"Death Row 03 - The Avenger" - читать интересную книгу автора (Black Jaid)

The silence seemed interminable, both women lost in their thoughts. But finally, inevitably, Nellie turned to her and quietly asked, “Why me, Tara? Why did you choose me?”

Dr. Riley stilled. Her head slowly turned to regard Nellie. “Because,” she said, her lilt a whisper, “Because you are the key…”



Ten minutes later, Nellie’s jaw felt all but unhinged as she listened to Tara Riley’s extremely unbelievable speech. She shook her head a bit as if to clear it. “You want me to…what?” she shrieked.

Tara sighed. “I know it sounds unbelievable, but I’m certain to Cyrus it’s true. There are very few things in life I am willing to bet my life on, but this happens to be one of them.”

Nellie frowned. It wasn’t her life the scientist wished to gamble with—it was Nellie’s. “Dr. Riley,” she responded. “There is little I wouldn’t do to end this nightmare once and for all, but what you are asking of me is…”

“Frightening?” Tara offered.

She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Yes,” Nellie murmured. Her thoughts flicked to Kerick, and of how potentially devastated he would be should she die. They might have only been together a short period of time, but the intensity of the moments they’d spent together more than made up for any shortcomings in time span.

“I understand,” Tara assured her as they stood together and stared at the nest of sub-humans separated from them by the invisible partition. “If I am right, we will win, and together we can bring about an end to the madness. But if I am wrong…”

“I will die,” Nellie whispered. She swallowed heavily, blinking for the first time in long moments. She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Please give me a day to think it over.”

Tara’s smile was small but sincere. “Of course,” she murmured.



Chapter 42


And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea…and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?

And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark…

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred, threescore, and six.

* * * * *

She had nothing to go on but guts and instinct, no clue as to where her search should begin or where it would take her to in the end. Perhaps she would win. Perhaps she would die. So long as Nellie lived, it no longer mattered…

Nicoletta Kan had no real worth and no value, she decided. Her death would mean little to a husband with so many wives; it would signify absolutely nothing to a society that regarded her as nothing more than mere sexual chattel. She hadn’t so much as seen the one and only son she’d given to Abdul in years—Asad had been taken away to attend a real school instead of a virtual one ages ago. And her son, Asad, named for the strength of the Arabic lion, had always identified more with his father than with his mother anyway.

But Nellie? Nicoletta smiled. Nellie had always valued her, had always loved her. It was difficult for a man to understand how a woman could invest so much pure and loyal emotion into one person, but when that one person is all you have to call your own in this realm, the only person left to you who truly loves and values you as a being equal to them, well…it sure as Kalast made sense to Nicoletta that she would even go so far as to die that that one person might live.

“I will find you, bella,” she whispered to the jungle trees looming above where she laid in hiding on the ground. She closed her eyes and snuggled as best she could inside a rotted, hollowed-out log, praying to the ancient saints a sub-human wouldn’t pick up her scent while she rested. “I don’t give a yen how many infected humans stand between you and me,” she said tiredly, resignedly. “I will find you.”

* * * * *

To say that she felt conflicted would be the understatement of the millennium. If she chose not to carry out Tara’s plan through to its fruition, she would be alive to see another day—yet at what cost? Forever, as long as she lived, the words what if would be etched into her brain like a mental tattoo. If she did, however, see Tara’s plan through to its culmination…

Nellie sighed. She might live. Or she might die a very painful, hideously frightening death. The odds, regardless to what Dr. Riley might believe, were about 50/50, if that high. She would be playing a game of chance at which nobody could guess the outcome. The winner takes all and the loser loses everything. Kerick would be devastated were she to die, yet how could she live with herself if she walked away from the Xibalba a coward?