Read The Push Chronicles (Book 3): Incorruptible for Free Online Page B

place!"  I wanted to rise from my chair and loom with anger, but that wasn't going to happen.  "How much else haven't you been telling me?"
    "I've been doing what had to be done, just like you were, Irene."  No matter the weariness or age in her voice, there was sudden steel now.  "You've been the one that's been impossible to work with.  Yes, you have followed our leads and helped our investigations, but in so many other ways you have never listened."
    "That's -"
    "No, no, you are going to listen this once."  Rachel rose from her chair.  Even though she was shorter than I was by a head, her years in the FBI had given her a formidable presence when she chose to exert it.  "How many times did Duane and I try to keep you safe, keep you from doing ... this ... to yourself?"  She just gestured at me.  No clarification was needed.  "You're the one that forced every little problem to be placed on your shoulders."
    "You know as well as I do that it was my invention that let Eric do all of this."  That was a point even Rachel couldn't find a hole in.  "How could you argue anything other than that I have a direct responsibility for it all?"
    "I'm not.  What I am arguing is that you've made every little aftershock of the Whiteout your personal problem to fix.  You've ignored everything else.  Dammit, Irene, you've practically killed yourself a dozen times over, never once letting anyone else share the burden.  I don't even want to try to figure just how many pain-killers you've gotten hooked on."  She folded her arms, anger bleeding out as her voice softened.  "Maybe we didn't start out as friends, but that's what we all are now.  Can you even imagine what you've been doing to all of us by just not accepting some damn help?"
    I didn't have a single word in my extensive vocabulary to refute those accusations.
    "So, to answer your questions, that's why I brought in Alma.  That's why I called up some of the contacts I had been making for these past four months, bringing in the best Push Heroes I could find from Detroit to save our bacon.  And that's why I've been networking with anyone who looked like they would stand up to the Crusaders.  All 'behind your back'" - she even air-quoted that before continuing her rant - "because you would never stop long enough to listen!"
    My death grip on the armrests faded as I hung my head.  What else could I really do?  Rachel was right and only now, in this moment of complete weakness, could I accept that.  Hell, how many times had she or Duane tried to tell me this self-same thing?  Even some of the team, blinded as they might have been by the Whiteout's comic-book reality, had tried to make me slow down.  How much had I destroyed just trying to fix things?
    "I'm sorry."  I wasn't good at apologies.  To be honest, I wasn't used to giving them.  Maybe it was luck that I seemed to be on the right side of things for the most part.  Maybe I was just a life-long stubborn jerk.
    "Forget it, Irene, it -"
    "No, no, let's not forget it."  I was tearing up, something that really didn't surprise me.  All the emotional damage I'd reaped was coming back home.  God, just what I did to Ex alone was horrible.  "It doesn't matter if I can say I never meant any of it, but that doesn't fix jack, does it?"
    "No, not really."  Rachel reluctantly approached me, kneeling beside the chair.  "Look, I didn't mean to get you going like this but ... none of us can make a mistake now."  She gripped my hand.  "You can't go it alone anymore and I can't keep you out of the loop, even if you frankly deserved it."
    I wiped the tears away with my free hand and let out a laugh.
    "Yeah, I did, didn't I?  Still, seriously, I'm not happy about Alma."  I may have been forced to accept that Alma Gutierrez had the right to pick her own fate in joining our side but I had tried so hard to keep her safe from all of this.
    "Did you have any better ideas to stop Bathory?"  Silence.  "I didn't think