Unable to face the stairs, I chance the elevator. I jab my index finger over and over into the button for the ground floor. The grinding gears hurt my ears. The engineers should probably look at them as well. When the doors finally open at my landing, I shuffle out and head for my quarters. The door is still snibbed open, but the lights are off. Another power shortage? I press the panel but nothing happens. Maybe it’s a blown fuse. Pulling the door closed, I head for the kitchen, arms outstretched against the darkness, to locate the emergency candles. The lock clicks behind me. I head back for the door wondering how that happened.
“Don’t bother. I deactivated the lights and rigged the door.” A disembodied voice rumbles from the living area. I whirl around barely able to make out the figure silhouetted against the sofa, bulky with squared shoulders.
The deman.
“It’s only us, Daughter Wye,” he says. His voice is deep and detached, hardly the way I remember it from the garden. He hasn’t moved a muscle. If he hadn’t spoken, I might have thought he was a mannequin placed there as a practical joke. The kind of thing Gamma might do as a prank. A flashlight blinds me. I try to avoid it, but the beam keeps moving, catching me full in the face.
“How do you know my name?”
“I almost had myself convinced I could trust you.” He trains the light at my feet. “Why don’t you have a seat, Daughter Wye? Right where you are. Back against the door please.”
There’s no option but to comply. I kneel by the door. He grunts as I curl my knees into my chest and wrap my arms around them. My thin cotton robe seems so flimsy.
Mustering what’s left of my courage, I ask, “What do you want?” As my vision begins to adjust, I make out the planes of his face, jaw set hard, lips pressed into a thin line. He hasn’t moved from the sofa. He raises the flashlight beam and shines it directly into my eyes.
“Could you please turn that off?” I try to inject some force into my words, but I’m exhausted by everything that’s happened. If he’s going to hurt me, I almost hope he’ll do it quickly. I can’t take much more of this. Between the commander’s interrogation and the Temples’ revelations, I’m done. “This would be easier if I could see you.”
“Why?” he asks. “So you can give the Protectors a better description of me? No, Daughter Wye, I think you’ve seen enough.”
“Please stop calling me that. And turn off the light.”
“You really don’t like being looked at, do you? I thought women were supposed to like being admired. That’s what the history books say.”
“Not by someone like you.” Is there anyone who isn’t going to attack me today? And what would a deman know about our history books?
“By a wild evil creature, you mean?” He doesn’t try to conceal his sneer.
“You said it, not me. Why don’t you prove you’re better than that? Why don’t you let me go? Or at least have the guts to turn on the lights. If you’re going to hurt me, get on with it. Or get out.”
My arms shiver around my knees, but I hold firm. The deman plays the light over my features. Then, without warning, he turns it off, plunging the room into darkness.
“Stay still,” he says.
Determined to maintain some semblance of dignity, I try not to move. His measured breaths are still coming from across the room.
When he speaks again, his voice is unsteady, halting. “We made a deal, and you broke it.”
“What?” I pull my robe tight around my legs.
“You sent them after me,” he says. “I didn’t think you’d do that. I let myself believe you’d keep your word.”
“I didn’t send them.”
“How did they know where to look for me?” His voice is still coming from the sofa. He hasn’t moved any closer.
I drop my head to my knees and brace my hands around the back of my neck. “My communicator, genius. They probably scanned for it.” Then a sudden realization hits me. “The communicator. That’s how you found out my name, where I live.” He doesn’t respond. “But how did you bypass the encryption?”
Demen are supposed to be brutes: more brawn than brain. How would he have learned to operate such a complex device? I risk a glance at him. Despite the darkness, I can make out his form, head bowed slightly forward.
“Don’t get any ideas about using it to send a message. I dumped it. She probably has it by now.
“Who?”
“Your friend. That commander. Tall and dark. With the pissy attitude. She came looking for me, with some friends. I stayed hidden, but I heard them talking. When she couldn’t find me, she decided to have another chat with you.”
“When?”
“Not too long ago. Should be here soon.”
What?
I twist around and hurl myself at the door, ignoring the pain in my arm, desperate to open it. It won’t budge. He trains the light on me. What’s the matter with him? Even if he doesn’t care what she does to me, doesn’t he realize what will happen if she catches him? I round on him, trying to keep my voice under control. “We have to get out of here. What do you think will happen if she finds us both here?”
“What do you think will happen?” He holds the flashlight vertically at his thigh. It illuminates his face as an eerie mask, his features uneven and threatening in the shadows.
“Please, think for a moment. Think about what you’re doing.” I don’t know who scares me more: the deman in my living room, or that commander.
“If this is the only way I can find Delta, so be it. Either you agree to help me – really help me – or the Protectors can take us both.”
“How can I help you? I’m in enough trouble as it is. Because of you.” I have to press my palms into the solid panel behind me to stop myself from lunging at him. “Because of you she took me. They locked me up and interrogated me.”
“That’s why you spilled your guts to her?” He rises to his full height. I’d forgotten how big he is. I cower, but there’s nowhere for me to go.
“I didn’t have a choice. They took me. She hurt me.” Tears of frustration blur my vision. We’re going to end up back in Commander Theta’s clutches and all because I can’t get through to this brainless deman. He takes a step toward me and my legs go weak.
“I don’t believe you,” he says quietly. “She must have planted you outside the Clinic that night. Did they slash your arm to trick me, or did you do it to yourself?”
This is like talking to a rock. Despite my nerves screaming at me to stay put, I inch forward. He doesn’t move, doesn’t stop me. I keep moving closer, ignoring the stiffness in my legs. When I’m only a foot away, he steps to the side as if bracing for an attack. I don’t give him the opportunity to react. I grab his hand, the one holding the flashlight, and guide the beam so it’s level with my stomach. With my other hand, I pry open my robe and lift the bottom of my pajama shirt just enough for him to see the edges of the bruise where the commander punched me. “This is what that commander did to me. Because of you.”
The deman leans in for a closer look. I can feel his breath tickle my skin, smell the hint of oak and lavender. I force myself to stay still.
He backs away, taking the light with him. “No. You’re working with them.”
“I’m not.”
I’m desperate for him to believe me because I’ve worked out who scares me more, and it isn’t him. I bend to retie the belt on my robe as the door rattles. He snaps off the light but not before I notice his panicked expression. There are voices outside and electronic beeps. Someone’s working the lock. It must be the commander.
“Come here.” He hisses at my ear before tugging me up on the sofa beside him. I stumble and groan at the pain in my arm. “Shh! Put your foot in my hands. I’m going to boost you.”
“What?” I can’t see anything. He grabs my bare foot and rests it in his palm. Then he interlaces his fingers beneath it.
“What are you doing?”
He shoves me upward. “Grab the edges.”
I reach for the sides of the opening to the ventilation shaft above our heads. That must be how he came in. My arms burn, but I pull myself through as he pushes me from underneath. I have only just secured myself when he barrels into me and shoves me aside to slide something across the opening: the access panel. I hold my breath as the door opens below us. A light snaps on in my quarters, causing a dappled glow to spread into the vent through the metal grate the monster has fitted into place in the nick of time.
“We’re in, Commander Theta.”
The commander’s here. With reinforcements.