“You bastard,” Kaira whispered.
Remwald turned his full attention on me. “Time to choose between the two loves of your life, Galder. You can expose me and rescue your precious Alliance from the monsters who seek to destroy it, or you can save the girl you love.” His mouth twisted into a knowing smile. “You have what you need to destroy me, but if you use it, we’re all going down together.” He leaned back against his chair and crossed his legs, looking relaxed and utterly unconcerned. “Our collective fates are in your hands, Nat.”
No one spoke for several moments while the full weight of Remwald’s threat came to rest on my shoulders. Either I became Remwald’s slave, or Kaira died.
It was my civic responsibility to hand over the evidence we’d gathered and do what I could to save the Alliance and our city. It was what the BSMU had trained me for, and the decision I know my father would tell me to make.
And yet, in comparison with Kaira’s life, none of that mattered to me. My responsibility might be to the Alliance, but my heart was all hers. I couldn’t believe it had taken me this long to figure it out, but now that I knew, I didn’t hesitate.
“I’ll do it,” I say, my voice coming out clear and strong. “Whatever you need from me, I’ll do it. So long as you leave Kaira out of all of it.”
“Gray, no,” Kaira gasped.
Remwald just smiled, and I could tell he had known it was the choice I’d make.
Kaira pulled me into a corner of the study, even though Remwald and his Combat Mags were only a few feet away and could hear every word we spoke.
“I know you,” she whispered. “You’d rather die than be Remwald’s slave.”
It was true, but it wasn’t just my life at stake. Even if I was dead, those pictures could still be used against Kaira. And I wouldn’t let that happen.
“I’m going to do whatever Remwald tells me to do,” I said, feeling the bitter taste of those words in my mouth, even though I had made the only decision I could make. “And you’re going to get yourself and everyone else we care about the hell out of Boston.”
“I can’t let you go through with this,” Kaira said, frustrated tears filling her eyes.
“I’ll tell you what.” Remwald, still reclining in his chair and looking like he was more than enjoying the spectacle, swiveled his chair to face us. “I’ll give you twenty-four hours to make a decision, since my ‘death’ and the vote will be happening directly after that.” He smirked at me, and I saw in his eyes that he was confident my choice wouldn’t change.
And he was right. I wouldn’t change my mind. I clenched my hands to keep from knocking that cocky expression off Remwald’s face. It was only the two Combat Mags hovering around him who were stopping me.
Remwald stood. “Twenty-four hours,” he repeated. “When your decision is final, have your Techie get in touch with me.” He motioned to the Combat Mags and said, “Get them off my property.”
I felt an iron grip on my shoulder as I was shoved out of the study. As soon as we were outside, the guards started to laugh and congratulate each other on how Remwald had outwitted us.
“Better not wait too long to give the boss your decision, or he might throw you into MagLab with the rest of your kind of freaks,” the guard behind me said.
“Shut your mouth, Barry,” the Mag holding Kaira ordered.
He gave Kaira’s arm a vicious tug when she didn’t keep pace with him.
“Leave her alone,” I snapped.
My guard pulled back his fist and hit me in the jaw with so much force I saw stars.
“Don’t touch them.”
I heard Michael’s soft command and felt the death grip on my arm disappear, even though my vision was still hazy.
The Combat Mags stood at the edge of the lawn and blinked at us as Michael, Kaira, and I got into our car. None of us spoke as we made the ten-minute drive to the meet-up point, where the van was waiting for us. We all sat motionless for several seconds.
And then I slammed my fist into the dashboard.
“Gray, stop—”
I hit the dash again, needing the physical release so I wouldn’t start clawing out my own brain.
“I’ll, uh, go over there now,” Michael said, his gaze fixed on the van. “Take as long as you need.”
Kaira, whose hand was pressed over her mouth, nodded. I couldn’t manage a single word that wasn’t a curse, so I didn’t say anything at all.
Michael got out of the car. As soon as we were alone, Kaira turned around in her seat to face me.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “I know what you’re doing, and just…don’t.”
“What am I doing?” I asked.
“Blaming yourself. Worrying about me. I know you want to save me, but I don’t want your protection. We’re a team on this, Gray.”
“I never wanted to put you in danger,” I managed through my fury and guilt.
“And I never wanted to put you in danger. But no matter how careful we were, we both knew there was some risk of being found out.” She turned away from me so I couldn’t see her face. “Do you regret having been with me, given what Remwald’s done?”
I let out a heavy sigh. “If I were less of a selfish bastard, I would, but I could never regret being with you.”
She turned back to me, her eyes bright with emotion. “I feel the same way.”
I took the hand she held out to me. We sat like that, with our fingers intertwined, as we tried to make sense of the position we’d found ourselves in.
“What do we do?” she whispered.
I shook my head. “My decision’s made. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
With those words, simultaneous relief and dread settled on me. It was the right choice, because it was the only choice I could make. I would do anything to keep Kaira safe.
“Can we just wait a little longer?” she begged, her voice filled with a desperate kind of hope. “Just in case we can figure something else out?”
