Spine striking steel, back hitting metal, I fall to the ground. Gasping, groaning, rolling onto my side.
“You were always so easy to control.”
I glare, push myself up, growl. “Never again. I will never let you manipulate me again. You made me think a certain way, you changed who I was. Not again. I’m not your doll.”
“Oh?”
Dalton walks over, picks me up again. And tosses me across the room.
I land hard on my spine and a jarring thud runs down my back. I grit my teeth, back arching in pain. Rolling onto my stomach, holding myself up on my forearms.
“The thing is, Katherine, I don’t need to make you think a certain way anymore. I can toss you around until you’re simply too injured to argue.”
No.
I drag myself to my feet. Hiss. Feel claws slide out. Running, throwing my body forward, I swing a leg. Hit him squarely in the chest, push him back into the wall.
Victory. Short-lived victory.
His hand around my ankle. My weight being thrown across the room. Back striking a pile of metal. I turn, look down. A broken cage. Pieces of bars scattered under my body.
I groan, try to stand, fall back down. Everything hurts, everything feels broken. Like he broke every bone, every organ, every nerve in my body.
“You’re so weak,” Dalton laughs. “Shouldn’t a crime fighter put up more of a fight?”
He grips my arm and drags me to my feet. “If it came down to it,” he says, “I have orders to kill you.” He chuckles. “Good thing it didn’t come down to it.”
I hate you. I wish you weren’t so strong, I wish I could hurt you, I wish I could kill you. I didn’t think I could feel so much hatred. But I hate you so much, too much, more than any human could feel.
Dalton drags me to the cage, tosses me inside, throws me to the ground. “You’re mine, Katherine McCallister,” he says and I realize for the first time he sounds crazy and desperate and wild. “Whether you like it or not, you’re mine.”
He leaves the room and I watch him go. Shudders are vibrations down my spine. Because Dalton is inhumanly strong, because he is the Invincible, because he’s crazy and strong and just as manipulative as ever.
And that is not something I know how to fight.
Fifty
You should have run.
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Not without you, not again, not even if it would save me. Not even if you don’t care about me like I care about you. I couldn’t run. Not from Dalton, not from my crazy ex-boyfriend, not from the man who turned me into a little girl.
“There wasn’t enough time,” I whisper, pulling myself into a sitting position, starting to heal. “Once I saw Dalton, I couldn’t run.” I shake my head, try to laugh, make an agonized kind of sound instead. “Of all the people they could have chosen for a Project, they chose the man who knows how to mess with my head more than anyone else.”
Zane shoots me a worried look, stands, sits next to me. He’s obsessed with you, Kate. With controlling you. Glass may think he’s more functional than the rest of us but make no mistake. Dalton Knight is just as crazy as the rest of us, maybe more so.
“He was dangerous as a human.”
He scares you.
“I wish I could say he didn’t,” I whisper. “But even before this mess, he was very good at making people do what he wanted. He has this way with words. It’s like he was this disease and we were all sick and we had no idea we were dying.” I shudder. “And now he can do whatever he wants with me.”
Zane tenses. Not as long as I’m alive.
“Because I’m a victim, Zane, aren’t I?” A sour expression, aggravated scowl, crossed arms and closed heart. “Just another person to save.”
What?
He looks so confused, so lost, so oblivious. It just makes me more frustrated.
“You always have to be the hero, don’t you? You always have to save the day.”
I’m angry, frustrated, betrayed. Because his eyes see a victim, a damsel in distress, a little girl. Because that is what Dalton saw me as, made me into. Because he doesn’t care about me, doesn’t want anything to do with me, doesn’t want to do anything but his duty.
He carries the responsibility of the world and I am just another person to save.
“I understand heroism, Zane Rothstein. Every person you save is the same. It’s not about kindness or love or even pity. You don’t have a choice. If that’s all this is, if I am just another damsel in distress, just another little girl to save, I don’t want your help. I don’t want your protection.”
He’s smiling. Amused. Like there’s something funny about my anger, about my refusal to be another victim.
“It’s not funny,” I snap, look down. “I’m tired of men who think they have to save me, who think I need saving. I am completely capable of—”
He grabs my chin and I look at him from curtains of eyelashes. He’s still smiling.
You silly stubborn girl.
Jerk away, don’t let him touch you, don’t let him affect you, don’t let him do this.
Kate.
I still. Stare at him. Stop fighting. Because he’s gorgeous, entrancing, charismatic. And I don’t want to fight it anymore. Even if it would be easier, even if it would be simpler, even if it would save me heartache.
You’re right.
I couldn’t bear to see others suffer the insanity, the agony, the imprisonment. I helped every experiment I could. That’s how they caught me anyway. I was undercover in Glass Tech and I released a couple people soon to be experimented on.
And you’re right that it’s never about the people. It’s about stopping Richard Glass, it’s about doing the right thing, it’s about refusing to stand for injustice.
My heart is on the ground, lying below my body, so far down, too far down. Alone on the cold steel floor.
I’ve heard of heartbreak. I’ve felt it. Not like this, never like this. Everything has shattered and my head is ice and my bones are agony. Because I think I love him and he is so caught up in saving the world and he could never care for me.
