If they knew anything, the guards in the watchtowers and those pacing along the outer wall knew this: that it was impossible a threat of any size could approach undetected, either from the ground or from the air. They knew this with religious certainty, and not just because someone important had explained it to them in training. Each man had been required to participate in air- and ground-assault war games while the massive concrete fortress was still under construction. Several of those games had even used live ammunition, and more than one life had been lost. Yet through two dozen attempts, and despite that all of the assailants knew, in laborious detail, what no one else could—the precise layout, technology, and weaponry that defended the base—not a single team ever got so far as the chain link fence that surrounded the west end in an arc ten miles across.
That didn’t mean no one would ever attack them, of course. But everyone knew, given the systems and weaponry that protected them, such an attack could never proceed in secret. So if the night were silent, that meant no threat was imminent and they could relax and count the moments until shift change.
It was possible, a few had supposed (over beers, after the war games, while they traded stories and bragged about which assault groups had made it further than the rest), that a lone man or perhaps as many as three or four might weave around the hidden sensors that dotted the sparse forest surrounding the dam complex. But they would need detailed schematics and state-of-the-art military stealth tech.
Even so, their comrades countered, that would only take the assailants as far as the outer wall, a ten-meter concrete behemoth studded regularly in watchtowers, each outfitted with infrared cameras and sonic scanners capable of hearing a hummingbird’s wing at three hundred paces. If any sensor were tripped, or even went offline, each watchtower immediately went into tactical mode. A soft alarm would sound as a holographic map filled the 360-degree window and gave the officers inside the precise location of whatever blip had triggered it all. After that, it was simply a matter of pressing the button that said, yes, we would like the turret-mounted 30mm cannons, already tracking the anomaly, to go ahead and kill whatever it is while we sip our tea.
Perhaps, if some strange fluke of the universe allowed something as large as a tank to get that close, the guards might have to go so far as pressing a second button that said, yes, while you’re at it, go ahead and launch the surface-to-surface missiles—all twelve tubes—and obliterate whatever is left while we slurp our noodles.
So it was with a blast of bowel-loosening surprise that the men in the towers, and those pacing along the grassy gap before the wall, watched the geodesic contraption, like a three-meter-wide soccer ball, erupt through the tree line in a burst of leaves—as if it had come from nowhere—and bounce over the asphalt of the construction lot.
And the world itself seemed to freeze.
The guards went pale as the mechanical intruder flattened a Jeep, bounced again, and struck the compound’s concrete barrier with a vibrating clang before settling into an uncomfortable silence on a bare patch of earth. Metal tubes on the device’s exterior formed the interlocking geodesic shape that protected the complex internal mechanisms underneath, which blinked irregularly between bundles of cords and wire.
After a moment’s rest, barely enough time to reach for the intercom, the machine started beeping. Slowly at first.
Then faster.
Although everyone within sight was transfixed, only one of the speechless onlookers, a foot-soldier standing not ten paces away, noticed the writing spray-painted in dribbling neon green. It simply said, in English:
OPEN WIDE
ASSHOLES
The final word had been struck through—covered in a line of paint—and replaced with the word JERKS, seemingly in a different hand. That, too, was crossed out, this time with two lines, and underneath was painted another word twice the size of the others:
FUCKWADS!!!
As the officers in the towers argued about why the computers couldn’t see the device—and what to tell the control room—the men on the ground rallied in a circle and tiptoed forward.
And then the utterly unthinkable happened.
Gravity itself gave way.
Everything within a hundred meters of the machine got lighter. Anything within thirty meters started rising into the air: rocks, twigs, vehicles, weapons, and flailing men. All of it hung still for a moment.
Then all of it—everything hanging in space—imploded.
The device collapsed into a dark hole and took everything with it, swallowing the surrounding air with such speed that there was nothing left to carry sound, and as the dump truck in the nearby lot was lifted into the air and pulled into the hole, crumpling into a tiny ball as it too disappeared, there was nothing but silence amid the chaos.
And so it went, on and on, as trees, rocks, squirming soldiers, bags of dry concrete, fencing, and construction equipment were pulled from the ground and disappeared into nothing.
Then it stopped.
Those watching blinked once.
Then it exploded.
Mass that had been constrained to a single point accelerated outward and turned to energy. The ground underneath the expanding hole absorbed more than it could contain, buckled into a crater, and sent ripples in all directions, like an earthquake, as the shock wave obliterated the compound’s impressive barrier, shattered glass, and flattened every tree within a kilometer of the epicenter.
