rode his cracked, dry lips. Her tears kept coming, and she swiped at them with her free hand. “I knew something terrible must’ve happened to you, Kyle. I had to find you.”
His lids opened as she spoke, and she saw his bleary gaze catch on something. He smiled wanly. “You still have it... the birthday present I gave you.”
“Of course.” She touched the silver gecko that had been on her wrist since the day Kyle came to see her. “I’ll cherish it always.”
His weak smile lingered for a long moment. “My Little Lisa Lizard,” he murmured. He chuckled, but it was a sad, regret-filled sound. “My Loyal Lisa Lizard, that’s what you are.”
His head lolled to the side, eyes drooped shut. Lisa gave him a slight shake to rouse him. “Kyle, you can’t sleep. Please, you have to stay awake. We need to talk to you. We’re here to help you.”
“We?” He lifted his eyelids and found John standing beside her now. Alec stood at the room’s large window, peering into the corridor from behind the blinds with his pistol at the ready.
“We aren’t going to have much time,” Alec warned them. “What are we doing here, Ranger? Let’s get it done.”
Kyle’s gaze fixed on John. His eyes widened in surprise, confusion. Then recognition...
And guilt.
“You know, don’t you?” he asked his best friend. “You know what I’ve done.”
Lisa’s heart cracked open at his airless whisper. At the damning words. She hadn’t wanted to believe what John and Alec had suspected—what they’d known—but she couldn’t deny her brother’s betrayal now.
His gaunt face sagged. “I can’t ask you for forgiveness.”
“Don’t think we could give it to you, Talon.” John’s voice was toneless. “Who’ve you been working for?”
“No one. Not for a long time.” His chest sawed with the sigh that heaved out of him. “Been trying to get out... Trying to get away. They won’t let me go, Ranger. Won’t let me die either.”
Lisa crossed her arms over herself, feeling cold and empty as she looked at her brother and heard the resignation in his thready voice.
“I broke loose a few days ago,” he said, his dim gaze drifting over to her. “I tried to reach you... tried to warn you. But they caught me again, brought me back here.”
She nodded. “I got your text, Kyle. It scared me to death—for you, I mean. I didn’t know what else to do but try to find you.”
At her side, John radiated a dangerous fury. “Bad enough what you’ve done to Phoenix and everyone who was a part of it, Talon. You’ve put Lisa at risk now, too. Why do they want her?”
Kyle groaned. “To make me talk. Been giving them bad intel for a while now. They caught on. They’ve beaten me, drugged me... only one thing left. They need something I care about.”
“Who’s behind this?” John demanded. “Who’d you sell Phoenix out to?”
“I don’t know. They’ve kept me isolated. I talk to lieutenants, no one else.” He blinked slowly, glimmers of his former intellect still there beneath the drugged haze. “Figure that means someone high on the food chain’s pulling all the strings.”
“Tell me something we couldn’t already guess on our own,” John ground out harshly. “You never heard a name? All this time you’ve been giving them intel on the program and its operatives, you never used the power of your gift to look behind the curtain?”
“Tried,” Kyle murmured. “Couldn’t do it. Couldn’t get through.”
“What do you mean, couldn’t get through?”
“Hit a wall. Every time I tried to see who it was...” His shoulders went up in a feeble shrug. “A wall went up, like I was being blocked.”
“Why would you do this?” Lisa asked, heartsick and disgusted despite his apparent remorse. “How could you betray your friends? People trusted you, Kyle. I trusted you, too. You’ve betrayed us all.”
He looked at her, regret heavy in his expression. “They promised me things. They gave me things... money, girls, expensive toys. Everything I asked for.”
John growled now. “You traded people’s lives for all that shit, Talon. What did it get you in the end? Look at you. You traded your fucking soul.”
Pain swam in his dull gaze. “I know that now. I know... a lot of things now.”
“Do you know about the dream?”
Kyle looked up at John, stricken. “The explosion.”
“Fuck.” John and Alec exchanged a troubled look. “What about the guns? The kids?”
Kyle frowned, shook his head. “I don’t know what you mean. There’s only the fire. Only heat and flames. Then...