Ahriman reached for Chen. “Now to see what happens when she’s deboned. Let her go, Merq.”
I tried to hold on to her but there was no way I could. Ahriman dragged her out of my lap by her arms and left her lying on the floor as he leaned over her and put her on her side. Dr. Blanc inserted a long needle into her hip bone. She didn’t stir with the intrusion and I hoped she wasn’t able to feel a thing.
He stepped away from her and her body stretched taut then slackened, but she didn’t wake.
Ahriman stood and walked over to the chair where Armise was strapped in and lifted his chin. “Let’s wake him up, Dr. Blanc, and let him watch.”
Dr. Blanc took a syringe from the table next to him and injected Armise.
Armise’s eyes flew open and his fists clenched, his focus bouncing around the room then going to where I sat on the floor.
“You’re alive.”
His voice. I had needed that deep rumble of surety—of life—to keep me sane. We could do this. We could survive.
“We do what we have to to survive,” I said.
I looked down at my forearms and hands and struggled to hold on to the anger stirring inside me as I studied my worn body in the muted light.
“I’m so weak, not like you,” I said before I realized what I was admitting out loud.
Ahriman patted me on the head as he walked past me back to Chen’s side—as if I were a dog. And the thought burned a path through my brain, clearing it more than it had been in months. I had been angry once, so furious I could feel the heat of vengeance feeding me.
I had to find that place again.
“He’s going to kill us,” I said to Armise, but my words came out defeat-laden instead of with the vicious need to rail against Ahriman that I could feel building inside me.
Armise shook his head. “He won’t kill you. You’re too important to Anubis and that matters to him.”
Ahriman watched us talk but didn’t stop us. He merely quirked an eyebrow and went back to studying Chen’s unmoving form.
Armise’s gaze bored into me. Centered me. “You have to believe me, Merq. You’re not weak. What you’re seeing isn’t real.” He choked on a bitter laugh and pulled at the restraints around his wrists. “Well, some of what you’re seeing is real.”
Ahriman stood at that and strode toward Armise. “That’s the thing, Merq. Is all of this real? You can’t trust the Mongol Giant. Never could. What Kersch allowed me to do to him is light compared to the chaos occurring in your neuro pathways right now.” He ran the edge of one fingernail down Armise’s arm—an echo of when I’d been standing with him in the PsychHAg headquarters where he held Sarai. “What I’ve done to Armise isn’t nearly all I want to do, but he was manipulative enough to make sure I didn’t have the chance.” Ahriman spun on his heel. “Your father, now he was an interesting subject. I learned a lot from him. But you?” Ahriman pointed down at Chen, who was now writhing on the floor, the transformation taking hold. “What I’ve done to you is infinitely more terrifying than this.”
* * * *
“Months ago, when you arrived”—Ahriman flicked the restraints around Armise’s wrists—“Armise told you about his suspicions that the encryption key had been hidden inside of him.”
“Look at me, Merq,” Armise begged, ignoring Ahriman. “What you see of yourself is not real. Break through what he’s trying to hide from you.”
You have to trust me.
I could hear him say it without him saying the words out loud. I closed my eyes and tried to feel anything but weak, to remember what it was like to fight back after my body actually had been decimated by the explosion in the bunker. Armise was telling me I couldn’t believe what Ahriman was saying or showing me, and I knew that, I trusted Armise and knew he was the one telling me the truth. But I didn’t know what I was supposed to do except survive.
I had to survive.
Ahriman scoffed as if he was truly offended. “I don’t have to hide anything from either of you. Or from anyone. I’m too far ahead for you ever to catch up. Dr. Blanc, please retrieve Dakra.”
Dr. Blanc caught my eyes as he turned toward the door. His features tugged down in a grimace and the fear knotted itself around me again. That fear held me back, erasing all defiant intent from my mind.
Ahriman went to the fire in the corner and pulled out a blade that lay on the edge. “Since it’s unseen whether the living key will survive the full transformation, let’s get that encryption chip out of Armise so our backup is secure.”
