Chapter 2
My world rips apart. An earthquake, one that shreds the fabric of my mind until I wail in abject horror. Everything returns with a snapping, stinging pain. My friends, the lab, the White House, Juno, Valen. Valen.
I gasp, my eyes opening as I come back to myself. “You …” My voice is weak, brittle, broken into pieces like every other part of me. “You lied to me. Y-you compelled me.” I stare up at him, his face bloody, his eyes stormy.
“I did what I had to do.” He strokes my hair.
I shove away from him, my stomach wrenching, my heart beating so fast I have to roll to my stomach and get to my knees.
“Breathe, Georgia.” He smooths his palm down my back.
“Get off!” I list sideways and land against Juno’s cell, the bars bruising my ribs.
“Don’t touch me.” All those moments of him sneering at me, taunting me, all those moments when he was just as vicious as if I were no one to him.
Worse than no one, his enemy. He lied to me.
Again and again. He’s not who I thought he was.
Not in the beginning and not in the end.
I dry heave.
He reaches for me. “Georgia—”
“She said back the fuck off!” Juno snarls from her cage and swipes out with one hand, scratching his cheek.
He stills.
I sit, my back to the bars, and look at him. My entire body is shaking, my teeth chattering. Shock is a mild word for what I’m experiencing, for the sheer tsunami of memories and agony washing over me.
Valen. On his knees, so much pain in his eyes. Does it match the pain in me? How could it?
“You’ve l-l-lied to m-me for m-m-m-months.” My words are broken and stuttered, matching the shattered wreckage of my mind. I’m caving in on myself.
“I had no choice.” His voice is deep and stony, his face healing before my eyes. The gouges knitting together, the broken jaw already straightened out to angular perfection. If only I could heal so quickly. Instead, I feel like I’m bleeding out from a thousand cuts.
“Gregor would have killed you if he found out what you know. It was my only chance at saving you.” He has the audacity to sound gentle, apologetic even. “I had no time, no other option.”
I press my palms to my temples. All the memories crammed inside, each one of them clamoring for my attention all at once. It’s like I might burst, like I could pop free of my skin and every bit of who I am would ooze away. Packed too tightly.
My stomach roils, and I dry heave again, head between my knees.
“Let me—”
“Give her a minute,” Juno snaps.
I clench my eyes shut as images surface and sink.
The scientists I worked with in Atlanta.
My friends. Wyatt, Gretchen, Evie, Aang—I suck in a breath when I see his face.
Because I know he’s dead. I remember. I felt his soft hair, unknowingly ran my fingers across his severed head after Theo killed him.
“Theo.” I swallow hard. “I killed him.”
“You did?” Juno sounds surprised. “How?”
“Don’t speak of it,” Valen warns.
“My sister can tell me whatever she wants!” Juno spits back.
“Don’t think for one second you deserve to breathe the same air as her.” Valen’s voice is almost a growl as he glares at Juno.
“And you do?” Juno fires back.
“You betrayed her,” he seethes. “I should’ve killed you. Turning you was a mistake.”
“You betrayed her too!” Juno crows. “You’re not better than me. A liar. A user. Worse, worse than I ever was.”
I run my fingers through my hair and yank. The sting of pain grounding me in the here and now, keeping me from floating away in a murky sea of memories.
“Just look what you’ve done.” Juno tsks. “You’ve no room to lecture me. I’m the president of the United States. I did what was best for—”
“Valen!” A voice struggles through the black mass blocking the dungeon.
“We’re here, Druin!” Valen calls back.
“Druin?” I can’t place that name. But I have plenty of others. “Wyatt, Evie, Gretchen—are they okay? Where are they?” I get a sliver of memory—someone saying their convoy had been wiped out. I look up at Valen, my eyes watering. “You killed them?”
“I—”
“Fuck!” David stumbles through the inky blackness. “I hate this spellwork.”
“You’re supposed to.” Valen keeps his gaze on me. “The Tantuns?”
“Dealt with. No one escaped.”
“Good.” Valen strides to him, the two of them talking quietly.
I try to just breathe. But I can’t. Not when a whirlwind of memories is destroying me bit by bit. Dead. So many dead. Cities destroyed. Humans systematically annihilated.
“They’re trying to decide what to do with you,” Juno whispers.
Valen turns his head and gives her a death glare.
I lean against the cold bars. When Juno rests her hand on my shoulder, my eyes water, the bridge of my nose stinging. The tears are inevitable. Impossible to deny.
Juno is alive.
I’m alive.
I sob into my shaking hands.
“Georgia, please.” Valen kneels in front of me.
“You really can’t take a hint, can you?” Juno deadpans.
“Georgia?” his voice is strained.
Something inside me is breaking, falling apart. I can’t stop it.
“Let me take you out of here. All right?” he asks. “Please, Georgia?”
Shuddering I reach behind me and grip the bars, lifting myself to my feet. Valen watches, his hands twitching, but he doesn’t touch me.
“Let her out.” My voice is hoarse, a thudding pain setting up behind my eyes. Like the headaches from before but deeper, as if it throbs from my brain stem all the way to my optic nerves.
“No.” Valen steps toward me, hands palm out. “I know you think she’s still your sister, and she is on a certain level, but she’s dangerous, Georgia. She’s a danger to you.”
Juno scoffs. “Bullshit. I’d never hurt Georgia.”
Valen’s gaze lifts over my shoulder, hardening as he looks at Juno. “Would you like me to name off the transgressions you committed against your sister one by one or simply hit the high point of you selling her out to humanity’s greatest enemy.”
“I did what was best for—”
“You gave her up for power,” he snarls.
“And what did you do?” she caws. “You used her! For her research, for her blood. You’re no better than me.
If it weren’t for me, Georgia would never have had the opportunity of a lifetime to work on the plague!
” She slams her palm on the bars. “I gave her the world, everything she ever wanted! You gave her nothing. You only take. Take and take until there’s nothing left. Now look at her. You did this. You—”
“Stop,” I say weakly. “Please.”
“—never truly cared for her!” Juno doesn’t hear me, or doesn’t care. “You’re just like your father.”
Valen snarls, his fangs bared.
“You only care about yourself, about your needs. Pathetic! I put the needs of the many ahead of my own needs. I gave everything to this country, and how was I rewarded? How?” she bellows.
“Please.” I slump against the bars. “I can’t—”
“Silence!” Valen roars.
The ache behind me eyes rises as Juno continues her tirade. But I can’t hear her anymore. There’s just a ringing in my ears, a high-pitched hum like when the television stations stopped broadcasting during the height of the epidemic. They’d go to static, to that horrid monotone.
That’s where I am now. Floating in static, drowning in a distress signal.