I was shaken awake. My head pounded so hard I couldn’t open my eyes more than a slit. Then I wished I hadn’t. Staring down at me was a person I’d hoped to die without ever speaking to again: Noah Icahn. Not the main leader, Isaac, but just as bad, Isaac’s son.
Keith had killed Noah’s brother Liam right in front of my eyes a year earlier during the riot when Isaac and his followers fled Genesis. Well, every one of them except Liam. He’d died on the floor after muttering about Isaac keeping humanity alive. I wasn’t interested then, and I hadn’t grown any more invested in his story now.
“I expect you’re going to pass out again. You have quite a head injury.”
I groaned. His assessment was probably accurate. There was no point in arguing. Most likely, I would pass out any second.
“I just wanted you to know I had you. I want you to understand that we’ve won.”
They’d always won. How could they have thought otherwise? Somehow, they’d destroyed mankind and kept us all underground and unaware for thirty years. The best any of us could do was try to survive in the world they’d left us. Why wasn’t it enough? Why were they always after me?
Patrick. My eyes filled with tears. He had to be dead. Another Lyon’s death for me to carry. The Lyons family must rue the day they met me.
I closed my eyes. Noah had been right. There was no way I could stay awake, not with the amount of pain throbbing in my head.
When I woke up again, it was in a bed located in a room I’d never seen before. Most of the time when I was whacked around until I was unconscious I found myself tied up in strange dank places with no light.
I sat up slowly. I’d been hit on the head enough to know there would be dizziness following any abrupt movements. After a few minutes, I’d managed to get into an upright position. The effort had been significant. Whatever injuries I’d incurred weren’t small. There was no way I could run away on my own, and I had no idea where I was anyway.
What had happened to Patrick when everything had exploded? There had been vampires. Had he died in the blast or had the fangs taken him out? I closed my eyes and rested my head in my hands. I liked neither thought.
The last few days had been too much for me. I was used to constant action; the fear of death was almost null inside of me now. How could I fear it when I faced it so constantly? But between the explosions that had stranded me in the vampire lairs, Deacon and Micah’s secret agenda, and now this, I wasn’t sure I could take any more.
I coughed, and it hurt my ribs. I opened my eyes. When I’d been a child, I’d hoped that if I could close my eyes I could reach out to Tia and her family. Like if I just thought about them hard enough they would hear me in my mind. They would come and rescue me from whatever danger I perceived myself to be in.
It hadn’t worked then and it wasn’t going to work now.
No matter how much I called for Tia, she never came to my house and took me away from my father.
But I couldn’t stop myself from thinking about all the people I wished were around.
Micah. He was always a man with a plan. He’d find us a way out of here. Keith. He was always so sure of things. He’d know how to survive this. If he was even speaking to me. Chad. Well, that was impossible. I missed looking up and seeing Chad, only two years older than me but somehow worldly and in charge.
Jason. I laughed at the thought. Which Jason did I want? The one who had carried me through the snow or the psycho wolf that wanted my blood? Sweet Jason would be as useless in this situation as me unless he could shift to kill someone. Psycho Jason would just take off my head.
Deacon. Yes. I nodded. I would have liked his presence. We worked well together. I cared about him. He’d be tough, protective, and a little bit of a knight in shining armor. So why had I believed he was giving me to the vampires and the werewolves? Well, because he’d wanted me to. I was going to have to work on my issues with him, if I ever got to see him again.
I stood up on unsteady feet. It had helped to think about the people I cared about. Tia would have to be dealt with if I ever got back as well. She couldn’t, apparently, keep her mouth shut, which was of little surprise to me.
“Hello?” I called aloud to the empty room, surprised I was alone.
The door swung open. A man stepped inside who I’d seen around a lot growing up in Genesis. His name was Darren, and he’d been one of Icahn’s private Warriors. When Icahn and his ilk had fled from Genesis upon discovery of their involvement in Armageddon, he’d gone with them.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and hairy. He had dark, long hair.
“Nice to see you, Rachel. Look how much you’ve grown up in the last year.” He grinned as if he’d returned from an innocent yearlong mission, instead of betraying all of us.
I didn’t like him grinning at me. Maybe it was the Turtle’s recent foray into disgustingness, but I really didn’t think that older men should be looking at me at all unless I’d had near-paternal relationships with them since childhood. Maybe I’d eventually get over this feeling, but for now it was what I wanted.
When I didn’t answer, he kept talking. “How’s that head feeling? Noah said you got knocked around pretty badly when the wall exploded.”
“Well.” I sighed. I could pretend to be pleasant or I could give in to the eventual rudeness that was bound to occur between Darren and myself. We weren’t friends. Had never been friends. He was too old to be called my contemporary and too young to be one of those adults who condescended to teenagers as if we could talk about his good old days. “He blew up the wall so I guess he would know just how hurt I am.”
“Sure. Can you walk or do you need help?”
I blinked, trying to clear my head. This was ridiculous. Darren and I stood around talking like this was a normal situation. I was a captive. They’d blown up a wall to get to me. Where were the raging wolves and the blood-lusting vampires? I didn’t need friendly. If this was a kidnapping, Icahn could at least do me the courtesy of sticking to the kidnapping rules.