A mushroom cloud of dust, heat, and debris rose into the sky, obscuring the aircraft that descended from above.
The room shook as a heavy rumble disturbed the air. Everyone felt it deep in their chests. The lights flickered, and, after a brief pause of darkness, clicked back on.
It took only a moment for everyone to notice the impossible. In the flash of dark, with everyone turned away, the soldier in the wheelchair had grasped the back of the thin helmet on his head. He gripped it with his healthy arm, the one that bulged from months of dragging his limp body up and around and in and out of bed. He held on tight.
And he pulled.
Sensing they were being disturbed, the electrodes in the helmet fired, stimulating the pain centers in the man’s brain. At first, he held it all in, eyes clenched tight, pulling with every last bit of strength. But as he strained, his mind overloaded, and he screamed.
And kept on pulling.
The helmet came free, trailing eight almost imperceptible microwires dragged from inside his very brain.
It clattered to the floor.
Everyone in the room was transfixed.
The Red King pointed. “Secure him! Now!” Then he ran for the exit amid the sound of distant gunfire.
All seven guards tackled the soldier in the wheelchair, who was shaking and drooling from the effort, and the mass of men fell into a dog pile on the floor.
After a few moments, when it was clear the prisoner was secure, the guards stood one at a time, revealing the crippled soldier underneath.
Unconscious.
The Armenian’s eyes went wide.
The guards looked around. They had all been fully briefed. They knew what their captive was capable of. They all drew their weapons. They looked to each other.
He was in one of them. He had to be.
But who?
All was still.
The young man in the chair started laughing in snorts through pressed-closed lips. Even as he fought it back—the overwhelming joy—tears ran from the corner of his eyes.
“You assholes are so fuggin’ dead.”
Was the soldier in the kid?
Several of the guards moved to check.
As they dispersed, John made his move from inside the thick-necked Mongolian, the one with the shaved head and fingers like hammer heads. He had a single sidearm. He was up against five others, three of whom were just out of reach, plus the Armenian and whatever else would come through the open door. Tough.
But then, this wasn’t like before. He didn’t much care if he killed these guys. All of them.
He played it through in his mind.
Twelve seconds.
Two head shots. A block and spin. A head butt. A knee to the face. An arm lock and pop to the throat with the butt of the gun. A block. A parry. Another head shot.
John blocked a knife thrust, trapped the man’s arm and twisted as he forced it up. The knife flew up and John caught it with his free hand, jabbed the man in the throat, and shot the last.
He stood in the Mongolian’s body in the center of the room and made sure everyone was not only down, but dead.
Dead, dead.
He turned to the Armenian, who was on the floor in the corner, wide-eyed and not sure he could make it to the door before John knocked his nose into his brain.
The soldier strode to the chair and began unhooking the clamps. “You okay?” He pulled the cords from Ian’s nose.
Ian nodded. “I’ve been having the strangest dreams.” Before he could finish the thought, he saw another guard in the doorway. John was busy removing the shackles on Ian’s feet and had his back to the assailant. And in that single moment, Ian knew two things: first, the guard had the drop on John and was going to shoot his friend, and second, in their patient attention to his cuts and wounds, his torturers had tended to the gash on his arm, and as soon as John freed it from the white plastic sleeve, he felt a familiar tingle.
Ian stretched Stubs, invisible, across the room and forced the guard’s handgun upward as he pulled the trigger. The bullet left the barrel just as it was pointed at the bottom of the man’s jaw, and it erupted out the back of his head.
John turned. Then he checked the Armenian. Still cowering. Then back to his friend. “Thanks.”
Ian stood. “Don’t mention it.” He went right for the Armenian.
“No. Please. I was just doing—”
Ian wrapped his hands—both real and phantom—around the man’s throat and began to squeeze.
John stood. He didn’t say anything. He just waited for Ian to do what he needed to do.
After a moment, Ian’s snarl faded. He thought about the look on Eziz’s face as he shot him in the side at point blank range.
Ian let go, and his torturer gasped for breath.
Ian panted. His head nodded in jerks, and he was still drooling. “If I have to,” he growled. He shook his head. “But only if I fucking have to.”
The Armenian ran for the door and into the hall.
John, in the stout Mongolian’s body, walked over and grasped Ian’s shoulder.
