Page 22 of Scarred Sunrise

“No, I don’t, but deep down you know he isn’t the man you just painted him to be. He made huge mistakes, more than we’ll ever know, but he always did it for his country.”

“And now? Is this for his country?”

“No, this is because the alternative is unthinkable. Millions dead and the world under a dictatorship and military rule.”

“What do you want from us?”

Liz saw the relief in Nazareli’s face at his question.

“She plans to add the annihilation drug to an oil pipe. When the oil is used for fuel in cars, the emissions will release the drug as a gas that is undetectable and untraceable. To the world, it would look like a mass virus that was killing indiscriminately, but it would be targeting people with no abilities.”

“Fucking crazy bitch.”

“We need to stop her, but I can’t find which pipeline she’s planning on using, and only Rhea and the scientists know the whereabouts of the lab.”

“I thought you were close to her.” Liz cocked her head in question, and the other woman looked at her.

“I am, but she’s paranoid now, out of control.” Nazareli glared at Smithy. “Your little stunt didn’t help.”

“Hey, don’t blame him for what that mad cow is doing.” Lizzie felt indignant on his behalf, and he turned and offered her a smirk.

“So, you want us to find the pipeline and the lab? What the fuck are you and John doing?”

“I don’t answer to you.” Smithy moved to stand, and Nazareli sighed. “I’m going to work the angle from the inside and try and switch out the control drugs so as many of those soldiers as possible will be free-thinking. Then John will get them out before she realises it’s happened.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier for John just to use the feelings she had for him and kill her?”

“Let me ask you something, Smithy. If I told you Lizzie had done all of these wicked things and then gave you a gun and told you to kill her, would you be able to do it?”

Smithy looked at her, and she saw the feeling in his eyes before he shook his head. “No.”

Lizzie let go of the breath she’d been holding.

“Plus, we need Rhea alive until we know who she’s working with on the oil rig plan. For all we know, we could kill her and find we jumped out of the frying pan into the fire. To get this done properly, we need to do it this way.”

“You got any names of who her possible contacts are?”

“Yes.” She gave him a sheet of paper as she stood, and he tucked it into his pocket.

“Can I ask you something?” Lizzie looked up at Nazareli, not seeing the threat now but seeing a woman hell-bent on stopping the Divine Watchers. “Why are you doing this?”

“Rhea Winslow destroyed my family and killed my mother. John gave me a purpose and the opportunity for revenge, and I’m taking it.” With those words, she walked to the door and slipped away quietly.

The silence was deafening after what they’d just learned and what she’d learned about Ty. Standing, she crossed to the kettle and filled it with water before flicking it on to boil. “Tea?”

Smithy looked up at her, looking a little stunned and lot raw, but her acceptance of things and her lack of questions seemed to rouse him from the fog.

“Tea fixes everything, right?”

“And cake, don’t forget the cake.”

The grin on his face was enough reward for her, a reprieve from the conversations she knew they would have to have at some point.