“Aren’t you going to drag me out of here kicking and screaming?”
He leaned his head to the left like he couldn’t understand what I’d just said. “Why would I do that? You’re family now.”
“I’m what?” I took a step toward him. “Say again?”
“Oh, well, Dr. Icahn’s going to explain it all to you. Do me a favor. When you’re thinking about whom you want to take, think about me, would you? You’re certainly old enough now.”
“Old enough?” I wished I could think of more constructive things to say than to repeat his own words back to him, but I had to try to make sense of what he said.
He took my arm. “It will all be clear now that you’ve been rescued.”
This was too bizarre, and it was only self-preservation that kept me from saying so. Noah had shaken me awake to tell me he’d won. That was the truth I knew to be so despite all this weirdness.
Darren helped me walk a distance through a small house and outside. It took me only a few seconds to realize I was in a habitat. I’d never been in one other than Genesis. It looked very similar, only the ceilings were slightly higher and the fake-sun lights were brighter.
Even though I’d promised myself I wouldn’t speak to Darren again, I couldn’t help the question that popped out of my mouth. “Where is this place?”
“Redemption.”
Well, that didn’t help me. I didn’t know of a habitat called Redemption and we’d had to memorize them all for school when we were five years old.
“Has it been renamed?”
Darren nodded. “Yes.”
He wasn’t going to be more explanatory, so I decided to look around for clues instead of beating my head against his silent brick wall. If we had more sunlight coming in, it probably meant that wherever we were had more natural sunlight outside. Or not. Maybe they just wanted more sunlight here.
I wasn’t any kind of detective and only noticed the people forming outside to stare at me. They watched me in bunches, pointing, and whispering behind their hands as I was escorted by.
“What’s the matter? Never seen a girl who’s been kidnapped, abused, and dragged against her will before?”
No one answered me except for Darren, who snorted out of his nose. “You didn’t used to be this way. You were such a quiet child.”
“Yeah, well, when your father is amusing the entire habitat with his drunken indulgences you learn to shut up and not make a sound.”
“So what happened? Did Harold finally quit drinking?”
“No.” I sighed, wondering why I continued to talk to Darren as if we knew each other. Well, I supposed it was better than having no one to speak to at all. The vampires and their eerie silence did nothing to liven up any horrible situation. “He opened a bar.”
Darren made that snorting noise again, and I almost suggested he should go find a medic. That couldn’t be good, and I hoped it wasn’t catching.
“I’ll have to see if I can stop by his bar before we destroy the beacon of Hell that is Genesis.”
And just like that, all of my making-the-best-out-of-this-situation attitude fled the scene. It didn’t matter because I was shoved through the door of the main bureau hall. The closer we’d gotten to the main enclave, the less gentle Darren became. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be as nice to me as he’d been earlier, or maybe he was just getting excited. I had no idea what constituted a good time for him. Roughing me up could be the highlight of his week.
After passing through several rooms that looked like offices filled with people typing and filing, I arrived at a conference table. Darren pulled the chair out from behind me and I sat in it.
A woman entered. Her heels clicked on the floor like the tapping keys of a typewriter. She had dark hair, glasses, and a round face that would always make her look heavy even if she was skinny. Her smile seemed kind, which threw me off my game. Why were all of these people so polite?
“Would you like tea or coffee?”
I cleared my throat and hid my shaking hands in my lap. “Pardon me?”
“Tea or coffee?”
“She just woke up, Rosemary. She may not want either of those things.”
I slammed my hand on the table. “Someone is going to tell me what the heck is going on here before I freak out.”
I hoped my words sounded tough because I felt as delicate as Keith’s baby. All someone would have to do would be to drop me on the floor and they’d cause permanent damage to my brain.
“Hmmm.” Rosemary patted my shoulder, and I noticed that her nails were red. I gasped. “What is the matter with your hand?”
“What?” She held up her hand to examine it. “What do you see?”
I pointed. “Your nails are red. What happened to you? Is that blood?”
Rosemary looked at Darren over my head. “How badly did she get hurt when that wall blew up?”
“I think she’s just never seen it before. Genesis has different amenities, as you know.”
“Oh.” She giggled into her hand. “Sweetheart, this is just nail polish. It’s like paint and I put it on my fingers on purpose. When it starts to chip, sometimes I pick a different color. You’ve seen this before. You’ll remember soon.”
I didn’t like her words any more than I liked the fake red-as-blood-on-a-vampire’s-mouth color on her hands. I preferred my previous kidnappings. At least they had made sense.
“I’m going to get her tea and chicken broth.” Rosemary turned on her heels and clicked out of the room.
“Darren, please. I won’t run away. How could I? I’m weak and pathetic right now. But, please.” I’d used the word twice now and I hated saying it to him at all. “Can’t you please?” Three times. “Explain to me what is going on.”
“No, they can’t, but I can.”
