“I’m sorry to hear that, Atty boy. It leaves me no choice.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Back to the craft!” Atlas roared.
Sand erupted around them in a swirling funnel. Deimos’s hand was wrenched from Romy’s arm. Disoriented on top of her current dizziness, Romy fell to her knees, shielding her eyes from the flying granules.
“Romy!” Elara screamed to her left.
Heart tightening, she glanced over and saw Elara flat on her back, a Critamal standing over her. Gunfire exploded to the right, and Romy rolled away from it, panting.
“Deimos,” she shouted as the black-shelled Critamal advanced on Elara.
No answer.
Romy staggered to her feet, surging toward her knotmate. She made it two steps before she fell, and wasted no time getting to her feet again. Elara threw herself to the right, narrowly missing the stab of a pincer that would have gone straight through her stomach.
“No!” Romy shouted, a bolt of pure adrenaline shooting through her.
Surging to her feet, she covered the remaining ground and threw herself at the poacher. The armoured alien was lean and at least eight feet tall. She clung to the alien’s ridged back as it writhed trying to throw her off. Grunting, Romy reached around the Critamal’s shelled shoulders and gripped the base of each of its pincers, her head pressed against the side of its huge bulbous head.
And pulled. The creature hissed, twisting in agony.
Her arms shook. “Run, Ellie!”
Elara rolled out from underneath. The ground bucked and surged, sand continuing to burst up in whirling chaos. The Critamal hid in the sand before the meeting. Houston had planned this from the start.
Two more Critamal crawled out of the sand behind Elara. Romy shoved away from the poacher she clung to, and stumbled to her knotmate. Pushing Elara behind her, Romy dragged out a knife she’d hidden in her boot as the three Critamal crowded them. Her knees trembled, and she knew in her current state, this wouldn’t be much of a fight.
“Where’s the craft?” she yelled over the tumult, breathing hard and blinking to keep the blurriness in her eyes at bay.
Elara twisted to look. “I don’t know! I can’t see through all the sand.”
The Critamal took a step closer, caging them in. Romy tightened her grip on her knife, tensed for their attack, knowing her pitiful weapon and drained body wouldn’t do anything against the alien’s black armour.
The Critamal didn’t attack, though.
The aliens parted and Houston walked between them, exclaiming, “Ah, here she is. And Elara, too.” He deliberated. “I did always like you, Elara. If you come peacefully, you can remain alive for now.” He nudged the closest Critamal. “Might not be a bad thing to have a bargaining chip along for the ride.”
The Critamal snapped its pincers.
Houston smiled at Romy before turning away. “Take them.”
* * *
Romy groaned, unsticking her tongue from the roof of her mouth. She felt awful: lethargic, thirsty, and there was a throbbing pain on the right side of her jaw.
She’d woken like this too many times to feel confused. She’d been knocked out.
Elara!
Jerking upright, Romy scanned the area for her knotmate, sagging in relief when she spotted her curled in a ball on a bed against the far wall. Romy waited for her heartbeat to settle again. What had happened? She rubbed her temples. It felt like a Critamal had battered her over the head, which was probably pretty near the truth.
A second, calmer search showed her Tina was in the stone-walled cell too, unconscious.
Her face had been bandaged, telling Romy the woman had put up a fight. Though Tina hadn’t stood a chance, being separated from their group to start with. The Critamal had exploded out of the sand. She remembered Deimos’s hand being ripped away from her arm. Bile swept up her throat and she swallowed. What about the rest of them—Phobos, Deimos, Thrym, Charlee . . . Atlas?
With a bone-weary sigh, Romy sat again and swung her legs over the side of the bed, the springs creaking as she did so. Were they in the Renegades’ base in Florida? She rubbed her face with both hands. Standing, she wound around her bed to Elara’s side.
There were four beds in the room, spaced out evenly around three concrete walls. The room was large, but the bulk of it was empty. On the fourth wall, there was a barred door that showed a glimpse of a passageway outside.
