Chapter 57
FIFTY-SEVEN
EMMA
Being a type-A, neurotic perfectionist has its ups and its catastrophic downsides.
Normally, charging headfirst into any kind of conflict or battle without a carefully drafted plan—color-coded, annotated, possibly laminated—was not something I considered myself capable of. I was the girl who made lists for her lists.
However.
After losing Saoirse to those assholes—after the hollow, gutting realization she was really gone—and then when Caden’s call cut off mid-sentence and the line went dead, something inside me fractured.
Fear. Grief. Rage. All tangled together, choking out reason like logic had lost its voting rights.
My brain just stopped caring about strategy, about fallout, about consequences.
All it knew was I had already lost too much, and I was not about to lose him too.
Caden.
The man I loved with every fiber of my body.
And even James, someone I still cared deeply about, albeit in a very different way.
They would rue ever laying hands on either of them.
Plan or no plan, I was going after them. The world could burn behind me for all I cared.
I had no way of knowing for certain, but every instinct in my body screamed the Chiefs were involved.
So, I clung to the only plan I had and portaled into Cyclos less than half an hour after that last phone call: thirty minutes of absolute agony spent spiraling, replaying Caden’s voice cutting out, and briefing Rachel, Sean, and Jackson on what I believed had happened.
The portal snapped shut behind me with a loud crack of displaced air.
My vision blurred as my eyes struggled to adjust to the blinding light. After months in Kanata C’s brutal winter, Cyclos greeted me with all the subtlety of a heatwave to the face, since clearly, climate moderation was too much to ask.
The atmosphere was thick and humid, clinging to my skin like a needy ex. Sweat prickled down the back of my neck, and my heart was already pounding in overdrive, which the sweltering heat wasn’t exactly helping.
I moved fast, my boots hitting the sun-scorched pavement with purposeful strides. My pulse hammered in my ears as I navigated the winding streets toward the Bastille. My fingers curled into fists at my sides, knuckles white.
The mouth of the subterranean cave loomed ahead, a dark wound carved into the earth. The rough stone beneath my boots was uneven and slick, and the sharp scent of damp rock and burning torches curled through the stale air.
My throat tightened with slight fear, but I forced my feet to keep moving.
No time for a panic attack, Emma. No weakness.
As I picked up the pace, a sudden prickle of unease crept up my spine, cold despite the heat.
My Skindo shot into my hand with a familiar thud as my heartbeat spiked, thudding against my ribs like a war drum.
A flicker of movement in the darkness.
There was someone here.
My grip tightened around the hilt of my trusted weapon.
Come on, then.
My pulse hammered as three figures emerged from the opening of the cave, their silhouettes dark and imposing. My stance shifted automatically, weight rolling to the balls of my feet. The blades thrummed in my hand, power licking up my arm like it could already taste blood.
I raised all five of them, angling the steel high as my gaze swept quickly over the hostiles, down to their forearms.
Bare. No Skindo tattoo.
Whoever they were, they were not Cyclos Offensives.
The tallest figure stepped forward, their face hidden beneath a hood.
“Emma Thompson?” he asked, all smooth and disinterested, like he was reading my name off a VIP list at some exclusive club.
I rolled my eyes at him as I suppressed a snort. “No. I’m mothaflappin’ Santa Claus.”
The second man, shorter and broader, crossed his arms, ignoring my retort. “We’re here to escort you below the surface.”
“Funny,” I said coldly. “I was about to say the same thing.”
I didn’t hesitate.
My Skindo pulsed, and a quick flick of my wrist sent it slicing across the lean one’s throat before he even had time to react. Blood sprayed as he crumpled to the ground.
The second one jerked toward me, too slow. I pivoted and slammed the blades into his chest, the five-pronged weapon punching through bone with a sickening crack. He gasped, his mouth forming a silent scream as I wrenched it free and let him fall.
The third one—the tall one—hadn’t moved. His head tilted slightly, his mouth curving into the faintest hint of a smile.
“Was this really necessary?”
I wiped the blood off my hands against my thigh and shrugged. “Nope. Just seems like a one-person job.”
After shooting the Skindo back into my tattoo, I straightened my back and narrowed my eyes into threatening slits. “Caden and James better be alive. Because if they’re not—”
“They are,” the tall one cut in smoothly. “For now.”
For a split second—barely a breath—I felt something dizzying punch through the rage. Relief.
They were here. They were alive.
But the asshole in front of me, still touched them.
I dropped low without warning and swept his legs out from under him. He hit the stone hard, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs in a startled grunt. Before he could recover, I was on him, one knee pinning his chest, my hand locking around his throat.
“You’re about to regret a whole lot of your former actions. Do you have any idea how hard it is,” I said evenly, as I tightened my grip around his only airway, “to find a guy that’s husband material?”
His hands scrabbled uselessly against my wrist, boots dragging against the ground as he tried—and failed—to buck me off. His face darkened, veins standing out along his neck. “Which—” he hacked, desperate for air, “one?”
I clenched my jaw in annoyance, then slid my hand behind his neck and snapped it.
The silence that followed bought me a few seconds the breathe.
One. Two. Three. Time to get up, and move, Emma.
