We had parked inside what appeared to be a giant airplane hangar. I wasn’t sure at first until I looked over my shoulder and saw far off in the corner was a small, Gulfstream G650 executive plane. That was how large the space was: a small jet could sit tucked away in one corner and go unnoticed for a few seconds. The roof towered above my head and the walls were made of long metal sheets, everything lit by skylights. There were five silver sedans parked neatly against the wall, all bearing the Maserati trident on their fronts. Two other people were standing behind racks, shuffling around with cables and a row of screens, paying no attention to us. Other things were scattered about under tarps and behind tables but I was pushed ahead before I could see them.
Wyck got out of the van last, approaching the guards and me after a quick check of his wristwatch. He took me by the arm.
“Stand over here,” he ordered, as the men let go of me uncertainly. I could see they were confused about what was going on. I was shoved from Wyck’s hold into the grasp of the driver, as Wyck tossed his coat into the man’s other arm.
“Good work, men,” he said, spinning around. Claws slithered out from the ends of his fingers. The men didn’t even have a chance to gasp.
In a single twirl of motion, Wyck slashed around on either side of him, slicing the men across their middles. Their bulletproof armor did nothing to stop the silver blades, blood splashing in a watery line across the floor as they cried out. But their noises were short—he swung the claws back down, stabbing two through the center then drawing the blades back again.
The men gurgled, trying to choke in air, but they were dead before they could get a single breath more.
Wyck turned around—his face was blank. No vengeance, no enjoyment, not even a second of killer’s glee. Just frigid, unaffected calm, like he’d squashed mosquitoes between his fingers. His claws disappeared, the blood wiping against his skin and staining his fingers as it did. He retrieved his jacket and swept it back on.
“We won’t be late for the meeting,” he told the two remaining officers with a satisfied nod. They turned me around, forcing me to walk again, and I realized that these two officers were on Wyck’s side. Humans actually helping the Guardians? I thought of the nurse in the white room and the other technicians still plugging the televisions together in front of me. Why would any human ever help a Guardian?
We came to a square of tables and I was pushed down onto the cold metal chair at their center. The other two people were bustling around the area, keeping their heads down and their faces turned from mine. I managed to see bits of their faces: a man and a woman, both middle aged. It was hard to tell exactly how old they were though, because like the nurse from the white room, their faces had received vast surgical work. Their chin and cheeks were puffed up over plate-like bones, all their skin stretched tightly. It looked like they’d only made minute changes but with all of the alterations added up, they appeared disfigured.
I wanted to look in their eyes, hoping somehow I’d capture a Glimpse—to find out why they continued to move at the command of these Guardians who despised their entire race so much. Was it fear? Had they been brainwashed against their own kind? Every time one of them accidentally glanced in the direction of Wyck, they lowered their heads even further, almost as if through some spiritual devotion. They were like cult members.
The metal rack they were setting up held a row of television screens, a large video camera poking from the center and aimed at me. Far off, I saw another row of vehicles: massive trailers like the one with the white room. There were no windows for me to see through any of them. I felt a shudder go up my back when I thought about what might be inside. Was Thad already in one of them, suffering at the hands of another brutal nurse?
One of the tables screeched as it was slid in front of me, the edge bumping my chest. The men placed my hands in top of the table and undid my handcuffs.
I was still shaking lightly, unable to control it. The bleeding on my face had stopped but my head continued to pound, and I had to keep blinking so that my vision would stay clear. I wanted to sleep, to give in to the black that seeped in around my vision.
Wyck fell in front of me, both hands slamming down on the metal tabletop.
“Awake?” he checked, tilting his head. I licked my lips and tasted the salt of blood. He reached to the side and picked something up with both arms, dropping it on the table with a crash. It startled me and I blinked again, vision clearing as the sound reverberated back and forth in the hangar. It was the metal box, the eyes of it still open and waiting for me, just as it’d been when Wyck had plucked it from my hands in the crypt.
“Where’s Thad?” I spoke my first words in what felt like hours. It wasn’t even a question, really. It was my demand, one that I knew Wyck was smart enough to have figured out hours ago. He knew why I’d turned myself in. One glance up at his face told me that much.
He conceded immediately. Lifting a hand, he gestured for one of the two workers to carry out the command, and I heard her steps leaving and a door cracking open. My eyes remained locked with Wyck’s, refusing to look away.
I heard the creak of wheels behind me and stiffened. It was a slow, unhurried sound, like that of a grocery cart being wheeled down an aisle. My teeth tightened together. Wyck was too close to me. My hands were free—I could have slapped him again, ripped the skin right off his cheek before the meager guards could have stopped me. But I held myself back, squeezing my hands together to keep them from moving on their own as I heard the wheels continue around me and come to a stop.
I didn’t want to turn. Wyck nodded to the side. So finally, I forced myself to look.
Thad was lying on a stretcher with white sheets, arms exposed and flat against his sides with wrists facing up. His long hair was ruffled around his scalp, matted by sweat that ran down his forehead in long beads and lines. He was strapped down just as I had been but didn’t try to shift when I saw him—or rather, he couldn’t. I saw why: a tall metal arm on wheels sat beside his bed, and running from it was a tube with a needle poking his left arm.
Only his eyes moved. Their lids were stuck open, bloodshot, and unable to bat the dust away. But with great effort, his irises turned down, stretching so that they could see me out of the corners.
He drew a breath in quickly.
I let one out.
“You don’t need to do that to him,” I said, casting away all the façade that I’d been hoping to keep. I lifted my hand to wipe my eyes and both of the guards jumped, grabbing my arm, smashing it back onto the table. I spun to look at Wyck.
“I’ve been good so far,” I told him. “You can get that out of his arm.”
“Ha!” Wyck gave a laugh like he found my request hilarious. “And what then? Let him go flying around the room to save you? Be thankful he’s still alive.”
“I won’t open that box until he’s free,” I spat.
“And I won’t set him loose until that box is open,” Wyck returned instantly. “Do you see me as a fool?”
“Then we’re at a stalemate,” I said. “You can kill me.”
Wyck suddenly rang out with another laugh, terrible and frightening all at once. He clapped his hands together, turning from me and stepping over to the row of five television screens. There was a keyboard beside them. He started typing as his forced chuckles shrank.
“We’ve been through this. We don’t need you dead,” Wyck told me, as he flipped switches on the screens to turn them on.
“We just need you gone,” he insisted. “That’s all there is to it. We just need the Blade to do that. One tiny prick. Then we don’t care about you anymore.”