Free Another Kind Of Dead by Kelly Meding Page B

hand twisted my guts. I fled the room, panting,and didn’t stop until I’d reached the bottom of the stairs. Above the lingering odor of bleach was the tangy stink of blood. All around me now, in my nose and hair and clothes. I bent over, hands on the third-from-bottom stair and sucked in great lungfuls of air. Tamping down panic and overwhelming disgust.
    Near the base of the stairs was a pile of what looked like dried oatmeal. As I stared at it, I remembered Alex vomiting after seeing the room in which I’d been tortured to death. He’d been here a week ago. I saw his sweet, smiling face and wanted to cry for him all over again.
    “You okay?” Not Wyatt’s voice, as expected. I turned my head and looked into the concerned chocolate eyes of the familiar Hunter. His Handler was stuck to the wall like artwork and he was asking if I was okay?
    “Yeah, I’m okay.” His sensitivity shamed me into standing upright. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember your name.”
    “David Moreau. Stone, right? Someone said you were dead.”
    “Only on paper.”
    “Guess I kind of know how you feel now.”
    “How’s that?”
    “Being the last of your Triad.” The quiet despair in his voice made my heart ache. “I lost my partners at Olsmill, and now I lost my Handler to some friggin’ psychopath.”
    “I’m sorry” was all I could think to say. At least it was the truth.
    “What kind of message is that?” Wyatt asked, his voice booming down the corridor for all to hear.
    Kismet had gathered herself back together, and she stepped forward. “I don’t know, but I don’t like cryptic notes from fuck-jobs who turn my friends into wall décor. Thoughts?”
    “Who found him?” I asked, wandering toward the group. David stuck close.
    “Anonymous tip,” she replied.
    “So it’s down to who and what. Who did it and what do we have that they want back?”
    “That’s why the perimeter. I figure if our killer is going to make a move, it’ll be while we’re here.”
    I scrubbed both hands over my face. “And you think it’s connected to me somehow, because of where we are?”
    Kismet nodded. “It can’t possibly be a coincidence.”
    “Agreed,” Wyatt said.
    “Trouble with that theory,” Felix said, “is everyone thought Stone was dead this past week. Longer than that, if they didn’t know she’d been brought back in the first place.” He didn’t seem happy about either piece of information, and the attitude was starting to grate.
    “Then maybe it isn’t me specifically,” I said. “Maybe it’s just me tangentially, and it only has something minor to do with me. Maybe it isn’t—Wait. ‘Give me back what’s mine.’ ” It struck so fast my mental brakes left skid marks. “No way.”
    “What no way?” Wyatt asked, alarmed.
    “Token’s master, the one we took those hybrids and science projects from. It has to be him, Wyatt. He already sent his … whatevers out there to attack Boot Camp.”
    Wyatt’s eyebrows arched, mouth forming a surprised O. He was finally on track with my train of thought. Then Kismet jumped on board and said, “You mean the name you gave me back at the apartment?”
    “Walter Fucking Thackery,” I said.
    As if on cue, a phone rang somewhere inside the little closet of death.
    Everyone in the hall who still possessed a phone checked, but I was already making tracks toward thesound. Willemy had been stripped to his boxers, leaving few other places to hide a cell phone. The muffled ringtone grew no louder when I stepped inside. Breathing carefully through my mouth, I approached the body—it seemed to be the source of the sound.
    No, not the body.
    “Tell me it’s not in there,” Kismet said.
    Another ring confirmed it. The phone was submerged inside the bucket of blood.
    “That’s fucking sick,” Felix said.
    The person who’d killed Willemy was on the other end of that line, and I had every intention of answering. I crouched in front of the bucket. The thick,