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resumed sliding the edge of the blade against stone.
    “You used to be a paramedic in New Orleans?” Lynx asked.
    Zeus felt Sabrina tense against him. “How do you know where I lived?”
    Almaya pointed toward the other area of the living room. The sunken lower level had an oval table at its center, a surveillance center on one wall, a computer area on another, and a decompression area toward the back. The decompression area was Zeus’s favorite place here…after the weapons and training rooms.
    “We did a brief background check on you using Gambit, our computer system. It gave us some basic information, but nothing that readily links you in any way with Kragen and his organization.”
    “I already told you I don’t know—nor have I had anything to do with—this Kragen.”
    “Which makes this even more terrifying for you, I’m sure. It’s bad enough to be hunted, and it’s even more devastating when it’s for reasons of which you’re unaware,” Almay said. “The Brood needs to discover why, because, trust me, you are not the endgame. Kragen’s affiliations are global. He ordered a handful of his staff to the Bay Area less than a week ago. Yesterday evening, Big Country shone the light on a communication from one of Kragen’s team, informing him his gift had been delivered to warehouse seventy-seven in an industrial area near the Port of Richmond. Kragen is scheduled to retrieve you at six this morning.”
    “Lucky for you, we were able to mobilize a team to scoop you before he got there,” Price said.
    “Unlucky for us, Zeus was a part of that team and killed your captors instead of subduing them so we could learn what they knew,” Coen said.
    Zeus looked at the overly-fucking-sensitive man he should start calling Cry Me a River instead of Coen. “Haven’t learned the art of subduing. Don’t plan to. If someone comes at me intending death, I give myself two options, kill or die. I always choose the first and thank the spirit of the blade that keeps me alive at the end.”
    “Sounds reasonable,” Bride muttered. First words she had said since he’d entered the room.
    “That argument doesn’t have much to do with reason,” Price countered.
    “Long as we know the rules he operates by,” Big Country chimed in.
    Zeus shrugged. “They change. One time this street kid put a gun to my head and I told him to shoot me because I was feeling curious to see what the next life would look like.”
    When no one responded, Zeus went back to sharpening his blade.
    “And you thought he would be a good addition to the team, Mama?” Price asked.
    “I’m really starting to miss Cizan,” Coen said under his breath.
    “WHY DID YOU leave New Orleans, Sabrina? Why change to a career so different than the one you’d been in?” Terry asked.
    Sabrina took a moment before responding to him. The man might have seemed friendly enough, but these questions about her, their need to know felt like a threat. She didn’t talk much about her past because it usually involved lying. With this group she knew instinctively that staying as close to the truth as possible would be her best defense.
    “I needed a change. I wasn’t happy in New Orleans, and as a paramedic there I was… I’ve probably seen as much death and violence as anyone in this room. A little after moving to New Orleans, depression set in, I gained weight, and I…I wasn’t happy.”
    “So you move to Oakland, a city that has a near nonexistent murder rate?” Lynx said sarcastically. “Like healthy eating, I take it the statistics haven’t made their way down South.”
    She shrugged. “I heard good things about California. All sun and surf, laid-back lifestyle. I didn’t want the glitz of LA. San Francisco was where I headed, but it was too expensive…and cold. The diversity of people and places in Oakland ended up being just what I needed. I got recertified as an EMT here, but when I really thought about it, I didn’t want to go back to that