Chapter Seventeen
MY HEAD THROBBED AS IF IT’D BEEN split open by a tuning fork.
The low, bone-deep thrum of the frequency weapon still echoed somewhere behind my eyes. Bruises ached all over my body, and the need to switch positions had me moaning as I went to move and...couldn’t.
Panic ripped through me, forcing my achy eyes open and blinking back haze. My arms wouldn’t rise; my legs refused to shift.
“Where the fuck did you find that?” a man cursed.
I froze as the world slowly came into focus. Six men had their backs to me where they crowded together on the threshold of an ornate wooden door.
“It was knotted around her ankle. I only found it when I buckled the straps.”
Straps?
What straps?
Balling my hands, I tried to get free, only for those straps to hold me down.
My heart raced faster—
“Fuck’s sake, did no one check them the other night when they arrived? How could they be left in that cell without being frisked? Who the hell knows who’s coming for them now.”
“Who would come?” another man snickered. “Lucien has always belonged to us and has no friends outside of Brimstone. Those housekeepers and villagers back in China are useless and he wasn’t free long enough to make decent contacts.”
“Then what about the girl? Why the hell does she have a GPS tracker on her?”
“Because she’s Snowflake Corp’s CEO that’s why, you idiot.” The tallest man—and the one who sounded in charge—snatched something out of the other man’s hands.
In the gleam of the overhead light, I caught a glimpse of a broken red string with a white coin-shaped disc dangling off it.
The man holding it growled under his breath. “Tell security we might be expecting a few unwanted guests. Increase patrols and prepare to fire if necessary.”
“But—” the other man grumbled. “Won’t that bring even more trouble? We’ve already lost the Brimstone Headquarters. So many scientists are unaccounted for along with Helen, Nick, and Grant. What if—”
“Shut up and make yourself useful for once. Go tell Dr. Pels that we’re ready. They’re bound to wake up any second.” Throwing the white disc to the floor, the man in charge stomped it into pieces.
“I heard she has a bodyguard,” one of the other men muttered quietly. “Maybe it’s always been his policy to track his client like a runaway dog.”
My pounding heart leapt as all the pieces tumbled together.
Dillon!
How many times over the years had Dillon threatened to tag me like a lost phone or stray cat? He’d even slipped multiple airtags into my luggage, using them to follow me around the world for a week or two, before I found them stashed in the lining or buried at the bottom of my bag.
If he’d put that on me after losing me on the mountain...
he wouldn’t be far behind. I hadn’t even felt it around my ankle.
Then again, the past few hours either I’d been throwing up or having dream sex.
I also had no idea how much time had passed since we’d been taken from Ashfall Cliff, but Dillon was wonderfully resourceful.
Look at how he’d found me in the middle of the Gaoligong Mountains.
If he could find me there...he could find me in the middle of England.
If that’s even where I still am.
Swallowing down the rest of my panic, I tried to be smart.
We’d obviously been knocked out again and brought from the burning Brimstone Headquarters.
I didn’t think we were in another office building because the dark, burgundy-papered walls, wrought iron chandelier, and wooden cabinetry hinted we were in someone’s house.
A fancy dining room to be exact, complete with expensive wine glasses.
Which was much better.
A house wouldn’t be as difficult to break into.
Or at least...I hope.
All we had to do was stay alive until Dillon brought help. I just had to hope he brought lots of it.
“Ah...” A cruel chuckle wrenched my attention back to the doorway where only one man remained.
“You’re finally awake. Well...one of you is, at least. The other...
” A scowl replaced his smile. “What exactly happened to him? Why does he have multiple fractures? Even unconscious, he screamed a few times when we moved him.”
My heart flung itself up my throat as I followed the arch of his chin.
I looked to the left.
Lucien!
Matching leather cuffs trapped his wrists and ankles to a chair, reminding me of the permanent ports he’d worn back in Cinderkeep. How he’d said they used to tie him down to harvest his blood.
Wake up. I sent the thought as loudly and as strongly as I could. Please wake up!
No response.
Memories of him burning up in Brimstone Headquarters bombarded me. His guttural cries as things cracked and broke inside him. The spray of black blood as he coughed up whatever life he had left.