Loud noises. The Red King had sent reinforcements—from the sound of it, more than the two men could handle on their own.
Ian looked to his friend. “I’m ready.”
“Me too.” John walked over to his body. He lifted himself and righted his chair. “Those assholes weren’t lying about the steak dinner.”
“Wait.” Ian salivated. “You had steak?”
John reached into his own pocket. “Of course, they did an inventory. Patted me down after every meal. Made sure I didn’t make off with the cutlery.” He pulled the guard’s hand from his pocket. “But then, it’s kinda hard to feel this.” His thumb and forefinger were pressed together.
Between them was a pinch of pepper.
Seconds later, two squads of armed and armored men burst into the detention room. It was empty save for the pile of dead and several irregular sections of pipe inexplicably sitting in the middle of the floor.
Through the heat and haze of the explosion, a towering figure fell from the sky, covered head-to-toe in dark armor—angled and glossy. A blue-and-white flowered skull had been printed neatly over the faceplate, covering the heavy inset eye sensors and bulging grill that took the place of the behemoth’s mouth. The figure carried a large bulging sack over its right shoulder, like Santa Claus, and dropped it the moment both feet reached the ground. Bowling balls spilled out—a dozen or more. Most were black or dark blue, but a few neon colors shone from the pile.
A hovercraft trailed just behind and landed in the remains of the open courtyard with a whine of its engines, blocking access to the main door. The vehicle transformed as soon as its wheels hit the dirt. Twin rotors folded up as their mounts wrapped back into the vehicle’s side. The front took a squat shape. The whole thing looked a lot like an ambulance.
A door on its side opened as the armored warrior grasped the first ball in its massive hands. It skipped the finger holes, which were too small anyway, and held it like a softball. The behemoth took a squat stance, wound up, and pitched the black ball straight at an approaching Jeep. The projectile flew with such speed that it disappeared to a blur and left a conical wake of air. It struck the grill of the Jeep, stopping it immediately. The front of the vehicle buckled while the rear, still carrying forward momentum, flipped up into the air. The Jeep crashed on its roof, crushing both the rear-mounted gun and the men inside.
The sole guard tower left standing opened fire with 30mm rounds, which ricocheted off the giant’s armor in a burst of sparks and left deep gouges in their wake. The force from the impacts battered the intruder about, back and forth, but it hardly seemed to mind. It simply reached for another ball, wound up, and pitched it straight through the guard post at the top of the tower. Glass and metal shattered as the bowling ball passed completely through the structure, erupting in shards from the other side and sailing into the distance.
The heavy guns stopped as two more vehicles approached, each meeting the same fate as the first.
Realizing their mistake, the remnants of the small army rallied themselves in a nearby hangar, abandoned their vehicles, and launched an assault on foot, aiming to retake the cratered remains of the front compound by sheer numbers. As they emerged and opened fire, the behemoth pitched bowling ball after bowling ball, each with such speed that it created a reverberating hum as it moved through the air. Each cut through entire squads of men, felling them like stalks of corn.
As the battle between one and many raged, a small figure near the door removed an access panel with a hand-mounted laser and attached the pink device on its forearm to the wires underneath.
A single guard regained his footing and opened fire on the giant with an automatic rifle. The behemoth was striding toward the hovercraft. It stopped, turned, and threw another ball that ripped the soldier’s torso from his limbs before lodging itself in the crater it made in the wall behind him. Then it walked into the open door.
The small figure followed, sending a signal from the device on its forearm to the ambulance, which returned to its hovercraft form, launched into the air, and disappeared with a shimmer.
The Red King rode in the electric people-mover as klaxons blared and workers hurried for the exits. He had ordered a general evacuation. All nonessential personnel were to disperse via whatever was left of the front door.
He held his phone and listened to the French Algerian on the screen explain the situation. But it was hard to hear over the noise. “Thierry, say again.” He turned the volume up as high as it would go.
“I said it’s a virus, sir. In the system,” the man explained. “We had to take the whole thing down. All subsystems have defaulted to local-manual. We’re cleaning it now, then we’ll start rebooting the servers.”
“How is that possible?”
Thierry shook his head. “It shouldn’t have been. But there’s no telling what they got their hands on after the hack in New York. Code. Schematics. It looks like they hacked in through a maintenance node. Whoever it was knew exactly what they were doing.”