They were in a prison cell.
Romy crouched by her knotmate’s side. “Ellie, baby,” she hushed, stroking her knotmate’s brown hair. “Wake up now.”
It took some coaxing, which didn’t overly concern her as this wasn’t out of the ordinary for Elara.
“Ro?” croaked Elara. A small wrinkle appeared between her brows. “What happened?”
Romy lowered her voice. “We were taken. We’re in one of the Renegades’ bases. I think.”
Elara jerked to life.
“Shh,” Romy said, leaning to kiss her on the cheek. “You’re okay. Do you feel all right?” She gave Elara a pointed look.
Her knotmate glanced down and blinked. “Yes, I think so. Do you think the b—”
Romy covered Elara’s mouth. Putting her lips next to her knotmate’s ear, she whispered, “He can’t know that.”
She heard Elara drag in a ragged breath. When Romy pulled back, Elara’s hazel eyes were hardened and she dipped her head once.
Next was Tina.
“Don’t get too close,” Elara whispered.
I wasn’t born yesterday. It had been at least five months since she was harvested from the tanks. This time. Romy held her head back and poked Tina in the side.
Sure enough, she came up punching and snarling. The red-haired woman staggered and sat heavily upon recognising her cellmates. “How much do we know?”
That would be her first question. “Nothing much,” Romy replied. “No one’s been in yet.”
“The alien fuckers were under the sand.” Tina’s face contorted with fury. “Do we know if anyone else is here? Or if they got away?”
Elara sniffled behind her. “No.” Her voice broke off. “What if Phobos was hurt?” Her voice shook. “What if he’s—?”
Tina cut her off. “We don’t think like that, soldier. We can’t possibly know the answer. Snap out of it.”
“O-okay.”
A closer glance told Romy their commander might not be doing too well herself. Her eyes were darting around the cell and her chest showed her breath was shallow and quick.
. . . Tina had been a prisoner before, to the Mandate. Something that involved a large amount of torture.
“It will be all right,” Romy said softly.
Tina’s lips trembled before she pressed them together. “Why did he bring me and Elara along?”
“He said he was bringing Elara as a bargaining chip. I guess to make me do what he wants,” Romy replied.
“And me?”
Houston’s voice rang out through the barred door at the front. “You were brought because you’re a part of my plan, Tina, and have been for a long time. I just need to convince you my side is the right side.”
They all jumped.
Tina recovered first. “I’m not sure I enjoy your plans, H.”
“You refer to the regrettable circumstances under which I left, I gather.”
She gave him an incredulous look through the bars. “Are you serious? Try needless violence and inviting a horde of aliens into our midst, you freakin’ lunatic.”
His face darkened and it took him visible effort to regain his smile. “We shall have time to talk. I apologise for your sleeping quarters.”
“James,” Romy said to him, “could you cut the crap and tell us what you mean to do?” She was tired, worried and in no mood for his nonsensical conversation.
He gave her a genuine smile. “I plan to experiment with your blood, Rosemary. Which you knew. Elara is here to control you.”
Romy waved a hand to cut him off. �
�What is the purpose of the experiments?”
“You know that, too,” he said, eyes shifting around their cell.
“To find a permanent cure to the insanity trigger with the space soldiers?” she pressed.
“Yes,” he answered.
“If there’s a different motive, you know I’ll refuse, with Elara’s full support. We both know our lives aren’t worth three hundred.”
“When push comes to shove, you’ll choose her over them.”
“Then you don’t know me, or Elara, James. You are judging our reaction by what you’d do.”
“First,” he narrowed his eyes, “I want to ascertain just how much our past procedures have altered you. Nothing too horrible, I assure you.”
Great.
The bed creaked as Elara sat. “The rest of our team, did they make it?”
The three women waited with bated breath for his answer.
