I’m brought into a holding room at the Constable Headquarters. A white padded, familiar room. I’m not scared. I’m numb. I don’t care what happens to me. They can beat me until I am black and blue. They can torture me in unimaginable ways, and I won’t care. I’ll welcome it because nothing matters anymore. Maybe I’ll get lucky, and they’ll kill me.

I start counting the creases in the padded wall when the door opens and closes so quickly I barely have time to register that someone just walked in. That someone being Kyle. He wraps me in his arms for a brief second then looks worriedly at me.

“I heard you were back, and I am not letting you do this! Why did you come back?”

“I’m done. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be fighting for exactly. I’m not capable of this. I’m not capable of anything anymore.”

Kyle grabs my face firmly with both hands and demands I look at him. “We finally have a chance at freedom, Orion! Please get out of here and figure out all of the things I don’t have time to tell you! Please!”

“But why?” I stomp my foot for extra dramatic effect.

“No buts or whys. Just get the hell out of here! Don’t you see? You are now a glitch in their ‘unshakable’ authority, and they don’t do glitches. Things will only get worse! Please, you need to leave and figure this out! Figure out who you really are!”

“I don’t understand.”

“You are special, Orion. And now you are on the outside with knowledge of your abilities. Use it to your advantage. As long as you are out there somewhere alive, there’s hope. We’ve never had hope in here. We do now, and it’s you. They are distracted, and that’s exactly where we want them. I’m fine in here. We need an insider we can trust.”

“I can trust you, Kyle?”

He looks like I just stabbed him in the heart. “Have I given you a reason not to?”

I laugh. I laugh so hard I have to find the wall for support. “There is nothing you could do to make me trust you. Nothing.”

Kyle is about to say something when the door flies open, and white suits grab both of my arms and yank me from the room. I let them. I keep up with their fast pace down the hall, and I’m brought to a room that’s dark and cold.

They put me directly in the middle then leave the room in a hurry. I hear the door lock, and it echoes throughout the room. I look down at the concrete floor then squint my eyes as I look around the room. The only light that’s helping me see is the light coming from beneath the locked door.

I’m not sure exactly how what happens next happens, but it does. I never even heard footsteps. I’m knocked to my knees, and my hair is yanked back. I feel several slaps to the side of my face then a hard gut-wrenching kick to the stomach. I start dry heaving as I’m knocked face first to the ground. I feel my shirt being yanked up to expose my back then whips violently thrashing against my skin. I bite down on my fist to keep from screaming as I feel my skin tear open. I won’t give them the satisfaction of hearing my cries. My vision starts to blur, but I can see enough to know I’m surrounded. By who, I’m not sure.

The beating finally stops, and as far as I can tell, everyone is gone. I move my hand out to the side and feel a warm, smooth liquid. The light from underneath the door reveals the deep red color. It’s blood. Mine. I can barely keep my eyes open and just about give in to sleep when I hear the door open. I hear it slam shut and close my eyes.

“Am I dying? If so, just let me die. I beg you.” My voice comes out weak.

I feel a warm blanket over me. “Shhh. You’re not going to die.” I know that voice from anywhere. It’s Plath. “I believe it is time you learn about who you really are.”

I’M NOT SURE how long I’ve slept, how I got to where I am, or how there is a hot plate of food sitting next to the bed. I hear laughter echoing from down the hall. I count the different voices I hear. One, two, three, four, five… I sit up and, by some miracle, don’t hurt as bad as I thought I would.

I grab the plate of food and start eating. Starving doesn’t begin to describe how empty my stomach is. After I eat, I down the glass of water beside the bed. I lie back and stare at the ceiling as I let my food settle.

I was whipped, kicked, and slapped. There was blood. How is it that my back is free of pain? The door opens, and I see Plath walk hesitantly in. He smiles a little when he sees the clean plate.

“I figured you were hungry.”

I cut my eyes at him. How dare he come in here and act like horrible shit hasn’t happened between us.

“Where am I?”

He picks up the plate. “Would you like more to eat?”

“Plath, where the hell am I?”

He sighs, sets the plate back down, then sits on the edge of the bed. “You’re at our safe house.”

I raise a brow. “Our?”

“We are back on Earth. The Hunters have safe houses all over the world. We are at one of them. This is where we stay when we’re not on the hunt.”

“I heard more voices. How many others are here?”

I start to sit up, and Plath reaches out his hand to help me, but I refuse his help. His random acts of kindness are pissing me off. He has no right.

“Several.”

I nod and feel my back. I feel bandages but no pain. “How is it possible that I’m not hurting?”

“You were awake on and off when I first got you here, and I was able to get you to take some pain medicine. I also treated all your wounds with a salve that numbs the pain.”

“Why?”

He looks confused, and it makes me want to slap him. “Why what?”

“Why are you doing this? I willingly turned myself in, Plath!”

“Yes, but I and the others here are not willing to let you give up. Would you like to know who you really are?”

“Can I pee first?”

He laughs and points to the hall. “Third door on your left.” I roll my eyes. How is it that we are talking like old friends?