“How long until we’ll have eyes on the facility?” Right now they were blind. There was no telling who was inside. Or where they were.
“We’re working as fast as we can. Twenty or thirty minutes. If there are no more interruptions.”
The Red King scowled. That wasn’t likely. “But none of that affects the machine.”
“Correct, sir. The entanglement generator and the feed to the satellites are all isolated. Only accessible from here. And as soon as you’re on Level Zero, we’ll close the main door and lock ourselves in. The arms are still cycling. We’ll reach critical velocity soon. We shouldn’t have any problems concluding the countdown on time.”
Steps had been taken to ensure that the highest priority targets all over the world would be easily accessible to the satellites within moments of the countdown’s conclusion—a perfect alignment of orbits, but of people rather than planets. If they didn’t go live on time, it would take at least days and probably weeks to reach critical insertion, the tipping point of history.
“Where are the Special Assets?”
“Psyphire and the rest of her team are preparing a welcome party for our guests in the Construction Hall.”
The Red King nodded. The hall was a massive opening in the middle of the facility, filled with interlocking platforms. No matter which way their enemies were going, they would have to pass through that point. That’s where they’d make their last stand.
“I will be there shortly. See that there are no mistakes.”
The thick-necked Mongolian had his hands around John’s neck, throttling him as soft New Age tones wafted through the facility’s Recovery Room. The teleport had unexpectedly knocked John from his host and back into his own body. As his eyes bulged, he looked up at Ian trapped inside a floor-to-ceiling aquarium full of exotic fish along with a few small sharks and at least one ray.
Ian had spent some time in the Recovery Room, which was where his captors had left him to recuperate from the Vorgýrim poison. It was the only other part of the complex he could envision clearly, and he thought it would be reasonably safe. And while the room was thankfully empty, having been recently evacuated, Ian materialized from the teleport just inches on the wrong side of the glass. Unable to breathe as he was, the Oric made his molecules fluid. But in water, it meant he was unable to move, and he found himself suspended motionless and running out of air. Even as he flailed about, his arm passed harmlessly through the glass and back into the tank. It was a lesson to him, he realized, that large quantities of water were apparently his Kryptonite.
Of course, such a valuable lesson was useless if he didn’t survive the next half minute. And as the seconds ticked away and he felt his consciousness fade, that seemed unlikely. He was suffocating.
But the worst part was how, just on the other side of the glass, his friend—the man who had rescued him—was about to suffer the same fate.
And that was the last image in Ian’s mind as his eyes fluttered shut.
Glass smashed.
Water ran across the floor trailing flapping fish.
Ian gasped and coughed as he reached for John, prone on the concrete next to him. He felt over his friend as if blind and searching for damage.
The thick-necked guard was unconscious across the room, as if he’d been thrown against the wall.
Both men looked up and heard the words they’d remember for the rest of their lives.
“We thought you two princesses could use some rescuing.”
It was spoken in a deep tone through voice-altering mechanics.
“Xan . . .” Ian beamed.
Xana removed her painted helmet and Ian’s mouth fell open.
She’d shaved her head. All her hair. Gone. In its place was nothing but a couple millimeters of stubble. He was shocked. And shocked that he was shocked. How could something as simple as hair define her so completely? And yet it did. And now it was all gone. She looked like a different person.
But she was still so big.
Had she grown?
“We?” John asked as Xana helped him back into his plastic chair.
The big woman turned to the doorway. A small figure was pressed to the other side such that only one eye peered into the room. She wore green-starred purple cowboy boots. A pink touchpad device was strapped to her left forearm. The hood of her pale pink, advanced polymer coverall hung behind her, draped over a colorful backpack dangling precision tools and small gadgets.
There was a moment of silence.
Xana stepped back and waited. She removed John’s twin swords, which had been strapped to her side, and set them on the ground.
No one knew what to say.
But John knew what to do.
He held out his atrophied arm. It shook as it reached for her.
Wink ran and jumped, a full three feet from the soldier, and landed in his lap. She hugged him. “i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry i’m sorry,” she whispered.
The soldier wrapped one arm around her and rested his chin on her head. “I know.”
She looked up at him, wide-eyed.
He nodded toward Ian, but Wink buried her face in his chest.
Ian squatted down. “Hey, genius.”
The girl turned her head sideways but didn’t look.
Ian smirked at the floor.
