Page 63 of Seven+Four

“I always kept an eye on you. You looked okay. I was okay. Why disrupt it?” He shrugs.

“How did you escape from the facility, Ezra?”If you actually did.

“The scientists moved me to another place just a few days before you were all released. Again two years later to a bunker deep in the mountains.”

That’s why Meg and Linda couldn’t find him. “So how did you escape from the bunker?”

Before he replies, I give him a stop-with-the-bullshit glare. “We can go back to knifing each other if you prefer. See who gets sliced more.”

I can see how the knife fight feels tempting for him. It is for me as well.

“A nurse,” he finally says. “He was…different from the rest of the fuckers. Carried me out when the place caught on fire. Everybody else left me there for dead. He got me out.”

So, he had someone. “How old were you?”

“Eleven.”

“Fuck!” He was tortured and experimented on for three more years. Linda was a little worried about the repercussions on his mental stability if he had been kept longer as a subject. I don’t know what’s inside his head, but I’m pretty sure that’s not a good road to go down.

“I don’t follow your cute code. I kill who I need to kill.” I see the bloodthirst in his eyes, same as mine. “And now Phoenix is the one who has to die. But I need people with certain skills to take that fucker down.”

“What do you know about him? If you want to work together, you have to come clean.”

“And I will. As soon as I’m sure your foster brothers won’t kill me on sight.” He raises his brow challengingly.

I pucker my lips in fake ponderance. “You have to prove to them you’re not a threat to the family.”

“Not to you?”

“More so with me.”

He lets out a chuckle. It takes me back to when we were kids throwing stones into the river and seeing them bounce. Ezra was good at it, laughed every single time.

“How about I give you the guy who made the poison that almost killed your foster mother?”

I grind my teeth as my gaze turns into a searing glower. “How the fuck did you get that info?”

“You have your ways. I have mine. Do you want him or not?”

“Who?” I snarl, not liking anything about this, especially the lack of control. Impotent is a word that doesn’t exist in my vocabulary.

“Marlon Finch. He’s a retired chemist. Lives in New York.”

“How do you know it’s him?” I ask again.

“People like to brag, especially when their audience doesn’t fucking care.” He shrugs. His nonchalant behavior as he discloses such important information which could take us a step closer to Phoenix irks me deeply. “I have an archery range back at home, kind of like your firing range. I’m curious to know ifwe have more things in common apart from our faces,” he then adds, changing topic so damn easily.

“What's next? Grabbing a drink and talking about life?”

“More like kill someone, compare our…skills.”

I’m actually tempted. I have a donor who wouldn’t be too hard to grab.

“Your phone is ringing,” Ezra lets me know.

This thing has been going off all day.

“What?” I answer, without looking at the caller ID.

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