The reporter tipped her head down partially, staring at Liberty like a crazed lunatic. Her eyes began to glow with an orange tint—looking a hell of a lot like the demon eyes from the house across the street.
The reporter was the demon?
How many times had she been across the street, looking out at their house? How long had she been planning whatever in the hell this was?
“What is it about you?” she demanded, her lip curling. “You’ve always gotten all the attention. You’re simple. Plain. Unremarkable.”
Liberty tried to get her hands loose from the tape around her wrists, but it didn’t work.
The reporter narrowed her gaze. “When we were little, you’d have scientists and guards gathered around you all the time. They couldn’t stop talking about what you could do. About your potential. You and your fucking besties were favored. I can bend people’s will, twist their minds, make them do what I want, but you just batted your eyes and they folded.”
Liberty shook her head and tried to talk. It didn’t work with the tape over her mouth.
The reporter nodded to one of the men. “Take it off.”
The man eyed Liberty’s hands like they were deadly and then slowly moved into the back of the van. He touched the tape and tried to ease it off slowly.
“For fuck’s sake,” said the reporter. “Rip it off!”
The man flinched but did as he was instructed.
The pain was fast but fleeting. Liberty swallowed hard and set her attention on the reporter. “You have me confused with someone else.”
“Oh really?” asked the woman. “So you weren’t part of the experiments as a child? You weren’t given unbelievable gifts that humans couldn’t possibly understand?”
The reporter had been tested on as well? And she thought what had been done to them was a good thing?
“Gifts?” echoed Liberty. “You think what we can do is a gift? Are you mental?”
The man near Liberty cleared his throat and nodded ever so slightly, indicating she was most certainly nuts.
The reporter noticed and focused on him. Her nose began to bleed, and she wiped it away a second before the man nearest Liberty reached out, wrapping a hand around Liberty’s throat tightly. He squeezed and stared at his hand with wide eyes, appearing horrified by what was happening. There was no mistaking the fact he wasn’t in control of his actions.
The bitch of a reporter was.
Liberty brought her bound hands up, trying to push his arm away so she could draw in air, but it didn’t work.
The reporter cackled with glee.
Liberty pulled her knees up, before trying to push the man away from her.
He tightened his grip but strained to look at the reporter. “S-stop. Please.”
“Fine,” said the reporter as she wiped beneath her nose once more.
The man released Liberty’s throat and stumbled back against the van wall. He stared at Liberty’s neck and then down at his hand. “I didn’t… I’m sorry.”
A small part of Liberty felt bad for the guy. Then again, he was running around with the likes of the reporter and whoever else she was in cahoots with, so he did kind of have it coming to him.
The reporter laughed more, smiling wide as she peered into the van at Liberty. “Look at you there, all bound and helpless. Pathetic. What happened to you? You used to be powerful. A badass. What are you now? Barely more than human. The Corporation is wasting their time with you and your plastic friends. All of you pretending to be nice and perfect. You’re not.”
Liberty openly stared at the woman. “We’re not nice? We don’t kidnap people and aren’t twisted in the head. Can all present claim as much?”
“I can make him do anything I want him to do to you,” warned the reporter.
“Olga, please,” begged the man nearest Liberty.
Olga?
The name was familiar to Liberty.
The man shook his head. “You already made me knock her out upstairs and choke her in here. It’s enough. Let’s just do what Pavel wants and take her to the warehouse.”
“I say when it’s enough!” shouted Olga. She turned partially, her attention going to the other armed man. Her nose began to bleed once more.
The other man lifted his weapon, aimed it at the guy near Liberty before pulling the trigger.
Something wet splashed on Liberty’s face and upper chest a second before the man who had pleaded her case fell onto her. The full weight of his body knocked the wind out of Liberty. It took a moment for her to wrap her mind around what happened. When she realized a dead man was lying on her, she launched into hysterics.
It seemed completely warranted seeing as how someone had just been shot and killed in front of her and was now pinning her to the van floor.
“Perfect. Let’s go watch my man kill Romanov.” Olga laughed and shut the van doors, bathing Liberty in darkness, leaving the dead man on her.
Be still.
The deep male voice cut through her head, shocking Liberty so much that she listened even though she had a dead guy on her.
If you panic, you can’t use your abilities, said the man, his voice calm and oddly reassuring even though it didn’t have a person attached to it.
Liberty stretched, goose-necking around the darkened van, in an attempt to see if maybe someone else was there and it wasn’t her mind snapping.
As far as she could tell, it was just her and the dead guy.
Next, she’d be the one claiming she saw a man turn into a bear and Daisy would have to admit her to an inpatient clinic. Isobel would try to stop her, but it wouldn’t change the fact Liberty had gone off the deep end of sanity.
A pang of regret filled Liberty’s chest at the thought of her friends. Whatever Olga and the others wanted, it wasn’t good, and Liberty knew deep down it would result in her death.
Her friends wouldn’t ever get closure. They’d never know what
