached his bullshit tolerance, and I didn’t even try to stall. “Why don’t you come with me to talk with Ghost, then we’ll go to Trollie’s for coffee.”

He stared down at me, his expression hard, determined. “All right,” he finally said. “You’ve got ten minutes. No more.”

I arched a brow at his I-am-commander-of-the-universe tone and vowed to take eleven minutes, even if I had to sit in the corner and pick my nose for most of those. We strode down the hall, the sound of our footsteps pounding in my ears. The air was sterile here, as if someone had doused the walls with cleaning solution. Ghost led us into a small private room.

“That girl is a certifiable whack job,” he said the moment the door snapped closed.

“Which one?” I asked, stepping toward the large two-way mirror that dominated the side wall and offered a secret glimpse into a smaller room. I had my answer before he replied.

“Isabel Hudson, the Antichrist’s daughter,” I said, at the exact moment he said, “Sleeping Beauty, the Antichrist’s daughter.”

I studied her. She sat at a scarred wooden table, her hands hidden in the folds of her clothes. Her hair was long and blond and as straight as mine. Her skin was sun-kissed, porcelain smooth, though it was her eyes that truly drew attention. They were faultless ovals, a rich, deep violet framed by long, sooty lashes.

“She looks like an Arcadian,” I remarked.

“Can’t be,” Ghost said. “That’s not a wig, and dye doesn’t take to their hair, and if you hadn’t noticed, she’s got a head full of blond locks, not white, not silver.”

I shot him a thanks-for-stating-the-obvious frown.

“Anyway,” he continued with a shrug, “there isn’t room in her body for alien blood. She’s twenty percent human and eighty percent insane.” He threw up his arms in a the-things-I-do-for-my-job gesture. “Insane, I tell you!”

“What?” Dallas chuckled. “Did you make a pass at her, and she said no?”

Ghost shuddered, and his face wrinkled in horror.

“She’s seventeen,” I reminded Dallas. “If he had made a pass at her, I’d have him arrested.”

“What’d she do that was so bad?” Dallas asked.

“The moment I stepped into the room, she began mumbling under her breath about mind control. One of her hands made continuous stabbing motions. And when I questioned her, she threatened to cut off my balls.”

“So she mumbles and likes to cut things,” Dallas said, trying hard to hide his grin. “Big deal.”

“Hey, I don’t see you rushing in there.” Scowling, Ghost gestured to the door. “By all means. Go ask the little darling a couple of questions.”

“No,” I said. “I want to talk to her. Girl to girl.”

Ghost’s shoulders slumped in relief. “If anyone can deal with that psycho, it’s you. You’ve got panties of steel, Mia Snow. Me? I’d have pissed in my pants if I hadn’t had my gun.” He patted his jacket under his left pec. He paused. Patted again. His smile fell inch by inch, and he gave a disbelieving gasp.

I was already at the door, had already turned the knob, stepped out of the observation room, and inside interrogation, when I heard Ghost say, “My gun! She has my fucking gun!”

I barely had time to react, didn’t register that this was my vision coming to life. Isabel held a pyre-gun, and the barrel was aimed at my heart. She had a blank look on her face, the same look Dallas had worn when he’d been mind-controlled.

No. No!

Behind me, someone shouted, “Mia!” as I reached for my own weapon. Suddenly I was shoved out of the way and felt myself falling in slow motion. Isabel fired. A blast of sound and light enveloped the room. A scream of frustration, fury, and fear lodged in my throat, and I ground off a round of my own before landing on the floor with a thud. Air abandoned my lungs in one mighty heave, and my vision became a spiderweb of black and white.

Dragging in a breath, I shook my head to clear my thoughts, realizing Isabel’s shot had missed me. I was unharmed.

Then a male body fell on top of me, bleeding and lifeless.

CHAPTER 7

The drip, drip of an IV harmonized with the beep, beep of a heart monitor, creating a symphony of sound—an opera of death. My head rested in my upraised palms, and my elbows perched on the hospital bed in front of me. I was tired, so very tired. The chair I occupied was made of hard, uncomfortable wood, but I couldn’t force myself to move.

When I was younger, after my dad stopped loving me, he’d punished my every indiscretion by forcing me to sit in a chair very similar to this one. Of course, he locked the chair and me inside a small, dark room. I’d sit there, terrified and lonely, silently sobbing, sometimes screaming until my voice went hoarse. The memories always left me ripe with loathing, but because of them, I could now remain motionless for hours and not utter a single complaint. That little talent came in handy right about now.

Dallas lay on the bed, his eyes closed, a machine breathing for him, slowly inflating what was left of his right lung, expelling the air, then repeating the action again and again.

Only an hour ago, he’d been declared dead. Yet one of the surgeons assigned to his care had refused to give up and had stood over him, beating on his chest, pumping him full of drugs. Incredibly, Dallas had been resuscitated. I’d never had faith in anything I couldn’t aim or fire, but when the heart monitor sprang to life, I began to believe in miracles again.

A.I.R. agents had come and gone throughout the morning, just as doctors and nurses had. Not a single person that entered this room had left a ray of hope behind; they’d left only dismal condolences. Dallas’s injuries were fatal. Most of his internal organs had been scorched, and there was a six-inch hole in his chest, the surrounding flesh burned beyond repair.

No, they’d offered no hope.

But Dallas was a fighter. He was hanging on to his life with every ounce of strength he possessed.

Right now, I was alone with him, trying to force my life force inside him. I wished to God he had family here, someone to cry over him, pray for him. Unfortunately, his parents had died years ago, and he had no brothers or sisters, no aunts or uncles, that any of us knew of.

