by Jena Leigh
Aiden watched the other man pace the length of the opposite cell for a moment, then returned his focus to his current endeavor. He gripped the obsidian-lined bar of his own cell a little tighter with his right hand, pressing against it as if that might help him extend his left arm just a little further out into the hall. His shoulder was already wedged between the wall and the first bar as far as it would go.
“Could you please stop saying that, Linus?” Cil asked from her seat on the bench behind Aiden.
He empathized with the thinly veiled frustration in Cil’s voice. The guy was doing absolutely nothing to help Aiden’s calm right about now—or his concentration.
Aiden closed his eyes and reached out with his ability again.
“How’s it going, Aiden?” Cil asked more softly. “Anything yet?”
He dropped his arm with a frustrated sigh. “I’m starting to think the plumbing in this damn place is made out of adamantium.”
“Out of what?” she asked.
“A fictional—and impossibly strong—type of metal.” Aiden pulled his arm back through the bars and massaged his shoulder. “The water’s there, running through pipes at the end of the hall. I can sense it. I just can’t get to it.”
“The Agency’s careful,” said Cil from somewhere behind him.
“Very careful,” Linus confirmed, his voice still teetering on the ragged edge of panic. “These cells are always put in an area of the facility that’s cut off from any element or object a Variant criminal might use to escape. I’m amazed you can sense the water at all.”
Aiden stood there uselessly for another few seconds before thrusting his arm back through the bars and attempting it again.
He couldn’t stop trying.
He needed to find Cass.
At least an hour had passed since two guards showed up and dragged—literally dragged—Cassie from her cell. She fought back with everything she had, but was easily overpowered.
Her cellmate, Linus, had simply cowered in a corner and watched the whole thing go down without lifting a finger to help.
Had Cassie been in his cell, Aiden would have beaten the crap out of anyone who tried to lay a hand on her. So, for that matter, would have Cil.
It was probably why the agents that captured them placed the girl in a cell with Linus instead.
“I wonder where they’ve taken her,” Linus mused.
Aiden grit his teeth at the question and stretched a little further.
“Possibly to wherever they’re holding Grayson and Lee-Lee,” Cil said.
“Lee-Lee?” Linus echoed.
“Alex,” she replied. “My niece.”
“Oh.”
“You’re sure they got the boss, Cil?” Aiden dropped his arm and took a step back. From the feel of it, the area around his shoulder was already beginning to bruise.
“It was the first thing I saw when I stepped out of the house,” she said. “An agent grabbed him and jumped.”
“Then what happened?” Aiden asked, rolling his shoulder in its socket and trying to loosen the cramp forming in his bicep.
They’d hardly discussed what might have befallen the others, yet, and Aiden was curious to know who else from the safe house might be being held in a different area of the facility. If their little group did manage to break out somehow, they’d need to know who else to search for.
Earlier, back at the compound, Grayson raised the alarm moments after Declan confessed that Alex had inexplicably violated the lockdown and jumped to New York—but his warning hadn’t reached the outer cabins in time. The Agency’s team showed up and lit Aiden’s cabin on fire just as he was getting ready to crash for the night.
“Then I saw another guy in black fatigues readying an EMP,” said Cil. “I grabbed Jian Liu and teleported as fast as I could. Left him stranded in Bay View, since it was the first location I could think of in that split-second before making the jump. After that I waited the longest three minutes of my life and jumped back to the safe house. I was hoping that they would have set the pulse off while I was gone… I was wrong.”
Aiden knew what happened to Cil after she returned. After putting out the flames of his cabin, he’d thrown on jeans and sneakers just in time to exit the building and see Cil arrive. He was standing right next to her when the EMP was activated.
They were overpowered minutes later and an Agency jumper (strategically brought in only after the pulse had been set off) grabbed them both and jumped to an area just outside their current location.
In a weird way, he was grateful for the EM shield surrounding the facility that now confined them. It meant Cil couldn’t jump, that much was true… But it also meant that they were able to get a quick view of the building’s surroundings upon arrival.
Aiden had caught sight of dense forests—and a service road—just outside the massive building. He’d seen enough in the handful of seconds before the heavy sack was dropped over his head to know that it was definitely a black site, and not one of their official government buildings. He’d also tracked his steps as best he could as they were lead inside the facility, into an elevator, taken down to one of the basement levels, and deposited in their cell.
“Any idea about Trent or Jezza?” Aiden asked.
Cil shook her head. “No,” she said. “I never saw either of them.”
Aiden frowned.
He could understand why Grayson—and, assuming they were able to catch them both, Alex and Declan—would be held separate from their group.
He could even guess at the reasons why Cassie was taken earlier… though he really hated to consider most of them.
But why separate the others? Nate, Brian, and Kenzie. Ozzie and Brandt. Trent and Jezza…
They were surrounded by empty cells. And the Agency clearly didn’t feel a need to keep them isolated, otherwise they’d each be in their own private rooms.
The others should have been included with their group. There was no reason that he could think of to keep the others separate.
