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No, it was Nuri’s pro in the old military bunker—one of the three in which they’d all been created, trained, and killed roup find the reht not hold any prejudices against déchet, the others were all shifters and, fro the war

While I wasn’t by design a soldier, I could fight, and I’d certainly been responsible for more than a few shifter deaths Only my kills hadn’t happened in open fields or battered forests, but rather in the bedroom I was a lure—a déchet specifically created to infiltrate shifter cae Once I was firain and pass on all infor to the war and their plans And then, when my task was completed, I killed

I’d been a very successful lure

And I still was, I thought bleakly Ies of Sal—and the brutal way I’d killed hiht have been the only friend and confidant I’d really had during the war, but he’d also been part of the group responsible for kidnapping the children And when I’d realized that, I’d had little choice but to take action There were s I had no desire to be a part of—but I could not idly stand by and watch children suffer Not again Not if I could help it

It was thanks to Sal—to the information I’d forced out of him before he died—that those five kids were now free Six, if you included Penny, the child I’d rescued fro her in the park beyond the military bunker in which I still lived

But that ht And while I had no intention of helping Nuri and her crew, I also had no intention of abandoning those children to their fates

Which hy I’d been in Carleen tonight

Sal and his two partners had created what the ghosts there called “false rifts”: balls of dirty energy that rese more than a one there tonight to investigate one of thehosts who normally accompanied me on such journeys—were back hohosts could not enter the rifts, and I wasn’t about to place theht be déchet, or they hosts, but they were also only children

The graveyard gave way to a long slope that was filled with rock debris and the broken, decaying reantic crater, its ri rubble, and twisted, sick-looking plants Weirdly, even though I was standing above it, I couldn’t see into the crater itself I frowned, ht, but the vas—a vampire’s ability to see as clearly in darkness as I could during the day But the shadows that clustered just below the crater’s riy that was dark and dirty

Rift, an inner voice whispered, even asany closer

But the figure I was tracking had disappeared, and there was no place he or she could have gone other than the crater If I wanted to uncover whether that person was one of

I started down the hill Smented metal scooted out fro softly as the pieces hit the larger rocks in htly to the tune, see the toested that whatever that darkness was, it wasn’t dangerous Either that or it was one of the few stationary rifts and, as such, posed no immediate threat to either them or me

I wished I could talk to theet cahosts, like those in Carleen, were human, and that meant I couldn’t converse with thehosts Not without help, anyway The scientists who’d designed us had made damn sure those destined to become lures could not use their seeker skills to read either their thoughts or their eht have created us to be their frontline soldiers against the shifters, but they’d also feared us Mind reading wasn’t the only restriction placed on us when it ca them was also out-of-bounds Not that I’d ever tested that particular restriction—it had never occurred tothe war, and there’d been no need in the 103 years after it

Energy began to burn across hosts finally hesitated, then retreated Part of me wished I could do the same