Once the three bodies were translated away, I turned toward the prison entrance and headed down the corridor alone.
The walls around me were damp, thrumming with the faint hum of old translation, layered and worn thin with time.
Doors lined both sides of the corridor, one after another in an endless stretch of iron-bound monotony, each one rust-bitten, streaked, and deeply uninviting, as if the entire place had been designed to make sure no one ever felt remotely optimistic about what lay behind them.
The heat seemed to thicken the deeper I went, and it took longer than it should have to find my way.
Too fucking long.
Then, finally, I heard voices.
Faint at first, just enough to make me think I’d imagined it.
I slowed, listened harder as the sound sharpened by degrees—low, muffled, bleeding through metal and stone—but unmistakably human.
Clearly not my brain snapping under pressure.
My pulse picked up as I faced the heavy metal door, its surface dull and dented, its edges corroded, decay trailing into the floor like a long-standing warning no one had bothered to clean up.
And because nothing says “excellent decision-making” like barging into a room without knowing who’s in it, I took a deep breath, shot my Skindo back out, then wrenched open the door from hell in a single, brutal pull.
The room beyond was packed.
Every Chief stood inside, all lined up behind one another in a loose formation, weapons visible, bodies still, all their attention fixed squarely on me.
Crappydoodle.
There were too many of them. Enough to overwhelm me, and end this before it ever really began.
But we were still beneath the bubble, where I had my powers. The United Chiefs did not.
I stared at the tall, gray-haired man at the front I didn’t recognize, while taking in the way the others were angled toward him, the subtle deference written into their posture. Power radiated off him, quiet and absolute.
Not a Chief, but I knew who he was: the only other person with access to their translation.
“Gordon,” I said, holding steady despite the storm coiling tight in my chest. “I presume.”
He didn’t answer, but I caught the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth, the telltale sign of a smile he was trying very hard not to let show.
I shifted my stance, feet spreading slightly, knees bending as my weight settled low and grounded. My shoulders loosened, my hands flexing as I dropped into a fighting stance. “Where are Caden Colt and James Walker?”
The Richard-Gere lookalike smiled this time, like he was enjoying himself.
“Took you long enough to find us,” he said mildly. “Tell me, which one of them finally got you off your ass?”
“Neither,” I said coolly, letting the lie settle into place. “I came here solely for retribution. Came to avenge the only sister I’ve ever known.”
That part, at least, was true.
I tightened my grip on my weapon as I turned to the High Chief. “I’m surprised to find you here, standing beside the man you had us chasing for almost an entire year.”
“You chase a lot slower than I do, Ms. Thompson,” the High Chief replied evenly. “And over the span of a year, priorities inevitably realign.”
I nodded once, unimpressed. “Still. One might wonder why you’d choose to work with the same man who tried to sell me a future where Caden and I end up together.” My gaze cut back to Gordon. “Considering all the effort you put into forcing me to bond with James.”
Before the High Chief could respond, Gordon spoke, softly, almost conversational.
“But he failed, didn’t he?”
His stare was almost invasive, like he was trying to strip the truth straight out of me.
“You are not bonded to Mr. Walker,” he said. “Are you?”
I felt the smirk curl across my mouth before I could stop it.
“No,” I said sweetly. “I am not.”
The reaction was immediate.
Almost in unison, the Chiefs raised their weapons, metal snapping into place as the High Chief’s composure shattered.
“Gordon,” he snarled. “Lift the bubble so we may seize this traitor.”
I knew it.
Confirmation slammed into me all at once: the name, the authority, the power humming beneath the stone: Gordon. Creator of the bubble. Architect of this entire nightmare. And responsible for Julian fucking mind-raping me as a newborn.
Before I could make a move, Gordon unleashed his haze.
Invisible chains lashed out, wrapping around me in an instant. Not binding my body, but my senses. The world dulled, edges blurring as something cold slid through my veins.
Sedation.
Different from what Sean had used on me. I could still see. Still hear. Still understand exactly how badly this had gone wrong. But the fire inside me—rage, fear, adrenaline—was gone.
All emotions snuffed out in a heartbeat.
Fuck.
I stood there, surrounded, blades in hand, fully aware and completely numb.
I am seriously screwed.
Gordon lifted his hand again, the motion drawing every eye in the room and tightening the air until it felt too thick to breathe.
The High Chief’s mouth pulled into a vicious, satisfied smile, one worn by men who believed the end was already written.
“Don’t kill her,” he commanded with a snarl. “We still need her alive to breed the Krait.”
Gordon inclined his head, the gesture almost deferential, though something cold and unreadable flickered behind his eyes.
“But of course.”
For a suspended heartbeat, my dulled mind struggled to keep up, the world narrowing to that single, casual movement. Is this it? Is this how it ends? Standing here, surrounded, emptied out?
Gordon’s hand twisted in one smooth, decisive motion.
The world seemed to hesitate.
Then it exploded.
I jerked back on instinct, arms flying up, body locking as I braced for impact, for pain, for bones to shatter, for power to rip straight through me.
It never came.
My breath stuttered as I lowered my arms, slow, careful, afraid the hurt was simply late…
Only to see every Chief sprawled across the stone, bodies crumpled and unconscious.