Page 101 of Almost Midnight

Was it even grief he felt?

He felt disturbed, yes. But somehow, without knowing how to explain it to himself fully, Nick knew this was the only possible outcome that would have allowed them to get out of there alive. Moreover, it was probably thebestpossible outcome for them in the moment, if they still wanted to rescue Jordan.

Lara had more or less forced their hand.

He wondered if Wynter would agree.

More upsettingly, Nick wondered ifTaiwould agree.

Tai had been half-raised by St. Maarten. Lara had been involved in Tai’s life in some capacity for years. She’d trained Tai, given the young seer a job, even an important position within the Archangel company and staff. While Lara had likely never been amotherfigure exactly, she must have beensomethingto the young seer.

She must have been something to Malek, too.

The thought made Nick feel even sicker.

His eyes never left the scene at the bottom of the stairwell, however.

Brick was on his feet now, and brushing himself off.

Lara St. Maarten, on the other hand, whose body lay at a distinctly unnatural angle, was unmistakably dead. Her skull had likely been crushed in the fall. Her spine would have been broken already, just from the weight of Brick’s vampire body slamming into it, but it had likely been crushed to powder by Brick’s vampire body landing on it at the bottom of the stairs.

Brick knew how to use his weight to his advantage.

He would have ridden her all the way down those six stories, and used that as a weapon to finish her off.

More than anything, Nick felt numb.

He looked at her broken body, but it still didn’t really feel like the Archangel C.E.O. could be dead. He couldn’t comprehend what the repercussions would be, but he suspected they would be very bad, and that they would see those effects very quickly.

A vampire had just murdered one of the most powerful women in the world.

Moreover,thevampire had done it––the vampire king of the notorious White Death.

If they hadn’t been in a race war five minutes ago, there was a not-insignificant chance they were in one now. The military-industrial complex of the human world would definitely see this as an act of open warfare against the entire human power structure.

Not only had Brick killed a human, he had killed one ofthem.

He’d killed someone the humans in power believed to be untouchable.

The thought brought a nervous, off-key note to whatever brief feeling of victory Nick might have felt for managing to not get his head blown off.

“Jesus,” a voice muttered in his ear.

Nick flinched.

It hit him only then that he was still on the line with Kit. He was, even now, showing Wynter, Kit, and Morley what had just happened. He’d forgotten he was the eyes and ears for their part of the team when he had the channel open.

“It couldn’t be helped,” he muttered, not sure he believed it himself.

“Right,” Kit said.

It sounded like she didn’t fully believe it, either.

Still, she didn’t sound angry. She sounded afraid.

Nick felt a flush of anger that he knew was also likely fear.

“What the fuck was she thinking, coming here in person?” he growled under his breath. “How insanelyarrogantwould you have to be, to think you could take on a bunch of vampires as an unarmed human?”

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