going on. We have tried to make this as comfortable as we can for you, but we all have limits, Miss Swartz. You will not question me or any of my staff. We will let you know things when we feel it’s the appropriate time and not before. Do you understand?”
I could feel every breath Archer took, and it seemed like he stopped, waiting for me. “Yes,” I spat. “I understand.”
Archer took a breath.
“Good,” the sergeant said. “Since that’s now settled, let’s move on.”
One of the men at the monitors pressed a button and a small door opened to the training room. Archer didn’t let me go until I was inside the room. Then he did.
I spun around as he backed toward the door, my eyes going wide. I started to ask him not to leave me, but he looked away quickly. And then he was gone, closing the door behind him.
Heart pounding, I darted my eyes around the room. It was about twenty feet by twenty, with a cement floor and another door on the opposite side, and the walls weren’t padded. Nope. I wouldn’t get that lucky. The walls were white with scuffs of red. Was that…dried blood?
Oh God.
But that fear trickled away as awareness kicked in. The rush of power was tiny at first, a rush that felt like tips of fingers were trailing down my arms, but it grew quickly, spreading to my core.
It was like taking a breath of fresh air for the first time. Numbness and exhaustion eked away, replaced with a low buzz of energy that was in the back of my skull, thrumming through my veins and filling the coldness in my soul.
My eyes fluttered shut, and I saw Daemon in my head. Not because I could
An intercom clicked on overhead, and Sergeant Dasher’s voice filled the room, causing my head to jerk up. “We need to test your ability, Katy.”
I didn’t want to talk to the ass-hat, but I wanted to get this over with more. “Okay. So you want me to call on the Source or what?”
“You will do that, but we need your ability tested under stress.”
“Under stress?” I whispered, glancing around the room. Unease unfurled in my belly, spreading like a noxious weed, threatening to choke me. “I’m feeling pretty stressed right now.”
The intercom clicked on again. “That’s not the kind of stress we’re talking about.”
Before his words had a chance to sink in, there was a loud thumping noise that reverberated through the small room. I whipped around.
Across from me, the other door was sliding open, inch by inch. The first thing I noticed was a pair of black sweatpants like the pair I had on, and then a white shirt covering narrow hips. My gaze crawled up, and I let out a surprised gasp.
Standing before me was a girl I had met before. It felt like a lifetime ago, but I recognized her immediately. Her blond hair was pulled back in a neat ponytail, revealing a pretty face offset by bruises and scratches.
“Mo,” I said, taking a step forward.
The girl who had been in the cage next to mine when Will had held me captive stared back at me. I’d wondered many times what had happened to her, and I guessed now I knew. A heartbeat passed, I said her name again, and then it hit me with startling clarity. She was showing the same vast emptiness that Carissa had when she’d been in my bedroom.
My heart sank. I doubted there was anything I could do that would remind the girl of me.
She stepped into the room and waited. A moment later, the intercom buzzed and Sergeant Dasher’s voice came through. “Mo will assist in the first round of the stress tests.”
First round? There was more than one? “What is she—?”
Mo flung her hand out, and the Source crackled over her knuckles. Shock held me immobile until the last possible moment. I darted to the side, but the blast of whitish light tinged in blue smacked into my shoulder. Pain burst and rushed down my arm. The impact spun me around, and I barely kept my balance.
Confusion swirled as I clutched my shoulder, not surprised to find the material singed. “What the hell?” I demanded. “Why—?”
Another blast sent me dropping to my knees as it whizzed by right where I’d been standing. It hit the wall behind me, fizzling out. In the blink of an eye, Mo was right in front of me. I started to stand, but her knee came up, catching me in the chin and snapping my head back. Starbursts blinded me as I fell back on my butt, stunned.
Reaching down, Mo grabbed ahold of my ponytail and lifted me to my feet with surprising ease. Her hand swung out, the blow catching me right below the eye. That burst of pain caused my ears to ring, and it did something else.
It knocked the stupor right out of me.
Suddenly I understood this stress test, and it sickened and horrified me. I had to believe that if Daedalus knew everything, then they had to have known that I’d met Mo. That seeing her here, in better physical shape than she had been in that cage, would not only knock me off guard but would confirm the futility of fighting against them.
But they did want me to fight—they wanted me to fight Mo, using the Source. Because what else, other than getting your ass handed to you on a silver platter, would cause such major stress?
Another punch caught me right under the eye. She put a hell of a lot of
But Mo…she was so much faster than me, so much better.
As the ass-kicking of a lifetime picked up, I held on to the small sliver of hope I had: Daemon wouldn’t be subjected to this.
…
Stashing Matthew’s SUV several miles from the access road leading to Mount Weather, I hoped whoever found his car got it back to him in one piece. It was a pretty sweet ride. Not as good as Dolly, but not many cars were.
I traveled the last couple of miles in my true form, rushing through the heavy thicket. I reached the access road within minutes, and seconds later I was at the cusp of the forest, staring at the all-too-familiar fence that surrounded the grounds.
There were definitely more guards on duty—at least three of them by the gate, and I bet there were more inside. Cameras and security systems weren’t going to go down this time. I didn’t want them to.
I wanted to get caught.
Dawson probably thought I hadn’t given this much consideration. A lot was on the line—not only my future but my family’s and Kat’s. Once the DOD realized I was here, things were going to get rough. Getting in wouldn’t be the problem, and if I got whatever it was that Luc wanted, he would get us out—if he wasn’t lying. And if he was, I would find another way.
Part of me hoped that Kat was still here, that Daedalus hadn’t moved her to another location. Probably foolish to hope for that, because I had a feeling a big ol’ dose of disappointment was heading my way.
So, yeah, I wanted to get caught, but I wasn’t going to make this easy for them.
Stepping out from under the cover of the trees, I let my human form take hold under a strong beam of sunlight. The guards were oblivious to my presence at first, and as I took another step forward, the conversation I had with Kat the night she finally admitted her feelings for me came to mind.
I’d told her that we made the good kind of crazy together, and I hadn’t known how true that really was until this very moment, because what I was about to do was really, truly, 100 percent certifiable.
The first guard, who was pulling something—a cell phone?—out of his black cargo pants, turned, his eyes drifting through the trees. His gaze moved over me and then darted back. The cell phone fell from his fingers, and he shouted, one hand going for the gun on his thigh and the other for the microphone on his shoulder. The two guards behind him whipped around, drawing their weapons.
Time to get this show on the road.