“No,” I said in barely a whisper, then again and again, each time my voice gaining strength and my body shaking with the effort to move.
Dakra entered the room and went to Armise’s chair, standing behind him and clasping his hands around Armise’s biceps. Armise tried to shake him off but he was restrained and Dakra was stronger. Armise was the strongest man I knew and this hybrid didn’t have to put any effort into holding Armise down. We weren’t going to survive.
Ahriman crossed the room and flipped the knife into a stabbing position, driving it into the juncture between Armise’s shoulder and arm.
I heard a roar, felt the air whooshing from my lungs before I realized that inhuman sound wasn’t coming from Armise—his eyes went wide then clamped shut as he lost consciousness—that cry was coming from me.
Dakra let go of Armise’s biceps and came around to the front, obscuring my view, but it looked like he was undoing the restraints that circled Armise’s wrist. Dakra lifted Armise’s slack arm and Ahriman sliced through the tendons and cracked the bone, separating the shoulder further as he ripped the shredded remains of Armise’s arm back at an impossible angle. The smoking, red-hot knife seared through his flesh, exposing veins and muscles that snapped under its burning assault.
Ahriman gripped the appendage and yanked it free with one last spray of red that splattered Dakra’s face and chest. He discarded Armise’s arm to the floor and it thumped against the wall, leaving a crimson streak across the concrete. Then Ahriman dug into the brutalized flesh of Armise’s shoulder, a sneer painted on his face, and looked like he was trying to rip something free. He dug in with a sickening, wet suck, his brow knitted together in concentration.
Then he just…stopped and I tried to find my breath. No was all I could think, all I could feel as I watched the pallor of Armise’s skin go gray.
“Oh wait. I forgot I already took the encryption key out of him,” Ahriman said calmly as he took a chip out of his pocket using his bloodied fingers. “But I made some modifications to it.”
Ahriman sliced at the back of Armise’s neck, sending another spray of blood against the wall. “We’re just going to put this back in here… Dr. Blanc, could you please administer the appropriate dosage? Just enough that he has a fighting chance if he’s strong enough.”
Dr. Blanc was shaking as he approached the chair and injected another vial into Armise that brought a hint of light back to Armise’s skin.
I attempted to form my hands into fists, to lift myself off the cold floor and fucking kill Ahriman finally. Armise needed me. So did Chen.
‘We do what we have to to survive.’
The only thing Armise had asked of me was to trust him.
I wasn’t weak. Ahriman was playing with me. A game. This was all a game.
Ahriman peered at me over Armise’s head. “Dr. Blanc, Merq is looking a tad piqued. Let’s calm him down.”
Dr. Blanc went to the table and palmed another syringe.
I tried to find the fight within me, to stoke years’ worth of anger and hurt into forcing my body to move, but my stomach twisted sickly as Dr. Blanc knelt in front of me.
“Why are you letting this happen?” I said to Ahriman’s father, my voice cracking, sweat dripping down my face from the effort to just fucking move.
Dr. Blanc jabbed the needle into my thigh and injected the liquid within it and I waited for the lightheadedness of the drug to overtake me, but seconds passed and nothing came.
“Kill him, please,” Dr. Blanc whispered to me, then stood.
I waited a heartbeat then two, counting the seconds off in my head, sure that the sedative would overtake me at any time. I lifted my hands—I could do that, I could move—and what I saw there was strength.
It was all a game.
I curled my hands into fists.
Killing men was what I did.
I surged up and had my hands—unbreakable grip and a powerful body, Armise had been right—around Ahriman’s neck before he’d even realized I was moving.
His eyes were wide for only a split second then he choked out a laugh. “You break my neck and Dakra will break yours. You’ll have no way to save either of them.”
I tore my eyes away from Ahriman and focused on the hybrid, challenging him to make his move. But he simply stepped away from the chair and crossed his arms on his chest. Dr. Blanc backed up and stood behind the broad shoulders of Dakra.