Wink climbed down and took off her colorful backpack. “I brought you something. Because. Ya know. You can’t survive without me.”
“Is that so?”
“Totally.” She pulled out a set of dark blue clothes, like a work suit, complete with boots and a hood. Most of it was made of the same advanced polymer weave as her pale pink hoodie.
“What’s this?” Ian took it. There was a flat red dial in a gray mount on the chest. It rested at the epicenter of a white X, exactly over where his heart would be. The dial was almost as big as his palm.
“Try it on.” The big woman nodded at the suit.
“Make it quick,” Cap added.
“It’s okay.” Wink turned to face him. “My drones are keeping watch.”
“They’re a little busy right now anyway.”
Ian thought about the explosion that rocked the compound. “What the hell did you guys do?” He slipped his legs in and down to the boots. As soon as both pressed flat to the soles, the suit sealed around him under its own power.
A pair of small nozzles at his collarbones were clearly designed to deliver a burst of pepper spray. Ian felt the red dial over his heart. He smiled. “Adrenaline.”
“Actually,” Wink corrected in her tiny professor voice, “it’s a synthetic called Adrenazine that’s fifteen times more powerful than adrenaline. The dial sets the dose in nanograms. Once you have what you want, just slap it and the suit injects it right into your heart.” The little girl walked closer. She was excited. But she stopped several feet from him as if afraid to get too close. “The trigger in the gloves gives you a burst of diluted pepper spray. I adjusted the concentration. You know, down from before.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Ian looked down at the red dial at the center of the swooping X that stretched across the rest of the suit. He could only shake his head. Even after everything, she was still injecting him with strange chemicals, just like when they met.
And even after everything, he was letting her.
“Thanks, genius.” It was perfect.
The girl’s face flushed. She looked down. She opened her mouth to say sorry, but closed it at the last second.
Ian nodded. “It’s okay. I know.”
All four—John, Xana, Ian, Wink—looked at each other for a moment.
Ian raised his arms. “Well, FUCK! Are we gonna do this shit or what?”
John immediately glanced at Wink.
Xana read it. “She’s more competent than most of the adults in this world. That may not be what the law says, Captain, but you know it’s true.”
“There’s an Armory,” Wink added quickly. “Three floors up. It’s totally secure. Like, against anything. A big metal cube on tracks. I can lock myself inside. With you. If there’s any trouble, I can eject.”
John looked to Ian. Then to Xana.
The big woman was grim.
“Nice haircut.”
Wink smiled. “She shaved it. She said she wouldn’t grow it back until you both were free. She’s been training, like, nonstop since . . . you know. Before.”
John nodded. Xana looked even bigger.
Had she grown?
Ian looked at his friend’s stubbly scalp, but Xana didn’t acknowledge him. She just replaced her skull-painted helmet. There were small red roses at the cheeks and a swirl of blue carnations at the top. Unlike before, it was neatly printed rather than hand-painted.
Ian looked at the deep bullet-gouges that streaked across the armor. They revealed a complex, multi-layered composition that alternated between alloys, ceramics, and advanced polymers. “Trouble?”
John turned to Wink. “Can you open a secure connection to the outside?”
“Let me encrypt a port.” The girl was so happy. She ran to the room’s sole work station.
Ian saw her skip once, absentmindedly, and he smirked at John.
“Where to?” she asked.
John rolled over and tapped on the keys. After a moment, a familiar face appeared on the flat screen—but up close, as if seen through a phone camera.
John nodded. “Agent Rand.”
“Actually, it’s Agent Hobbes now. Thomasina Hobbes.”
“Does that mean you got promoted? Or got in trouble?”
“Does it matter? I got your message. In Texas. You were right about the Chinese. Some of my colleagues here were just as annoyed as I was.” She turned off-screen and looked around her. Then she spoke softer. “Nothing makes such strange bedfellows as a common enemy.
“But I have to say, when you said there would be a signal, I thought I’d get a phone call or something. Like this. I didn’t think you meant a nuclear explosion.”
“Actually it was a graviton implosion,” Wink added from the back. “The fissile material was just the energy source.”
“Well, it was effective, whatever it was. The Chinese are totally on board. We have three gunships packed with soldiers about an hour from your location. Just sit tight and—”
“We don’t have an hour.” John interrupted. “We both know these folks are smart. They’ll have the highest priority targets queued up first. However many they can handle. And I don’t mean the president. Or the Chinese premier. I mean their wives. Their children. Their mistresses. Whatever it takes to get enough leverage that no one will dare touch them. Or even admit they exist.