Even though I couldn’t imagine anything happening in the next twenty-four hours that could make any difference, I nodded. She let out a shuddering breath as I reached up and brushed the tears from her cheeks.
“Smith, Bri, and Yutika are bound to have some questions for us,” Kaira said, rubbing her eyes with the hand that wasn’t laced with mine. “We owe them an explanation.”
I didn’t let go of Kaira’s hand as we walked between the two cars. When I opened up the door, what had clearly been a heated argument abruptly cut off. Michael and A.J. gave me an apologetic look. Smith’s face was hidden behind his laptop screens. Bri and Yutika both looked furious.
Bri was in her titanium form. Silver titanium tears slid down her cheeks and hit the rubber mats on the floor with soft little plunks. “You’re baby killers,” she said, her voice full of hurt and accusation. “I helped a baby killer break out of prison.”
My helplessness lifted enough for me to be angry, and with no other target, I directed all of it at Bri. “That name would only apply if we’d actually had a baby, which we haven’t,” I snapped. “So just relax.”
Kaira gave me a don’t help look. “Bri, please,” she said, her voice breaking.
Bri shook her head, titanium tears still streaming down her cheeks.
“My niece would still be alive if it wasn’t for people like you.” Her tears continued to fall.
I moved forward, but Kaira put a hand on my chest.
“I promise we’ll never have a DAMND child,” Kaira said.
I hated Bri a little for forcing Kaira to say those words. I hated how she made me feel like some kind of monster.
Bri wiped her eyes. “I won’t tell anyone about you, but I can’t live with someone who could someday become a baby killer...not after what my family’s been through.” She swallowed. “Once we get back to Boston, I’m moving out.”
“I understand.” Kaira looked like she was on the verge of tears herself. She took the other girl’s hands in hers. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell yo
u the truth sooner. I owed you that much, and I shouldn’t have accepted your help without giving you all the facts. But I won’t apologize for loving Gray.”
Bri jerked her chin in acknowledgment.
Kaira let go before turning her fierce gaze on Yutika. “The same applies to you. Gray and I should have told you all the truth sooner. I’m sorry for that.”
Yutika looked from Kaira to me. And then, she sighed.
“I can’t judge you for keeping your relationship a secret.” She glanced at Michael before turning back to Kaira. “And I’m okay with you…being together. I think.”
Kaira nodded.
I bit back a sarcastic response. After all, she was taking all of this better than I had a right to expect. Bri’s response had been appropriate, and Yutika’s more than kind…all things considered.
Kaira and I were the freaks.
“And you, Smith?” Kaira asked, pushing down one of the laptop screens so Smith’s face was visible.
Smith shrugged, looking uncomfortable. “Your personal life is none of my business. Honestly, the whole baby killer thing is probably a myth the Alliance made up to hide some nefarious truth about what really happens when Mags and Nats breed.”
“We’re not livestock or lab rats,” I felt compelled to inform the Techie.
I smacked a hand to my forehead. With everything else that had happened, I had completely forgotten about the question I’d meant to ask Smith before. The thought of lab rats brought it back to the forefront of my mind.
“Remwald’s guard mentioned something about a place he called MagLab.”
“Maybe it’s some secret Alliance facility,” Smith said, sounding more than a little thrilled by the prospect. He turned to his computer screens as he began to search.
“Nothing,” Smith said after a few moments.
“What about on those dark web conspiracy blogs?” I asked.
Smith’s face lit up, and then he fixed all of his attention on his screen.
“Really, Galder?” A.J. complained. “Not you, too.”
Smith’s eyes scanned back and forth across the screen. His eyebrows rose.
“Huh,” he said finally. “There’s only one post about it, but it looks legit.”
“A legit conspiracy theory?” A.J. scoffed. “That’s an oxymoron.”
Smith ignored him. “It says there’s a secret branch of the Alliance dedicated to experimenting on,” he squinted at the screen, “children who are the product of Mag and Nat unions.”
Kaira and I looked at each other.
“Does it say anything about where this place is?” I asked Smith, my heart thundering.
Smith shook his head. “But I can try chatting the person who posted this.”
“Do it,” I said. “Now.”
“It’s terrible etiquette to directly reach out to posters on this site,” Smith grumbled.
“This is important,” I told the Techie. “I need to know.”
“Shouldn’t we be talking about more important things, like Graysen becoming Remwald’s Nat slave or him and Kaira being executed for breaking the third high law?” Yutika asked.
I couldn’t explain why, but I had a sense that there was nothing more important than this. Maybe it was just my psyche’s desperation for some new piece of information that would help me escape a life of servitude. All I knew was that I had to figure this out before I gave Remwald my final decision.
“Chatting right now,” Smith declared, typing furiously on his keyboard.
The whole van went silent except for the tapping of Smith’s fingers.
Smith frowned. “Dead end. This guy was just a janitor, and they fried his brain when he quit for family reasons. All he managed to remember was that all the employees were picked up at their homes, blindfolded, and driven to a place called MagLab.”
