Extinction Machine

Chapter One Hundred Twenty-six

VanMeer Castle

Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Monday, October 21, 8:42 a.m.

Junie Flynn crouched behind a tree and watched hell unfold before her.

Top and Bunny had left her there because the fight on the grounds was going south. Blue Diamond guards were everywhere. Murderous Dobermans raced along inside the fence, hunting for Ivan and Sam.

From this distance, even with the binoculars Top had left her, she couldn’t make out who was who.

The air flashed and popped with gunfire as the Blue Diamond men tried to hunt down the kill team on the grounds. And somewhere down there was Erasmus Tull.

A hybrid, like her.

A monster.

She listened through the din, trying to make sense of it all. Listening for Joe.

He was such a strange man. Incredibly savage and yet capable of more tenderness that any man she’d ever been with. She could recall everything about last night. The heat of that first kiss. The way his hands had been as he undressed her—urgent and yet never rough, never a sense of taking. She remembered the lean hardness of his body. The many scars, old and new. The sensation of oneness as he entered her. His muffled cry as he buried his face against her throat as he came.

“Joe,” she whispered to the night, then immediately clamped a hand over her mouth.

God, was the microphone on?

There was movement over to the left, far away from all the action. Junie raised the binoculars and focused them, saw a helicopter and several men. Then flash after flash as they fired at each other.

And there he was.

Joe.

She saw him throw a grenade, and that seemed to end the fight. Then he leaned in through the open door of the helicopter.

A few seconds later there was a single flash and Joe staggered backward, reeling awkwardly, turning, dropping.

She screamed his name, and before she knew what she was doing, Junie Flynn was up and running. The binoculars in one hand, a microwave pistol in the other.