“They won’t go for the generals and council chiefs. At least not right away. They’ll go for the sub captains and silo operators. If that machine goes live, they’ll have their finger on every button in the world.
“They won’t go for the heads of the major corporations. They’ll go for influential media personalities and the gal in charge of the deep freeze at the CDC. You know, the one with the world’s last surviving culture of smallpox.
“We don’t have an hour,” John repeated. “We have”—he turned to look—“forty-three minutes and eighteen seconds to stop that machine. For good. We’ll punch a hole. The rest is up to you.” John pushed back to leave.
“By ‘we’ I really hope you mean a bunch of your old friends and not—”
“You just worry about getting here, lady.” Ian wasn’t having any of it. “We can take care of ourselves.”
“Over and out.” John cut the connection with a growl. He turned to the ladies. “I don’t suppose you came in with a plan.”
“Oh!” Wink raised her hand like a homeroom overachiever. “There’s a central chamber. Under the lake. They’ve sealed themselves in. It’s the only place we can access the machine.”
John nodded. “So assuming the three of us cut through the defenses, then what?”
Wink tapped the small console strapped to her forearm. One of her drones flew into the room and spun in a circle like a lost puppy wanting attention. “All I need is one of these and an open terminal.”
She’d upgraded. The foot-long device hovered on two rotor engines and looked like a miniature spaceship.
“And if Plan A fails?” Ian asked before Cap could open his mouth. He had a newfound appreciation for nonimprovised backups.
Xana pulled a wide metal disc, like a fat, angled frisbee, from behind her rear armor plating. There were a few small buttons at the center next to a square digital readout, like the LED screen of a calculator, but they were all dark. The device was as-yet unarmed.
Wink stepped closer. “This is a more advanced version of the magnetic explosive Moron and I used again Deadbolt. The charge inside can take out half a city block.”
“Will that be enough?” Ian asked.
John was about to object, but Wink beat him to it. “Not enough to destroy the machine, no. But it is enough to rip one of its metal arms free, and that will tear up the others, which will release the energy in the underground capacit—”
“Okay, fair enough.” John brought them around. “We got two viable options and just enough time to pull one off. So listen up. This place was designed to repel an army. From the outside. Inside, we can use the corridors and walkways to our advantage. Engage them where their superior numbers won’t matter. Make sure they can’t outflank us.
“Wink’s in the nest. She’ll hole up in the Armory and run the op from there. The rest of us are infantry. Pure and simple. Our only job is to get her access to the big machine. Whatever it takes. The drones are precious cargo. I don’t have any words of wisdom for you. There’s no time to teach you anything that you don’t already know.
“All I can say is, don’t focus on winning. If you’re focused on the objective, you’re not fully engaged with the threats right in front of your face. If we’re gonna do this, we do it together, as a team, one step at a time. Understand?”
Everyone nodded.
“We deal with whatever comes at us. No matter how freaky or fucked up it is. If we survive, we go to the next. When in doubt, trust your gut. Use your strengths. And . . .” He paused. He exhaled. “Do your best.”
“We’re ready, Captain.” Xana’s mask electronically muffled her voice.
Ian nodded as he lifted the dark blue hood of his new suit over his head. He crossed his arms—one real and one phantom—across the X on his chest. “We can do it.”
John sat back. He spoke his next words matter-of-factly, as if relaying the score of a football game or tomorrow’s weather forecast. “I know you can.” He nodded once. He looked around at his friends. “You know . . . Maybe we’re not part of some elite military force. Or a clandestine resistance. Maybe we’re not princes or titans of industry. Maybe we’re exactly what Wink’s dad said we were.”
The girl looked down.
“Four losers who got no earthly reason to be here. Together.”
Ian looked down at the stub of his sleeve tailored to fit his missing forearm. He tightened his phantom hand into a fist.
“But I’ll tell you what. I can’t think of anyone else, anyone at all, that I’d rather stand beside—right here, right now—besides family.” John leaned forward and stuck his hand, his weak hand—shaking—into the open space between them.
Wink was closest and put her tiny hand on his.
Then Ian.
Then Xana’s armored mitt swallowed them all. She curled her fingers and bound them together.
“Now.” John lowered his brow. “Let’s bring the bastards down.”
[end episode six]
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