“Who says I’m going to die?” Dane didn’t have any intention of dying. He had a lot of fucking up to
fix; he didn’t have time to die. Lindsay hadn’t even had a chance to live, not really, not whole, and Dane
planned to make sure Lindsay got every chance he deserved.
“Me. They won’t let me kill your scrawny little boyfriend, so I’ll have to be satisfied with killing
you.”
Dane lunged forward, trying to get his feet under him, but his collar was chained to the bars and he
was wrenched backward before he managed to get any momentum. The metal squealed in protest but didn’t
give, even when he tried again. Jonas sat there and laughed, watching him strangle himself as he fought to
get free, blood trickling from where the collar cut into his neck, and his claws splintering on the inside of the gauntlets.
Finally, Jonas stopped laughing and moved enough to slam one foot into Dane’s face as Dane surged
forward again. Dane felt his nose crumple and his teeth crack. Blood poured down the back of his throat
and his head smashed into the bars. It should have hurt worse than it did, but all Dane felt was a rush of
ecstasy as his magic flowed through his flesh and began to knit it together again.
It took everything he had to keep from laughing, to make himself sag in his bonds and fall limp
against the bars. Jonas was mocking him again, oblivious to Dane’s deception. The smell of blood must
have been thick enough in the van that it covered anything else. Or maybe Jonas never had grasped the idea
of self-sacrifice.
Dane hung there, his breath barely rasping past the pressure of the collar on his neck, as Jonas got to
his feet and, holding the bars overhead for support, kicked Dane over and over again, cracking bone and
pulping flesh with glee. Dane lay there and let Jonas break him, soaking in the pain and waiting for his
chance to get free.
For every purpose, there is also a season, Ezqel had said while he was being healed. Your season canbegin again. You think you have much left to do. I can see it in you, you know. You will fail, and fail, andstill not end. At the time, with his magic fading and runes burning into his skin, it had felt like a fresh curse.
Jonas wrenched Dane’s head back and, for a moment, Dane was looking up at the man who had been
his friend. For a moment, there was regret on Jonas’s face. The regret was gone as soon as it had come,
replaced by hate. Dane mustered up a smile as Jonas slit his throat. …and still not end.
Lindsay tried to watch out the window, to figure out where they were going. No tunnels yet, and no
bridges, so they were still in Queens, or in Brooklyn. Traffic was thick, but even so, the street signs were
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too dark and went by too quickly for Lindsay to read. He wondered if that was Lourdes’s doing, or if it was simply the way the car was moving.
There weren’t any skyscrapers to help Lindsay guess where he was. Most of what he could see out the
window was too dark to make out, though a trick of the streetlights made a massive cemetery just barely
visible. The only damn thing he could see, and it had to be something that wouldn’t do him any good,
because he didn’t recognize it.
“Are you sure that what you’re seeing is real?” Lourdes had been reading something on a small device
she’d pulled from her purse, but she stopped to look over at Lindsay.
“I’m sure that you’re a bitch,” Lindsay muttered. “Does Moore have you trained to sit up and beg
too?”
“Spending time with that animal has taught you poor manners,” Lourdes said primly. “I’m Dr.
Moore’s colleague, not her pet. You know, your education has been sorely neglected, Lindsay. You’re
remarkably lacking in deductive reasoning.”
“Just offering you the benefit of the doubt. I’d respect you more if you were her pet. At least then
you’d just be following orders.” Lindsay slid his gaze back to the window, not wanting to miss the changes
in his surroundings.
“You could be so powerful.” Lourdes’s expression shifted, softened. “I know you hate what they did
to you, but now that you’re free of it, you could negotiate, you know. You could be useful to them. To us.
We’re not puppets.” She gestured at Hesham and Mahesh to either side of him. “Ask your friends here.
We’re not fools, either. We have purpose of our own.”
“Why would I want to work for the people who tortured me?” Lindsay flicked his gaze back to
Lourdes incredulously. “For two years, they kept me strapped down and drugged up, poked and prodded
me and experimented on me. Why would I want to be a part of that?”
“Better to be a part of it on your own terms than on theirs.” Lourdes shrugged and smiled at him. “I
should know. It’s not so terrible, and they’re not necessarily wrong. There’s so much you don’t know,
Lindsay. So many things Cyrus and his pet and his woman didn’t tell you about us, about our people. Did
you ever stop to think about it, how little you know?”
Yes. Lindsay looked out the window again. He didn’t care what Lourdes said, he didn’t want to be a part of the organization that had tortured him like that, not on any terms.
One of the twins, Hesham, patted him on the knee. Lindsay flinched from the touch, pulling his legs
tighter together. The touch was soothing, and he hated it.
“There are many benefits to being agreeable,” Lourdes said. “Including never again having to be as
afraid as you are right now.” Lindsay glared at her and was met with a frightening wealth of understanding
and sympathy. She folded her hands in her lap and looked out the window. With her pale, pale skin, and her
pale gray-green eyes, she reminded him too much of the mirror.
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Lindsay didn’t answer Lourdes, didn’t speak at all for the rest of the drive. It was just as well that only a few minutes later, the car went dark as they drove underground into some kind of tunnel beneath a
building. The sign out front had said something about a battalion. Lindsay’s stomach twisted with fear, and he felt around for any scrap of his magic, any thread he could use to unravel Lourdes’s hold over him.
“It’ll hurt less if you don’t struggle.” Lourdes smiled at him just before the car dipped into the dark
and kept going along a slow curve. Lindsay realized that she meant it, that she cared. He would rather it have been an illusion, a trap. “Dr. Moore is going to be so pleased to see you,” Lourdes said. “You don’t
need to be afraid. One way or another, everything will be sorted out soon.”
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Chapter Fifteen
Lourdes, Hesham and Mahesh escorted Lindsay from the limousine and led him into the heart of the
complex. They passed men in uniform who stepped aside respectfully, nodding to Lindsay and the other
three as though he were a guest. There were colored lines painted on the walls and, after a while, it became obvious that they were following the green stripe. It led through one set of security doors, and another, and finally to a double set of doors marked with black and yellow warning bars.
“Home, sweet home,” Lourdes said cheerfully. She stepped into a yellow box painted on the floor and
a panel in the wall by the door slid open. A scanner read her palm and her retinas, and cameras at the
ceiling whirred as they scanned the group. The doors opened up and Lourdes led the way deeper still.
The air here smelled of disinfectant and electricity. Lindsay was escorted to a hall that looked like it