Ch.31: The Witness Dead

The aqueduct was a tomb. Damp, dark, and smelling of centuries of rot.

We parked the car deep inside, killing the engine to save fuel.

"We can't stay here long," Julian said, checking his phone. "The thermal drones will pick up the engine heat in twenty minutes."

"We just need to get Rats to a safe location," I said, turning to the backseat. "Rats, listen to me. We're going to get you out of the city. We're going to put you somewhere Sterling can't find you."

There was no answer.

"Rats?"

I shone my flashlight into the back.

Rats was slumped over. His head was resting against the window. His eyes were open, staring at nothing.

Foam bubbled at the corner of his mouth.

"No," I whispered, scrambling out of the car and yanking the back door open.

I checked for a pulse. His skin was already cooling.

"He's gone," Julian said, standing behind me. "Overdose."

"He was clean!" I shouted. "He told me he'd been clean for six months!"

I looked at Rats' arm. There was a fresh puncture mark. A needle track.

And next to him on the seat was a syringe.

"They got to him," I said, my voice trembling. "How? We were in the car the whole time."

"Before," Julian said. "In the alley. While Kael was distracting us."

I remembered the moment we put him in the car. Kael had been watching. But she hadn't moved.

Unless she didn't have to.

I looked at the syringe. It wasn't a street needle. It was medical grade.

I looked around the car interior. Nothing.

Then I saw it.

Scratched into the leather of the seat back, right next to Rats' hand. Fresh marks.

**MIA SAYS HELLO.**

The flashlight beam wavered. The words seemed to pulse in the darkness.

Mia.

"It wasn't Kael," I whispered. "It was Mia."

"What?" Julian asked.

"Mia was in the car with us on the way back from the rig," I said, my mind racing back. "She sat in this seat. She must have planted something. A timed release? A patch?"

I checked Rats' neck.

There it was. A small, transparent patch, barely visible against his grime-streaked skin. A transdermal delivery system.

Mia had placed it there. Or she had left it on the seat, knowing he would touch it.

"She killed him," I said, backing away from the car. "My sister killed the only witness we had."

"She's cleaning up loose ends," Julian said, his voice grim. "She knew Rats saw the van. She knew he could identify Kael. So she neutralized him."

He looked at me.

"She's not a victim, Harper. She's an assassin."

I fell to my knees on the damp stone floor. The smell of the dead man, the damp tunnel, the betrayal... it was too much.

"Why?" I choked out. "Why would she do this? She's my little sister. I taught her how to ride a bike."

"Sterling offered her the world," Julian said. "And she took it."

He pulled me up.

"We have to move. If she killed him, she knows where we are. That patch probably has a tracker."

As if on cue, a low hum echoed down the tunnel.

Drones.

"Run," Julian said.

We ran. Leaving the car, leaving the body, leaving the last shred of my hope behind in the dark.

My sister wasn't just working for the enemy. She was the enemy.

And she had just sent me a message written in a dead man's blood.

My knees hit the floor. Mia?