All Chapters of THE LAST GRAYMAN : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

The note burned against Fiona’s palm like it had been pulled from a fire.She kept it low, hidden by the cardboard box and the angle of her body, and read the three lines again while the bus rumbled over the uneven road. The woman beside you works for the same people who ordered the night of your tenth birthday. Get off at the next stop. If you stay on this bus, you will not reach the regional office alive.Ms. Reyes sat across the aisle with her folder open on her lap, eyes moving over a page of neat type. Nothing about her posture suggested threat. Her gray blazer was ordinary. Her expression was calm, professional, almost kind. That was what made the warning worse. The most dangerous people Fiona had ever known had also known how to look ordinary when it suited them.She folded the note once and slipped it into the waistband of her jeans beside the notebook. Her mind sorted options the way her father had taught her to sort evidence. The bus was already moving. The next stop was unk

The crack of the branch froze everything inside the small structure.Fiona’s body went still the way it had learned to go still in the hallway outside her bedroom when the floorboard announced Maxwell’s mood. Kennedy moved first. He crossed the room in three silent steps, killed the thin chance of any light catching the high window, and positioned himself beside the door with his back to the wall. One hand lifted slightly, palm open, telling her without words to stay exactly where she was.She stayed.The notebook pressed against her spine. Her pulse counted the seconds. Outside, the cicadas had gone quiet in a widening circle around the draw, the way insects did when something larger moved through their space. Another sound followed the first softer, the careful placement of weight on dry ground. Whoever was out there was not crashing through the scrub. They were approaching with the same deliberate patience the notes had always carried.Kennedy’s eyes met hers across the dim room. H

“Now.”Fiona shoved the door open while the car was still moving.The ground came up hard and uneven. She hit on her shoulder and rolled, the notebook slamming against her spine, dust filling her mouth and eyes. Kennedy did not slow to watch her land. The black car surged into the shadowed cut between the hills, engine note climbing, rear tires kicking a thick sheet of dust that hung in the air like a temporary wall. A second rifle shot cracked from the ridge. The bullet struck stone somewhere above her and sent a spray of rock fragments into the mesquite.Fiona stayed low and crawled into the nearest cover a shallow fold of earth and dry brush that offered almost no real protection but broke her outline. Her shoulder burned. Her palms were scraped raw. She forced her breathing quiet and counted the seconds the way she had always counted strikes. The car’s engine faded deeper into the cut. Another shot followed it, then silence.She risked lifting her head just enough to see the ridge

The metal door of the shed slammed shut behind them hard enough to rattle the walls.Fiona’s back hit stacked crates. Pain shot up her thigh where the fragment had torn across the muscle. She bit down on the sound and forced her weight onto her good leg. Kennedy was already moving, pistol raised, checking the single high window and the darker corners of the structure in one continuous sweep. The air inside smelled of old oil, rust, and dust that had not been disturbed in years. Thin bars of late-afternoon light cut through gaps in the corrugated walls and laid pale stripes across the concrete floor.Outside, the SUV’s engine climbed the last of the berm and stopped. Doors opened. Boots hit dirt. A voice spoke in the same clipped tone she had heard on the ridge, too low for clear words but sharp with urgency. Someone tested the door handle. It held. A second later the metal shuddered under a heavy shoulder.Kennedy’s eyes met hers across the dim space. He pointed two fingers toward a h

The spotlight held on the depression like a white finger pinning them in place.Fiona’s pupils shrank against the sudden glare. The drone’s rotors dropped lower, the high-pitched whine filling the space between the berm walls. Kennedy’s grip on her wrist tightened once, then released as he rolled onto his side and brought the pistol up. He did not fire at the drone. A single muzzle flash would only confirm what the thermal feed already suspected. Instead he scanned the top of the berm for the first silhouette of a ground operator.“On your feet,” he said. “We break east along the wall, stay in the shadow line, and cut through the break in the fence fifty yards down. If the vehicle reaches the berm before we clear it, we are finished.”Fiona forced her injured leg under her. The bandage had loosened; warm blood ran down the inside of her calf and into her shoe. She ignored the sensation and pushed up into a crouch. The spotlight swept a fraction left, then corrected. The drone operator