Page 91 of Code Name: Reaper
I couldn’t. I was shaking too hard. The adrenaline was wearing off and leaving me hollow, empty, and broken. My teeth chattered despite the warmth of the warehouse. Cold sweat made my clothes cling to my skin.
“She’s in shock,” someone said. Beacon maybe. I couldn’t tell. All voices sounded the same through the ringing in my ears and the fog of trauma that seemed to wrap around my brain like cotton.
Mercury was still cradling Eleanor’s body. I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t support me. I clung to Reaper until I found my footing, then he and I approached Mercury together. When I knelt beside her, she reached for me but didn’t speak.
Aldrich’s words, though, continued looping.
“Keep our girl safe for me…It’s up to you now…Finish what we started—you, me, and our brother.”
I pulled away far enough to see her. “Who are you?” I cried.
“Your aunt,” she stated it so simply that it didn’t seem real. Two words that changed everything.
She hugged me harder as different tears streamed down my cheeks. Not terror. Grief. Loss. Understanding that came too late. Years of lies and deception and secrets had unraveled in a cold warehouse full of blood and death.
Mercury had never been a stranger I happened to meet. It hadn’t been random. The way she’d mentored me, took care of me, was no longer inexplicable. My family tree reconstructed itself in my mind with sickening clarity. My parents, dead inwhat I’d been told was a car accident but was almost certainly murder. My uncle—Edgar—dead after years of deep cover work that had eventually killed him. And now, Eleanor, dead on a warehouse floor because she’d saved me.
“We need to move.” An urgent voice cut through my cloud of confusion.
“Let’s go,” said Reaper, who hadn’t left my side.
“I can’t. Not without my aunt.”
She looked up when another woman appeared. “Katarina,” she whispered.
“Come, Lyra. We need to go now.”
The voice was familiar, but I couldn’t place it, and the name meant nothing to me. Yet she was able to help Lyra to her feet. When I stood too, my aunt reached for my hand, clinging to it like she’d never let it go. I held on harder too, drawn by something stronger than fear or shock or confusion. Blood called to blood. Family called to family. Even if I’d only learned about that family in the last few minutes.
“You look so much like Amelia. Your mother. My sister,” Mercury whispered, her voice broken and raw from screaming. “I’m so sorry. For all the lies. For everything we kept from you.”
I shook my head, understanding that everything had been for a reason—to protect me. I still had so many questions, but they could come later. I looked over my shoulder at Eleanor’s lifeless body as it was carefully moved onto a stretcher.
“She died saving my life.”
“We promised our father we’d take care of you.”
My eyes met hers. “Minerva?”
“Yes, and soon you’ll know the whole story about how we continued to fight on behalf of our father, Horatio Hyde, code name Minerva. Now, you will too.”
22
REAPER
“How are you doing?” my brother asked as I shut the rear passenger door after helping Amaryllis into the SUV.
Rather than answer with words, I hugged him with all my might. “Thank you,” I finally whispered, fighting tears of relief and appreciation.
“All in a day’s work.” He squeezed my arm as we pulled apart. “How’s Amaryllis?”
“In shock. Confused. But when the dust settles, she’ll have answers to questions she never thought she would.”
“Beacon filled us in on a lot of it on our way here.”
“Beacon?”
He motioned toward the woman getting into one of the other SUVs.