And that left him with one of two possibilities. Either the others had managed to escape—or something much, much worse had happened to them.
He shook his head, dismissing the thought.
The Agency’s raiding party had clearly been out to capture them. Not to kill. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in these cells right now.
No.
He had to believe that the others had gotten away.
Because if they hadn’t…
Grimacing at the pain, Aiden put his arm back through the bars and kept trying.
He would find a way out of this obsidian cell. And then, one way or another, he was going to rescue Cass.
Twenty-Two
Agency Director Dana Carter was making tea when her assistant Dimitri appeared in the doorway. He had a firm grip on Jonathan Grayson’s bicep and was hesitating at the threshold to her office, waiting for her orders.
“Bring him in please, Dimitri,” she said. “Have a seat, Jonathan.”
When his prisoner didn’t move, Dimitri shoved him forward until Grayson finally sank into one of the two leather chairs positioned in front of her desk.
“I insist you return me to my cell, Dana,” he said. “Take me back to Alexandra. To the others. I know we can’t have been the only ones you captured tonight.”
Grayson made to stand. Dimitri gripped his shoulder and shoved him back into his seat.
“Thank you, Dimitri,” said Carter, gesturing to the door. “That will be all for now.”
The towering, tattooed man nodded once and then stepped out, closing her office door behind him.
Carter finished pouring Grayson’s cup of tea and handed it to him before pouring one for herself.
Resigned, he glared at the teacup in his hands before setting it back on the tray. “Is this where you make one last effort to bring me over to your side?”
“Hardly,” she said, moving around her desk and settling into her chair.
Grayson’s scowl deepened. “Th
en what are we—”
“Now that you’re in custody and Alex Parker is under my control, your little uprising is falling to pieces.” She took a sip of her tea. “There’s no reason we can’t be civil while I accept your unconditional surrender.”
“You must be joking.”
Carter set her teacup down on the desk. “Do yourself a favor. Do your followers a favor. Surrender now and avoid further bloodshed. Once you step down, the fight will go out of the remaining rabble. They’ll follow your lead. You have the ability to ensure a peaceful transition, Jonathan.”
“Now I know you’re joking,” he said. “It’s true that Alex is incredibly powerful, but she’s only one girl. Just as I am only one man—I can very easily be replaced. The resistance will continue without us.”
“Surely you’ve realized by now that Alexandra is only the beginning.”
Grayson shook his head. “Once the Variant community discovers what you have planned, the pushback will be so strong that you’ll never be able to accomplish your goal.”
“At last estimate, the normals outnumber Variants nearly five thousand to one,” she said. “I don’t need to worry about pushback, Jonathan. Billions of panicked humans ought to be more than enough to keep a couple million frightened Variants in line—mutant abilities or no.”
Grayson visibly cringed at her use of the label “mutant.” Her choice of words had been intentional. Within the current Variant nomenclature, the term was about as derogatory as you could get.
“They’ll fight you, Dana,” he said. “I’ll fight you. Every step of the way.”
Carter smiled.
Grayson shook his head. “So long as there’s a breath in my lungs, I’ll… I’ll…” He trailed off, studying her expression. “You don’t believe the Variant community will fight back. But why? We might be outnumbered by the norms, but the majority of us will hardly be outgunned. And there will almost certainly be human sympathizers that stand by us when you finally put your plan into action. So how would you… Unless… Unless Alex isn’t the only one you intend to parade around for the world to see. For Variants to see.”
She could practically hear the gears turning in his head.
“Samuel?” Grayson asked, incredulous. “You mean to control Samuel Masterson with this device?”
Carter smiled. “Now you’re getting it.”
Grayson barked out a laugh. “That might be the most preposterous idea I’ve ever—”
“Do you know why I first came to work for you, Jonathan?”
His brow furrowed, thrown by the sudden turn in the conversation. “Because we offered you twice what—”
“Because working for the Agency gave me a chance to better understand the ability—and the community—that killed my sister,” she said. “And because it offered me the opportunity to help save others from experiencing the same pain.”
Carter’s gaze drifted to the frame resting on the corner of her desk. It held a photograph of Maria, taken just after her high school graduation, a few short days before her death.
“From what you’ve said in the past,” Grayson said slowly, “I was under the impression that what happened to your sister was an accident.”
“Oh, it was.” Carter didn’t look up from the picture. “It was my accident. I was a twelve-year-old air-wielder just coming into my abilities… and I had no idea what I was—or, for that matter, what I was capable of. During a ridiculous argument with my sister, she and I both found out the hard way.”
She flashed back to that summer afternoon in the backyard of their childhood home. Of her older sister Maria choking to death in front of her eyes as Dana stood before her, oblivious and blinded by rage.
She couldn’t remember, now, what the argument had even been about.
What she did remember was drawing every last wisp of air from her half-sister’s lungs without even intending to. Without even realizing what it was she was doing.
At first, she believed her sister was only pretending to choke. That she’d simply been fooling around and not taking Dana’s anger seriously—and it had only served to infuriate Dana that much more.