Zane’s fingers are still around my chin, forcing me to keep looking at him, intoxicating me with his mouthed words. I would give anything to look away.
Kate. He shakes his head, leans closer. I protect people, Tatyana, Jayden, because letting them stay in here would be my destruction.
Why are you torturing me like this? Why won’t you just let me go? Why can’t you just let me look away?
My lips cannot ask the agonizing questions in my head. They don’t know how.
But, Kate, he says, eyes level, a soft smile falling into gravity. You are a completely different story.
A hand cradling the base of my skull, another at the small of my back, holding me close, closer than the space between us could allow, too close to think about why I was so angry with him.
Wait.
Wait for time to start ticking again.
Wait for the whole world to start turning again.
Wait for him to tell me this is a dream, this isn’t happening, this isn’t real.
My bones are on fire and my head is exploding and my heart is erratic. I’m thoughtless, breathless, wild with emotion I didn’t know I could feel and
he kisses me.
Desperately, intensely, passionately. Standing, tugging me up, his lips catching on mine. I slip my hands around his neck, pull myself closer, kiss him back.
His forehead against mine. You were never like the others, Kate McCallister. From the moment I first saw you, you were different.
He’s kissing me again, lifting me off my feet, and I gasp. All I want, everything I need, the only thing I’ve been missing, craving, begging for.
Gentle fingers pull of my mask and his hands are in my hair and his lips are on my eyelids.
And I wish I knew how to speak, wish I knew how to tell him words I’ve been so afraid of, words I thought would not matter. I wish I knew he could read my mind.
&nb
sp; Because I love him, because I think he might love me, because of this moment.
A single moment that steals my breath away.
Fifty-One
“Do you remember when they first brought me here?”
Nine words that fill the space between us. We’re lying on the floor, bodies facing each other, my head resting on the crook of his arm.
Zane reaches out, brushes my hair from my face. They shot you because I wouldn’t transform.
“And you said you were sorry. When you didn’t know a thing about me. Why? What difference did it make to you?”
If it had been anyone else, I would say it was my hatred for injustice. He mouths the words slowly, thoughtfully, pushing them out with careful deliberation. But not you. I think, even then, I knew things between us would not be like with the other experiments. You’ve always been different. Like we were a tangled mess that couldn’t be unraveled from the very beginning.
Silence passes between us and he props himself up on one elbow, slipping his arm out from under me. Picks up my black mask from the floor.
You know, you really aren’t that good at laying low.
I grin. “Did you expect me to sit and wait for a miracle?”
I sure didn’t expect you to become a superhero.
“Crime fighter.”
He raises an eyebrow.
“Superhero sounds ridiculous.”
What’s not ridiculous about a girl running around in leather and scaring criminals into going to prison?
“Touché.”
He’s laughing silently and I’m watching him, wondering how he could keep his silence for so long, and I’m about to ask but now we have company.
“Hello, love birds.”
Hatred is powerful. Because he destroyed the part of me that never doubts, never thinks, never fears. Because he turned me into something I’m not and now I’m not sure what I am and it’s his fault.
Dalton is grinning as he steps up to the cage, two guards hovering behind him. He nods to the guards and they both step into the cage, simultaneously reaching for their guns.
Zane and I share a look. No fighting. Not until we know what’s going on. Not until it seems like they’re going to kill us, not until it seems like there’s a chance for escape.
A soldier grabs me, the other grabbing Zane. They push us out of the cage, each soldier keeping ahold of our arms.
Dalton leads the way down the hall, sauntering through the basement with confidence, walking like he owns the place. Just like he used to own the hallways of Lincoln Park High School.
I glance at Zane. See his shaking hands. He’ll transform soon if he doesn’t get in control of himself. Good. He might cause mass destruction to the soldiers. Not so good. He could just as easily hurt me or himself.
We’re standing close enough that I can reach out and slip my fingers through his without the soldiers thinking I’m plotting an escape. I give his hand a squeeze, steadying the shaking, shooting him a pointed look.
Zane lets out his breath, nods once. He understands. He can’t lose control, he can’t let his anger get the better of him. Not right now, not right here.
They lead us up out of the steel basement, into the labyrinth of glass. In an elevator, up to the top floor. And I realize I know where they’re taking us.
Zane and I are shoved into an empty office and I glance at the plaque on the desk, grimace at the name, feel a snarl digging its way up my throat.
Richard Glass.
And then he walks into the room and it takes every ounce of restraint I’ve developed to stay still. There’s a gun pointed at my head, pointed at Zane’s head, keeping us both from fighting, keeping us both on the ground.
I study my enemy, my father’s killer, my mother’s boss, my creator. Richard Glass reminds me of a king. Not because he’s regal or majestic or noble. Because he sits on his throne all day, because he’s fat and lazy, because he’s a tyrant that treats people like something he owns.
“You’ve caused quite a bit of chaos, Miss McCallister.”
“You have only yourself to blame. Do your research when you choose experiments. They may be more dangerous than you bargained for.”
Glass stands, his expression amused and irritated at the same time. He turns, looks at the glass wall behind his desk, looks out at the city, looks down on the world below.
