Chapter 10: The Parking Garage

The parking structure was gray concrete and three levels deep, and the black van was parked at the bottom.

Jessa saw it from the ramp.

She stopped walking and watched the driver's window, which was dark.

"I'll bring the car around," she said.

Rhys turned. "We said no one goes alone."

"It's forty yards. You can see me the whole way."

He looked at her for a moment and then nodded, and she walked down the ramp with the keys in her hand.

It was a lie.

She wanted them to follow her.

She wanted the van to move, because she needed a face and a name, and she needed it before the lab got organized.

She reached the Range Rover, unlocked the door, and heard the van's engine start behind her.

She did not turn around.

Two men stepped out from between the pillars on her left.

They were big, in dark jackets, and one of them had a syringe held low against his thigh.

"Miss Hartwell," the first man said, in a flat polite voice. "The Director would like another word."

"I bet she would."

Jessa threw lightning with her left hand.

It was weak, a level three, and it only reached a few feet.

It struck the man's chest anyway, and he jerked and fell back into a pillar with a cry.

The second man lunged for her wrist.

She ducked, brought her right hand up and sent a spray of ice needles into his face.

He yelled, covering his eyes, and the syringe skittered across the concrete.

For a moment she thought she had won.

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