“Didn’t you guys know?” I asked, watching Tess through the window. She gathered what she needed and turned to the door. “When you met. Love at first sight or something?”
Raquel’s snort was telling.
Solan chuckled. “Hell no,” he answered with feeling.
“No?” Frowning, I threw a quick glance at each of them in turn. Raquel looked put together, despite the hot and sticky weather. There wasn’t a smudge or a scratch on her. Unsurprising, since she hadn’t brawled like we had. She’d obviously conned Tess into thinking they’d have a fair fight without weapons. Solan had a swollen eye, a bruised cheek, and a split lip. Good. He deserved it.
“It took us a while,” Solan admitted. He tipped his head toward his wife. “She’s mean.”
Raquel’s eye twitched. It was entirely possible she was contemplating the best way to carve up his balls and serve them to him for dinner.
Suddenly, they were smiling at each other, surprising the shit out of me. I shook my head, my lips curving also. In an instant, it was as if the last two years got shaved off our rocky partnership. We used to work better together, without all the sneaking around, stealing targets, and trading insults.
Tess hopped down from the cruiser and shut the door behind her. She looked perfectly steady. Three capped-off test tubes filled with dark-crimson liquid dangled from her fingertips.
“Dump all the bullets out of your guns,” she said, holding up the vials and gently swinging them. Her threat was implicit: Do as I say, or I drop them. “Tranquilizers, too. Then toss aside the weapons. We’re keeping them.”
Solan and Raquel dumped their bullets and darts out on the hot landing-pad surface. They threw their weapons into the bushes just to be pains in the ass and make us search for them.
“That’s my Grayhawk,” Tess snapped before Raquel could heave it into the ferns. “I want it back.”
Without a word, Raquel threw the weapon toward the doorstep.
Tess narrowed her eyes, seeming to search for tricks or hidden gadgets. Raquel didn’t go for anything in her belt, which was always filled with illegal shit no one was expecting.
“Give up your belt,” I told her. I wasn’t taking any chances.
“Oh, come on!” Raquel complained.
“You want to help Maya?” I asked.
Her nostrils flaring, Raquel unbuckled her utility belt and flung it toward the bungalow. After that, she didn’t move a muscle. Neither did Solan.
Tess glanced at me, her blue eyes a silent question. I dipped my chin in answer. I was as satisfied as I could be that they wouldn’t spring anything else on us.
“Free Shade. Unbind his wrists,” she ordered.
“I want those cure-alls first,” Raquel said.
“You think I’m stupid? You got me once with your Let’s have a fair fight crap. I’m over that. You do as I say now.” Tess separated one of the vials from the other two and held it out over the pavement. “I want Shade, or I drop this.”
“Wait.” Wariness spiked in Solan’s hasty plea. Tess was a wild card he didn’t know how to deal with. “We don’t have a bargain yet. What are those? What’s in them, and where did you get them?”
“First, answer this.” Tess swung the vial like a pendulum. “What did your black-market dealer say about his cure-all?”
Solan glanced at Raquel. She nodded.
“That it would do more than just heal the body,” he answered. “That it would increase height, strength, speed, and overall immunity. He also said there might be negative side-effects, like increased aggressiveness and anger. Possibly lifelong hallucinations.”
Tess’s eyes bored into mine. The dealer had obviously gotten ahold of one of the Overseer’s enhancers. Merrick definitely had the increased height, strength, speed, and healing. I hadn’t seen any evidence of hallucinations or anger issues, but there would almost certainly have been different test batches and experiments. Merrick had only gotten captured and shot up recently, possibly as a test subject for the final product. This black-market “cure-all” could be an older version of the serum.
“He also said that administering it would be incredibly painful for the subject,” Raquel added, looking at the ground for a moment.
Tess stopped dangling the test tube. “I know what he has, and this is different.”
“How do you know?” Raquel’s gaze shot back to her, suspicious.
“That’s none of your business,” Tess said. “But I know this is a hell of a lot better and a hell of a lot safer. I truly believe it will heal your daughter and cause her no pain or harmful side effects. One might be enough, but I’m offering you three because no child should have to suffer. I’d administer them intravenously with two days in between and monitor Maya’s progress. This will attack the bad blood cells and then gradually leave her system. Keep it cool in the meantime, and I wouldn’t waste any on tests or experiments.”
Solan stepped forward, his hand outstretched for the cure-alls. Tess shook her head along with the test tubes in a double negative that made him stop dead in his tracks.
“I don’t think so. Not yet. Untie Shade and unchip him. Then swear on your daughter’s life that you won’t tell anyone where we are, where we have been, or anything about this”—she tilted her head toward the vials—“ever. Not family. Not friends. Not other bounty hunters. Not the Dark Watch. No one. Even if the price stays on Shade’s head forever, you will not come after him again. Or me, for that matter.”
Neither of them immediately took her up on that offer.
“Too bad.” Tess shrugged and tossed one of the test tubes into the air.
“Wait!” Raquel cried.
Tess caught it. She arched her brows, waiting.
“Fucking unchip him!” Raquel snarled to Solan, throwing an impatient hand in my direction.
Solan took a thumb-sized remote from his pocket, squatted, and swept it over my right calf. It beeped, and he hit the flashing button. A small pain flared in my leg, almost like the jab of a needle. The remote went dark and quiet. Solan dropped it on the ground and stepped on it. He left the broken remains on the blacktop. “The chip’s still in there, but I destroyed it. We all set now?”
“No,” Tess answered. “Swear on your daughter’s life. Both of you. Agree to my terms, or I smash these.” The test tubes glinted in the sunlight, the liquid inside a shocking bright-red against Tess’s black jacket.
Solan and Raquel quickly agreed this time, swearing on Maya’s health and safety. Solan cut through the cuff, freeing my wrists from the plastic binding and shoving me forward. I turned, facing them as I walked backward. I rolled my shoulders and rubbed my wrists, trying to work the kinks out of them. I gave them both a frosty once-over.