“Where’s Lyle?” I ask.

He snarls and I notice he’s bitten his lip. Those white canines peek out at me, dipped in blood. “Don’t know, Mr. Gray,” he says. “He and I are done. Our transaction is complete. He performed his duties and I paid him handsomely.”

“Why didn’t you name me as head of Astra?”

Vaughn eyes me greedily. “Because you had escaped. But now here you are. Lucky me.”

His eyes go to the door and I know he’s waiting for those gray suits. It’s a good bet they’ll show any minute. But the guys with walkie-talkies are the least of my worries. They’re only human, after all.

“You’ve got no idea what’s about to happen,” I whisper.

Vaughn struggles to straighten himself against the wall. He pushes against my forearm with a soft palm. I don’t let it budge. “I would suggest that you get your fucking amp hands off me,” he spits. “You think your little friends in the camps have it bad right now? Do you have any clue what those people out there would do if I were harmed?”

I relax my grip, but keep him pinned. Keep my eyes inches from his face, watching every expression that sweeps over his face.

“That’s exactly why Lyle is going to kill you,” I say.

Vaughn shakes his head.

“Lyle Crosby and I built the Pure Human Citizen’s Council together from nothing,” he says. “Pure Pride was an idea that he and I hashed out in a basement nearly a decade ago. The organization runs on fear, Gray. Fear needs violence. Pure Pride required the intellect of a great man and the bloodlust of a savage. Now let me go or I yell.”

I uncurl my fingers from his shirt. When I speak, my own voice echoes in my ears. “You think that you used Lyle against his own kind,” I say. “But you’ve been used. He won’t stop.”

Vaughn laughs in my face. Hot breath rolling over my cheeks. With a sharp tug, he yanks my arm off his chest and I let him. He steps back and wipes the blood off his mouth with his hand. Looks at it and shakes his head.

“We’ve worked together for a decade. The man hates himself, pure and simple. And there’s no way out of it. The implant changes your brain patterns over the years. A little nudge here, a nudge there. Even if Lyle were able to remove the technology and still function … he would never be a man again. He knows that. It’s why he never wanted it to happen to another person. And that was a guarantee that I could provide.”

Vaughn pulls a white handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabs at his lip. “We’ve got the research shut down and seized. Control over the doctors. The existing amps are corralled and imprisoned. We won. It’s over. Lyle Crosby got everything he wanted out of our arrangement.”

I hear a familiar acid chuckle behind me. Stepping away from Vaughn, I slowly turn around. My eyes devour the light, analyzing.

Lyle.

Leaning across the open doorway like a butcher knife buried in a kitchen table. He’s wearing black jeans and a wrinkled cowboy shirt with pearl buttons. There is a smear of blood on his chest. A gray-suited body of a guard sprawled at his feet. In his right hand is a dead-black Glock .44 semiautomatic pistol. Index finger inside the trigger guard. He casually reaches up and scratches his temple with the slide of the gun. The fluorescent orange sight dot hovers, mesmerizing.

“I wouldn’t say I got everything I wanted,” he says. Lazily, Lyle extends his arm. Pulls the trigger without the slightest hesitation.

Three, two, one, go.

By the time the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun, I’m moving fast as a reflection in the mirror. I feel the light of the sudden searing muzzle flash blaze across my retinas. Tiny meteorites of gunpowder residue impact my cheeks and forehead as I lunge forward.

The bullet passes by. Not meant for me.

Twisting, my palm closes across the slide of the gun. The brass cartridge arcs past my face, end over end. The bullet itself is ten feet away, vaporizing a hole in Vaughn’s expensive suit, tearing through the meat of his pectoral muscle, shattering a rib and a clavicle, and spraying the wall behind him with pieces of his shoulder blade.

As I tear the gun from his hands, Lyle depresses the magazine release with his thumb. Then he lets go of the gun altogether. The magazine, pregnant with rounds, drops away.

Vaughn staggers with a plume of red mist erupting from his chest. His knees hinge drunkenly and he falls. The side of his face audibly slaps the tile wall. A wet, coughing bark grates out of his mouth as the weight of his body meets the ground. The head of the PHCC and second-term senator from Pennsylvania lies still.

I land and roll with the empty gun in my hand. The ejected magazine is too far away. With a tug from both hands, I disengage the slide and smack the top of the gun against my palm, popping the barrel out. I land in a crouch, pieces of the Glock raining around my feet.

Vaughn screams hoarsely, face buried in the crook of his arm.

“Aw, quit your crying,” says Lyle, a feline smile curled into the corners of his mouth.

“You promised I could turn him in,” gasps Vaughn. “You promised.”

Lyle clucks his tongue. “Listen to yourself. You used to be so put together. When I found you, boy, you had balls. Now you’re just a sad, fat, old reggie.”

I’m on my feet. Circling toward Vaughn. Hands up and ready for when Lyle attacks.

“Help me,” says Vaughn.

“He wants me to help him,” Lyle says to me, rolling his eyes. With one eye on me, he steps over Vaughn and spits words at the sweating, bleeding man.

“You were never in control, genius. After I leaked the existence of Echo Squad and got us disbanded, I did a nationwide search to find a guy just like you. What happened to your daughter was such a sad story. I constructed the bones of the PHCC for you. Told you what you wanted to hear. But, goddamn, how could you not know by now? You never did figure it out. I only built you to destroy you.”

“No,” says Vaughn, and he is crying now. “No, we did it together.”

“I made you more than a man. I made you a symbol. You’re the most human human there is, boy. And here in a minute, when I toss your screaming ass over that balcony and you go splitter splatter in front of the ten million zealots we created? Hoo boy. Then a real war’s gonna start.”

“What about the amps?” I hear myself say.

“We trigger a life-or-death situation and force them to fight. Force them to overcome.”

“They’ll die.”

“Maybe. But you gotta understand, Gray. In this world, I’m a broke-dick dog. A tool to be wielded by another man. But in the new world? Shit, I’m a warlord. A barbarian king. Free to spread my dominion over this nation. Who knows, man, maybe the world.”

“You’re going to get five hundred thousand people slaughtered.”

“Aw, I’m disappointed in you. You’re looking at the little picture, Gray. You think Europe is going to allow a genocide? Rest of the world is already using implants. In China I hear they’re state issued, for Chrissake. This thing is gonna go global quick. And we’ll be heading the charge.”

“Help,” calls Vaughn, who then crawls about six inches toward the door before collapsing. The politician has got his useless arm pulled up tight under his chin, cradling it with his good arm and stretching out his expensive suit jacket. Beads of sweat glisten on a dime-sized bald spot I never noticed. Blood is smeared on the marble.

Lyle watches Vaughn, amused. “Help? Ain’t no help. I got your dead bodyguards stacked like cordwood in the hallway, dipshit,” says Lyle.

He winks at me, then continues: “Remember your little friend Samantha? She and I seen the same thing. She went and got her panties in a knot and jumped off a building. But I took the bull by his damn horns. We live once, buddy. One time. That’s all we get. And I intend to make my mark. I mean, look at us.”