“I think you may have underestimated how to earn someone’s loyalty,” I spit out to Ahriman.
I glanced down at the gaping wound on Armise’s neck. There was a black chip fused to the top of his spine. I eased my hold just enough for him to speak. “What did you put inside him?”
“Protection for the encryption chip. So no one unsavory can get to it. You remove it from his body, it explodes. He transports, it explodes. And I assure you, unlike what I wasn’t allowed to do to your body, this threat is real. You now have a choice between two versions of one key.”
I let go of him with one hand and swiped the switchblade pin off his lapel—the symbol for the Opposition—and held the sharp ends of it to his throat. I’d kill him and take his comm and transport chips. I knew enough about battlefield insertion for me to be able to get them linked up and find a way out of here.
“I don’t accept either of those choices.” I started to dig the pin in and Ahriman disappeared in a flash of matter dispersal.
I gaped at the emptiness between my hands.
Ahriman had run.
Leaving me with a rogue hybrid and his father, without a comm or a way to transport…
And two people who were dying.
Chapter Fifteen
I went to Armise first, dropping down to examine the seeping wound. Real? Was this real too?
I had flashes of Armise tied up, of bone-thin wrists and blood spattering the walls… My head spun. There was too much blood.
I couldn’t breathe.
“Armise,” I called to him and repeated his name, putting a shaking hand to his face. “Fucking help me here!” I screamed at Dr. Blanc.
Armise breathed, his skin was slick and hot. The slit at his neck where Ahriman had attached the encryption chip wept lines of blood, but there was none from his shoulder, where Ahriman’s scalding knife had cauterized as it burned through Armise’s flesh.
My hand hovered over the place where his arm had been and I nearly retched at the sight. This was more than damage, more than a wound. This callous attack was something Armise could die from if I couldn’t get help fast enough.
I laid my palm on his chest and his whole body shuddered, but he didn’t respond to me.
“Armise!” I tried again. I looked at my hands, rotated my shoulders and verified that what I’d seen earlier was true. My body hadn’t wasted away and I hadn’t lost strength. What I was seeing before me now was the truth.
Shit, this was real.
“Stand back, let me help him.” Dr. Blanc’s voice came from next to me.
I didn’t care that I’d been the one to call for his help, I didn’t care that he had been the one to inject something into me that caused the hallucinations to dissipate, how could I let Ahriman’s father touch Armise?
“If you want him to survive you’ll need me alive,” Dr. Blanc said to me.
I had no other choice and he knew it. I put my hands up and stepped away to let him work. On the floor, Chen had curled into a ball and was now still. I glanced up to see where Dakra was and swore out loud when I realized he was gone too.
I couldn’t transport with Armise. Even if Ahriman’s threat about the chip destroying itself wasn’t real, Armise was in shock and likely wouldn’t survive the transition to the States. Even if I thought there was any chance he could survive it I didn’t know how to work the transport room we’d arrived in.
But Chen would.
I couldn’t take Armise out via transport but I could bring someone here. Force them to this platform just like I had Jegs.
I dropped to the ground and rolled Chen to her back. Her breathing was too fast and so was her heart rate, but she opened her eyes—the same ones I could remember looking into for the last ten years—and I had hope that maybe, maybe she’d made it through the transition with the ease Ahriman had been testing her for.
“Chen,” I growled at her. I’d never had much patience when a situation went tits up and we were well beyond that facet now. “Chen! I need you to get the fuck up and work the transport. Bring someone here.”
Chen sputtered and coughed but went directly into battle-ready mode just like she always had. “Who?”
I poked at her side where the needle had been inserted and she swatted my hand away. When her hand connected with my arm the force of it hurt me. I cringed and shook off the waves of pain. “Maniel.”
“The Dark Ops officer?” she asked, her eyes going wide.
I shook my head, the reality of our situation sinking in.
“The hybrid. Like you.”
