Chapter Thirty-Three

Sami

I was stupid.

Stupid and naive.

I trusted Adrian, and he lied to me as much as anyone. Maybe more. He used me. He bought my loyalty, all so he could use my skills to get his revenge. Then he stepped in and fashioned himself as a concerned friend to keep an eye on his investment. I should’ve seen it, but I hadn’t. I thought he was really my friend. He’d been so convincing.

When I came back to consciousness, my first thought was a giddy, I’m not dead! Though, when I cracked open an eye, my head thundered in beat with my heart and kinda made me wish I was. I didn’t know how long I’d been out, but it was long enough for them to move me to some kind of bunker. Columns of electrical panels filled the concrete room. Electricity hummed all around us, a low-level vibration you could feel as much as hear. A generator grumbled somewhere nearby and powered two industrial work lights, which flooded the space bright white.

Two people moved around somewhere behind me. I heard Adrian’s voice and a woman’s, but I couldn’t make out their words.

I was completely on my own here. Eric and HORNET wouldn’t be coming after me. They probably didn’t even know I’d been abducted, and if they did, would they care? Maybe not. Eric had made it quite clear he didn’t want to see me ever again.

I needed to start working on an escape plan.

I twisted in my chair, craning my neck to look for the exits and ignoring the dizziness that swamped me with every movement. Sickness surged up from my stomach, and I gulped it back. Closed my eyes and breathed through my nose until the urge passed. I refused to puke all over myself and give my captors the pleasure of my humiliation.

“Traitor bitch is awake,” the female voice snarled behind me. I carefully turned my head to see her standing in front of a table filled with computers. She wore a black jumpsuit under a leather jacket, and her lavender hair fell in a long, straight stream from a high ponytail. She had piercings all over her face—nose, lip, a couple in each eyebrow, and a line of hoops running up each earlobe.

As she moved around to stand in front of me, I stared. It was like looking in a mirror. She was…me. Not the me I was now—the me I’d been before joining Class Alpha. The person I’d have become if not for HORNET’s training program. Disillusioned, bitter, angry.

“Leave her alone, Morgana,” Adrian said from across the room. He was too far away for me to see him even when craning my neck.

I jolted in shocked realization. I knew that name. Never met the person behind it in real life, but I had spent hours with her online. I had once considered her a friend. “You’re A.K.A.”

She scoffed. “We were. This is what’s left of us.”

And suddenly I knew what I had to do. They had to see me as a person. They had to see me as one of them if I had any chance of surviving. “I was, too.” I had a feeling Adrian conveniently forgot to mention that to her, which was confirmed when her eyes narrowed.

“You’re lying. I know exactly who you are. You’re Fragment. You weren’t A.K.A.”

“I swear I was. I went by Charade back then. C’mon, you know me. We were friends. You adopted the name Morgana le Fay from the sorceress in Arthurian legend. We talked online all the time, and you told me about…”

Had to think. Had to think. She still looked doubtful. What was something she told me that would prove I was who I claimed? It was so long ago…

I noticed a bit of color peeking out from under her jacket sleeve. A tattoo. And it sparked a memory: “You got a dragon tattoo on your back when you were sixteen and were afraid your parents would find out. When they did, your dad hit you so hard you ended up in the hospital for three days. You told everyone except me that you fell down the stairs.”

She blinked at me. “Charade? Oh my God. Didn’t you go to jail?”

“Yeah, I did. They released me when I turned eighteen.” I stared at her in dismay. She’d been my closest friend back in my A.K.A. days. We’d spent hours talking to each other online. “What are you doing here?”

“Helping Adrian,” she said like I was crazy for asking. “He never stopped loving me all that time we were separated. He wrote to me every month and assured me we’d be okay. When I finally got out of jail, he gave me a home, money. Helped me find a job. He saved me. I owe him.”

I closed my eyes. Couldn’t she see how similar our stories were? Yes, she’d known Adrian’s identity from the start, but the manipulation was still the same. He wouldn’t recruit anyone who had a safe place to land. He’d gone after the most vulnerable. “He didn’t save you. He’s manipulating you.”

