Gale Force Page 0,92

chair, as the two older men vacated. I settled in on one side, Lewis on the other. David paced. It was what David did, at times like these. He looked preoccupied, and I knew that he was tracking Rahel, trying to find out everything about what the Sentinels were doing.

"You saw Paul, right?" Kevin asked. He kept his head down, and addressed the question toward the tops of his dirty Nikes. "Bastard sold us out."

"I know," I said. My whole heart hurt, and I hadn't allowed myself to really feel it yet, the depth of Paul's betrayal. Things he'd said came back to me - his refusal to disagree with the Sentinels, his reluctance about my relationship with David, and the wedding. For Paul, it had been a matter of us versus them. He had never really understood, deep down, that Djinn and the Wardens were the same. Different points on the same scale.

Sometimes I despaired for the human race.

"I think they bought the cover at first," Kevin was saying. "They had us in a room for almost a day, talking to us. All about how the Djinn had always been dangerous, and we'd been stupid to ever open ourselves up to them." His bitter eyes followed David. "Can't say I ever really disagreed with that. Made a lot of sense to me."

"That's why you were perfect," Lewis said. "How'd Rahel do?"

"Fine. If I hadn't known she wasn't human, I'd never have figured it out. She was - " Kevin's throat worked nervously, his prominent Adam's apple bobbing. "She was really good at being Cherise." And I couldn't imagine Kevin had been able to really play along too well, but that might have been okay. After all, he was socially awkward at the best of times.

"When did Paul show up?" I asked.

"About an hour ago," Kevin said. "That was when they cut us off. Tried to make it seem like they were just testing us, but Rahel knew Paul was in the building, she told me. She knew he'd sell us out."

"Didn't she try to get the two of you out?"

"Yeah." Kevin's voice faltered. "I made her stop."

Silence. I looked at Kevin's hands. They were tightly bound up together, trembling.

"Why?" Lewis asked the question I wanted to, in a voice far more gentle than I could have. "What happened?"

"There was this girl. I didn't know - she might have been one of them, I don't know. But they said - they said they were going to kill her if we tried to leave. I had to - " Kevin squeezed his eyes shut. "Christ. I should have just let Rahel get out of here."

"Trust me, if Rahel hadn't thought it was important to stay, you'd have been yanked out whether you wanted it or not." Lewis glanced at David, who was still pacing, but listening to every word. "Then what happened?"

"They had this stuff. Black stuff. I guess it was like - like the stuff you found." Antimatter. I nodded. "They tied Rahel up with it, and she couldn't move. I know she tried to get away, but she couldn't; she was able to make enough noise that I could run. I was looking for a way out when you showed up." He nodded at me. "I should have - "

Kevin stopped. I knew that feeling, all too well. I wanted to help him, but I knew it was something that he had to deal with himself. No platitude was going to help, no matter how sincere.

"Kevin." I took one of his hands and drew it out of its tight ball; it stayed tense in mine, trembling, ready to yank away at a second's notice. "Before Paul showed up, they may have told you some things. Something that could help us."

He was already shaking his head. "I'd have said if they spilled their guts, okay? But they didn't. They just talked about what a bitch you were, and how you were willing to fuck over the Wardens for your boyfriend. . . ."

"Finally, someone you could agree with," I said. He shot me a covert look, almost hidden by his dangling, shaggy hair.

"No," he said, "I don't. Not after I saw what they wanted to do."

I felt a shiver crawl hand-over-hand up the bones of my spine. "What did you see?"

"They were going to torture him," Kevin said, glancing up at David, then away. "Make him tell everything about the Djinn. About the Oracles. About how to destroy them."

"They really