Kurtis didn’t take the card. He took the envelope, then slid half the cash back across the table. “Give that to Chris. Tell him… tell him the other Smith says peace doesn’t have to sound like an explosion.”
“We don’t need you to kill,” Economos interjected, sliding a tablet across the table. On it, a man in a general’s uniform smiled. “General Mateo Suarez. He’s a Butterfly.” peacemakers brother dc comics
“Chris.”
“A surviving queen,” Harcourt said. “Suarez is building a new hive beneath the old Aerie One base. If he succeeds, he’ll control the island’s military. Our intel says he’s using a sonic resonance device to attract dormant Butterflies. Only one person has ever disarmed that device.” Kurtis didn’t take the card
“Shoot him,” Suarez ordered.
Kurtis felt the old shame crawl up his spine. The basement. The screaming. Auggie forcing them to strip and reassemble sonic rifles blindfolded. Chris had loved it. Kurtis had thrown up. Tell him… tell him the other Smith says
Kurtis kept walking. “You won’t,” he said, voice low. “Because if you shoot me, the blood shorts the resonator’s pressure plate. The whole hive detonates. You know the design. You read it in my father’s files.”