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I roll my neck and shoulders. The cuffs are on too tightly, pulling me taut.
Surrounded by guards, Luke and I wait for the elevator as it slowly makes its way down from the higher floors. When it arrives, the doors slide with a ding and a whoosh.
Lamia takes a step forward but freezes when Elliot and his twin dwarfs step out.
My senses go on high alert. I take a step back and run into a guard. He pushes me away. Elliot stops and surveys us with calm, golden eyes. There’s no surprise, anger or any type of emotion in his expression.
He brings his hands together and rubs them up and down. “Not a dull moment.”
Lamia jumps in front of him, making herself look taller. “I caught them trying to get away. She’s a traitor. And Lyra, too. I’m pretty sure. This one’s a Fender. She never—”
Elliot puts a hand up. “I know. I know,” he says. “Do you think me an idiot? Think I would have a snake in my own lair and not be aware of it?”
My blood freezes in my veins. He knows?! Oh, God. How long? How much?
“Lyra’s been taken care of and won’t be a problem anymore.”
Lyra! She’s dead. How did Elliot know? How?!
The answer steps out of the elevator, turning my heart into a cold, hard piece of rock.
Rheema.
“How is our dear James?” Elliot leans his face close to mine, then flicks a triumphant grin in Rheema’s direction.
My mouth goes dry. I can’t swallow the lump in my throat.
God, she’s an Eklyptor. But how did she fool Kristen’s test?
“You saw James recently, didn’t you?” Elliot asks me.
I struggle to pull my eyes away from Rheema and the odd expression on her face.
“In a cemetery, if I’m not mistaken,” he continues, a faraway buzz in my ears. “Quite appropriate, I think. At least for him. You, on the other hand, I’ll have to keep around, at least until you cease being useful.” He gives Luke a sly smile.
“How?” I ask Rheema in a trembling voice. “How did you—?”
“Proved negative to those stupid blood tests? I know that’s what you’re gonna ask,” she says, her brown eyes hard and hollow.
I give her a weak nod.
“Because . . .” She puts her hands out in a demonstrative fashion without giving me an answer. She doesn’t have to. It comes to me of its own horrifying accord.
“Because you’re human,” I say, indignation coating me in a three-inch thick layer. “You fucking bitch,” I snarl, throwing myself in her direction. Someone grabs me from the back keeping me from biting her to death. I growl with impotence, baring my teeth at her.
“I’m not going to be on the losing end of this battle,” she says from under her nose. “I’m not going to end up like Oso, Xave and so many others. I get a pass.”
“You’ll pay for this.”
Elliot steps between us, barring her from my view. “Isn’t this fantastic?” he asks in his most sarcastic tone. “And the best part of everything,” he puts his hands out, palms up, then brings them back together again, “is that you have helped deliver James on a silver platter. I know all about your little hacking efforts, Marci.” He bares his teeth as he struggles to contain his anger. “My Spawners were . . .” He can’t finish. His eyes waver as if the dead creatures were his children. He takes a step forward, grabs my face and squeezes it, his fingers digging into my cheeks. A shiver runs through my body at the icy quality of his touch. “You have cost me too much, little crass girl.” He pushes me, lets go and wipes his hand on the front of his suit.
“But, in the end, it’s all working out in my favor. It will be sweet making you pay, you know. You owe me in blood, and blood I shall have. It makes no difference to me if it’s in a test tube—not when you have given me James and his pathetic IgNiTe rebels. You’ve led them astray, my dear. They will be highly disappointed when they don’t find me there and, instead, encounter the best members of my army. Quite a failure you’ll have to live with from now on. Clever plan. Clever lies. I know there are no Spawners at SeaTac. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I know much more.” He looks almost lovingly in Rheema’s direction. “Your cure will never go anywhere.”
For the first time, I’m happy about James’s secrecy. Rheema only knows there is a cure, not where it came from.
Elliot scoffs and takes a step back, his face heavy with disgust. “Lock them up!” He orders abruptly, pointing at Lamia. “I make you personally responsible for them. They are to be kept contained and unharmed. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.” She responds between clenched teeth.
“Now, everyone else, I have a mission for you. A mission you cannot fail.”
With that, he walks off, spewing orders. He wants everyone to go to SeaTac and join his other forces, the soldiers who stayed behind after capturing Luke. There, they will ambush IgNiTe, killing every single one of them. When they’re done, they will chop James’s head off and bring it to Elliot. It’s what he wants and makes sure I hear it all.
He glances over his shoulder, a glint of pleasure in his eyes.
“There’s someone who needs to see their defeated leader personally.”
Like a thin sheet of ice, my hope shatters, revealing what lays beyond: the darkness I’ve always known, the shadows that have haunted me for over ten years.
They never left, and they will never leave.
They will forever obscure any dreams of happiness.