I stand up, and my legs shake a little. I steady myself against a dresser then walk when I feel confident I won’t fall. After using the bathroom, I walk back into the bedroom and sit on the bed.

“Explain.”

I doubt I’ll believe anything he says, and I’m beyond tempted to go out of my way to treat him like shit, but I’m sick of fighting. I’m sick of everything, and I need answers regardless of who the answers come from. They could come from Caym or Nickolai, and I’d welcome them.

“Do you know what your name means?”

I shake my head.

“You were named by your grandfather because it originates from the Greek Hunter, Orion. It’s said that when he died, he was changed into a constellation. The stars are in the shape of a Hunter holding a club and shield. He was a giant and strong as hell. You were destined to be strong, and you are the shield that holds this entire Sphere together. You die; the Sphere dies. You not only can compel minds; you can hold an entire Sphere together without even knowing it.”

I look at him skeptically. “That’s impossible. I haven’t always been alive. Who held it together when I wasn’t born?”

Plath keeps a straight face. “Your grandfather and all those before him that held the gift you now possess.”

“How do you know this?” Chances are he’s just feeding me full of bullshit again.

“I’m one of the Constable. I know everything they do. And it’s been confirmed because when you are weak, so is the Sphere. When you went through the breaking process, it wreaked havoc on the Sphere. And you’ve been weak lately. It’s been easier than ever for Dwellers to escape.”

And here we go again. The devil himself betraying me. When will I stop letting him do this to me?

“So, you brought me here to help me? So that the Sphere stays strong? You keep trying to be nice and apologize and-” I stop when I feel my cheeks burn with anger. “You keep proving to me over and over what an asshole you are! None of this makes sense! Why would they beat me and make me weak if it makes their precious Sphere weak? Please make this make sense!” I scream as I stand up.

Plath remains calm. “It’s not their Sphere; it’s yours, and they don’t want you to know that. They don’t want anything to jeopardize the way the Dwellers view them as gods. They want to stay in control. Dwellers work so that the Constable don’t have to. The Constable weren’t always so cruel. There was a time when all they required were wages so they could sit pretty without lifting a finger. Then Caym came. He loves death; he loves anything dark and bitter. He loves that he can control the ones with abilities to make people act a certain way. But you? You scare him. You intimidate him in ways no one else can, so he wants to keep you in the dark about who you really are. He knows that by your death, everything he created will crumble beneath him.” He inches closer to me.

I move.

“Sage was your sister.” Sage was my enemy. “She betrayed me! Did she know you were her brother?”

“No. She didn’t know. I was so certain she changed her mind about the Constable’s orders. Especially when she held a gun in my direction that day in the apartment. But it was all a part of her game. You know how you were going to be sent out on missions? You were her mission, Orion. She was to keep you in the dark, make you weak, gain your trust then sacrifice herself.”

The three words on the index card flash in my mind. Plath continues, “Everything has led to this. The therapy sessions in Dandux, you getting away with you being you… Everything was a mind game.”

I lean my head back against the wall. “This is all too much to process,” I whisper.

“The rest of the Constable knows that you’re with me; they trust me to bring you back to them. But I won’t.”

I cut my eyes at him. “You talk like you think I trust you. I don’t. One thing I realized during my time on Earth was that the most precious thing I had was time. Time to live, time to try to make things better, time to plan my next move. Time means nothing to me now. There’s nothing to figure out or process. It is what it is. I gave up every bit of my time believing lies and trusting people like you.”

Falling for you.

“I will never get that portion of my life back, and I regret that. I regret you. I regret Sage.”

I keep my eyes locked on the floor. I’m not sure if anything I just said made sense to him, but it did to me. I keep my eyes shifted away from his. I can’t look into his eyes and risk falling into his trap again. He’s only proved to me how dangerous he is even if he was just honest with me. But who knows if it he was truly honest? Honesty is non-existent to me, just like time and trust.

“You’re wrong about me.”

His voice is quiet and stings like venom. Paralyzing and dangerous. This is what happens when I’m around him for more than five minutes. His presence alone exerts some unexplainable force. Then he speaks and his voice, his perfectly chosen words, draws me to him.

I swallow hard as I look at him. “Plath?”

His expression is hopeful. He must be able to sense me caving.

“Yes?”

He inches closer, and I don’t move this time. I want to give him hope, so I can tear him down with my words.

“I hope everything you just told me was the truth because I will destroy you. Little by little, the walls that surround all of your lies will come crashing down, and you will have nowhere to run.” I move up so my lips are close to his ear and whisper. “You may think you know, but you have no idea what I am capable of.”

And in this moment my confidence comes back. I don’t know why or how, but it does. Something about this lying bastard does that to me. He brings out a side of me that I didn’t know existed. I thought I lost it back at the tree where I lost my heart. My soul.

But right here, as I stare at his face, I know that honesty and trust and time do exist. I can always be honest with myself, trust myself, and buy myself time while I figure out how to end this. I am after all, the ‘keeper of the Sphere’ and capable of so much more than even I could imagine. I call the shots now.