Chapter 25 · Dead Channel

The comm crackled in her ear. That voice. Keira's hand went to the earpiece she'd written off as dead two days ago.

"Miss me, Seven?"

Boots hammered down the corridor she'd just left. Four, maybe five guards. She took the stairs three at a time, gun up, that voice still laughing in her ear like they were old friends.

"You should've stayed dead." She kept her voice flat. Didn't ask who. Didn't ask how. The moment you asked, you gave them leverage.

"So should you." The voice—male, smooth, with that Outer Reach drawl she hadn't heard since the last drop—didn't sound sorry about it. "But here we are. You in a stairwell with academy rent-a-cops on your ass, me watching the whole thing on a very entertaining security feed."

She hit the landing, checked the corridor. Empty. Wrong kind of empty. "What do you want?"

"Same thing you want. Cleanup."

The word hit different when someone from back then said it. Cleanup meant bodies. Cleanup meant burning the evidence and everyone who'd seen it.