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Then she was torn froainst hiht in her head, the kiss of blue lost in the glooave it aith the direction of his gaze shifting behind Nevaeh when the first zoent’s head off his shoulders, the blood spattering like black spots of oil as it sprayed a ground blanketed in white

Then they fell on hi instead of death He’d not been expecting it and Nevaeh screa five agents trained as he was

His anxiety un wavered, trying to slip back to rest

"No!" Nevaeh yelled in a low and deep tied and histhe perfect note of suents were turned away from him Parker was in the center and the five were loosely in a circle facing away froround as dead anihtless eyes stared at them

"Get the fuck out of here before I have theut you," Nevaeh said in a voice that held the sincerest note of pro blood out of his o

She’d called the zo to protect you," he said, standing

Nevaeh walked to him No, scratch that noise, she prowled

She was the hottest woman he’d ever known In the ain

"I know" Nevaeh stood before hiet over that," she stated in a flat voice, then walked around to the agents She swept her knee up, bent at her chest and kicked one of the operatives in the ass with her foot

He went sprawling forward, landing face first on the frozen ground and a buck, once having been road kill, pawed the ground and neighed like a horse, shaking its head in annoyance

"I’ve been wanting to do that for forever," she said, looking down at the agent who glared up at her

Parker grinned He stepped up beside Nevaeh and looked at men he’d stood shoulder to shoulder with, killed beside

That was before "Talk Now," Parker instructed

When Bledsoe, as really Brenner, was finished, Parker frowned

Only half his team was here

The other half had been dispatched to clean a certain journalist

One could only hope that soet the story out

For Tim Anderson was dead

Of that Parker was certain

revelation

Caleb

I looked from one to the other of them, Jade’s small hand a block of ice in mine I squeezed it once in assurance "What is it?"

Jade began to cry harder and covered her eyes "It’s allawful, and about rabbed her hands that were covering her face "What nothing’s that bad just tellwater of hers

"I told you not to wear a condoht-headed "What?" I heard myself ask

"It is automatic that we conduct a battery of standard blood tests upon admittance," Jezebel said sooing to have a baby," Jade said in a whisper, her knuckles white as she clenched her hands together

I stood there for so long an to feel nuht better of it, and closed it again Then looked at her sitting there so alone in the bed, engulfed by white and pillows and hospital se of Jade’s bed My hand reached out and pushed the hair away fro the second until I cradled her face between theazes with her "I knew you’d be my wife," I said

Jade turned her head into my palm and pressed a kiss into the center

I turned to see where Jezebel had gone but she had disappeared outside without our knowing

I got into the bed with Jade, sucking her againstto her still-flat belly

We didn’t talk

I learned a lesson that day There was always a consequence to your actions

Even love

Cause and effect

We lay together like that until my parents came and we had the hardest conversation of my life

My mom cried and my dad listened

In the end, they remained as they’d always been, unconditional

It’s what allowed me to become who I was meant to be

It would be what I would pass on

CHAPTER 20

BadJuJu

Tilass slide across the café table, invisible bacteria clihed off as he did

The slide had an ierprint only, thumbs specifically, down to the finest microscopic coht for the millionth time that BadJuJu, or whoever he really as the antithesis of what he thought a pulse-hacker should look like

Bad sat in front of Tiirth folded over the cheap laminate of one of the only diners in Kent that was open twenty-four hours a day

His greasy hair ept back fro ’s peak that helped keep it out of his beady eyes, pressed like raisins into rising dough

Intelligent eyes They regarded him now

Bad put the slide in his front pocket where an old-fashioned pen leaked onto thethe bottoy

Bad leaned back, which was littleunderneath him

"What now?" Tim asked

Bad’s eyes swept up "We eat" His tone said how silly he thought it would be to meet at a diner and not eat

"I don’t think I can work up to that"

"That’s your problem,

Anderson cupped his pal cream for the calciuo viral to everyone who has a disc by toht," Bad expounded, a cru fro sound as it fell into his largeand wiped his e rose

"Okay," Ti a second slide across the table

"What’s the credit?" Bad asked, the wall of food winking in his opendown the food pipe Anderson’s stoet out of there