No Peace for the Damned

information has been deemed valuable enough to assign temporary agent status as a consulting member of this task force.”
    Their thoughts swirled with anticipation. My stomach knotted again.
    “But first,” Thirteen continued, “Banks? A status update, please.”
    Banks’s mechanical leg whined as he pushed himself to standing. Why the big man insisted on looking like a cyborg rather than getting himself proper prostheses was beyond me. There was a soft scrape of metal on metal as he rubbed his thumb ring over the silver eye patch that was sewn directly into his skin. His barking voice shook the conference room. “Two days ago, Harold Meador’s body was found and ID’d on Chicago’s Red Line. How the local sheriff ended up riding the EL in the Windy City is the least of our worries. Meador is the third Network member’s body to be discovered outside city limits. Someone is taking us out.”
    He paused for dramatic effect, and I rolled my eyes. The sooner his update was over, the sooner I could get my part over with.
    “Each of our men was abducted while on assignment, each body found just across state lines. Emme Thewlis was the first, found two weeks ago in a dumpster outside a Steak-n-Shake in Henderson, Kentucky. Zak Inge was found nine days ago sitting in a back booth at Zips Diner in Cincinnati. Thewlis was a customer service manager for the overseas pharmaceutical division of Kelch Incorporated. Inge was a junior aide to a House rep who shared conference room space with Senator Maxwell Kelch. All three bodies were autopsied and found to have died from internal injuries that are right in line with the Kelch way of torture.”
    I took another long drink. Grinding metal squealed again as Thirteen and Banks broke from the meeting and headed upstairs. Almost time.
    I put in my new iPod earplugs and closed my eyes tight. It wasn’t enough. The sound of their footfalls still pounded in my ears. Thirteen’s presence had physical weight as he slid into the booth bench across from me.
    “It’s time, Magnolia.”
    I didn’t sit up. “Yeah, I know.”
    The knot in my stomach upgraded to a full-blown cramp. I didn’t want to move. I didn’t want to go downstairs and meet these people who were not going to like me and were not going to want to hear what I had to say. Most of all, I didn’t want to be a Kelch anymore.
    “Never took you for a coward, Magnolia,” Banks growled as he put two fresh shots of whiskey on the table. “Didn’t think it was in yer blood.”
    I took a deep breath. I would do this for Thirteen; I owed him that much. I waited until my song was over, then wrapped up my earphones, shoved my iPod in my pocket, and gave in.
    As I sat up, my long hair fell forward to cover half my face. Thirteen didn’t react at all, but Banks’s leg squeaked again as he staggered in place. And Miller’s audible gasp from across the room made me want to groan. The man seriously needed to get a grip.
    Thirteen leaned forward until I met his eyes. He was enormous. Even sitting, I had to look up to see his face. His gray hair was longer now than it had been the night I’d escaped, and he’d lost some weight recently—probably from stress—but neither change took away from the innate authority that radiated off him. The crinkles around his bright blue eyes softened. God, the look on his face—such an odd mixture of pride and worry. No one had ever looked at me the way he did.
    With a slight nod to one another, we stood. I paused long enough to throw back one of Banks’s offered shots then followed the two men through the kitchen door. The back stairs were longer than I thought, and at the bottom a tall, light-haired woman stood in front of the auto-locked metal door that led to the meeting room. She was attractive enough—midtwenties with high cheekbones and a thin frame—but her eyes were too sharp to be pretty. She casually looked over my outfit, pretending to admire my clothes while really looking for weapons. Then she met my gaze. And gasped. Just like Miller, her mind drifted into a lust-filled stupor.
    “Ugh! See?” I motioned to the woman. “I told you this would happen.”
    Thirteen patted my arm. “Cordele,” he said coolly.
    She blinked. Then blinked again. Finally, she shook herself, opened the door, and stepped aside, glaring at me the whole time. I didn’t move until she walked back toward the long meeting table in the center of the room. She didn’t know what I had just done