He assessed each of them in turn, his eyes growing hard then soft over and over again. Houston had always been a little ‘off’, but it was an off that, while eccentric, wasn’t outside of societal bounds. This version of him was something else entirely. It wasn’t the brand of insanity she’d experienced as Feral Romy. Judging by his eyes, he was volatile to the extreme, yet completely lucid between these moments. She had no idea how he was going to react from one moment to the next. He’d gone downhill fast. His father had been locked in a padded cell at age thirty, and Romy knew Houston was around that age.
“Everyone you love is fine, though others were lost in the struggle. You had a number of extra soldiers hidden not far away, which I had not counted on.” He glanced at Romy. “I received a very angry message this morning from none other than my friend, Atty boy.”
She gave him a look of pity. “James, your friendship with Atlas is over. He despises you. I can truly say there is no one he hates more—not the Mandate, not even the Critamal.”
Houston’s face clouded, his eyes turning to stone. “Never say I did not make my own sacrifices to see the world peaceful and prosperous, then. Though I know he’ll forgive me one day. Hate and love are not so far away in the human mind. You forgave Deimos, by the looks of it.” He blinked and the unfocused expression receded. “I will give you today to get settled in, my dears. Toodle pip!”
Romy crossed to the door and craned to see down the hall. Houston disappeared around the far corner. A glance the other way told her they were alone. That wasn’t to say he didn’t have microphones in the cell, or cameras.
“Wow,” Tina said, sitting heavily. “I . . . did not expect that. He’s absolutely bonkers. Did you see his eyes?”
Elara and Romy gave mute nods.
“Did you read the file before you left the Amach?” Romy asked Tina.
She nodded. Bending close, Romy related the contents to Elara.
After Romy finished, Elara said, “He was lying about his reasons for running tests on Romy. Did you notice? He has another agenda aside from the insanity cure.”
“Really?” Romy asked. She’d missed that.
“I agree. He’s covering for something else,” Tina said with a sigh. “At least we know the others are alive.”
“According to him,” Romy countered. “I wouldn’t put it past him to try to make us more compliant that way.”
Elara paled. “Really?”
Hope was the best and worst thing in the world, in Romy’s opinion. It could lift you up and it could crush you with a signal swoop. Hope was like having a knot. It made you strong, and it protected you, but it could also destroy you. “We need to be prepared if he is lying.” She turned to Tina. “Do you know what his plans are for you? Any guesses?”
“Not a single clue,” Tina answered, nonplussed. “I have so many skills it’s hard to know which of them he plans to utilise.”
The words would be laughable coming from anyone else, but with Tina they were true. There was a reason she’d been expected to become a Mandate member.
Romy sat on the bed. “Looks like we’re hanging tight until Atlas gets us out of here.”
Tina made a disbelieving sound.
“What?” she asked her.
“Nothing.”
Romy groaned. “That’s not allowed.”
The woman flashed her a quick grin that faded. “Okay, I’m not sure we should hold our breath for a rescue. It would take all of our firepower to storm this base, in their territory, with the Critamal here, too. Likely, they’ll need the Mandate’s help.”
“What are you saying?” Elara asked, eyes rounded.
“I’m saying that if Atlas comes here to get us back, it’s going to be World War. . . . What one are we up to?”
“Five,” Romy supplied.
Tina huffed. “God, humans are shit. Anyway, if he comes, it will mean a battle until someone wins this damn thing. With the odds so even, we can’t be sure it will be the Amach who comes out on top.”
“So, you don’t want him to come?” Elara asked.
The woman shrugged. “It’s irrelevant what I want.”
“Why do you say that?” Romy asked.
Tina smiled at her. “Because you’re in here, my friend. Atlas will come.”
“One plus one equals two,” Elara said, as though that explained everything.
Romy, however, was less at ease than she had been five minutes ago. What was that she’d said about hope again?
