Misted (Team Zero #5) by Rina Kent

“You okay?” A female voice drawls in a cockney accent.

My eyes snap to the source of the voice. Since it’s dim and my vision is blurry, I can’t even make out who’s here. I’m usually kept in solitary confinement. Well, apparently, not today.

“I I-m fine.” I try to say, hoping she would lose interest and go back to sleep.

“You don’t look fine, Luv.”

“I am.” I attempt to sit up, but it’s like bricks weigh my shoulders down. I remain on the ground, puffing long harsh breaths.

“Ye have grand red hair. Ye Irish?”

The throbbing in my head increases as my limbs continue to spasm. I curl into a ball, but the handcuffs stop me from hugging my legs properly.

“Hey.” The woman’s voice sounds near now like she’s standing over me but I don’t bother looking up.

She reaches out a hand lacerated with scars for me. Why isn’t she cuffed, too?

A small skull tattoo sits at the inside of her wrist with a ‘P’ written in a script font right at the skull’s forehead.

The tattoo all of Poison’s disciples wear.

Fuck.

Survival energy courses through me and I stagger on unsteady feet. I hate that I still can’t make out her face. Damn the withdrawal.

A rustle sounds to my right. I duck in time before she lands a blow.

“Whoever you are, back off. Don’t force me to kill you.” I speak in my loudest, clearest tone.

The shrill laugh is like nails scraping at my pounding head. “You can’t kill a fly right now, Mist. You think I didn’t choose your detention on purpose?”

Another jab comes from my right. I clutch her arm between my cuffed hands and rear-back with a high kick straight to her face.

Omega or not, I’m still a Zero and she’s a mere second generation.

“Get out of here,” I spit out, battling against the splitting headache. “Tell Poison we’ll get him out, but not before Ink.”

“You won’t get to decide that once you’re dead.”

The clink is the only warning I get before she lunges at me. I try to duck, but my reflexes fail me. Cold metal slices through my arm and the metallic stench fills the air.

“Bye Bye, Mist. Poison sends his regards.”





13





Hawk





Even if the light never finds you, I will.



I stand in the police station with Flame beside me and Scar sitting cross-legged on a chair, eyes closed, and hands in a mediating position.

We’re kept in the waiting room beside the vending machines and the constant shrill of the phone on the reception desk. The plump woman who sat there seemed to have fled her position once Flame and I walked in. Scar said we’re big and fucking scary — or so she heard from the escorts in Le Salon.

Only two young officers, looking straight out of college sit behind the counter, staring at their computer screens and avoiding eye contact. Archive files scatter on either side of them and on the shelves behind their lowered heads.

My arms are crossed, stance wide, and I can’t stop clenching and unclenching my fists against my biceps. The only times I walked into a police station before was to gather information about an assassination. And by ‘walked into’, I meant broken into these puppet’s systems.

Is it too late to blow this whole fucking place up?

“Why don’t you just burn it?” I ask Flame.

He’s leaning against the wall, legs crossed at the ankles and eyes closed. He seems pretty fucking relaxed for this situation. He grins without opening his eyes, “I would love to, but even we won’t get away with burning down the Met Police when they’re already suspecting us. We should depend on the law this time.”

Scar snorts.

I groan and run a tense hand on my face. “That hot shot solicitor seems fucking useless.”

We’ve been waiting here for whole damn thirty minutes after the thirty-six hours detention period was over. The solicitor that Flame somehow made him wake up at three in the morning has been in a private room with that fucking lieutenant who’s asking for his death.

I nudge Scar in her side. “Why didn’t you take care of that lieutenant before?”

She groans and her amber, currently-dead, eyes open with a snap. “I would’ve, but he’s Elle and Zoe’s foster brother. They’re the first girlfriends I got. I mean, I think they’ll hate me if I kill their brother. Yikes, no thanks.”

“Ghost and Shadow wouldn’t like it either,” Flame adds like a bloody know-it-all.

Fuck Ghost and Shadow. Anyone who jams his nose where it doesn’t belong should be eliminated.

I stare at the clock on the wall in the half-empty police station. Only the sound of tapping on keyboards fills the air.

It’s been almost two days since Mist’s arrest.

No one — and I mean, no fucking one — has the right to take her from me. If anyone gets to lock her up, then it’ll be me.

The door of the private room swings open. The solicitor, a middle-aged man dressed in a three-piece suit and carrying a leather briefcase, comes out first. An arrogant gleam that all overachievers wear glints in his small, blue eyes.

The lieutenant follows wearing a scowl. It’d be easy to take him somewhere beyond the cameras and snap his neck.