I turned to look, shivers rolling up and down my spine. I’d somehow hoped that Noah would be the only Icahn I had to see during this kidnapping. His father was the last person I ever wanted to see in the world. Yet, here he was, once again proving to me that what I wanted mattered little to the universe. Isaac Icahn still called all the shots because he held all the power. As strong and tough as I am, I was nothing compared to him and I suspected that would always be the case.
He looked exactly the same as he had the last time I’d seen him, which was when he’d given me to Payne, who I was glad was now dead, and condemned me to a life in the mines before death. I wasn’t looking forward to whatever he had in store for me now.
The only difference a year had made in him, as far as I could see, was that he walked holding a cane. It was a large, black device with what looked like a devil head on the top of it. The demonic design stood out strikingly from the black cane, as it was bright red, like Rosemary’s nails. I wondered how he hurt himself and didn’t feel badly for wishing it had been in a horrible painful way.
“Darren, could you excuse us for a while?” He sat in a chair next to me. Darren nodded to Icahn, bowed slightly, and left the room. I wondered where Rosemary had gone to get my tea. I would like any company in the room with me at that moment, even the woman with the blood red nails would do.
“Look.” Sweat dripped down the back of my neck. Even being in this man’s presence made me unreasonably nervous. “I don’t think we have anything left to say to another. I realize you went to a lot of trouble to get me….”
He shrugged. “Not much.”
That stopped me in my tracks. “You blew up an outer wall in a habitat.”
“Yes. It’s a rather simple maneuver, particularly when you designed the structure, as I did a long time ago.”
“Right.” I nodded and sat back in my chair. “When you were planning the downfall of mankind and siding with the monsters to make yourself a god.”
He arched an eyebrow and touched the top of his cane. “Is that what I did?”
“Yes.” I wasn’t going to argue with this man or get caught in a web of lies that he created around the truth. The vampires worshiped him like he was a god and he had been responsible for Armageddon.
“Do you think that one man could orchestrate such a thing on his own?”
I fell silent before forcing myself to answer. “Yes.”
Although now that he mentioned it, the idea seemed a little bit too simple. He would have needed to have help from someone….
“You don’t remember pre-Armageddon so I don’t expect you to know this but before everything changed, it took a lot of bureaucratic tape to even get someone to show up and work on a job site. I couldn’t possibly have secretly masterminded such a plot without anyone else knowing about it. I mean, Rachel, I was a scientist, not a demigod.”
There were a lot of things he said that I needed to focus on. This was the most chatty he had ever been about his role in the deaths of thousands of people. But one thing sort of stuck in my head, and I couldn’t make sense of anything else until I addressed it.
“I don’t remember pre-Armageddon because I wasn’t there. I wasn’t born until thirty years after.”
He tapped on the table. “Really? Is that what you think?”
“Yes.” Had he lost all sense of reality? “My father lived through it but he was a small child. I came after that.”
“Interesting. I would have thought your time out in the world doing all the things you’ve done over the past year would have eliminated a bit of the programming. I’m glad to see it still holds so tightly in your brain. It means we’re doing it exactly the right way.”
“Programming? What does that mean?” My heart rate had kicked up again and it felt as if I’d just run a race.
He reached out and touched my hand. “Relax. Don’t get upset. Nothing bad is going to happen to you here. I can promise you. The panic you are feeling now is the training kicking in. Your body is objecting to the path your brain wants to go down. Again, everything is as it should be.”
I jumped to my feet. “What kind of game are you playing?”
The room tilted slightly, and I wished I hadn’t leapt like that. I was still recovering from the assault I’d taken when the wall had been destroyed in Genesis.
“Do you know where you are, Rachel?’
“No.” I threw my hands in the air. “Darren called it Redemption but there is no such habitat called Redemption unless you hid habitats that we knew nothing about.”
“We recently renamed it, but that’s no matter. You wouldn’t have heard about it under its previous name either.” The door opened and Rosemary came in holding the tea. She placed the cup in front of me after she’d set down a napkin to make sure the table didn’t get wet. Smiling at us, she walked back out of the room again and shut the door quietly behind her.
“So if I’ve not heard of it, why bother asking me stupid questions?”
“I wanted to see if you remembered your last visit?”
“Okay.” I walked to the other side of the room. “This is a sick game you’re playing. I’ve never been here before. Not ever. This is what Noah meant when he said you’d won. Fine, you win. I’m scared. Now cut it out.”
Icahn groaned. “Noah. My son is nothing if not competitive and you did challenge him. What can I say? He’s not likely to get over your attitude or the fact that you killed his brother. Although, that was entirely Liam’s fault. If he had left with us he’d still be here.”
“You’re a cold man to speak about your son like that.” I didn’t correct the assumption that I’d killed Liam. Keith had done the deed and Chad would have if Keith hadn’t gotten there first. I would have ended the man’s life, if either of them had given me the chance.
“I’ve lost many people. More than you can possibly imagine. My wife, my daughter, all of my friends from before.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “You might say I’ve come to see death as what it is—the one thing left in the universe that we cannot control.”
“Except you tried to. You tried to kill me. Several times.”
He raised an eyebrow and took the tea I hadn’t touched. He raised the glass to his lips with a shaky hand. “Did I?”