A Shadow's Embrace Read Free Page A

number for Indigo Order.  
    Hopefully they hadn’t all gone to ground yet.  
    “Yeah.”  
    “Cadence, I’m coming in hot, one downed operative. We need Patch and his crew there. ETA ten minutes. I’m praying Dare and Rider are local.”  
    “That’s a negative on the first, questionable on the latter. Dare’s following up with intel you got bagged and tagged in the bayou. Glad all these rumors are bullshit, Indy.”  
    They persisted in using her street name because she’d somehow become a legend within the psychic underground. Resources were nearly impossible to come by for most of the level ones and twos cast out as children by ARES. Most starved, some managed to become part of the foster care system for a few years. Those who survived did so as a collective, a desperate collective that, until a couple of years ago, had had no viable voice or resource.  
    The difference Devyn made on the street with her small organization made everything she’d endured worthwhile. Until now. She couldn’t let Dagan die. The SEO was the spine and brute force behind the liberation movement.  
    “Contact them. Prep the down room.” Devyn ended the call and blitzed the electrical components so they couldn’t be tracked.  
    Intel on the technopathic or tracking capabilities of Conver’s minions was spotty at best. Unfortunately, the bastard wasn’t stupid enough to keep a working database on his network labeled “my crew and their abilities.” Pocketing Dagan’s phone, she knelt beside him and considered her options.  
    The man was ruggedly muscular, a brute force to be reckoned with when conscious, which he wasn’t at the moment. The dead weight of his two-bucks-and-change body would be a grueling haul to the nearest Indigo compound entrance. Not to mention obvious. A woman lugging a man twice her size around would set off every red flag around.  
    Besides, if she walked down the street hauling two hundred plus pounds of sinewy male around she’d definitely draw the attention of the street kids. The last thing she needed was any of the crews getting in the middle of this shit with Conver.  
    And they would get involved. They’d made it their personal mission to “always have Indy’s back.” The only way she’d gone unnoticed as long as she had was by using the surveillance cameras. Well, that and the fact those street kids weren’t stupid. The moment Conver showed his ugly mug they’d probably taking to the underground tunnels.  
    But, just in case they hadn’t, she couldn’t take the risk of being on the street too long.  
    That left one option. Time was of the essence. Sprinting from the alley they’d landed in, she scoped the area for a possible target. Yes. A sparkling black Escalade across the street. The pricey ride probably belonged to some dirt-bag drug pusher. Jacking it would teach the lowlife a lesson and get her gone. She sprinted to it, synched to the vehicle’s electrical systems, and popped the locks open. Modern technology made things so much simpler.  
    She angled the vehicle into the narrow alley and then lugged Dagan into the backseat. She belted him in the best she could, given the circumstances. She situated herself into the driver’s seat and made her way onto the street.  
    She ambled along at a leisurely pace that matched the drivers around her. Several clusters of Conver’s soldiers prowled alleyways she passed. When she neared the closest compound entrance, she cursed. Too many of them lurked nearby. She couldn’t take the risk.  
    Time for Plan B.  
    Fortunately, the secondary entrance was more convenient to the down room they’d use to patch up Dagan. The entrance’s close proximity to her private quarters made her twitchy. Privacy was a commodity she treasured due to too many years of sharing a cot with someone, along with forty-nine other groupings in the cramped cell they called home.  
    She glanced in the rearview mirror. Dagan could be an exception to that