I’d told him to stop. I’d warned him not to try to die on me again. And he hadn’t listened. If the ice inside me hadn’t responded...he might’ve dissipated again.
A sob caught in my throat.
If you start disintegrating, I swear to God I’ll glue all your pieces back together and lock you in a fireproof room.
The tiniest twitch flickered between his eyebrows.
Can you hear me?
The barest of touches against my mind as if he struggled to wake up. Was he back in that dreamscape? If I touched him, could I join him? Could we somehow heal each other again?
Glancing at my hands, I tried to summon the ice that’d felt so obedient back in Brimstone. Ever since waking from that spiritual plane, I’d been good as new, but now...nothing. Just the barest scattering of frost appeared over my knuckles, bringing a sickly throbbing in my heart.
“He’s not looking so good, is he?” the man muttered.
My eyes shot back to the asshole as he leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed. He must’ve done something to us to make us so weak again. All of this was their fault. It had to be. I refused to believe that the powers inside us kept forsaking us when we needed them the most.
That wouldn’t just be cruel, it would be catastrophic.
The longer he stared at me with that tight little smile, the more I felt useless and vulnerable and...human.
“Wh-What did you do to us?” I coughed, clearing my throat from the dregs of pain. “Where are we? Who are you?”
“Goodness.” Pushing off from the doorway, he dropped his arms and came toward me. “Three questions in one. Nosy little thing, aren’t you? But I suppose I can oblige.” He stopped next to my chair and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
My skin crawled. I cringed away, but the buckles and straps kept me pinned.
“There, there.” He smirked. “I’m not going to hurt you.
After all, you’re both rather precious.” Dropping his hand, he shrugged.
“My answers are...we didn’t do anything to you...
yet.” He smirked wider at that. “Second, you’re in my own personal home after the unfortunate destruction of our much-loved headquarters. And three, my name is Roy Swift.”
Swift...
Something about that name...
Narrowing my eyes, I studied him. I’d never met him before but something about him seemed similar. The shape of his mouth, the sweep of his eyebrows. Pushing sixty or so, he wore a black suit and haughty arrogance that I’d seen elsewhere. But where?
He let me study him. “Any other questions before we begin?”
“Begin? Begin what exactly?”
“The extraction, of course.” His entire face lit up as if today was a happy day for him.
“You have no idea how patient we’ve been since Lucien escaped.
We’ve had the most terrible time trying to get the reactors to work without his blood.
Not counting the financial disaster he caused to his own company, he also has an untold number of deaths on his hands. ”
“Deaths?”
“The others that rely on regular transfusions of his blood to stay stable.”
I shot a horrified look at Lucien. Just how many men had been drinking his blood over the years? No wonder they took so much from him and left him weak and hurting all the damn time.
Glowering at Roy Swift, I spat, “You don’t have to do this. Marcus is dead. Stop taking orders from a dead man and let us go.”
He chuckled softly. “Do you honestly think a company of this size and a project as life changing as this could be overseen just by one person? Silly girl. There’s twenty-four of us.
Well, there was. You’re right that our numbers have dwindled.
Which actually works in your favour, seeing as we won’t have to take nearly as much blood to service us all.
Which leads me back to rebuilding our stock so nothing like this has to happen again. ”
I ignored the twisting in my chest. “What stock?”
“The ones we created with Lucien’s blood of course.
” He strolled around the room, his hands linked behind his back.
“Twenty-seven men and women we’d painstakingly created all dropped like flies when Lucien escaped.
Without his blood to sustain the change in their DNA, their hearts stopped.
None of them survived because he selfishly decided to leave. ”
“Are you seriously trying to blame that on Lucien? You were the ones who hurt them. You tortured—”
“Not all,” he cut in with a snarl. “Some were rather happy when offered money. The ones we could trust lived a life outside a cage—going about their chosen lives—”
“And what about those poor people in China?” I spat. “All those people trapped in that cave and imprisoned by a frequency net?”
“Those?” He laughed quietly. “Those were rejects. They couldn’t handle the changes, even with the smallest amounts. We allowed them to live on the off chance they might breed something stronger, but...they were worthless.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Now, now.” He grinned. “We were getting along so well. No need to ruin it. After all, we’ll be working together for a very long time to come.”
“I will never work with you.”