Tina was right—the opposing powers were too similar in size. The Mandate and the Amach had united temporarily to take down the larger danger, but there were factors that still had their tentative alliance at a disadvantage, namely that they had little idea what Critamal could do and what their weaknesses were, aside from a few rifle shots to the thin parts in their armour. Houston also had the ever-powerful cannons, which he no doubt had plans for.
This battle was too even.
Which meant they’d better start thinking of a way to get themselves out.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
This was familiar.
Romy lay strapped to a bed, covered in electrodes in a lab that mimicked all other Amach labs. A low current ran through her while a team of doctors monitored screens.
Day one of testing.
“Feeling okay there?” a doctor asked. Romy ignored him and he took the hint.
Guards had escorted her from the cell this morning, directly to this lab. The base used to belong to the Amach, before Houston took it over to house the Renegades, and this gave the three women a distinct advantage—all Amachs were set out in a similar way. This meant there would be four exits: one through the trap door at the top, one through the hangar exit where the crafts flew out—though this usually led out the side of a cliff or to the ocean—and emergency exits at each end of level one. Stairwells ran up the far ends of each level toward these exits, but the stairwells and level one exits required authorised approval to unseal them.
When Deimos and Phobos left this base, they took the space soldiers through the craft exit. Escaping via this route had the highest chance of success. They could theoretically steal a craft to escape in. The downside was Houston surely expected it, and Tina had raised the point that security had likely been tightened after the exodus of the space soldiers, the twins, and Nancy.
That left the trap door up through the hangar, or either of the level one options.
Escaping their cell and getting to any of these would be hard enough. What came after made escaping more dangerous. They’d climb out of the Amach and would then need to elude Houston on foot. They didn’t know where the Critamal were. Reports said Houston gave them the northern territories of America. But were there poachers around this base? Would she, Tina, and Elara be walking directly into a Critamal encampment?
The electrical current increased through Romy’s limbs.
“Oh, yeah. There we go,” Houston said. “Look at her lateral septum. It just switched off.” He laughed, and the surrounding doctors gasped, all looking at a screen over her head.
“The hypoth
alamus and hippocampus are working overtime, but they are nowhere near as effective as the lateral septum as an anger gatekeeper. Her brain is now at a distinct disadvantage with pushing down violence and aggression.” Houston clapped his hand and pointed to a young male in a white lab coat. “Mark down the stimuli, Sawyer.”
The current was increased several times before they unstrapped her, gave her a sickly-sweet drink, and moved her to the treadmill.
A headset with probes on it was fitted around her temples and the doctors started her on nine kilometres per hour. Just above a walk. Romy ended up reaching over and increasing the speed herself—may as well get an actual run in.
Someone tutted and came back to decrease it to nine again. Romy simmered, woodenly shifting her legs to the slow pace. Running at this speed was almost harder.
A doctor finally came and increased the speed in increments, until Romy was flying at eighteen. The faster pace was much nicer on her legs, but the multitude of wires dangling off of her was concerning.
Another doctor decreased speed to nine again.
Comets, were they just going to do this over and over?
“Interesting,” Houston mused. “She shows more tendency toward aggression at a slower speed.”
She always had. Something about adrenaline and endorphins sharpened her mind.
Houston stared at the results while his minions hovered anxiously for his reaction. “It’s perfect,” he finally muttered. “A soldier who is in control during action, but excitable with low-level current. Imagine the possibilities.”
“Doctor?” someone asked in confusion.
Houston blinked and looked up. A grin broke across his face. “Don’t mind my mutterings.” He gathered a bunch of papers together before saying, “That’s enough for today. Make sure she gets enough fluids to recover for tomorrow.”
Romy’s stomach was still in knots about Houston’s careless remarks a few seconds ago. What had he meant by that? It had sounded as though he wanted to . . . control her.
She was escorted back to the cell by six guards, which amused her. Feral Romy had been a magnificent fighter, but Romy was no longer insane. She was a better fighter in general, but there was no way she’d manage six armed guards by herself. If she was pissed off, she could manage two, maybe three if they were unskilled.
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