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"Yeah" Ice cah the lines "I know it’s a breach of privacy, but I don’t give a shit Shine is ain even if I have to rip open every fuc - "

Suddenly, the phone was no longer in her hand Startled, she found Clay had taken it "Stop yelling at Talin," he ordered

Scowling, she held out her hand He returned the phone, but only after another comment "Yes"

"Yes, what?" she asked hi about chauvinist pigs, she put the phone to her ear "Dev, I want to find these bastards, too This e-o I could send it to your phone but I’d rather do it through ainto the plane, Dorian pulled out a sleek silver so for the phone She handed it over and he said so open the device, placing it on the floor of the plane

She put the phone to her ear "Did you get that?"

"Yes Givewith "Very tiny laptop?"

He shot her a distracted grin "You could say that This sweet thing is our atteanizer The versions they allow on the oods they keep for the around Clay to stand between the two men, she bit off her impatience as Dorian opened up a miniature e-mail screen Clay’s hand rested on her back, but then Dorian put one of his on her shoulder as he straightened and moved to let her take the central position

The contact startled her, but it was okay Dorian wasPack Shaking her head at that odd thought, she focused on the e

Jonquil Duchslaya is alive, but he won’t reht for hi to help you with that task, but youof equal value - in return The risk-benefit ratio is too unbalanced otherwise

"That’s it?" she said, treotten she still held the phone to her ear "Any way it could be legit?" Dev asked

She was too shaken up to answer

"Why use ’fight for hi with her ponytail again and h to think

"Oh, God," she whispered "When we had that bust-up, I told hiht for himself"

"Give ers "Did you trace the e-mail?" A pause "You’re sure?"

As she waited, Talin’s earlier anger grew into an inferno, but this time, it was directed not at a disease she couldn’t naer "Who is this person to deht do they have?"

Clay’s body grew very still "The language - it’s Psy A life reduced to a risk-benefit ratio" He paused "Judd’s contact s inup at hiain She was about to reach up with her own hand when Dorian spoke

"Fine," he said, ending the call "Dev got another hit - the possible mole this time - but he told me that he had someone trace the e-mail It was easy, because whoever sent it didn’t kno to hide their tracks"

Talin didn’t dare breathe "Nebraska?"

"Not only that They tracked it down all the way to Cinnas"

Her hand crushed the back of Clay’s shirt "Jon’s in that lab" It was a storm inside of her, this need to reclaim as hers to protect But no, she had to think Her brain wasn’t fuzzy now - in fact, it was aliven that the disease had to be escalating "We can’t just barge in The lab is too huge"

Clay tugged at her ponytail, raising her face to hi in the pack and the wolves, we can do it"

Talin had never had that th behind her Her e of the people she had hn That kind of backup, she realized, was both a privilege and a responsibility "No" It was a painful decision "We’ll lose too many people"

"Pack is One, Tally We bleed for one another"

"I know" She hugged hih now to accept the protective violence that was a part of him "But it doesn’t anized attack They h"

"Or," Dorian said, picking up and unrolling a printout of the lab schematics taken from Judd’s data crystal, "they could have a built-in self-destruct mechanisned to collapse if you apply pressure at specific points - all those spots are internal I’d guess they have the whole place wired Input a specific code and boom"

The coldness of such a plan shook Talin to the core "They’d kill their own?"

"Without a pause," Clay and Dorian said in concert

People like that, she thought, wouldn’t hesitate to destroy a teenage boy if they didn’t get what they wanted "Will they be able to track it back to us if I reply to this e-mail?" She copied the address, opened a ne