Chapter 20 #2
Alex looked at her again, fast, and in that glance, she saw it: guilt, regret, and a plea so deeply buried under professionalism it barely counted as human. But like before, he looked away too quickly for her to make sense of it.
He wasn’t human, though, was he?
The thought bothered her more than she wanted to admit.
“You should release her to my custody,” Alex repeated. “Now. Before this becomes something none of us can contain.”
Mihail gave a low laugh. “No.” The word landed with finality.
The muscle in Alex’s jaw ticked. “You don’t understand what she represents to people beyond the Separatists.”
“No, you don’t understand what she represents to Ryker.”
Ryker.
Everyone in the room shifted their feet slightly when his name was spoken.
Mihail jabbed his thumb toward Audrey. “The Senator and his sympathies don’t outrank necessity.”
For one vicious instant, everyone went silent. And Audrey couldn’t help it; she reached instinctively, touching the emotional edges of everyone in the room all at once.
Alex: fury, fear, urgency.
Nikos: grief packed so tight it felt serrated.
Mihail: certainty. Hunger. A thread of something grimmer underneath.
And beyond the four walls of the holding bay—
Emerson.
Moving.
When she went to probe Emerson’s mind further, the room’s central console lit blood-red. Emergency lights flicked on, dimming the room to shadows. The Voíríans broke into simultaneous shouts.
“Shit. He was right. Our Si-IDs were flagged. Basir, grab that off the floor,” Nikos growled at the other tattooed man.
“I like the lawyer’s plan. We need to leave for the cargo pods now before they lock down the place,” Basir argued, picking up Alex’s tablet and pocketing it.
“Great,” Mihail snarled at Alex. “Your interference probably slowed things just long enough for the checkpoint system to fully flag our forged transit requests.”
A siren cleaved the air. The clanging alarms came to life in the room. Audrey clamped her hands over her ears.
Basir took out Alex’s tablet and read the notifications lighting up the broken screen. “Security interdiction just triggered,” he said.
Alex remained the picture of calm as he yelled at Mihail over the warning bells.
“I’m taking Audrey. I can keep her out of Aggregate custody.
If she stays with you, her risk of being captured by a Hunter or a security enforcer goes up—as do her chances of dying.
Now, do as I said, and make your way down to the cargo bay. ” He pointed to one of the doors.
Before Audrey could speak for herself, a flash of blinding light struck her.
She dropped to her knees, clasping her head.
White-hot pain ripped through her, but her scream was muffled under the alarms. Some people moved to help, including Alex, but Mihail got there first, standing over her body with sudden, possessive violence.
“Nobody touches her,” he roared over the muttering, whipping out his gun and pointing it at everyone.
Images from Emerson’s memories streamed into her brain.
A woman dragged bodies from a burning building, bright blue flames reaching towards a yellow sky. She turned, showing the scar on her throat.
Cary.
Emerson watched her from a distance he never crossed.
Audrey tore herself out of the psychic flash with a strangled inhale, collapsed onto the floor, coughed on Emerson’s memories—and then passed out cold.
When she woke up, the world rotated.
Nikos and Mihail stood over her, impassive as death. A silent, wary exchange passed between them. The alarms still shrieked, flashing overhead.
Audrey swiveled her head around, looking for Alex’s familiar dark hair and eyes.
But he had disappeared from the room. Whether he had run for assistance, been dragged out, or made a choice of his own, she had no way of knowing.
Even if he had left to try and sort things out with the checkpoint officers—to save her from Ryker and Nepra—she had little hope it would work.
He may have been trying to help, but as Mihail said, he might have triggered the current crisis they all found themselves in, whether inadvertently or not.
And he claimed to be her friend. She felt sick.
Alex didn’t matter now; Cary did, and every move Audrey made from here had to take her toward her sister, not back toward people who had already let her be used.
There might still come a day when she needed Alex to help her find Cary. But from that point forward, Audrey vowed to trust only herself.
Over the red pulsing lights, shots rang out in the distance. A gasp tried to break free of her throat.
Nikos and Basir loaded their guns with clicks.
Mihail held his gun loosely at his side and stared at her, despite the upheaval around them.
He bit his lip and, in what appeared to be a split decision, handed Nikos his gun.
“Hunters and a mass of guards will be all over this room soon. Take her.” He grabbed Audrey by the forearm and shoved her against Basir.
“I’ll buy time. Tell Ryker what happened with Sophia. ”
Nikos took the weapon from him. “Are you sure?”
Mihail wasn’t gambling.
He looked certain.
“This is the only way. Guard her with your life,” Mihail said, steadfast with ruthless authority. “No matter what—get her to Ryker.”
He wasn’t running.
He wasn’t even trying.