“Do you know what a hero’s complex is, Miss McCallister?”
“Does it matter?”
“A hero’s complex,” he says, ignoring my response, “Is the inability to leave people to their fate. Something you and Mr. Rothstein share. The need to protect people. It led you to begin a crusade against crime and to come back for Zane, just as it led Zane to free Projects Three and Four.”
Impatience. “Is there a point to this?”
“Your heroism is your downfall, Miss McCallister. It drives you to idiocy. Such as trying to protect a city with one of the largest crime rates in America.”
“Idiocy?” I’m smirking. “It’s thanks to my hero’s complex, my so-called downfall that a large percentage of criminals are turning themselves in, either in fear of meeting me or having already met me. I don’t call that idiocy.”
“And what about the criminals you don’t know about? Chicago is a big city and it’s full of crime.”
“Like kidnapping children and turning them into monsters?”
Glass turns, looks down at me. “This city needs to be purged, Miss McCallister. Expunged of its filth. And my experimentation will lead to that eradication.”
Insane. He forced us into being crazy, forced us to turn to insanity rather than feel the agony the experiment brings upon us. But he doesn’t need an experiment to make him crazy. He already was.
I glance at Zane, see his shocked expression. Because he went undercover here for this information, because he never found it, because the truth can’t be what he expected. It’s written in his eyes, like tattoo ink in ice blue irises.
“What do you mean?” I ask, eyes whipping back to meet Glass’s, jaw clenching in stubborn defiance. “How could you purge Chicago?”
There’s a sick smile on his face now, twisted and chaotic, holding all the insanity of a man who turns teenagers into monsters.
“Criminals are a poison in this city,” he says. “Crime has latched onto every part of it. I intend to cleanse the city, give it a fresh start, reinvent it.”
No.
Because I know what he’s saying, I understand what that means, I realize how he plans to purge Chicago.
“In order to purge it of its crime, Chicago must be destroyed.”
No. He can’t. He can’t destroy Chicago. He can’t kill innocent people along with the criminals.
Not an ounce of justice.
A wolfish growl. A glance at Zane. In human form, shaking hands, cold eyes, bared teeth.
You would destroy an entire city, kill thousands of innocent people, for the sake of wiping away crime.
“Sacrifices must be made for the good of the city as a whole,” Glass says.
I snarl. “How do you expect to level an entire city?”
“The Invincible. Dalton Knight. You see, Miss McCallister, you served as a test of sorts. As a human, you were the only one he couldn’t manipulate. With his new abilities though, you didn’t stand a chance.”
“He’s only one man,” I argue, still not seeing how he intends to use Dalton, still not sure what his plan is, still not understanding what the point of the Invincible Project is.
Glass glances up, at one of the many soldiers in the room. Simply nods. The soldier leaves the room.
About two seconds later, he returns. And he’s not alone.
The soldier drags in a young girl. A girl with red-tipped hair and bat wings. The girl that helped me escape all those months ago. She looks like she’s about to faint. Scars lace every inch of skin and bloodstains paint her body.
Glass smiles. “Miss McCallister, meet Project One. Zandra Glass.”
> Fifty-Two
What did you do to her?
Zane tries to stand, shock and horror on his face, and a soldier shoves him back down.
I look back at Glass, eyes flicking to the girl. The soldier shoves her and she falls on her knees.
“Zandra decided to get involved during Miss McCallister’s escape,” Glass says. “She helped her escape.”
I’m staring at Zandra now. “I left you in here.” My throat is raw. “I left you in here to be tortured.”
“Torture was a price I was willing to pay to help you,” Zandra whispers. “You had a war to wage.”
“A war,” Glass interrupts, “That will never begin.”
“If you think I’m going to let you obliterate an entire city,” I growl, “You don’t know much about me.”
Glass laughs. “You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?”
I snarl.
“Like your father’s was, your life is about to be cut short.” Glass’s smile is almost eerie now. “You have become a problem, Miss McCallister. The Black Kat. You refuse to let a cleansed world exist. That makes you a dangerous enemy.”
“I’m flattered.”
“Your defiance, Miss McCallister is fascinating,” he says. “Every other experiment could be broken. Zandra, by physical abuse. Even Zane, by the suicide of his girlfriend.”
Freeze. Hold your breath. Don’t think.
I stare at Zane. Horror in my eyes, agony in his. Zane is glaring at Zane, shaking and growling. It wasn’t suicide. It was murder.
Glass shrugs. “It makes you weak.” He looks back at me. “But you, Miss McCallister, are unbreakable, it seems. They tried torture, they tried isolation, they tried to scare you. My men have not been able to break you. You have no family, not truly, since you are so defiant of your mother.
“Your bravery complicates my plans, Miss McCallister,” he says. “You see, Zandra here believes you can stop me. You make her spirits unbreakable. And that is a problem.”
I smirk.
“However,” Glass continues. “Not for much longer. You will die, Miss McCallister, because it will break the spirits of Zandra and because you will no longer stand in my way.”
The Invincibles (Book 1): Trapped: A girl. A monster. A hero. Page 20