Chapter 19
Sylvia
Idrifted in and out of fitful consciousness. I had spent enough time dozing in the boys’ car to know I was in a moving vehicle. Voices spoke overhead, but I struggled to catch more than a few phrases.
A sharp order was barked for the shuttle to stop. Something about needing to pick up a passenger at the lookout station from the edge of the property.
The voice was Eros—no. Cliff’s dad. Chandler Everett. But that couldn’t be right. Why would Cliff’s dad be here? That was just a dream. I didn’t really know him. I didn’t—
“Jon,” I breathed, unsure if any sound was even reaching my mouth. I felt like I was being held underwater. “Cliff.”
The momentum of the vehicle slowed, making my stomach flip. A door opened, and the booming snap of Cliff’s voice struck with clarity: “What the fuck is he doing here?” I pictured him bristling, reaching for a weapon. That venom in his voice was reserved for monsters.
And then, I knew that this must be a nightmare, because the answering voice had haunted my sleep for weeks now.
“Look at this. I love a good family reunion, don’t you?”
A low whine vibrated deep in my throat, but I didn’t have the strength to open my eyes, to shake myself from sleep. A cool, gentle hand pressed to my forehead. A comforting feminine voice hushed me.
The vehicle shook as the new passenger entered.
“It’s almost laughable how quickly you bolted over here,” the voice went on, dripping with playful charm. “Willing to mow down an entire outpost of hunters to keep hold of your fairy, yet loyal as lapdogs when Tammy needs her boys.”
The vehicle launched back into motion.
“That was you?” Cliff demanded.
“Rhett was more than willing to do what Tamara couldn’t,” Eros said. “At such a crucial juncture in the research, we couldn’t afford to keep playing games with you.”
Each fluttering heartbeat pounded his name into my skull.
Rhett, Rhett, Rhett.
Eaten alive, dead in the swamp. He couldn’t be here. He couldn’t.
As the heated conversation continued overhead, I focused on escaping this nightmare, clawing myself back to full consciousness. But even as I woke, the voices continued and became clearer. There was no escaping this. All of it had been real. Every impossible event.
I opened my eyes.
“There you are.” A soft voice, and a tear-stained face to go with it.
Swallowing hard, I lifted my head from Zia’s lap. The noble who would rather we die than unleash herself upon the monstrosities who caged us.
She put out a hand to steady me. “No sudden movements,” she whispered. “The fumes will make you feel strange for several minutes after waking. The effects of the container make it even harder to recover, but you’ll be alright.”
Nothing would be alright. Not ever.
The iron. The glass. A more sophisticated version of the iron cage that had trapped me in the outpost and by the water.
This was not made for torture, where every touch to the bars would sear my flesh.
It was a means to an end, a way to subdue my power while keeping me perfectly intact.
With the iron lining between reinforced glass panes, an ocean separated me from my magic.
Although this cage didn’t burn, it manifested a pain akin to the deepest wells of grief.
My mouth felt like it was full of cotton. “H-how long—”
“We woke minutes ago ourselves,” Zia said. “I don’t think we’ve gone far.”
Blinking hard, I forced myself to look around.
The interior of the shuttle was larger and more luxurious than any vehicle I’d seen before—I might have mistaken it for a room if it were not in motion.
As the voices outside the glass case rumbled, I couldn’t bring myself to focus on them.
Rowan leaned against the wall near Zia, rubbing his temples as if trying to work through the effects of the gas himself.
“Ben,” I murmured.
I expected to find him curled in the corner, making himself as small as possible, but no.
He was up and around, pacing the opposite wall of our container.
His eyes were glazed. He alternated between scraping the back of his hand and running his fingers through his hair.
He caught himself against the glass each time a bump in the road made him stumble.
When I tried to stand and go to him, Zia squeezed my hand and made me stay.
“Your friend is not well,” she murmured. “He has not responded to me. If my magic weren’t locked away, I would help, but…” Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I’m so sorry you two have been dragged into this.”
No one dragged me, I wanted to say. I chose to make myself bait. Chose to put my trust in—
“Cliff.” My voice closed around a sob, pitching into a howl. “Cliff!”
The conversation paused.
“Hear that?” Rhett chuckled. “Your pet healer is mewling for you.”
I caught sight of Rhett’s terrible smirk and immediately turned away, unable to stomach him. But somehow, he was here. He was real.
As though this living nightmare needed any more fuel.
