God, that face, he thought as he focused on the woman. He had been looking at it for twenty-five years … and now she was with him.

It was as if a ghost had become real.

But why did she have to be human? And why did they have to meet like this?

“Buckle up,” he told them. “And you’re going to have to tell me where to go.”

He started the vehicle and put it in drive as everyone clicked in.

The woman leaned forward. “I know where we are. Go that way.”

As she pointed to a metal garage door, he hit the gas. The panels rolled up as they approached, and then they were out in the night, on the plowed lane that went around the facility.

“Take a left …”

She was efficient with the directions, helping him to navigate the route to the single point of entry onto the site. The good news? No flashing lights on the buildings. No security guards coming after them. No human police arriving in a rush.

“That’s the gatehouse up ahead,” she said. “I don’t know how we’re going to get through security, though.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

They approached the checkpoint and slowed down. The fencing system that surrounded the property was worthy of a federal penitentiary, some twenty feet tall and mounted with security cameras. As he hit the brakes and prepared to come to a complete stop, he prayed the alarms didn’t start going off just as he dealt with the guard’s mind—

The gatehouse’s sliding door opened on their side, and an arm extended out from the sentry point, giving a little wave-through. Then the gates began to part.

But of course. The SUV’s windows were all tinted and up tight against the cold—so whoever was on duty was just assuming the CEO was behind the wheel.

As Murhder cruised through, he stared straight ahead and lifted his hand as he guessed Kraiten might have. Then he beat feet out of there.

As they came off the property, he went to the right and sped away.

“Everyone okay back there?” he asked roughly.

“Yes, we’re good,” the human woman said.

“All good,” the pretrans echoed.

Murhder started to smile.

He’d done it, he thought as he squeezed the steering wheel. He’d fucking done it. The young was out of that hellhole, and nothing was going to happen to the kid now.

He hadn’t let Ingridge down.

All at once, this strange energy entered not just Murhder’s body and mind, but his soul. After everything he had been through with his unreliable thoughts and his swirling craziness, it was hard to trust the rush. But damn, it was as if sunshine had entered him on the inside, the dark spaces between his molecules illuminated with a heavenly glow, whole sectors of his personality, previously eclipsed by penetrating sadness, now bathed in a healing warmth.

With the same abruptness as it had failed, his switchboard seemed now fully operational and ready for business again, his circuits up and rolling, his wires uncrossed, his functioning returning to a normal that he had previously taken for granted, as the healthy and whole always did.

That smile pulled hard at the corners of his mouth. And then, like an athlete after a warmup, his lips stretched wide. Sure, he was in an arguably stolen vehicle, which was owned by a man about to die in a grisly way, and he had an orphan and a human woman in the backseat who both needed his protection.

But after two decades of being in an insane wasteland, he felt like himself.

Fuck that, he felt like a goddamn superhero.

“Are you taking me to my mahmen?” the boy asked.

Murhder’s eyes flashed up to the rearview. As he met that hopeful stare, he felt a piercing pain in his heart, and all his optimism collapsed.

“We need to talk, son,” he said grimly.

In spite of all the reasons Xhex had to slaughter Kraiten where the bastard stood, she decided not to go that route. It was too easy. He had earned a much worse fate and she was just the symphath to give it to him.

“Hold him for me?” she asked her mate.

As John nodded, she transferred Kraiten over into what turned out to be a vicious headlock—and yup, she had a moment of reconsideration. Her hellren had bared his fangs and was looking like he was ready to make a meal of the guy.

Except she had a better plan.

“John,” she said, “you gotta loosen that hold on his neck. He’s turning blue—there you go. Respiration is a good thing for the living.”

Certain that John was in control of himself, in spite of that bloodthirsty snarl of his, she calmed herself and entered the human’s brain.

Kraiten’s emotional grid was interesting, and one not uncommon to sociopaths: He had little to no registry around the core of his superstructure—which meant that nothing affected him deeply. Everything was superficial to him, with the ego sectors the only thing that were lit up elsewhere.

He was very protective of his position of superiority.

Well, that was going to change. And she was also going to teach him a lesson in what it was like to be out of control.

