Kenton Read Free

will never have to worry for money
    again. I am but a part of the whole. A dragon that must be brought together with the other pieces
    of my set. Emma just wanted to take a nap. Forever. No, you will need to keep moving. The
    man that your brother stole me from, he will come for you because of the ring. He will want you
    dead because of the ring.
    “Why?” He didn’t answer her and she realized that she’d been asking that a lot to
    the unknown. “Fine. I’m going to do this for you, but you’re going to have to do
    something for me. I want you to not do a damned thing for me unless it’s to guide me. I

    know better than most that nothing in this world comes without consequences. So tell
    me where to go and nothing else.”
    Nothing? She told him again that she didn’t want to owe him anything when this
    was done. All right. But I think that you will come to regret that soon enough.
    She already did. Moving in the direction that he told her, she felt like she’d broken
    more bones than she knew she had. While he told her that she needed to go north,
    Emma told him that she needed to go to her home. There she’d get cleaned up and
    retrieve the last of her funds. She had no idea where she was going, but wherever it
    was, it wasn’t going to be a free ride. Emma thought that whoever was coming for her
    would think she was dead long enough for her to get out of her apartment to rid herself
    of the voice.
    Emma knew on some level that the voice was her own. There simply wasn’t any
    way for her to be talking to the dragon of the ring. She wanted out and this was her
    subconscious getting her there. So what if the world thought her dead? She was fine
    with that as well. Emma Gentry was dead as far as she was concerned too, and she’d
    have to come up with a name that would work. As she showered and changed, cleaning
    up as much of the wounds on her body that she could, Emma thought of what her life
    would be now.
    “Anything I want.” She smiled at herself and winced. The cuts on her face made
    even doing the simplest things hard. She did worry over the wound in her leg, but at
    least it was clean, and the bleeding had stopped as well…for now. As she moved out of
    her home, she looked around. There was nothing there, not one thing she would miss.
    This Emma was dead.
    ~~~
    “Twenty-four dead and several dozen more injured in the blast that is still under
    investigation. There was some talk of gas leaks, but that was ruled out when it was said
    that the building called Shipley Textile was the epicenter of the explosion, and there
    were no gas lines to that building.”
    Baldwin Franks wanted to throw something at the television but refrained. He was
    a man that prided himself on control. But the newsperson was not giving him the
    answers that he craved. He wanted to know if Bartholomew Gentry and his son had
    survived, not the dozens of nameless fucks that meant nothing to him. When the news
    anchor paused, pushing her finger to her ear, he wanted to scream at her that no one
    believed that she was listening to a fucking thing, but then she turned to the scene
    behind her.
    “There is news just in that Mr. Bart Gentry, Junior has been pulled from the
    wreckage, along with another man by the name of Whitaker. That is all that we know
    right now. Mr. Gentry is the son of Bartholomew Gentry, Senior, a man who owned a
    great many of the buildings in the downtown area. Mr. Gentry and his son have been
    under a great deal of scrutiny for the last several years, starting with the death of the
    senior Mr. Gentry’s wife, Anderson Franks Gentry, some years ago. Mr. Gentry,
    Senior’s body, along with five more, was pulled from the building about an hour ago,
    I’m told.”

    Baldwin leaned back in his chair as the anchor continued about the things she had
    little to no real information about. Gentry Senior was dead. Baldwin thought that they
    both should have been dead, but was sure that the man who’d survived, a