Chapter 67
AMY
––––––––
I wake up slowly, wincing. Despite the nasty throb that’s hijacked my head, I recognize my surroundings immediately. I’m lying on the floor in my father’s study. My hands and feet are tied with duct tape.
“Amy! Are you all right, sweetheart? Talk to me.”
With effort, I sit up, squinting in the direction of my father’s voice. Panic grips me at the sight of him duct-taped to his study chair. His eyes burn with impotent fury, as helpless as I am.
“What have they done to you?” he asks angrily.
I experience an instant of confusion before remembering my changed appearance. My short, mahogany hair is a shock, but my dad has no idea that’s the least of my changes.
In an effort to alleviate the distress on his face, the lie tumbles out. “I’m okay, Dad.”
Truthfully, looking at our situation, we’re both not okay.
And then a voice I’ve come to hate singsongs, “Her Highness awakes. Good. I wouldn’t want you to miss the show.”
Nolene enters the study, walking up to the desk, and fiddling with some kind of ominous-looking device in front of her.
“What show?” Graham asks.
Nolene mimes a bomb blast. “A small, controlled explosion confined to your house. I thought of bombing your workplace, but the risk to the animals is too great. At least this way, only you and your daughter will die. Priorities.” She smiles at our horrified expressions.
“An hour from now, all major news outlets will receive a press pack detailing your experiments. All the dirty work you perform behind closed doors will be out in the open.”
“But our deaths will only generate negative publicity for your cause,” Graham says. “Murder will overshadow whatever message you’re trying to send.” When Nolene doesn’t respond, he says desperately, “Amy has nothing to do with this. Why don’t you let her go?”
Nolene turns on him with a scowl. “Why didn’t you do what we asked? Stop your research and free all your lab animals?”
“The deadline hasn’t expired yet,” Graham says.
Scorn sharpens Nolene’s voice. “Please! You were never going to comply with our demands.”
I see the truth of that in the apologetic glance my dad sends me. I frown. He wasn’t planning on meeting their demands? What on earth? I try to make sense of this revelation, but my head is hurting too much.
“Amy doesn’t need to be here,” Graham says again. “Why is she here?”
“I’m here because I’m the competition,” I retort. “And the only way she can win is to eliminate the competition.”
Oh, the sweet satisfaction of seeing Nolene’s face redden with temper.
“Shut up!”
“Or else what? You’ll kill me?”
“Not just yet.” Nolene slaps me. Hard.
My dad gives an angry shout as my head snaps to the side from the force of the blow. Fighting the pain radiating down my face, I glare at Nolene, my body shaking with fury, despair, and an overwhelming sense of unfairness.
I regained consciousness to find myself slumped in the passenger seat of Nolene’s car, which she’d parked outside my father’s house. I guessed right away what Nolene’s plan was—wait for my father to arrive home and open his automated gate, then slip in after him.
I tried to grab her gun, but Nolene knocked me unconscious again. I can guess what unfolded after that. There’s nothing like seeing your unconscious daughter with a gun to her head to make a father tow the line.
I watch now, angry and powerless, as Nolene dismisses us with a contemptuous click of her tongue and deals with the final preparations on her bomb.
Kane will come, I repeat silently to myself. Kane will come.