Page 46 of Truth or Lie

His steel-gray gaze landed heavily on me, but I didn’t feel the usual alpha pressure urging me to bend and show throat—I was too numb.

“All of the bodies are being taken to the morgue at the Hôpital Kirchberg,” he continued carefully. “The most efficient approach might be to go there for identification.”

He thought they were dead.Of coursehe thought they were dead. The gas had been specifically designed to kill alphas and omegas, and they’d been at ground zero of the release. But...

“The Icelandic representative is still alive.” My voice sounded like rusty nails grinding together.

“And she is also being taken to that same hospital,” he replied.

The sick dread ricocheting back and forth through the bond made it nearly impossible to think. Before I could come up with any reason why we shouldn’t go to this hospital to look at a bunch of corpses who might be Kam, a disturbance cut through the increasingly angry exchange that was taking place between Fairbanks and the local officials.

“Levi!” It was a female voice.

I turned in a daze to see Jennifer and Samantha Fairbanks hurrying toward the UFNA prime minister, their ever-present bodyguards jogging to keep pace.

“Oh, my god.” Fairbanks shoved past his own retinue to rush forward, catching his wife and daughter in his arms. “You’re both all right?” He pulled back enough to cup his daughter’s face in his hands. “Sammy? You’re not hurt? You didn’t get near the gas?”

“We didn’t even know therewasgas until a few minutes ago,” Jennifer said. “Do you know what’s happening? Who’s behind this?”

“Sir, we need to get the three of you away from here,” one of the security guards interrupted, and a moment later, the retinue headed out.

Irrational anger flared inside me, petty in its vindictiveness. How dare Fairbanks act so worried over his beta wife and child when we’d already told him the gas was designed to only kill alphas and omegas? How dare he get a happy ending while Kam and Irina were presumed dead? I could barely draw breath past the unfairness of it.

Nikolayev was looking after the reunited trio as well. “Pity,” he said. “If Fairbanks had lost a family member in the attack, we might have successfully flipped the UFNA against Sloane.”

Beckett eyed him. “Tell you what—I’m just going to pretend you didn’t say that. Could we focus on the issue at hand, please? I want to make a sweep of the triage area before we leave for this hospital. It’s big, but it’s notthatbig.”

“If you insist,” Nikolayev said.

“It would put my mind at ease.” Beckett gave Alex a concerned look. “I can go alone and report back.”

“No,” I said hoarsely.

“We’ll all go.” Jax sounded firm.

“I’ll stay here to keep abreast of any new information regarding the attack,” Nikolayev said. “Be as quick as you can.”

I didn’t actually want to do this, any more than I wanted to take a tour of a hospital morgue. But I trudged after Beckett nonetheless, aware of the others surrounding me. Alex was moving like a sleepwalker. Jax walked at her side with a supportive hand on her arm. Flynn still looked lost inside himself, his presence muted through the bond.

Beckett led us along what I assumed was a logically laid out path through the confusion of the concourse, past knots of people standing around and rows of injured lying on makeshift pallets on the ground, waiting for medical attention. My eyes moved listlessly over the pale, shocked faces—hoping to see a familiar visage, but not really expecting to. Someone had called in a water truck. A line of people waited to be sprayed down with hoses—decontaminated as much as possible after exposure to the gas.

All of them were betas, I was willing to bet.

We’d covered slightly more than half of the crowded area when a gurney carrying a body bag cut a path toward the back of a parked ambulance nearby. My heart lodged in my throat as I watched the black bag juddering over brick pavers on its wheeled cart. I came to an abrupt halt—knowing that we should ask to see the body before it was hauled off to the morgue, but completely unable to move.

“I’ll go,” Beckett said softly. Before he could, Flynn sucked in a harsh breath.

I turned to look at him, following his gaze to a point some distance past the gurney with its tragic burden. All I could see for a moment was a man in a rumpled dress shirt with his back turned to us, standing near another ambulance. The others turned to look as well.

Beckett cursed sharply. “That’s Polonsky. Come on—quickly.”

Polonsky turned to look toward the ambulance. The movement revealed the shorter figure he’d been talking to, and my heart skipped a beat, my breath stuttering in my lungs.

Alex gasped.

“Irina,” Jax breathed.

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