Helplessness overwhelmed me, helplessness so intense my body trembled with the force of it. Morning had come and gone, and now an afternoon storm beat outside. I hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten. I couldn’t. My stomach was a painful knot of fear, dread, and grief. Dallas was my best friend. My rock. He was an extension of Dare, I guess, the brother I’d worshipped and lost. We balanced each other in a strange sort of way, and my life without him…

A shudder racked my spine, compounding the burn in my throat. I gulped. Squeezed my eyes tightly shut.

“Damn you, Dallas,” I whispered brokenly. I wanted to slap him, to scream at him. I was furious, so furious, that he had pushed me aside and taken the hit himself. I should have been the one to fall, the one to suffer. The one to ultimately die.

I’d failed him.

My shoulders slumped from fatigue as the surge of anger abandoned me. My eyelids slowly opened, and I reached out with trembling fingers. The pads of my fingertips stroked his cheek, along his jaw. He was cold, and his once bronzed skin was now pallid, an almost translucent white. If I’d had tears to give, I would have cried until my ducts burst from the strain. As it was, I could only sit here, helpless, and watch him die.

My hands fisted so tightly my nails bit half-moon crescents into my palms. Isabel Hudson was dead. In my mind, I saw the continuous flash of my gun, the girl’s horror-filled expression as multiple rounds of fire exploded in her chest. Saw her slowly slump to the floor. I’d killed her, killed a young girl who’d had yet to experience adulthood. On some level, I hated myself for what I’d done, yet that didn’t dull my desire to kill her all over again, this time slowly, lingering over every painful detail.

Damn it, how had this happened? Who had controlled Isabel’s mind? Not Lilla, she’d been deep in stun. That left…no one.

I must have missed subtle details in my vision. God knows I’d gotten some of them wrong. I’d had the human and the alien in the wrong places, thinking a human killed Dallas. How could I have known it would be a humanoid alien? I didn’t know what species Isabel had been, I just knew she couldn’t be Hudson’s daughter, as reports claimed.

“How could this have happened?” I whispered brokenly.

“Go home, Mia,” a masculine voice said from behind me. Jack.

I didn’t turn to face him. “I can’t leave. I won’t leave. You know me better than that.”

He sighed. “You’re no good to me like this. No good to him.”

“Then fire me.”

“Like hell.”

“I just…I can’t leave him. He needs me. He has no one else.”

Jack paused a moment, and I knew what was rolling around inside his mind. Always business first with Jack. “Want me to reassign your cases?” he asked. “Give you a week or two off?”

“What about Steele?” I asked, though I was unable to summon true curiosity.

“I’ll put Ghost and Kittie in charge. They’ll get the job done.”

With those few words, Jack sparked the first stirring of ire within me. He’d made it sound as if I couldn’t get the job done. “That case is mine,” I said with a trace of bitterness. Still, I didn’t spare him a glance. “I’ll finish it.”

“No need. It’s almost wrapped. Lilla’s in custody, and once she’s released from stun, I’m sending Kittie inside her cell. Hopefully, we’ll know where the missing men are by evening.”

I gazed past the bed, past the far window, my eyes listless as swaying trees and glistening pavement came into view. “You promised me no one would talk to her without my permission.”

“That was before.”

“You’re making a big mistake. If you allow Kittie near her, you can kiss Lilla good-bye. She’ll be gone before you can pull your head out of your ass. Besides, I doubt she knows where the missing men are.”

“You’re saying she’s innocent?” he choked.

“Not innocent.” I pushed out a breath. “Just not the mastermind behind the murder or the abductions.”

His brows winged up. “And you think this because?”

“She lives by her emotions, doesn’t think things through. Steele’s murder was emotionless, thought out to the last detail.”

“Mia—” he said, then stopped himself. He uttered another sigh. “If you want to close this case,” he said, “I’ll let you. If you want to interrogate Lilla, I’ll let you do that, too. But you gotta get some rest.”

“Losing faith in me, Jack?” I asked with a humorless chuckle. My head arched back, and I blinked up at the sterile, white ceiling. I didn’t blame him. I’d lost faith in myself.

“No. Never,” he said, shoving his hand into his coat pocket. “There’s no one I trust more than you. Hell, you’ve never let me down.”

“That’s not true. I let you down last night. I let everyone down. Dallas wouldn’t be here if I’d acted more quickly.”

“Would you listen to yourself?” Jack scoffed. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. You didn’t know this was going to happen. Dallas made his own choice, and God Himself couldn’t have stopped him from protecting you.”

“You’re wrong. I could have stopped him.” I pounded a fist onto the bed. “I could have kept him unconscious until morning, unable to work. I could have postponed the hunt. I could have made him wait for me at Trollie’s while I spoke to Ghost.”

So many things I could have and should have done differently. I’d known, damn it. I’d known he was in danger, and still I hadn’t protected him.

“Mia,” Jack said softly. “You’re not thinking clearly right now. You haven’t slept in two nights. You gotta get some rest,” he repeated.

I turned my head, and our gazes locked. His cheeks were pale, the perpetual red glow gone. His flannel shirt hung loosely over his shoulders like he’d lost a few pounds. “I’m not a child, Jack.”

“Your eyes are red,” he continued, “your skin is colorless. Honestly, you look like shit.”

“Thanks for the compliment, but I’m fine,” I said, though I knew he was right. My mind was foggy, filled with thick morning dew I just couldn’t seem to penetrate. My eyelids felt heavy, my body weak and shaky.