* * * *
We left Armise in the chair with Dr. Blanc monitoring him and I looped Chen’s arm around me. Soon she would be stronger than me, but for now her body quaked and snapped as more of her new skeletal structure clicked into place. She cried out less with each spasm I felt pass through her and I hoped that meant she was nearing the end. She had to remain conscious long enough to get me help and to get her out of here.
“The only way to make this happen is if I have his transport ID,” she said to me as I lowered her to let her lean on the control panel.
“We thought he may be our only way out so both Armise and I inked his number on the inside soles of our feet.” I started to pull off my boots.
I heard a loud gulp come from above me and looked up to find Chen with her bottom lip between her teeth. “Did that really happen, Merq? Am I a hybrid? Is Armise’s arm… Is he going to live?”
“I can’t right now, Chen. Please get Manny here.”
I read the chip ID number off to her and it took mere seconds before Manny appeared on the platform, sunglasses over his eyes—daytime, it was daytime wherever he had come from—wearing a loose shirt with smears of dirt and his pants rolled to mid-calf.
“You never left the village,” was the first thing I said to him.
“I was waiting—” He lifted the shades and studied me, his jaw going slack. I had no idea what I looked like, but from his reaction it had to be rough. “Fuck me, Merq. You sure that’s you?”
I gave a dark laugh. “No.”
I beckoned for Manny to follow Chen and me as I helped her walk. “Armise has a potentially fatal injury and can’t be transported. I need to know where we are and how far I have to take him to get help.”
“How bad—” Manny started to say, but cut off as soon as we walked into the room. “Even if I had it, my field kit isn’t stocked to handle this.”
I pointed to the man standing at Armise’s side who was now coated in blood across the front of his shirt. “Dr. Blanc is stabilizing him for now, but I need to get in touch with the States’ medical staff and I need to get Chen to safety. She’s undergoing a forced transition. Where are we?”
Manny got onto his comm. “Sharlat, I need a location on my tracker. Yes, I’m fine.”
“Don’t tell her,” I began to say, but Manny waved me off and kept talking to Sharlat. “I’ll be bringing one back with me
. Teenage girl, mid-transition.”
Manny clicked off and started rattling off coordinates to me.
“We’re still in Singapore then?” I said, putting together enough of the information to circle where we were on the mental map I had of enemy territory.
“South and east of Armise’s village,” he confirmed. “Outskirts of She-en.”
I huffed. “The heart of Opp territory, great.”
Manny shook his head. “Things have changed since you left four months ago.”
“Four months?” I repeated back to him, unable to believe that could be true simply because that’s what Ahriman had told me, and nothing he’d said to me had been true… Had it?
“It’s September,” Manny confirmed.
Next to me Armise opened his eyes and gave a fading laugh. “He won’t know the date…”
“Save the energy for surviving,” I said to him with complete frustration. How the fuck was he attempting to make a joke right now? Was that good? “You surviving was our deal, Darcan. Dr. Blanc, what do you have that I could use to keep him on the move that won’t bleed him out?”
“I’ve given him the max dose of intravenous surge but it won’t be enough.”
“It’ll have to be.” I had to get him out of here. “You know of any place around here we can take him to?”
Dr. Blanc nodded. “I can lead you to a safe house in the city.”
I couldn’t trust him, but I had to for this. Only this and only for Armise.
I froze. “How am I going to do this? Armise and I…me. I’m too recognizable.”
“I studied you in Dark Ops training and I don’t recognize you right now,” Manny said.
We had to move. I had to get Armise to help. But that meant I couldn’t bring Chen with me. I couldn’t put her at risk when my focus needed to be completely on Armise. “Chen?”
She circled her arms around my waist and gripped me tighter than she ever had. It was more painful when she let me go. “I’ll get through this.”
Manny stepped up to me and put a hand on my shoulder. “I’ll take care of her, Merq. She’s one of mine now. Let me see her home.”
Falling One by One Page 16