“They’ve had my sister for three years,” Nikos said. “Ryker wants a gold triad? Then he’s getting one.” He wrapped his arm around Mihail in some brutal brotherly gesture. Mihail pulled away.
Then, everything moved at once.
The two-way glass shattered. Behind it, an army of armed men pushed to breach the room. The transit checkpoint had become the Aggregate interdiction that the warning had promised.
The two Voírían men tried to drag her from the room.
Audrey thrashed like an animal. “I’m not going with you!” It was futile, but she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
“Oh, yes, you are.” Nikos kicked her knees out. She hit the floor hard. Pain snapped white behind her eyes. As she tried to stand again, something behind the mirror snagged her attention.
A tall head moving between the men coming for them.
She squinted through the smoke pouring into the room and spotted Emerson, kneeling behind crates as if waiting for someone. Their eyes met—and locked.
He pressed a finger to his lips.
Then a name shredded through all the noise around her. “Emerson! This way!” One of the men shouted.
Emerson stood and disappeared into the smoke and gunfire with deliberate care.
He wasn’t going to save her. He knew where Cary was—she was sure of it after what she’d seen in his mind. Her best shot at finding her sister had made a calculated decision to leave her behind.
Something felt lodged in her throat as her world cracked again.
She barely noticed as Basir and Nikos picked her up off the floor and ran with her from the holding bay.
Smoke rolled through the corridor—not from a fire, but from ruptured panels and stun charges burning the air. Somewhere behind them, voices barked in overlapping commands while sirens continued to tear the station apart in waves of red light.
Audrey stumbled as Basir and Nikos dragged her around another blind turn.
They stopped only long enough for Nikos to reach into his pocket and slam two more bands around her arms. The bands beat in alternating bursts.
Every time she grasped for power, the bands answered first, flattening the attempt before it began.
It felt like being gagged from the inside.
Basir shoved open a maintenance door ahead of them. “Move.”
Audrey dug in her heels. It bought her less than a second.
Nikos caught the back of her neck and drove her forward, the jerky movement rattling her skull. “Don’t,” he said, voice wrecked and raw. “Try me.”
She twisted anyway, trying to look back.
The hall behind them was illuminated with the emergency lights. People ran in every direction. She caught one last glimpse of Mihail at the far end of the chamber.
An officer shouted for him to get down while another leveled a rifle at his head.
Mihail lifted both hands slowly and smiled like a man, as if he were somehow still in charge.
Audrey’s insides lurched.
He was truly staying—because he’d chosen to.
Nikos saw where she was looking and shoved her harder. “Keep moving.”
“What about him?” Audrey spat. Despite hearing Mihail’s plan, she still couldn’t believe they were leaving him behind. For a fugitive as wanted as Mihail, it had to be a death sentence.
Nikos clamped his mouth shut, and that was answer enough.
Her fight was gone.
Her breath a broken rhythm.
Her hope was a fiber pulled thin.
They forced her down a narrow steel passage. Basir keyed something into a side panel and held up Alex’s tablet for the scanner. A door folded open to reveal a cramped transfer compartment that reminded her of a coffin. The same raven mark she saw in the Silo was stamped on the cargo crates.
Without windows, there was no way to see where they were taking her—but she knew. Audrey recoiled so hard the suppression bands bit into her skin. “No.”
Basir seized her by the shoulder.
“No!” she shouted again, twisting hard and wrenching something in her wrist. “I’m not going with you—”
Nikos slapped a hand over her mouth and lifted her clean off her feet. “Listen to me,” he said, face inches from hers, eyes dark and glittering, too close to grief to be rage alone. “Mihail is buying you this route. He stays, you go. That’s the order. Don’t make me break you to keep you alive.”
Alive. The word almost made her laugh.
He shoved her into the compartment. Basir locked the restraint strap across her lap and wrists in one practiced movement.
“Emerson—” she started.
Nikos looked back toward the smoke-filled corridor. An uncertain grimace crossed his face. Then it was gone. “If he’s alive,” Nikos said, “he’s following his own orders now.”
The door was already sliding shut again. Audrey kicked once, uselessly, boot thudding against steel.
She believed Nikos. But what was Emerson doing now—hunting Ryker, hunting her, or both?
It didn’t matter. She needed him because he knew where Cary was.
The realization made her feel sick all over again.
Audrey forced herself to make a choice—whatever happened, she would escape these men and hunt down the only lead to Cary herself.
Find Emerson. Find Cary. Get out, no matter who stood in her way.
The door sealed.
Darkness narrowed around her as the pod flew forward.
Mihail gone.
Alex gone.
Emerson vanished.
Cary, alive somewhere.
The knowledge struck in shards.
The pod rattled farther into the unknown.
When it finally stopped, Nepra would be waiting for her.