He doesn’t ask my permission, just fixes his gaze on me.
The Andreas I knew would never have invaded my head without making sure I was okay with the intrusion. But when I look up, the ruddy glow of his power is already flickering in his eyes, as if the process of delving inside my head requires some part of him to burn.
I can’t feel him inside my skull, but my skin itches with the knowledge that he’s shuffling through fragments of images and conversations. But if it means he stumbles on the truth about that night, then it’s worth it.
We hold there in silence through a few more jostles of the truck and the brightening of the daylight seeping through the tarp. Sweat beads on Andreas’s forehead. His eyes jitter, and he yanks his attention away from me with a swipe of his sleeve across his hairline.
“I didn’t come across anything definitive,” he says to the other guys, his voice gone rough. “I got one glimpse of a cage fight, but no way to tell how often they were or whether she volunteered for it.”
“Then we stick with what we know.” Jacob scowls down at me. “And what we know is this bitch is a manipulative schemer who’d stab us in the back too the second she gets the chance. So why the hell don’t you let me finish what I started?”
“Jake,” Zian says, and then doesn’t seem to know how to continue.
Andreas speaks up again, sounding weary but firm. “It’s a sorry state of the world whenI’mthe voice of reason around here, but like I said before, we need her. If she’s been working with the guardians right there in the facility, she must know things about their plans and how they’ll operate.”
Dominic inclines his head slowly. “She could know what steps they’ll take trying to track us down, so we can evade them better.”
“Exactly. And who knows what she’s seen or heard that could help us with the next phase?”
“What next phase?” I demand. “And I don’t know anything about what the guardians are doing, because I haven’t even been in the facility or seen any of them for four years until last night.”
The guys all ignore me. “Then we hold on to her until we figure out what we can get out of her,” Zian suggests.
I want to believe there’s a tiny bit of hesitance in his voice, but at this point I’m not convinced that’s more than wishful thinking.
Jacob’s lips curl as if the idea of keeping me around disgusts him, but he sighs. “Fine. But she is going to get what’s coming to her one way or another.”
He swivels on his heel and stalks to the edge of the tarp. Lifting it, he gazes out over the brightening landscape beyond the truck.
“Traffic’s starting to pick up,” he says. “And the guardians will probably be able to guess we ended up on a vehicle going one way or the other along this highway. We should get off while we can without being noticed and continue the conversation far away from here.”
Six
Zian
Less than a minute after we’ve leapt off the truck, Jacob looks over at Riva where we’re tramping through a sparse stretch of forest and holds out his hand. “Your bag. Let’s see what you’re carrying.”
Riva’s hand tightens around the strap for a second before she tugs it up over her head and hands it over. “It’s just things I thought might help with the escape. Some of which I actually used. You can see one of the guns is empty.”
It’s an odd bag for her to be carrying to a fight, some kind of leather purse with a decorative fringe along the side. But she speaks with the same firm tone she’s answered all our questions with so far.
“Weapons,” Jacob mutters, and shoots me a look. He already told me to stick close to her, without needing to point out that I’m the only one in our group who can match Riva in strength and speed.
If she takes off on us, it’s going to be up to me to catch her. The idea makes my stomach flip over, but it’s already balled tight.
Where has she really been all this time? What was she doing when I stumbled on her in the control room?
She isn’tactinglike a person horrified that her closest friends think she betrayed them. Barely any emotion has flickered across her face, and most of what I have seen I recognize as anger.
If even part of her story is true—if she’s been through hell for the past four years and came for us expecting a joyful reunion—wouldn’t more of that show?
My mind darts back to the first moment when I saw her in the control room. I was so shocked the memory is blurry. Did her face light up right then, seeing me—more like she was happy than concerned that I’d broken in?
But even if it did, she could already have been putting on an act, realizing she was caught.
“Fuckload of guns and knives, wallets, jewelry…” Jacob fixes his gaze on Riva. “Did you just come back from a day trip robbing a bank?”
She glowers at him. “I had a chance to grab some stuff that seemed like it might be useful when I got away from the cage match place.”