The Takeover Read Free Page A

want us to help them.”
    Shadrach grimaced. “I know what you think of me, and maybe I was wrong in Morocco—”
    “You almost got us killed!” Ritter didn’t take a step toward him, but the fury in his face made Shadrach step back until his calves hit the couch.
    “I know,” Shadrach said, his voice strangled. “But you’re going to have to trust me on this one. Because you’re not going to leave me here, so either you drag me kicking and screaming or you take them too.”
    The veins in Ritter’s neck bulged. “Believe me, I won’t have to take you screaming.” For an instant, I thought Ritter was going to punch the healer out and throw him over his shoulder. I’d probably help him.
    Dimitri stepped in. “Let’s hear him out.”
    “Okay,” I answered for Ritter, giving him time to calm down. “We’ll listen. But we’re going to make the final decision, Shadrach. Not you.”
    “Agreed,” he said.
    Ritter’s fists relaxed. “This could be a plan on their part. Did you think of that?”
    Shadrach scrubbed a hand over his face and into his black hair, causing it to fall out of place. “If so, it’s an elaborate plan that started back in Morocco. Two of these agents hate the Emporium as much as I do, and the other has listened to us. I won’t pretend that their courage doesn’t come mostly from knowing Delia Vesey is dead. The fact that she can’t hurt them or their families anymore if they don’t do what she orders was a huge factor in their decision.” He paused before adding, “Vesey caused some damages—perhaps permanent—in one man’s mind, the one who took convincing. I fixed what I could, but he’s not all there in the logic department. Reality is hard for him to understand. But the others, I’m sure of.”
    Now he made a direct appeal to Ritter. “They know where the Emporium strongholds are, at least five of them. The major ones. They’re willing to share that information with us.”
    Ritter’s head swung toward Dimitri and they shared a long, silent stare. I knew what it would mean to locate Emporium headquarters. They’d recently relocated many of their safe houses after we’d obtained intel on the locations from a thumb drive recovered in Mexico, and since then we’d made little headway on tracking their whereabouts. This intel could prove invaluable.
    Shadrach’s eyes fixed on me. “Erin can see that I’m telling the truth.” The shield around his mind dropped—an invitation I immediately accepted. In the representation I created of his conscious mind, I stood on a sort of stage, and his thoughts fell from the darkness above me in a stream of what looked like sand, curving downward and disappearing again into the darkness at hip level. Each grain of sand represented a thought or memory, past or present. I would only see thoughts he was currently pondering or memories he recalled as I studied him, but it would be enough to get a feel about his truthfulness.
    I stared deeper, more interested in searching for Emporium traps—the mental constructs Delia Vesey, a former Emporium Triad leader, had been so good at placing in people’s minds. Mental traps could be fatal for the person carrying them and for any sensing Unbounded attempting to repair the damage. Delia’s assistant had survived the encounter in Morocco, so he could have planted something in Shadrach’s mind, and the Emporium had at least a few other sensing Unbounded, if the rumors were true. But Shadrach’s mind was clean. Not a hint of Emporium meddling—or prefabrication on Shadrach’s part. He believed what he was saying.
    “He’s telling the truth,” I said, “and I don’t see any Emporium constructs in his mind.”
    Ritter nodded once, his face grim. “Then we’ll do it.” His surface emotions radiated determination, but his mental shield was otherwise strong.
    “Wait, wait, wait!” Oliver said in my earbud. “Are you guys sure about this? Because that’s going to take longer, and I kind