“I have that effect on just about everyone.” Cliff smiled—and it was such a contagious, sweet smile that it made the cool edge in his gaze stun me all the deeper.
He was watching me, leaning against the sturdy steel wall that separated the drivers from the back of the vehicle.
His tuxedo was partially undone, as though he was already distancing himself from what we’d attempted to do.
“She thrives on attention,” Cliff went on. “If I said ‘jump’, she’d ask ‘how high?’”
I lost my voice, gaping at him as fury and grief warred for dominance. If this cage hadn’t separated us, I’d have speared him with ice for speaking about me like that.
Rhett lingered by the transport tanks, leaning down to catch my eye. His voice dropped a decibel when he purred, “What’s the matter, darling? Didn’t you miss me?”
“Go to hell,” I croaked.
“Aw, don’t take it out on me that Elliot here finally put you in your place.”
“Shut the hell up,” Cliff said with chilling coolness. When Rhett opened his mouth to protest, Cliff doubled down. “That’s an order, Iverson. Guess you were too busy sucking my dad’s dick to realize this, but I’m your fucking boss now.”
Eros growled in his throat, making the other two stiffen. “He’s right, Iverson. But I don’t want to spend the next hour listening to you two bitching at each other’s throats.” He cut a stern glance at Cliff, too.
Rhett swallowed his outrage with a sour look—and to my surprise, a flicker of hurt. Had he expected to be favored for his loyalty? The vulnerability changed his features in a way that disarmed me, but it vanished in a blink.
“Of course,” Rhett said, that too-white smile inching back into place, watching Cliff. “It’s good to finally have you on board. I’m sure we’ll be best pals soon enough.”
“I’d rather have a lobotomy,” Cliff muttered.
“You haven’t given me a real chance. We’ve got plenty of catching up to do.”
Rhett clapped him on the shoulder, giving him a rough but well-meaning squeeze. Cliff’s frown deepened as he scanned Rhett up and down, honing in on his leg—the limb that had been gnawed to sinew and bone by the vicious sirens outside Veloria over a month ago.
Shifting his weight easily, Rhett stood with no indication of discomfort. Under the dark pants and combat boots, it was impossible to tell the state of his leg, but it looked like time had been unwound, and he was healthy and vital as we’d first met him at the outpost.
“How did you survive?” Cliff asked.
“You mean when you left me for dead in a putrid, siren-infested swamp?” Rhett chuckled wryly, some of his ire perhaps pacified by the presence of Eros and the three armored guards sitting in line across the way from us.
He rolled up the sleeve of his jacket, a heavy black canvas not dissimilar to that worn by the guards.
The skin of his forearm was interrupted by a flash of metal.
The sight made me recoil, my insides squirming.
I didn’t understand the mechanism entirely, but it looked like it was a part of him.
It was roughly six inches in length, with a circular piece at the back that looked like it was meant to receive some sort of frequent injection.
“Backup wasn’t far off by the time I faded. Should’ve heard the tantrum when they only missed you by only ten minutes,” Rhett said. “They brought me to Price himself, saved my life with his signature procedure.”
Cliff frowned. “Price?”
“Spencer Price,” Rhett said, glancing to Eros for an accenting nod to continue.
“Former Clinical Biochemist, Board Chair for the R&D sector of Saint Michael University for the last five years, etcetera, etcetera.” Rhett waved a dismissive hand.
“Threw it all away for this—” He tapped the device on his arm.
“Building the Atlas Project. He’s the genius that’s gonna help us change the world, Everett. ”
“Atlas,” Cliff muttered derisively. “Goddamn, you guys have fun with names around here. What does it do?” He nodded at the device.
Stars, his leisurely posture made me nauseous.
Was it possible he was this good of an actor?
I thought of the charm he’d given me for my birthday just days ago— a token so thoughtfully selected, he couldn’t possibly feign that kind of affection.
Could he?
“A simple serum, infused directly and regularly into the bloodstream,” Eros said. “It’s still in its infancy, and able to spare mere mortals like you and me the regeneration of our friends over here.” He gestured toward the subdued siren housed beneath our case—and toward us.
“A little of this juice,” Rhett added, tugging his sleeve back down, “made the prosthetic take in record time. But don’t cream yourself yet. Batch two is gonna make this look like baby aspirin.”
“Side effects?” Cliff asked, all tactical calm.
Look at me, I screamed silently at Cliff. Fucking look at me, please.
If I could just catch his eyes, I knew I could convince him to change his mind, to make him undo all of this and go back to the way things were.