Using her symphath side, she set the man upon a path that was going to make him insane, and as she worked, she thanked the higher powers for the opportunity to ruin him. She had never expected to run into the guy, and this was such a bonus to getting that young free.

After she was done, she erased his memories of the infiltration, the hostage taking and the rescue, making sure that he would have no recollection of any of this. Then she nodded to John and he let go of the human, shoving him in the direction of the door to the stairwell. They both watched him stumble and then start pounding on the door.

No doubt the first time he had been locked out of his own business.

“You ready to go?” she asked her mate.

John’s hands were quick to sign, Tell me you did enough.

“More than enough.” She leaned into him and kissed him on the mouth, lingering with the contact. “Thank you for coming with me. And for believing me when it comes to Murhder. We have a shared history, but not a shared future. It’s you who I love like that. No one else.”

The small, secret smile she was used to seeing appeared on his face. It was his special one. The expression that he never gave anybody but her. It was how he said “I love you” without using his hands.

Abruptly, she felt a relief and gratitude so enormous, she had to blink quick. “Let’s go.”

One after the other, they dematerialized, leaving the loading dock through the tiny gaps in the garage door’s slats. They re-formed on the perimeter of the lab property, in the snow field on the far side of the high concrete wall. No alarms. No signs that the infiltration had been noted or responded to. There might be some confusion for the security folks when they saw the video feeds, but with any luck, Murhder’s guard took care of all that.

John tapped her on the arm. Are you sure you’re okay leaving like this?

As Xhex exhaled, her breath left her in a white cloud. It was impossible not to measure this departure against her previous, toast-your-marshmallows-and-then-some one. And the truth was, she was never going to be perfectly okay with any of it. Not what her bloodline had done to her or to Murhder. Certainly not what had been done to her body at the hands of that human she’d just scrambled the brains of.

But burning this lab down and slaughtering a bunch of innocent humans working security detail was not going to bring her any greater measure of peace.

Besides, she had taken care of things when it came to the drug company. Kraiten had a special project he was going to work on over the next couple of days.

“Yes, I’m all right.”

She turned and faced her mate. As a cold breeze ripped by, like it had discovered a zip code that wasn’t frigid AF and was determined to take care of that oversight, John’s hair ruffled on one side.

As she reached up to smooth things, he captured her gloved hand and kissed the center of her palm.

She thought of him meeting Murhder—and the seizure he’d had. Then she thought of what she knew, but had not told him, about his emotional grid. And of the scar on his pectoral, the one that he said he had been born with.

John whistled in an ascending sound, his way of asking what was up.

Xhex glanced over to the lab’s wall and wondered if they shouldn’t get moving. But what did it matter. If any humans came after them, they could just dematerialize away.

Or kill the bastards.

It was more than time for her to say this, and why not here? “John … you belong in the Brotherhood. And not just because you’re a good fighter.”

He frowned. And then shrugged.

“I know, it’s not your decision or choice. But … you recognized Murhder, didn’t you.” Yes, that was a leading question. “In your heart, you know him. You know all of the Brotherhood. Have you ever asked yourself why that is?”

John shrugged again and let go of her hand. It just is the way it is. I get along with them.

“It’s more than that. And you’ve sensed this.”

Her beloved mate had a total anomaly when it came to his emotional grid. In fact, she’d never seen anything like it before. The structure of his emotions and sense of self were perfectly normal, the norths and souths, easts and wests of his feelings in an orientation that was exactly as it should be. What was not? The fact that there was a shadow grid directly under his own, an echo of his pattern that precisely reflected whatever he was feeling, like she were seeing double. She had often wondered if maybe he’d had a twin who had died … but there was no way of knowing that because the details of his birth and the whereabouts of his mahmen were unknown.

And more to the point, she would have seen this construct before if it were associated with twins.

There was only one other explanation, and even considering it made her feel like she was going Conjuring on the situation.

It wasn’t like the ghost of a deceased Brother had taken up residence inside of him—and manifested that star-shaped scar on his pectoral.

That just was nuts.

I’m not sure what you’re talking about, John signed. But I really hope someday that …