Read Online As Lie The Dead by Kelly Meding - Free Book Online Page A

the market on enigmas; I just wasn’t used to being read so well and so often by people I’d had little contact with until the very recent past.
    “Is Wyatt with you?” Rufus asked, probably tired of my silence.
    “Down the hall,” I said, turning to face him. “I wanted a minute.”
    “You’ve had at least five, and I need my rest. No sense in being tired and unhealthy for my own execution.”
    “About that.” I crossed to the side of the bed; he watched warily. “I’m working on an angle that might get you a pardon.”
    “Why?”
    I blinked. “Don’t you mean, ‘Wow, Evy, thanks for doing everything you can to save my life’?”
    “I don’t want you to save me, Evy.”
    “Well, tough shit. I’ve managed to let a hell of a lot of my friends die over the last week or so, and if there’s something I can do to save one, I’m damned well going to do it.”
    He looked away, turning his head to the right, cheek flat against the stark white pillow. It made him look pale, almost pasty. Sweat beaded on his upper lip. His breaths had become shallower, shorter. He might not want me to save him, but he damned sure didn’t seem to want to die.
    “Look, Rufus, I’m sorry about your apartment—”
    “It was a shit apartment.”
    Okay, true. “It was your home.”
    He still faced away, his profile stony. “It was a place I slept.”
    “I’m sorry about Nadia,” I said, switching tactics. His Triad had to mean more to him than the hole he’d chosen to live in—even if I didn’t understand why he’d lived there or why he seemed so ready to give in to the Assembly’s judgment. And I didn’t have time to pick his brain.
    I had to get through to him, though. “And I’m sorry about Tully and Wormer. Truly sorry, Rufus, but we lost even more people last night. If humans are going to stay on top of whatever shit storm is still coming, we need every advantage we can get. And right now, that’s you. You’re an experienced Handler, and you’ve trained a lot of Hunters. You are not expendable. Not like this.”
    Seconds passed, marked by the squealing of wheels on a cart and the beeping of someone’s monitor across the hall. Sunlight dimmed outside, probably a passing cloud. He turned his head back to me, met my gaze. His hazel eyes were determined and brimmed with … admiration? Nah, couldn’t be.
    “You should have been a combat general,” he said.
    I smiled. “Sometimes I feel like one.”
    “So what’s this grand plan to save my life?”
    “Let’s just say things are going to change higher up the food chain than most people will expect.”
    His lips parted, eyes widening. “You’re going after the brass?”
    “Now if I said yes, you’d probably be duty bound to report me, so I’m not saying anything. Just that I’ve got a time limit on this, so I can’t hang around to chat much longer.” I touched his wrist, the only unbandaged part of his arm. “I just wanted you to know. I owe you that.”
    “Something tells me when this is all over, I’m going to be owing you.”
    “We’ll see.”
    “So how exactly are you not going to go about not tracking down people whose identities I don’t know, so you cannot bring them in for punishment by the Assembly? If I may not ask?”
    “To be honest, I don’t have a fucking clue.” I winked. “Which means I should get started, because time’s wasting.”
    “Good luck.”
    “Thanks. And if you have any helpful epiphanies in the next couple of days …”
    “I’ll contact you.”
    “Okay, then.”
    We didn’t say good-bye. Didn’t seem important. As I strode across the room, toward the hall, something from the start of our conversation popped back into the forefront of my mind. The comment that he and Wyatt had hated each other at the start of their careers with the Triads, disagreed over how the teams should be run. I didn’t know the exact history of the Triads, only that they’d been around for the last ten years or so. We