“Hell yeah, we can,” Rafe said.
Knox turned to Dani, who shrugged one shoulder. “I’m always up for a little murder. It’s my favorite pastime, right?”
That easy. Knox supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. They’d reached out a hand to save him when he hadn’t deserved it. Of course they’d extend a hand to Mace, a man who had never done anything but try to help people. Healing was a bone-deep instinct in Mace, the truth that had defined his life.
And Tobias Richter had broken him into pieces small enough to reassemble him as a killer.
“He’s still dangerous,” he warned.
“He’s fighting it,” Gray insisted. “He had the element of surprise and a sleeping target. I should have been dead before the first drop of my blood hit the floor, but I’m not. He’s trying.”
“Of course he is.” Nina slid her hand down to Knox’s and gripped it tightly. “We’ll take precautions. We’ll be careful, and we’ll help him through this. I promise.”
The tightness in Knox’s chest eased. He took a full breath and let it out as he squeezed Nina’s hand in return. “That means I’ll have to stay with him tonight instead of chasing down leads at this club of Maya’s.”
Maya choked on a laugh. “Wait, you thought you were coming? To Convergence? You’re gonna have to loosen up a lot more before visiting any criminal nightclubs.”
She could have been trying to give him a guilt-free out. Then again, solid tactics required an awareness of his own limitations, and setting criminals at ease was not part of his skill set. “Fine, Rafe and Conall can go—”
“Nope.” Conall shook his head. “Sorry, I can’t go to Convergence. I … might have had a run-in with the owner.”
Maya spun on him. “You had a run-in with Savitri?”
“Kind of. I tried to hack her, and her chief of security humiliated the shit out of me before booting my ass.” He winced. “So yes. Big run-in. Anyway, I scored myself a lifetime ban without ever setting foot inside, so I should probably stay here. Besides, I need to do these scans.”
“All right.” Knox turned to study Gray. His shoulder was already bandaged, and he had a bruise rising on his face, but otherwise there was no indication of any pain he might be experiencing from his implant rejection. Gray always hid his discomfort, major or minor. Knox would never know how close he was to dropping until he hit the ground.
Every instinct screamed for him to hold Gray back. But the man met his eyes, calm and determined, and Knox knew he couldn’t. Gray had sacrificed so much for the right to decide how he lived his life.
He had the right to decide how he died, too.
Knox swallowed pain. “Gray? You up to it?”
The answer came, steady and certain. “Always.”
It would have to be enough.
October 15th, 2075
I told her the truth about her brain. The cruelest parts, the ones that will make her hold back. The parts that will make her cautious, and small, and scared. I’m doing it to save her. Does that make it better?
She’ll never know how amazing she could be. But neither will the TechCorps.
The Recovered Journal of Birgitte Skovgaard
TEN
The entrance to Convergence was an unassuming steel door decorated with faded recruitment posters promising exciting job opportunities up on the Hill. The door itself was tucked in between a tattoo and body-mod shop on the left and a secondhand tech parts peddler on the right. At first glance, it didn’t look much like a door at all. There was no handle, no keypad, and clearly just enough space between the neighboring businesses to house a tiny closet.
Or a staircase.
“Doesn’t look like much,” Gray observed.
“Looks can be deceiving,” Dani shot back. “But you know that, don’t you?” She gestured to the scant space between the tattoo shop and the parts store. “If you guys had come to us for help instead of kidnapping us—”
“Excuse me,” Rafe interrupted. “You mean invited you on a delightful road trip under false pretenses.”
“Whatever. This would have been our first stop. I’ve never met her personally, but Savitri has the best black-market shit around—and she knows how to use it. Rumor is, she’s some sort of tech savant.”
“Oh, it’s more than rumor.” Maya eased the copper chain over her head, and the light reflected off the old-fashioned circuit board embedded in her pendant. “Brace yourselves.”
Regulars to Convergence had tiny, embedded RF chips that opened the door. Maya, unwilling to let anyone embed trackable tech in her body, had scored a highly coveted permanent visitor’s pass from the contact they were about to meet. As she swung the pendant close to the door, the invisible RF chip triggered the lock.
A soft click sounded in response, and a crack of neon-blue light spilled into the shadowed street.
“Anyone else miss the days of secret passwords?” Dani muttered.
“They were sexier,” Rafe agreed.
Maya huffed and pushed the door wider. Stairs lined in glowing LED lights led down to a tunnel. “Trust me, you’ll get all the sexy you could ever want inside.”
“Don’t spoil the surprise now, Maya.” Dani went first, striding in like she owned the place, Rafe hard on her heels.
Gray rolled his eyes. “At least they’re predictable.”
Looking at his eyes was a mistake. Looking at him at all was a mistake. Considering the way Gray made a T-shirt and jeans look like combat fatigues, he should have looked ridiculous rolling out dressed like a techno punk kid. But he wore the shredded jeans and strategically ripped retro shirt as easily as he did the chain-wrapped boots and heavy belt buckle. The big silver rings only emphasized the sheer size of his fingers, and the liner smudged around his eyes gave him a sleepy, sexy look that shivered straight through to her toes.
His eyes were blue. She’d spent so much time angsting over their dark Gothic quality that she’d never really noticed their color. They were the ocean at midday, deep enough to drown in.
And observant. Too damn observant. She could not get caught gawking at him.
Planting a hand on his shoulder, she gave him a push that felt as effective as shoving a brick wall. “Come on. If we leave them unsupervised down there, who the fuck knows what’ll happen?”
Inside the entryway, the graffitied walls seemed to pulse with the force of the dull, throbbing music, an effect that only intensified as they descended deep into the tunnel. More strident lights cast its narrow length in stark glows and deep shadows, alternately revealing and hiding the clubgoers leaning against the walls.
If hell were full of neon, it would probably look like this.
Then they reached the end of the tunnel, and everything opened up. Everything.
The club was enormous. Buried three stories underground, the main dance floor was at least the size of a city block, with a high ceiling strung with enough flashing LEDs to light half a neighborhood. They pulsed with the music, shifting color with the mood of the song and the energy in the room.
On the far end of the room, dual staircases blocked off by silver chains and guarded by hulking muscle swept up to the second-floor balcony that ringed the main dance floor.