“He loves me.”

No. That wasn’t love. At one time, I might have mistaken it for love, too, but I knew real love now. I knew what it felt like to be cherished for who you were and not what you could do for someone. I knew real love could make you feel whole, but because you had to open yourself up to it, it could also break you into a thousand tiny pieces.

Adrian wasn’t capable of love, but telling Morgana that wouldn’t accomplish anything except make her angry.

She looked at someone behind me. “You didn’t tell me she’s one of us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Adrian said, moving into my line of sight. He wore a tight T-shirt that showed all the black tattoos covering muscles I always thought were too big to be natural. In one hand he carried a laptop while he typed with the other.

“Yes, it does,” she insisted, hands on her hips. “We created Nomad to get justice for everyone. That includes her. She was fucked over, too.”

“She’s not innocent. She’s with him,” Adrian sneered. He jabbed a button hard on his keyboard, then turned the screen around so we both could see it.

My face went hot at the images on the screen of Eric and me making love in the computer lab this morning. The bastard had hacked my computer and used the camera to record us.

Why—

No, the whys didn’t matter right now. All that mattered was survival, and the best way to make it out of this clusterfuck alive was to keep him talking, keep him distracted. Hopefully buy me time.

I curled my lip in disgust. “Bet you get off on recording people. Can’t get any yourself? Need to live vicariously?”

Adrian backhanded me. Hard. I heard Morgana draw in a sharp breath. I saw sparks of white and tasted blood on my lips. Maybe it was hysteria brought on by fear and rage, but I laughed.

He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me out of the chair until the zip ties around my wrists cut into my skin. I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t raise my hands to defend myself. I gagged, but refused to show him fear. Even as my lungs burned and my vision swam, I met his gaze. Just when I thought I’d pass out from lack of oxygen, he abruptly released me. I dropped back into the chair. My hands were pale from the pressure of the ties, and my fingers tingled painfully as blood rushed back into them.

But the zip ties had loosened.

Adrian stared down at me in disgust. “We could’ve kept you out of this, but you had to sleep with him. You had to make him fall in love with you. Now to hurt him, I have to hurt you.”

I tried to speak. Couldn’t. I coughed and gulped in heaving lungfuls of air. “I admired you. I worshiped you. I went to jail for you.”

“No.” He picked up his laptop and jabbed a finger at the frozen image of Eric’s face on-screen. “You went to jail for him. We all did.”

Adrian thought he was telling me something I didn’t already know. Play the part he expected. Play Adrian’s game.

Because this was all a game to him. The messages he left after each hack proved it. According to him, he was in a chess match with Eric, but if he thought I was a captured queen, he was going to be sorely disappointed.

Play the part.

And keep his attention off the loosened zip ties. I could almost squeeze my hands through. Just needed to buy myself more time.

I shook my head. “No. Those were rumors. He didn’t—”

“Take a deal and let the rest of us suffer the consequences? Yeah, he did.” He set his computer on my lap and hit play again. The sounds of sex filled the room. “Let me hear you say it. Who have you been fucking?”

On the video, Eric and I had finished, and he lay with his cheek pressed against my spine, his eyes closed, his features relaxed with sated bliss.

Pain squeezed my heart until I wasn’t sure it still beat.

“Say it,” Adrian demanded. “Who is he?”

“Khaos,” I whispered.

A memory of his shy, dimpled smile the night we met flashed through my mind, and I viciously shoved it away. I didn’t want the fond memories. I needed every last shred of anger I could muster right now if I was going to convincingly play the part Adrian expected. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t know Eric—”

“Khaos,” he said through his teeth.

“I didn’t know Khaos turned on us. Let me help you now.” I shifted my gaze from Adrian to Morgana. “Please. I need to help. I need to make things right with you.”

“So you can warn your boyfriend?” she scoffed. “You’re not touching a computer.”

Adrian laughed then, harsh and bitter, and slapped the lid closed on the laptop. “Besides, I’ve already invited him to the party. He should be here within the hour. Then we’ll see who the real master hacker is.”