Page 22 of A Ballad of Blackbirds and Betrayal

She paused to take a sip of her coffee, grimacing slightly at the taste.Something flickered across her face—confusion, then dawning horror that transformed her features into a mask of panic.

Her words cut off abruptly, her eyes widening to perfect circles of terror.The mug slipped from her fingers, splashing dark liquid across the table in an expanding pool.One hand flew to her throat, fingernails clawing at her skin with desperate intensity.

“Dr.Cho?”Sabrina was on her feet instantly, medical instincts overriding caution.

Cho’s mouth opened in a silent scream, her lips already blistering, turning an unnatural angry red at the edges like flesh seared by invisible flame.Her eyes locked on Sabrina’s, filled with horrified understanding that needed no words.

“The coffee,” she gasped, the words barely audible as her throat visibly swelled.“They knew?—”

Sabrina lunged forward, catching Cho as she collapsed.The scientist’s body convulsed violently against her, foam flecked with blood bubbling from her rapidly deteriorating lips.The acrid smell of chemical burns filled the air—sharp and caustic, nothing like the symptoms she’d documented in the bioweapon patients.This was something else, something designed for maximum suffering.

“Acid,” Sabrina realized with dawning horror.“Industrial strength, probably mixed with something else to make the response more rapid.”

The café erupted into chaos around them—patrons screaming, chairs scraping against hardwood as people fled the scene.Sabrina worked with the calm efficiency that had defined her surgical career, barking orders to bystanders even as she assessed Cho’s deteriorating condition.

“Someone call 911!”she commanded, though she already knew it was futile.The damage was catastrophic and expanding with each heartbeat.

Through the chaos of her urgent calls for help and the rush of café staff, she heard Atticus’s calm, commanding voice in her ear.

“Doc, you’re compromised.Frost is moving to your position.Pass her the drive when you see her.”

She worked to stabilize Cho even as her mind processed the implications.If they’d poisoned Cho before she even left BioGenix, they’d known about the meeting.Which meant Sabrina herself was now a target.

“She’s not going to make it,” Sabrina said under her breath as she assessed the horrific damage to Cho’s throat and mouth.“Whatever they used—it’s beyond anything I’ve seen in medical practice.This isn’t the bioweapon—it’s something designed to cause maximum suffering as a warning.”

“It’s a message,” Atticus replied, his voice tight with controlled anger.“Stay calm.We’re initiating extraction.”

Café patrons crowded around, a ring of horrified faces and outstretched phones recording the scene.Sabrina directed them to give space, her surgeon’s authority momentarily cutting through the chaos.

She caught sight of Jade moving purposefully through the gathering crowd, her casual outfit belying the lethal grace with which she navigated the press of bodies.With the experienced efficiency of someone who’d performed thousands of surgeries, Sabrina managed to pass the flash drive during a seemingly innocent moment of contact as Jade knelt beside her.

A fire alarm suddenly blared overhead, slicing through the cacophony of voices with its electronic wail.The sprinkler system activated seconds later, drenching everything and everyone in a torrential downpour that sent patrons scattering toward exits.

Jade appeared beside Sabrina, her movements smooth as she slid an arm beneath hers.“Time to go,” she said, her voice pitched just loud enough to be heard over the chaos.“They’ll be sending backup to finish the job.”

Sabrina hesitated, looking back at Cho’s still form as water streamed over her lifeless features.Professional responsibility warred with survival instinct, the oath she’d taken as a doctor battling against the more primal urge for self-preservation.

“She’s gone,” Jade said in her ear, her voice low and unyielding.“And if we don’t leave now, you might be next.”

The stark reality of the situation clicked into place.Sabrina had seen enough death to recognize when medical intervention was futile.Whatever they’d put in Cho’s coffee had been engineered for one purpose only—to kill with maximum suffering as a warning to others.

She gave a single nod and allowed Jade to guide her through the chaos toward a service exit at the back of the café.In the confusion of the fire alarm and sprinklers, no one noticed them slip away, leaving behind not just a dead woman, but the last vestiges of Sabrina’s life before Dynamis.

“Reaper has a vehicle waiting,” Jade explained as they moved swiftly through the alley behind the building, the August heat hitting them like a wall after the air-conditioned café.“Cypher’s erasing your presence here completely.By the time the police sort through this, there won’t be a record of you meeting with Cho.”

The clinical part of Sabrina’s mind noted the efficiency with which Dynamis operated, even as another part reeled from the implications.This wasn’t just a corporate security team—this was power beyond what most government agencies could deploy.

They emerged into a side street where an unmarked SUV waited, engine running.Sabrina saw Atticus step out, his tall frame unmistakable even at a distance, heat radiating from the pavement in visible waves that distorted the air around him.

Their eyes met across the space between them, and the intensity of his gaze hit her with almost physical force.Concern, anger, determination—and beneath it all, the unresolved tension from the night before.

“Get in,” he said simply, holding the door open.

As she slid into the vehicle, her surgeon’s hands still stained with Cho’s blood, Sabrina felt a chill that had nothing to do with her rain-soaked clothes.She’d become a liability to Mitchell—a loose end that needed to be eliminated.

“The flash drive is intact,” Jade reported as she joined them in the vehicle.“Let’s hope it was worth Cho’s life.”

“She told me Mitchell’s demonstration for potential buyers is scheduled in three days,” Sabrina added, struggling to maintain her professional detachment.“She didn’t stand a chance.That wasn’t just acid—it was engineered to cause maximum damage.They murdered her in broad daylight, in a public place, because they could.”

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