Free Wrong Side Of Dead by Kelly Meding Page A

I know it’s finally healing.
    I climb out of the helicopter, more than a little embarrassed at having passed out. A black body bag is outside, waiting to be loaded, and my money’s on Wolf Boy being in it. Going wherever the hell it is that Marcus and company want to take it. It occurs to me to warn them that the corpse might be tagged somehow, but they seem like a smart bunch. They’ll think to check. I don’t know if Thackery’s even still alive, much less in possession of any equipment capable of tracking his little wolf toy.
    People come and go, moving in pairs and trios. Some carry bodies, others equipment. It reminds me of a movingcrew. I scan the crowd for someone who can give me answers.
    “Evy, hey.” Milo jogs over from the far side of the helicopter. His clothes are smeared with drying blood of various colors, and his nose is a little swollen. He holds out a bottle of water. “It’s warm, but it’s wet.”
    “Thanks.” I untwist the cap and indulge in a few sips, which immediately sit uneasily in my stomach. “You okay?”
    “Yeah, I got pretty lucky. How do you feel?”
    “Nothing a good meal and a few aspirin can’t cure. What the hell’s going on?”
    “We’re evacuating Boot Camp.”
    I blink. “What? Why? I mean, I know it’s a mess here, but—what?” The fear and unease in his expression stop me short.
    “Baylor got a call a few minutes ago.”
    “Orders from the brass?”
    He snorts, and it’s not a pleasant sound. “No. The brass are all dead.”
    I cannot have heard him correctly. “What do you mean they’re dead?”
    “Dead, as in no longer alive.”
    “Were they murdered?”
    “No. Apparently, while we were here fighting creatures from hell, they walked into an interrogation room in Major Cases and blew their brains out.”
    It feels like an awful joke. The brass are our bosses, in the loosest sense of the word—three higher-ups in the ranks of the Metro Police Department, who give orders to the Handlers and make sure they work independently from the police. They provide protection for the Hunters and answer to the Fey Council. No one knows who they are.
    Until now, apparently.
    “We’re sure it was the brass?” I ask.
    “Yeah.”
    “How?”
    “The timing’s no coincidence,” Wyatt says. He’s with Marcus, who gives Milo a curious look. “Three cops, one a captain, don’t just kill themselves out of the blue, and all our calls to the brass have gone unanswered since this began.”
    “But why? Why would they do that?”
    “I don’t know, Evy. I really don’t.”
    I swallow hard against rising fear and uncertainty. Without us, the city has no defense against the Dregs. “So what happens to the Triads now?”
    “They’ll pack up and head out. Marcus knows of an abandoned motel a few miles off the bypass where they can stay for a while until things get sorted out.”
    “They,” I repeat. “So that’s it? You’re really done with the Triads, Wyatt? Just like that?”
    His eyes narrow. “Don’t think this is easy for me, Evy. I’ve been part of the Triads for ten goddamned years, and it physically hurts to see it all reduced to this. But they’re not my responsibility anymore, and I haven’t really been a Handler since the night Jesse and Ash were killed.”
    I ball my fists and plant them on both hips, indignation on the rise. “So you get fired and you turn your back on people who need you? That’s not like you, Wyatt.”
    “The Triads are over, Evy. Over. I can’t turn on something that no longer exists.” A flush creeps into his neck, his own anger boiling up from the inside. “If I actually thought for a second that they could be saved … But they can’t. Boot Camp is practically destroyed, and the staff is dead. The brass is dead. Half the trainees are dead, and the active Triad forces, minus rookies, are down to half.”
    On paper, the numbers sound awful. Apocalyptic, even. But this cannot be the end of it all. The city