People were going to die.
That sucked, but it wouldn’t stop me.
Then a tall, slender form came into view, walking out of the dimly lit tunnel. The men donned in black uniforms parted, never taking their rifles off me while allowing the primly dressed woman to easily navigate her way to the front.
“Nancy Husher,” I snarled, my hands curling into fists. I’d known the woman for years. Never liked her, which was compounded by the fact that I knew she worked within Daedalus and had known what really happened to Dawson.
Her mouth spread into the tight-lipped smile she was famous for, the one that said she was about to shove a wicked dagger into your back while kissing your cheek. She was just who I was hoping to find.
“Daemon Black,” she said, clasping her hands together. “We’ve been expecting you.”
Chapter 8
Katy
After the disastrous training session, I knew the taste of true fear each time someone neared my door. My heart hammered painfully until the sound of footsteps faded, and when the door finally opened, revealing Archer with my evening meal, I almost vomited.
I had no appetite.
I couldn’t sleep that night.
Every time I closed my eyes, all I could picture was Mo standing before me, more than ready to kick my ass every which way from Sunday. The vast emptiness that had clouded her eyes had quickly blossomed into determination. My beating may not have been as severe if I had fought back, but I hadn’t. Fighting her would have been wrong.
When the door opened the following morning, I was only running on a few hours of sleep. It was Archer, and in his quiet way, he motioned me to follow him.
Sick to my stomach, I had no other choice but to go wherever he was leading me. The nausea grew as we rode the elevator to the floor that housed the training rooms. It took everything in me to step off the elevator and not grab onto one of the bars for dear life.
But he led me behind the room we’d gone to before, through double doors, and then farther down a hall, where we passed through another set of doors.
“Where are we going?”
He didn’t respond until we stopped outside a steel door that glinted from an overabundance of onyx and diamonds. “There is something Sergeant Dasher wants you to see.”
I could only imagine what rested beyond the door.
He placed his forefinger against the security pad, and the light flipped from red to green. Mechanical clicks followed. I held my breath as he opened the door.
The room inside was lit only by one dim bulb in the ceiling. There were no chairs or tables. To the right was a large mirror that ran the length of the wall.
“What is this?” I asked.
“Something you must see,” Sergeant Dasher said from behind us, causing me to jump and spin around. Where in the hell had he come from? “Something I hope will ensure that we won’t have a repeat of our last training session.”
I crossed my arms and lifted my chin. “There’s nothing you can show me that will change that. I am not going to fight other hybrids.”
Dasher’s expression remained the same. “As I explained, we must make sure you are stable. That is the purpose of these training sessions. And the reason why we must make sure you are strong and able to harness the Source lies beyond this mirror.”
Confused, I glanced back at Archer. He stood near the door, face shadowed by the beret. “What’s on the other side?”
“The truth,” responded Dasher.
I coughed out a laugh that caused the scraped skin on my face to sting. “Then you have a room full of delusional military officers on the other side?”
His look was as dry as sand as he reached over, flipping a switch along the wall.
Sudden light exploded, but it came from behind the mirror. It was a one-way mirror, like in police stations, and the room was not empty.
My heart kicked in my chest as I stepped forward. “What…?”
There was a man on the other side sitting in a chair, and not willingly. Onyx bands covered his wrists and ankles, locking him down. A shock of white-blond hair covered his forehead, but he slowly lifted his head.
He was a Luxen.
The angular beauty gave him away, and so did the vibrant green eyes—eyes that reminded me so much of Daemon that an ache pierced my chest and sent a ball of emotion straight into my throat.
“Can…can he see us?” I asked. It seemed that way. The Luxen’s eyes were fixed on where I stood.
“No.” Dasher moved forward, leaning against the mirror. A small intercom box was within arm’s reach.
Pain etched the man’s beautiful face. Veins bulged along his neck as his chest rose on a ragged breath. “I know you’re there.”
I looked at Dasher sharply. “You sure he can’t see us?”
He nodded.
Reluctantly I returned my attention to the other room. The Luxen was sweating and trembling. “He’s…he’s in pain. This is so wrong. It’s a complete—”
“You do not know who sits on the other side of this glass, Miss Swartz.” He flicked a button on the intercom. “Hello, Shawn.”
The Luxen’s lips twisted up on one side. “My name is not Shawn.”
“That has been your given name for many years.” Dasher shook his head. “He prefers to go by his true name. As you know, that is something we cannot speak.”
“Who are you talking to?” Shawn demanded, his gaze unnervingly landing on where I stood. “Another human? Or even better? An abomination—a fucking hybrid?”
I gasped before I could stop myself. It wasn’t what he said but the distaste and hatred that bled into each word.
“Shawn is what you would call a terrorist,” the sergeant said, and the Luxen in the other room sneered. “He belonged to a cell that we’d been monitoring for a couple of years. They planned to take out the Golden Gate Bridge during rush hour. Hundreds of lives—”
“Thousands of lives,” Shawn interrupted, his green eyes glowing luminous. “We would’ve killed thousands. And then we would’ve—”
“But you didn’t.” Dasher smiled then, and my stomach dropped. It was probably the first real smile I’d seen from the man. “We stopped you.” He glanced over his shoulder at me. “He was the only one we could bring in alive.”
Shawn laughed harshly. “You might have stopped me, but you haven’t accomplished anything, you simpleminded ape. We are superior. Mankind is nothing compared to us. You will see. You have dug your own graves, and you cannot stop what is coming. All of you will—”
Dasher flipped off the intercom, bringing the tirade to a halt. “I have heard this many times over.” He turned to me, head tilted to the side. “This is what we are dealing with. The Luxen in that room wants to kill humans. There are many like him. That is why we are doing what we are doing.”
Wordless, I stared at the Luxen as my brain slowly turned over what I had just witnessed. The intercom was off, but the man’s mouth was still moving, raw hatred seeping from his lips. The kind of blind animosity shown by all terrorists, no matter who or what they were, was carved into his face.
“Do you understand?” the sergeant asked, drawing my attention.
Wrapping my arms around my waist, I shook my head slowly. “You can’t judge an entire race based on a few individuals.” The words sounded empty to me.
“True,” Dasher agreed quietly. “But that would only be the case if we were dealing with humans. We cannot hold these beings to the same moral standard. And believe me when I tell you, they do not hold us to theirs.”