Breed of Havoc (The Breed Chronicles #3) (37 page)

Mr. Connor shoved us apart. “What the hell do you two think you’re doing? Everyone else, out! Now! Class dismissed.”

Most of the class left in a hurry, all but running out of the room. No one actually left, though. They all waited at the doorway, peering inside. Linc and Brian were the only ones still in the room.

My breath came out in quick, painful gasps. Bending at the waist, I rested my arms on the tops of my thighs, even though my legs were shaking. Brian was doing the same thing, a few feet in front of me, smiling. No, not smiling. Grinning.

“I asked you both a question. I expect a damn answer!”

“Can I sit down first?” I asked, and then I promptly fell on my butt.

Linc shoved Brian over. “What the hell is your problem?”

Slowly, the grin fading from his face, Brian got back to his feet. “Why don’t you ask your girlfriend? You can’t tell me you haven’t noticed she’s been taking it easy on you, can you?”

“Shut up, Brian,” I said, still on the floor. I was too tired to get any force behind the words.

“You bloodied her face for crying out loud!”

I blinked at that and frowned as I touched my face. My lip was tender when I touched it, and my finger came back smeared with blood. “Well, hell.”

Brian grinned again. “Yeah, well—” He touched his own lip, which was bloody, too. “—she packs a pretty good punch herself.”

“Yeah? Try that shit with me.”

Mr. Connor shoved them aside and looked down at Linc. “Go wait outside.”

Brian’s shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. “Anytime, anyplace.”

“I’m fine right here,” Linc sneered. “Takes a lot of courage to beat on a girl. Bet you feel like a real man now, don’t you?”

“Don’t blame me if you can’t handle her.” Brian shrugged, grinning again. “I can.”

And then fists were flying again. Linc leaped at Brian and punched him in the jaw. Brian returned the hit, getting Linc in the face. His eyebrow busted open and blood oozed down. When Linc went to attack him again, Brian grabbed him and punched him in the stomach. Linc let out an
oomph
of air and lifted off the ground a foot.

Hell,
I thought again. I could barely handle Brian, so how the hell was Linc supposed to? He’d only get hurt.

I jumped to my feet, swayed once when I took a step, then yanked Linc away from Brian. Another fist flew, this one connecting with my jaw, but I didn’t know whose fist it’d been.

Mr. Connor pulled Brian back as I finally got Linc away.

“What the hell’s wrong with you three?” Mr. Connor snapped, pushing Brian back as he tried getting free of his grasp.

“He attacked Jade!”

“She can handle herself!” Brian yelled back. “She’s got enough demon in her, doesn’t she?”

This time it was me leaping at Brian. I managed to get in a solid swing—that knocked him on his ass—before Mr. Connor separated us again.

Brian rubbed his jaw but laughed. “Man, that’s gotta suck, having a girlfriend that’s stronger than you.”

“Brian, out! Now! Go see Dr. Hamilton.”

He got to his feet and started for the door. Linc went after him, but Mr. Connor yanked him back by the shirt. “You two will go see Doc. Not now,” he added when we started to move. “You’ll wait a few minutes. I don’t need you three fighting in the damn halls.” He looked at the door where half the class was still waiting. “Didn’t I excuse you all? Don’t make me say it again.”

Linc glared at the wall.

“One of you better start talking before I go to Director Greene.”

Neither of us said anything. Linc continued to glare at the wall, his jaw working side to side. I wasn’t trying to ignore Mr. Connor, but I honestly wasn’t sure what to say because I had no idea what really happened. The only thing I knew was everything was wrong, so many levels of wrong.

He gave it two minutes, then Mr. Connor’s chest heaved with a sigh. “Go see Doc, both of you. We’ll deal with things after you’ve been checked out. You’ve got a verbal ass-kicking coming.”

Wordlessly, Linc stormed out of the room. I let out a breath and shrugged at Mr. Connor, then followed Linc.

“You okay?” I asked once we were in the hall.

“Perfect,” he snapped. “Just perfect.”

“What’s your problem? You were pissed earlier, you’re pissed again. What the hell did I do this time?”

“You hit him for me!”

My jaw dropped and I stared at him for a full two minutes, at a complete loss for words. “Uh, I hit him for
me
. In case it escaped your suddenly limited memory, he attacked
me
. He insulted
me
, too.”

“You shouldn’t have gotten in the middle of it.”

“I was ‘it’, damnit. You’re the one who got in the middle, but you don’t see me complaining.”

He shook his head. “You should’ve just left it alone, Jade.”

“Well, excuse the hell out of me for not wanting to see my boyfriend bloodied.”

He paused outside the elevator. “That’s my point. I can take care of myself. I don’t need you fighting my battles for me, even if you are stronger. So what if he’d kicked my ass? That’s better than being defended.”

“You mean being defended by a girl.” I nodded as everything suddenly made sense. “I see. So this was an ego thing? And here I thought
you
were defending
me
.”

“I was.”

“Really? That’s funny, because I don’t remember you asking if I needed defending. Hell, I don’t remember you even asking if I was okay.”

He turned to face me. His expression softened a tiny bit. “
Are
you okay?”

“Perfect.” If he could pull that crap, then so could I.

“Don’t be like that.” He jabbed the elevator button. “I’m just saying, there are some things worth getting your ass kicked over. This was one of those things. It’s bad enough having a girlfriend who’s stronger than you are, but the rest?”

“What rest?”

“Defending me, damnit! I’m not going to live that down.”

“Well, I’m terribly sorry your
ego
is offended.”

“This passive-aggressive thing doesn’t suit you.”

“That’s because I skipped the passive part and moved straight to aggressive.” The elevator doors opened and Linc got on, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t believe him.

