“Careful!” Pace snapped as Helena was seized by the arm and dragged to her feet. “Her wrist is broken. She needs medical care. These are smart, capable women. You should—”
The guard sneered at Pace. “We’ve got plenty of prisoners of all sorts.” He looked Helena over. “She’ll go in the cull group, same as you, crone.”
He ignored Pace’s attempts to reason with him, not for herself but for Helena, trying to convince him of her exceptional abilities, as he copied the number on Helena’s shackle onto a list along with Pace’s. They were pushed towards another cage and grabbed by another guard, who shoved them carelessly inside.
Pace tried to resist, still protesting, and she tripped, falling too fast for Helena to react. Her head struck one of the iron bars with a sharp crack, and she didn’t move.
Helena’s left hand was shaking as she braced herself against the bars, using her body to cover Pace as more prisoners were shoved into the cull cage, searching desperately for a pulse. Everyone shoved inside was either badly injured or extremely old. The cadet guarding the war room was slumped beside her, deathly pale, his bowels oozing through his fingers as he tried to hold them in.
She couldn’t help him.
She slumped down next to Pace, lifting her head onto her lap, hoping she was dead, that she wouldn’t witness whatever happened next.
A shadow fell over her.
She looked up, heart in her throat, and then froze at the sight of Mandl.
“My, my,” Mandl said, her wide mouth splitting into a smile, “I thought I recognised that hair of yours.”
Helena was too exhausted to feel anything at the sight of her.
Mandl gestured with a quick flick of her wrist. “Take her out.”
The guards who’d shoved Pace glanced over. “This is the cull cage.”
Mandl turned on him. “I don’t care what ‘cage’ it is, get her out.”
Helena was dragged out, her hand bumping roughly against other bodies. She bit back a moan of pain, and her shoulder was nearly wrenched from its socket again.
“It really is you.” Mandl appraised her as Helena was dropped at her feet. “You certainly put up a fight. Were you afraid I’d find you?”
Helena had scarcely thought of Mandl since she’d finished interrogating her.
“I hoped I would.” Mandl’s breath rushed across Helena’s. She smelled sharp and acrid, like formaldehyde. “I’m going to make sure Bennet gets you for one of his special projects.”
The guard cleared his throat.
“What now?” She turned on him sharply.
“They’re saying Bennet’s gone.”
“What?”
The guard lowered his voice. “Rumour is that Hevgoss was responsible. Bombings are—their sort of thing. No one’s saying much, though. Stroud took a batch earlier and had to bring them all back. Says the whole lab’s gone. Bennet and all the rest. But word’s not supposed to get out among the—” He gestured around the commons.
A glimmer of triumph sparked in Helena’s chest. Bennet was gone; he would never hurt Kaine or anyone else ever again.
Mandl stood, stunned. “But then what about the stasis warehouse. Will it be decommissioned?”
Before the guard could reply, she answered herself. “Of course not. The Undying will still need pristine bodies in reserve. Even without Bennet.”
She looked down at Helena again, who tried not to look as if she was listening.
“Well, if he’s gone, that means that I’m responsible for the selection process.” She leaned forward and grabbed Helena by the back of the arm. “I think I’ll have you as my first pick.”
Mandl’s resonance stabbed through Helena’s hand. Her nerves were suddenly on fire, being torn apart. Agony shot up her shoulder, through her body, and into her brain as if a splintering spike were being driven into her.
Her muscles began spasming as she screamed.
“Oh dear,” Mandl said with false concern, still holding Helena fast. “That wasn’t what I meant to do. I was trying to do this.” She grabbed Helena by the back of the neck.
Renewed pain burst through her, shooting down her spine and along every nerve ending. Building and building until Helena’s heart threatened to explode. She’d break all her own bones if it would let her escape. She’d chew her limbs off.
She could feel her mind scrabbling to break free from the agony. Just break. Just break.
“I’m not fragile. I am not going to break. Please believe that about me.”
She’d promised. Her body was seizing, but eventually it stopped. She was dropped heavily to the ground. Her muscles kept twitching. Mandl knelt, reaching towards her again, and Helena cowered away.
Mandl’s wide mouth stretched across her face. “See how quickly you can learn to be afraid?”
She took Helena’s right hand, resetting and healing the broken bones. She would indeed have been an exceptional healer if she hadn’t been a psychopath.
Then something cold pressed against Helena’s newly healed wrist, clicking as it was locked in place.
She stared at it dazedly, struggling to breathe. It was another cuff. The number was different. She couldn’t quite make it out.
Mandl stood, brushing herself off. “Put her in the transport lorry.”
As Helena was being dragged up off the ground, a young man stepped forward, stammering.
“Wait. That—that one, we got her. She’s supposed to be interrogated. I think. Pretty sure someone said something about that.”
Mandl gave a slow reptilian blink. “She was in the cull cage.”
He flushed and scratched his head. “We had orders.”
“Whose orders?”
“Um, it was one of the dead ones. I don’t remember. He told Lancaster something about it.”
“And Lancaster is?”
“Well, he’s in surgery.”
Mandl’s lips pursed, and she looked as if she were about to eat the Aspirant. “So you want me to do what? Put her back into the cull cage? Do you have jurisdiction to take her?”
He stammered and backed away. “I just—it’s what I heard. Maybe someone else would know.”
Helena wasn’t sure if she’d just been saved or damned. Interrogation was what Atreus had wanted. To find the bomber. She struggled to think. Her body kept spasming. All the drugs in it had her mind spinning as they faded away.
Several liches came over and dragged Helena and several other prisoners towards a lorry, shoving them into the back.
Interrogation would be dangerous. If anyone realised she was the bomber, they’d want to know how. Why.
She knew all too well now the dangers of interrogation. There were points where the mind broke, where pain became all there was. The Undying would hurt her in whatever ways were necessary to get the answers out.
Kaine said animancy was special. Rare. If Bennet was dead, Kaine and Morrough might be the only ones left with the ability, which meant they might bring him in and torture her in front of him or make him torture her.
If Morrough interrogated her personally, he’d find Kaine in her thoughts and memories. No amount of evasion could hide him; he was the fabric of her thoughts. Her every action tied to him.
Even if her death was quick, Kaine’s punishment for his betrayal would be eternal. Or else they’d use her, just as they had his mother.
It would be everything he’d feared.
If they found him in her memory.
If.
She had to push him away, like she had pushed away the memory of—
Soren.
She would redirect her thoughts, transmute her memories until her mind stopped running to him. She couldn’t confess to something she didn’t remember.
She pressed her hands against her temples, wincing as she moved her right hand. The bones were repaired, but the tissue damage and bruising remained. The nullium in the manacles hummed, blurring her resonance, but suppression like that was imperfect.
She still had her resonance, though it wasn’t as powerful. But she didn’t need power; she needed precision and patience. She closed her eyes, using that feeble strain of resonance on her own consciousness. After spending so much time navigating the minds of others, it was easy to manipulate her own mind—no reaction, no resistance.