“He’s illusioned. It’s illusioned,” I said, repeating the words Bobby Axelrod had spoken to Grandma Tashi days ago.
The others looked at me with a puzzled expression.
“Remwald’s the Illusion. What if the Lab everyone keeps talking about, this MagLab, is hidden by illusion?”
“You think Valencia was telling us the truth about the address?” Kaira asked.
“Only one way to find out,” A.J. said.
“Maybe they weren’t involved with drugs, like we’d thought,” Kaira said, sounding excited. “We have to find it and see what Remwald’s been hiding.”
The more I thought about it, the more the pieces started to fit into place.
“Remember what Elizabeth Nelson told us?” I asked the others. “She’d been with a Nat, and she said she went to a lab where they took away her baby.”
“She was psychotic,” Yutika said, but I could hear the note of uncertainty in her voice.
“What if she was telling the truth?” I challenged. “What if the Alchemists there did something to her memory so she wouldn’t be able to talk about what had really happened?”
“That would make sense why my guy doesn’t remember anything,” Smith said, gesturing to his computer.
“Even if all of this is true, and that’s a major if,” Yutika said, “What does it have to do with us or Remwald, or the impending war we’re still trying to stop?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted.
But if this lab was half as shady as I was beginning to think, and I could find a connection between it and Remwald, I might gain some leverage to use against the Director. Finding this place was all I had left.
“Huh, that’s interesting,” Smith muttered. His eyes were closed and his hands hovered above his keyboard.
“What?” I demanded.
“I found something buried in the Alliance archives that mentions MagLab. The information is in the Alliance’s most secure information storage system. They locked it tighter than Fort Knox, which incidentally isn’t very secure. I could have gotten in as a ten-year-old. Speaking of which, we should build a bomb shelter….”
“Smith!” Six voices said at once.
Smith opened his eyes. “All I found was a two-sentence mention of MagLab and Study 249.”
“Study 249?” I repeated.
“Yeah. All it says is that its findings led to the writing and ratification of the third high law.”
I exchanged another look with Kaira.
“Let’s just go check it out,” I said to the others, “and then after, I’ll make the call to Remwald.”
“You want to check out a secret Alliance lab that probably doesn’t exist?” Bri asked, looking skeptical.
“You don’t have to come,” I told her.
Bri looked at Kaira, who nodded.
“None of you have to come,” Kaira said. “I have no idea what we’re walking into, and it might be dangerous.”
Bri hesitated. Then, she said, “I’ll help you guys this last time.”
“I’m with you,” Yutika said.
Michael nodded.
“I’m not letting you find evidence of an Alliance conspiracy without me,” Smith said.
“Danger’s my middle name,” A.J. said. “Let’s take a field trip to MagLab.”
CHAPTER 39
We drove back to the construction site we’d seen the other day. Nothing about it had changed—there was nothing to indicate the place was anything other than what it appeared.
“Let’s get out and have a look around,” I decided. “Park behind that construction truck so the van won’t be so obvious.”
Michael drove forward.
We were about a hundred feet from the truck’s rear when the air around the van rippled. And then the construction site in front of us blinked out of existence. A towering, fully-formed structure appeared in its place.
Kaira swore. “If I’d thought to bring Ma here the other day, she would have sensed this illusion.”
“We had no way of knowing,” I told her.
And I wouldn’t have wanted anyone in Kaira’s family mixed up in this place.
Kaira still
looked distraught, but she gave me a terse nod as we all stared at the building. It was as big as any of the office buildings in the financial district, and it had the same modern, sleek style. A row of glass doors spanned the whole width of the building. Three security guards holding machine guns paced back and forth in front of the doors.
“Reverse, reverse,” Smith hissed. “Before they see us.”
Michael did, and I saw the air around us ripple again as we crossed back to the other side of the illusion. We all let out a breath as the building was replaced with the construction site.
“This is so exciting,” Smith said, practically bouncing in his seat. “This is my first real-life conspiracy. I told you guys, didn’t I? And now we’ve got proof!”
Yutika rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “We’re never going to hear the end of this, now.”
“I wonder what other secret organizations are right under our noses,” Smith said, looking around like one of them might just pop into existence.
“Can we focus on this particular non-conspiracy for the moment, please?” A.J. asked.
“I can take care of those guards,” Bri said, unbuckling her seatbelt.
“Just a sec,” I said. “We need to get in there without anyone seeing us.”
“I can help with that.” Kaira smiled.
Bri, who had been sitting across from me, disappeared.
“Where’d she go?” A.J. asked, patting the air where she’d been sitting moments before.
“Um, I’m right here. Stop touching my face.” Bri’s voice came from the same place she’d been before, but I couldn’t see her.
“I didn’t know you could make people invisible,” Yutika said to Kaira.
“I can’t,” Kaira replied.
“Oh. I’m an ant. Eww!” Bri squealed.
I squinted down at the seat, where a black ant was sitting on its butt with its legs waving in the air.
“I really hate animal illusions,” Kaira said through gritted teeth.
“Alrighty then, I’m off,” the ant announced.
Mags & Nats 3-Book Box Set Page 28