By the time she realized what was happening and attempted to get it under control, to stop the nightmare she was inflicting upon her sister, it was already much, much too late.
Maria was gone.
And Dana was to blame.
“Did you know,” Carter began, “it would be another three years before someone finally told me what I was? Before my real father—a man who had lived next door to our family my entire life without saying so much as a single word to me—finally confessed to having an affair with my mother years earlier? He said he was sorry for not realizing that I’d inherited his ‘gift’ sooner.” She scoffed. “Apparently, choking the life out of my sister wasn’t enough for the imbecile to put two and two together. He only made the connection when he caught me manipulating the wind one afternoon while he was out walking his pet cocker spaniel. Before that, he’d never even suspected that I might be his daughter as opposed to the daughter of the man that raised me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said. “But stories like mine are exactly why these abilities should be registered, revealed to the world, and placed under Agency control. Had my parents known that Variants existed—had I known—we might have seen the warning signs. I could have been trained properly. My sister wouldn’t have had to die, simply for me to realize I was different.”
“I understand your pain, Dana,” said Grayson. “Truly. I do. Better than you might think… But this, what you have planned… It won’t bring your sister back. And it won’t save lives. It will take them. The Variant community will not simply hand over its freedom to you. We will protect our own. So, please… I’m begging you. Don’t force us to prove it. Stop this madness before you reach the point of no return. There are other ways. We can—”
“You always were hopelessly naive for a pre-cog, Jonathan. With everything you’ve seen—with everything you’ve experienced—you know that this is the only way.”
“No. I refuse to believe that.”
A knock sounded at her office door.
“Come in,” said Carter.
The door opened and Knightly, the project leader for the latest iteration of the push device, appeared in the doorway.
She tucked a wayward strand of her mousy brown hair behind one ear, saying in a tentative voice, “We’re ready for you, sir.”
“Excellent. Dimitri?” Carter called.
The man stepped past Knightly and entered the room.
“Dimitri, please accompany Mr. Grayson downstairs.”
He grasped Grayson roughly by the arm and hauled him onto his feet.
“So help me, Dana,” Grayson growled as he was being dragged from his chair. “If you hurt either of those girls, you won’t live long enough to regret it.”
Carter smiled. “Such harsh words, Jonathan. And here I thought you were a man of peace.”
Grayson yanked his arm from Dimitri’s grasp, halting just outside the door. “I’m a man who values balance. Order. Justice. The same values that this Agency—the Agency you’ve corrupted—were once founded on.”
Carter’s smile vanished. “You want to talk to me of balance? Variants defy the natural order each and every day, simply by existing. There can be no balance so long as Variants are allowed to remain hidden in the shadows. Shining a light on our existence is the only way to ensure the safety of everyone.”
“You intend to punish all of us for the tragic actions of a few,” he countered. “You’re going to persecute and violate the human rights of countless innocents just to give yourself the illusion of safety. The illusion of control. Where is the justice in that?”
“Human rights are for normals, Jonathan. And we are anything but.”
Dimitri gripped Grayson’s arm again, dragging him around the corner and out of sight.
Carter left her office and stepped further into the heart of the
facility’s nerve center. Four technicians sat at their stations, ready and waiting to begin the latest test.
She joined Knightly at the main console, below the large display screen showing the current surveillance feed from the Parker girl’s cell.
“What has their discussion been about?” Carter asked. “Anything of interest? Anything pertaining to the resistance or their plans? The locations of those that escaped, perhaps?”
Knightly hesitated, folding her arms over her tablet. “Cassie’s been… saying goodbye. Alex has been insisting she’ll be able to resist the effects of the device.”
“…And?”
“That’s all, sir,” said Knightly, frowning slightly. “Nothing pertinent to the resistance. Only personal discussion.”
Carter dialed up the volume on the console, filling the control room with the soft sounds of the girls’ conversation. Their voices were kept low, but were picked up by the cell’s microphone nonetheless.
“You have to promise me something, Lexie.” Cassie’s voice trembled. “If they make it work—”
“No,” Alex said immediately. “I’m going to fight it, Cass, I told you. I swear to you. I refuse to let them use me. I refuse to hurt you.”
Cassie shook her head. “If they make it work—if they make you do it—you have to swear to me that you will forgive yourself for whatever happens next. Do you understand? Whatever they do to me, it won’t be your fault. None of it will be your fault.”
“Activate the device,” said Carter.
On the monitor, Alex jumped to her feet and crossed to the other side of the cell, wincing in pain.
“What’s happening?” Cassie asked, standing up and reaching toward her friend.
Alex waved her off. “Stay where you are, Cass… I can’t… I don’t want to…”
Seeming to understand, Cassie backed up until she couldn’t go any further, her back and her palms pressing against the wall behind her.
“Fight it, Lexie,” she said.
A light on the console turned from red to green.
The device fully activated, Knightly flipped on the microphone and handed it to Carter, saying, “We’re good to go.”
