Read Kill by Numbers: In the Wake of the Templars Book Two for Free Online Page B

rescued Raena—well, after Kavanaugh had rescued her—Sloane paid Kavanaugh a goodly sum to get lost. He might have been able to forgive that, if Sloane hadn’t hurt Ariel so badly on their last ride together.
    Kavanaugh punched his pillow into a better shape and flopped over into a new position. He might be more comfortable if he’d just get up long enough to take off his clothes, but he didn’t want to get out from under the blanket.
    The dream felt wrong in his head, more nightmarish than actual events—and actual events hadn’t been a joy themselves.
    Kavanaugh shrugged and tried to settle himself back to sleep. Obviously, the dream must have been brought on by studying the documentary before he passed out. It was nothing but his conscience taunting him. If he were like Sloane—or Raena, for that matter—events in his life wouldn’t trouble his dreams. He’d be immune.
    He curled tighter under the blanket and hoped the chill wouldn’t keep him awake long.
    Back then, as her imprisonment dragged on, Raena didn’t really sleep any more. She didn’t think of it as sleep, anyway, more like perpetual rest. She lay on her catafalque with her hands folded across her stomach, her legs crossed at her ankles. Maybe it was meditation or maybe she’d just been alone in the dark for so very long that it was the only way she had left to pass the time. Whatever it was, she lay there, still as stone, listening.
    For some time, she had heard something she couldn’t identify: a deep booming that echoed and sang through the mountain at whose heart she lay. At first she thought the sound was an explosion, maybe bombardment from space, but it only happened intermittently, with long silences in between. She had no way to measure the intervals, but eventually they stopped making her jump.
    She decided that the sound was the precursor to an earthquake, something so massive that it might break the mountain open and allow her to walk away. Hoping for that day wouldn’t bring it closer; she had hoped for release since the slab closed on her tomb. She had no way to measure how long ago that had been. So instead of hoping, she lay still on her catafalque and waited.
    The next boom sounded closer, but distance was difficult to judge inside her cocoon of rock. Perhaps this time it was an earthquake, since the mountain around her actually shuddered. Fine grit drifted down, falling onto her face, but Raena didn’t bother to reach up to brush it away. What difference did it make? It wasn’t as if anyone was going to see her.
    She heard a new sound: grinding, as if rock slid against rock. She was so calm that she lay still and waited for the ceiling to fall. If she were luckier than she had been so far, the falling rock would kill her. She thought about what it would be like to be dead. It was hard for her to imagine an afterlife. What she really wanted was to be blotted out. Her luck had been so bad for so long, though, she figured her fate was to be crushed, maybe pinned in place, but not killed. Pain would bring a new kind of waiting.
    Then she heard something like men’s voices. Her imagination had to be working overtime. She listened to them banter, silly things men would say to each other when they felt there was no one to overhear. They were clearly so comfortable amongst themselves that they had a patter, a rhythm, that spoke of camaraderie. Longing submerged her and she wished, more than anything, that she had someone to speak to once more.
    “Are you sure she’s human?” one of the men asked.
    “I think she’s just a kid,” another suggested. “No armor. You think she was somebody important’s kid?”
    “She’s the best thing I’ve seen on this rock so far,” a third pointed out.
    Just as she was trying to sort out how many of them there were, a hand brushed across her breast.
    That got her attention. This was real, she realized belatedly. There was someone in her tomb … and they were touching her.
    She said,