What Happened To Lori - The Complete Epic (The Konrath Dark Thriller Collective Book 9) by J.A. Konrath

Author:J.A. Konrath [Konrath, J.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
Published: 2019-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

PRESLEY ○ 8:55am

Welding mask on her head allowing her to see in the blinding light, chain wrapped around her body-armored waist, following Fabler hand-over-hand down the hallway railing as he chased a floating <he’s actually floating in the air> Grim, Presley realized what all the training had been for.

It wasn’t the light, or the floating, or the strange, extraterrestrial hum, that brought the epiphany.

It was all those damn DVDs Fabler had forced her to watch.

<One freaking alien movie after another.

<All this time, he’s been preparing me for this.

<Fighting Predators.

<This must be what happened to Lori.>

Fabler brought his face close to Presley’s. She noted the blood matting his hair.

<He’s hurt.

<He’s shot.

<Did I shoot him?>

Fabler yelled something, which she could barely hear over the buzz.

“They don’t want you! They want Grim!”

<So Fabler’s plan to use me as bait has backfired.

<They’re taking Grim.

<Fabler is going after Grim.

<I’m connected to Fabler.>

That’s why, when Fabler trudged after Grim, who had floated into the bedroom, Presley stopped in her tracks.

The chain between them went taut, and Fabler turned to look at her, mouthing something unintelligible. Presley read his lips.

“How many bullets do you have?”

Presley held up two fingers.

Fabler dropped his backpack, dug into a pocket, and held out a Pitbull revolver, along with five speed strips on a bead chain, each containing five rounds of .45 cartridges.

Presley shook her head.

<I don’t want the gun.

<I want to get the hell away from here.>

Fabler shrugged his shoulders, the universal WTF gesture.

“I can’t go!”

Fabler turned, and pointed.

Grim, somehow, was disappearing into the bedroom wall, his head and upper body dematerializing through solid wood.

“Brooklyn! I can’t leave my daughter!”

Fabler shook his head and made a fist. For a moment, it looked like he was going to slug her.

<He has every reason in the world to hate me.

<All this time, he’s been planning for this.

<All of this training.

<All to get his wife back.

<He isn’t a murderer. He isn’t crazy.

<He’s a decent guy who questioned his own sanity because the situation was insane, and he’s done everything he could to make things right.

<Including hiring me. Including training me.

<And I betrayed him.

<And now, when he needs me most, I’m running.

<He must hate me.>

<He must hate me even more than I hate myself.>

Presley waited for the punch. She almost wanted it to happen, feeling like she deserved it.

But Fabler didn’t hit her. Instead, he released the chain from his waist, letting it fall.

<Letting me go.>

Presley stood there for a moment, and felt such a strong sense of self-loathing, of absolute cowardice, that it overwhelmed all other thoughts. Including the awareness of Grim, whom she’d grown quite fond of, being abducted by aliens.

<But this isn’t my fight. I didn’t sign on to play Sigourney Weaver.

<I did this for Brooklyn. And I’ll be no help to Brooklyn if a spaceship whisks me away to another solar system.>

“I’m sorry, Fabler.”

But he’d already dismissed her, smashing the bedroom window with his fist, throwing his backpack through, and then hoisting himself up to the pane.

<Being the hero.

<Something I’m just not meant to be.

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