Chapter 12: The Shield

The roll-up door blew inward with a sound like a car crash.

White light flooded the warehouse, and men in dark vests poured through it shouting.

"Federal agents! Hands where we can see them!"

The bearded man ran for the back.

He didn't make it far before two agents took him to the floor.

The man in the charcoal overcoat did not run.

He put his tablet down on a pallet, raised both hands, and smiled at me.

"A pity," he said. "I would have liked to see the core."

"Not tonight."

"No. But Lyle will have another buyer."

Two agents led him out, and he was still smiling.

I stood in the middle of the floor with my heart going like a hammer.

Brant had not left.

He was standing behind a stack of pallets, pale and breathing hard, with his hands wrapped around his own ribs.

"You're hurt," I said.

"I'm fine."

"You're bleeding."

He touched his lip and looked at his fingers.

"Six years you were Lantern," he said. "And I stood on a stage and said it was mine."

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I wasn't allowed. And you never asked."

He flinched.

An agent came toward us, and I recognized Ellen's pantsuit behind him.

She walked across the warehouse floor with the calm of a woman who has rehearsed a disaster a hundred times.

Jo was right behind her.

I saw her face and everything in me came apart at once.

She crossed the last ten feet at a run, and I caught her.

Her arms locked around my neck and her wet face pressed against my jaw.

"You said you'd come out," she said into my collar.

"I came out."

"You're an idiot."

"I know."

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