As soon as they were out in the hall, Wesley ducked down, pulling Rex with him. His son had become a real soldier in a short amount of time.
A gunshot whizzed over their heads.
Voss was on the ground on the other side of the broken door, breathing heavily, the pistol stretched in front of her—her eyes wide and strained. The bullet wedged itself into the wall behind them, and Wesley dragged them out of her line of sight.
“Help!” Wesley screamed again. The alarm was ringing overhead, bouncing off the walls and the elevator up ahead. There was another office at the end of the hall. It was empty. There was a silver plate outside that said “Reina Lee”—Voss’s assistant that had been turning a blind eye to all that had been happening in the office a few feet from her for the past few weeks. She had to have noticed something. Whether it was the groans of Rex’s pain or the constant cancelling of Voss’s appointments, there was no way that this Reina Lee was that ignorant. Maybe, it was just another kid scared of their boss—an anxiety that was about to get them killed.
Wesley jammed his thumb against the elevator button, pressing it several times and then carrying Rex into Reina’s open office so they were out of the line of another gunshot.
“Lockdown procedure initiated,” a voice stated smoothly through unseen speakers.
Voss tumbled out of her office, more glass cutting at every side of her, a rip tearing through her suit pants. The pistol was held out in front of her, waving back and forth. Rex and Wesley peered through the narrow window of glass that looked out the hall from the assistant’s office, waiting for the elevator to open, waiting for their chance to escape for good.
Voss said nothing but quietly stepped down the hallway, her eyes flashing through every corner until they landed on Reina’s open office door. Rex pulled Wesley back and away from the window, pressing them both against the wall.
His heart was in his ears. The pain in his back had subsided to a dull walloping, though each movement brought another sting. The sweat running down the back of his neck was seeping into his wounds, cutting through him like a river through sand, each new fork with a new flow of pain. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to keep quiet but knowing he was exhaling too loud.
The elevator dinged.
Wesley peeked out.
Another gunshot rang out, hitting the edge of the office door and splintering the wood into pieces. Rex grabbed the back of Wesley’s collar, trying to pull him back again, but he resisted.
“We gotta go now,” Wesley hissed. “The elevator—”
They ran from the office. But as the elevator doors slid open, they were forced to a stop. Rex put both of his hands on Wesley’s shoulders, putting him behind him and backing up away from the elevator even though it was putting them right in the line of Voss’s shot.
She didn’t shoot them, just walked toward them, one snakeskin boot at a time, holding the pistol up and keeping her face completely placid. They were cornered. Voss on one end, and on the other, stepping out of the elevator, the Readers—Zabójca and Asher—pointing guns to their heads. They were trapped between two terrorists with nowhere to go in the locked-down headquarters of MI6.
Chapter 26
Diana Weick
London, England
When Diana and Amber landed in London, they were swarmed by photographers and journalists. The footage of Diana saving Axtell from the sniper shot had gone viral, and she was suddenly all over the news again like when she’d first become a SEAL, everyone trying to get a shot of “the green-faced woman.” Keeping his arms around Diana and his hands in the face of the photographer’s lens, Amber led her through the airport until they could get to a cab. But there was no respite. There was no moment to recover from the jet lag because both of their phones began to buzz and ring.
“Bloody hell,” Amber muttered, looking down at his phone screen and then up at Diana.
“MI6…” Diana said.
“It’s in lockdown.”
Overhead, a helicopter whipped by. Diana rolled down her window to watch it fly over the city of London and across the River Thames.
“Hostage situation…” Amber muttered to himself. With the phone screen tilted onto its side, he passed it to her, a grim look over his face.
And there on the screen in crisp grayscale CCTV footage were two ghosts—Rex and Wesley, her ex-husband and her son. Something caught in her throat, tears or a scream, Diana couldn’t be sure, but it came out as a shocked crackle of spit. She slapped her chest, ensuring that her heart hadn’t stopped.
Taras was right. Rex had been alive this whole time. Diana had been running around, hunting the Readers, trying to kill Zabójca when her son had been waiting here in London for her to come rescue him. Catching a glimpse of herself in the rearview mirror, the cabbie throwing her nervous glances, her face was completely white. If she had the time, she would have passed out. But there was no time to faint, no time to reflect on the relief and absolute fear that was washing through her.
They had to return to the place where Ratanake had been shot, where she’d found Nelson Rank’s dead body and where Wesley had almost been killed by Zabójca. After this, she would ban Wesley from entering the United Kingdom altogether.
A slight broken laugh came out of her.
“Are you okay?” Amber asked, gently taking the phone out of her hand and putting his palm on her leg.
She thought about taking his hand, about collapsing into his chest and weeping into his button-up shirt. But she couldn’t let it out now. If she let it all out, she wouldn’t be able to accomplish what she needed to. It
