“Don’t push me,” he says quietly. “This isn’t the day.”
“I don’t care. You know as well as I do that it would’ve been safer to initiate this transfer back at Sector 45, thousands of miles away from Emmaline. We had to transport the boy, too, remember? Extremely inconvenient. That you so desperately needed Max to assist with your vanity is an altogether different issue, one that concerns both your failings and your ineptitude.”
Silence falls, heavy and thick.
I have no idea what’s happening above my head, but I can only imagine the two of them are glaring each other into the ground.
“Evie had a soft spot for you,” Tatiana says finally. “We all know that. We all know how willing she was to overlook your mistakes. But Evie is dead now, isn’t she? And her daughter would be two for two if it weren’t for Max’s constant efforts to keep you alive. The rest of us are running out of patience.”
Before Anderson has a chance to respond, a door slams open.
“Well?” A new voice. “Is it done?”
For the first time, Tatiana seems subdued. “She’s not yet awake, I’m afraid.”
“Then wake her up,” the voice demands. “We’re out of time. All the children have been tainted. We still have to get the rest of them under control and clear their minds as soon as possible.”
“But not before we figure out what they know,” Anderson says quickly, “and who they might’ve told.”
Heavy footsteps move into the room, fast and hard. I hear a rustle of movement, a sudden brief gasp. “Haider told me something interesting when your men dragged him back here,” the man says quietly. “He says you shot my daughter.”
“It was a practical decision,” Anderson says. “She and Kishimoto were possible targets. I had no choice but to take them both out.”
It takes every ounce of my self-control to keep from screaming.
Kenji.
Anderson shot Kenji.
Kenji, and this man’s daughter. He must be talking about Nazeera. Oh my God. Anderson shot Kenji and Nazeera. Which would make this man—
“Ibrahim, it was for the best.” Tatiana’s heels click against the floor. “I’m sure she’s fine. They’ve got those healer girls, you know.”
Supreme Commander Ibrahim ignores her.
“If my daughter is not returned to me alive,” he says angrily, “I will personally remove your brain from your skull.”
The door slams shut behind him.
“Wake her up,” Anderson says.
“It’s not that simple— There’s a process—”
“I won’t say it again, Tatiana.” Anderson is shouting now, his temperature spiking without warning. “Wake her up now. I want this over with.”
“Paris, you have to calm d—”
“I tried to kill her months ago.” Metal slams against metal. “I told all of you to finish the job. If we’re in this position right now—if Evie is dead—it’s because no one listened to me when they should have.”
“You are unbelievable.” Tatiana laughs, but the sound is flat. “That you ever assumed you had the authority to murder Evie’s daughter tells me everything I need to know about you, Paris. You’re an idiot.”
“Get out,” he says, seething. “I don’t need you breathing down my neck. Go check in on your own insipid daughter. I’ll take care of this one.”
“Feeling fatherly?”
“Get. Out.”
Tatiana says nothing more. I hear the sound of a door opening and closing. The soft, distant clangs and chimes of metal and glass. I have no idea what Anderson is doing, but my heart is beating wildly. Angry, indignant Anderson is nothing to take lightly.
I would know.
And when I feel a sudden, ruthless spike of pain, I scream. Panic forces my eyes open.
“I had a feeling you were faking it,” he says.
Roughly, he yanks the scalpel out of my thigh. I choke back another scream. I’ve hardly had a chance to catch my breath when, again, he buries the scalpel in my flesh—deeper this time. I cry out in agony, my lungs constricting. When he finally wrenches the tool free I nearly pass out from the pain. I’m making labored, gasping sounds, my chest so tightly bound I can’t breathe properly.
“I was hoping you’d hear that conversation,” Anderson says calmly, pausing to wipe the scalpel on his lab coat. The blood is dark. Thick. My vision fades in and out. “I wanted you to know that your mother wasn’t stupid. I wanted you to know that she was aware that something had gone wrong. She didn’t know the exact failings of the procedure—but she suspected the injections hadn’t done everything they were meant to do. And when she suspected foul play, she made a contingency plan.”