Technomancer (Unspeakable Things: Book One)

inmates. I wonder how many years she’s gone without leaving those walls.”
    We’d probably never know the truth. My other thoughts were much more disturbing. I didn’t tell Jenna, but I was worried Meng would send assassins after us. She might not be able to leave the sanatorium safely, but she’d shown she could use people like me to do her work for her.
    When we arrived in Henderson, we stopped at a gas station. I washed my hands in the public bathroom. The blood had finally stopped flowing from my gouged palm and wrists. Jenna really had done her worst. My face, reflected by the scratched mirrors, was drawn and pale. I thought to myself I was almost as gray as a Gray Man.
    I had the feeling Meng was still alive. I wondered if I would come to regret not having finished the job when I had the chance. But I couldn’t have murdered a helpless woman while she bled on the floor, even after what she haddone to me. That kind of coldness wasn’t in me, and I hoped it never would be.
    It was dark by the time we reached the abandoned mansion at the top of the hill. I smirked at the thought, knowing it was far from abandoned. The cultists had made it their gathering place. I wondered if they would return tonight.
    Jenna pulled up at the curb and left the car’s engine idling. “What’s the plan?” she asked.
    She’d asked that before, but I’d avoided the question. I’d done so partly because I didn’t have a clear plan, and partly because whatever I was about to do, she wasn’t going to be coming with me.
    “I’ll check the place out and call you when I learn anything interesting,” I said.
    Jenna narrowed her eyes at me. “You think you are going to get away with ditching me? Now?”
    I took off her wedding ring—or rather Robert’s ring—and handed it to her. “You’ll need it if I don’t come back,” I said.
    She shook her head and refused to take it. “No way,” she said.
    “Really,” I said, trying to press the ring into her hand. “It’s yours.”
    She pulled her hands back and placed them in her lap. “I don’t want it. My memories of Robert are all painful now. The last thing I want to do is wear his ring. Just let me come with you. We did well as a team at the sanatorium.”
    “Sort of,” I said, putting the ring back onto my hand. “But if there had been only one of us, we couldn’t have been turned against one another.”
    I felt her eyes on me. I took the time to reload my pistol and to dig out the extra magazines I’d bought for it. I dropped more bullets into my pockets when the magazineswere full. After all, there were a lot of Gray Men in those cubes.
    Jenna blinked away tears. She leaned close and hugged me. It was an angry, dismissive hug.
    “Just go then,” she said.
    “I’ll call you. Find a safe place for us to hide when this is over. You can take the car, I won’t need it,” I said as I climbed out.
    “Why would we need to hide if it’s over?”
    “I guess I mean—if I fail.”
    Jenna nodded and drove off. I stood there, watching her. When her brake lights flashed and she turned the corner, I remembered sending Holly away from this place. I hadn’t managed to keep her alive, but I tried not to think about that.
    I walked onto the property, following the fence, and stayed behind overgrown brush. The grounds had really gone to hell. It must have been nearly a year since the land had been properly cared for. I’d seen this kind of neglect before in abandoned, repossessed properties. The bank would make sure the lawn was watered, but they never put any money into trimming anything. Plants of every variety grew in wild profusion. Wasps’ nests buzzed everywhere and broken pipes had formed muddy spots on the lawn.
    Eventually, I reached the side door that led down into the cellar. I knew that route in, and hoped I would encounter less trouble that way. I quietly twisted the door handle. It was locked.
    I slipped on my sunglasses, but then the door swung open silently. It hung there ajar, and I couldn’t see past it into the dark interior. I put away my sunglasses and pulled out my gun instead.
    “Come in, Mr. Draith,” said a familiar voice. It was Gilling.
    “You expected me?” I asked, still standing outside. I gripped my pistol in both hands.
    “Not really, but we do have security cameras.”
    I looked around and saw a few plastic bubbles. They didn’t look like much, but they were big enough to hide an infrared camera. I knew this could be a