Linc had started to defend me, but he hadn’t thrown the first punch until Brian told him he had a girlfriend stronger than him. That wasn’t about me. That was about him. I’d been worried Linc would get physically hurt, and all Linc was worried about was his damn ego.

Everyone was great about protecting me from this, or wanting me for that, but in the end, none of it was about me. It was all about them. Honestly, I was sick and tired of it all.

He looked at me expectantly. “You coming or what?”

I shook my head. “I’ll take the stairs. Not sure the elevator will hold me and your ego.”

I sure as hell didn’t want to be around him, anyway.

C
HAPTER 17

Linc didn’t follow me. He said my name in that exasperated you’re-being-stubborn tone as the elevator closed, but I ignored it and kept right on walking. By the time I reached the stairs a few seconds later, exhaustion set in again. Just pushing the doors open took what little bit of energy I had left and made me groan. The fact that I made it down without falling on my face was a miracle.

I hadn’t been this exhausted since…I couldn’t actually remember when. Maybe never.

I didn’t go see Doc, though, because I didn’t want to run into Linc again. Instead, I went outside. I walked around the property for an hour or more. As I passed the North Tower for the umpteenth time, I saw all the Prospects gathering and heading for the stairs or elevators. I frowned. I walked closer to the building, trying to figure out what was going on. I heard a voice over the intercom system asking all Prospects to meet in the auditorium.

I should have gone. I even started to go, but then I stopped and shook my head. The truth was, I didn’t want to be around anyone and I wasn’t sure I was safe to be—especially Linc and Brian, and even Tasha. I didn’t want to be around Linc because he was being an insufferable ass; I didn’t want to be around Brian for the same exact reason; and I didn’t want to be around Tasha because she’d sense my fight with Linc and question me. Hell, I wasn’t even sure I could see Linc or Brian without wanting to punch either of them, or maybe even both of them. Just thinking about the fight with them had my system flooding with anger again.

So I kept walking. When I ended up at the back of the South Tower, I dropped to the ground, used my arms for a pillow, and just lay there watching the sky. Clouds rushed by, gaining speed and size, changing from white to dark gray.
A storm
, I thought. Since there was a storm brewing inside me, it seemed only right one brewed outside, too.

I laid on the ground until the sky darkened, both with the storm and night fall. Until the birds stopped singing and the insects took over with their annoying chirps and crickety sounds.

Lightning slashed across the sky, in bright blues and purples, like it was jumping from one cloud to the next. It lit up the clouds in front of it, clouds I couldn’t see until the lightning revealed them. In the distance, I heard the deep, angry-sounding rumble of thunder.

I smelled the rain long before it fell from the sky, and when it did fall, it was in big, fat drops. I started to push up to go inside and then I decided against it. Screw it. A little rain never hurt anyone, did it? And so far, none of the lightning had hit the ground, so I was safe from that.

I closed my eyes against the rain, letting it wash away my anger.

The temperature dropped a little and cooled me down, and the rain started coming down a little faster and harder. Within a few minutes, I was soaked from head to toe and I still didn’t care.

I debated whether to go back inside or not when everything changed. It got darker and quieter somehow. My eyes snapped open and I found the property pitch black. “What the hell?”

There’d been lightning and thunder for a while, but none of it had hit the ground, had it? The storm had moved away from us, not closer, so why were the lights out? Even during the hurricane, when the power’d gone out, the generators had kicked in almost immediately. Where were they now?

I rolled to my stomach and started to push up when I heard a faint
chink
sound to my right. Turning my head, I saw dark figures climbing and leaping over the fence. I heard the sound again, to my left this time, and I found more figures climbing a fence.

Crawling, and staying low to the ground, I moved closer to the building and tried to count how many people I saw. Six, seven, eight. Eight. I held my breath and ducked down when the guys to my left started moving toward me. They passed right on by, quiet, stealthy. They met up with the others and huddled in a small circle.

I heard footsteps and loud voices a few seconds later. “Search the property! Now!”

CGE people.

The group of intruders moved further into the shadows. I strained to listen and heard one of them saying, “…we weren’t told about the secondary silent alarm.”

“Our mission is the same,” a second guy whispered. There was a cold quality to his voice. “We get in, we grab what we came for, and we get out.” The leader made motions at his team and they split up again. Half went to the far side of the North Tower, the other half stayed on the side closest to the South Tower.

Silent alarms? Missions? What were they after?

When they moved out of sight, I got to my feet and, keeping low to the ground still, moved toward the North Tower. The masked men were nowhere to be seen, but there were CGE people running everywhere, carrying guns and flashlights.

“Entrance to the North Tower clear,” someone said. The voice was slightly familiar, but I hadn’t heard it sound so rushed before.

One of the masked men appeared behind him. I saw the glint of metal and, as I opened my mouth to warn the guard, the masked men jabbed the knife into the guard’s back. My eyes widened and I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming.

The masked man picked up the fallen guard’s feet and dragged him between the buildings. He reached down, pulling something from the guy’s belt before running off.

Do something! Move!
My mind shouted the words, but my body wouldn’t obey the command. The man had just stabbed someone right in front of me—someone I likely knew or had seen before—and I’d done nothing. Stabbed him for…I didn’t know what. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

He’s not dead. He’s. Not. Dead. Think, Jade. Think!

Where were all the other guards and agents who usually patrolled? I hadn’t seen anyone else since the masked men showed up.

Nothing made sense.

Quietly, I moved along the wall and then between the buildings, making my way toward the fallen guard.
Don’t be dead. Don’t be dead.
I knelt down beside him and pressed my hand to the wound at his lower back, forcing myself not to think about the wetness between my fingers. Forcing myself not to remember the last time I’d seen so much blood. It seeped and poured through my fingers.