by Terina Adams
We didn’t go any farther. Archon positioned himself in the middle of the vast space, me by his side. Hands clasped in front of him, he said without looking at me, “You’re scheduled for another trial today.”
“What’s a trial?”
Eyes sliced to me, darting back and forth over mine. “How much do you remember of yesterday?”
“Nothing.” No point in lying.
His chin crinkled as he gently nodded his head, taking the information in like a doctor hearing symptoms from a patience. “That’s a mercy for you.” He breathed it out. Not a surrendering sigh, a grateful one. I’d say it was a disinterested sigh translated to mean don’t expect any more of those.
What did he do to me? I wasn’t meaning them, Martimon and whoever else were likely involved in administering the experiments, trials. What was between Archon and me was personal to him, an intimacy that had nothing to do with emotion and sex, or rather any emotion that extended to me. It was like he saw me as a personal challenge, climbing Mount Everest, conquering the wild seas, but it was a personal challenge fettered in malevolent intent. It can’t be hard for a Set to master anyone, yet Archon found it particularly interesting to master me, and he wanted to do it through friendship and beguilement, which made his actions depraved.
Something happened yesterday that I couldn’t remember, something Archon did. While he watched the entrance, I cast glimpses at his profile. He’d know I was watching him. Archon was always aware of his surroundings and everyone near him. A man as perceptive and cunning as he was would feel the burn of my gaze on him. Let him feel; let him think I was afraid or in awe. Let it bolster his arrogance. Let my glances bore into him, because soon they would, literally. Soon, I would look at him with more than my eyes. Destruction would be there as well. But I needed to know first how many sweepers there were, how many ungrafted, and what factional threat did they pose.
My glances were disrupted by the echoing sound of boots marching down the tunnel. In my periphery, I felt Archon’s eyes land on me, wanting to capture my instant reaction to what I saw. Transfixed, I couldn’t turn to him. My heart timed its beat with the stereo march. A tingling started in my stomach and lower down, like I was about to wet myself. Alithia, I’m so sorry. How would I feel when our eyes met? The accusations, and I deserved them. I couldn’t shut out the big, black eyes of her little girl nor my promise to bring her back.
They came into view. Sweepers surrounded their prey, shields up, weapons held at the ready. The large sweeper at the front blocked the person immediately behind. For a held breath, he obscured my view. For the grace of one second, only until an equally imposing man came into view, stepping to the side of the leader so he could be seen or see.
Jax.
Chapter 31
Archon made me wait so I could watch Jax pass me caged by a wall of sweepers. There were six of them, the same number who’d arrived with me. To me, their details were blurry, nothing more than meaningless figures obscuring where my eyes lay.
Jax’s gaze stayed on me, leveled, intense as he passed. His expression like granite, nothing to read, but his eyes were telling me things. I wanted them to tell me things, like “I forgive you.” I blame myself for everything, Jax. And now I blamed myself for this.
Now past, Jax couldn’t turn far enough to keep our eyes locked, so he stared straight ahead. I ducked my head, staring at the floor. Destruction heaved up like the vomit of yesterday, worse, the billowing rage of heat and flames from an explosion, punching me through the chest, and I felt about to topple backward. I was switched to full wattage; the excess would soon zap out of my fingers.
I clenched my teeth. Don’t. This was my weakness. Blame, it cored into me, debilitated, diminished, destroyed any strength I had. That’s why destruction was here, tail lashing and whipping below the surface, my wakeup call. While destruction could not change the truth in my heart, it could force me to change my mind, think powerful thoughts.
Archon moved behind, expecting me to follow alongside him. I ignored his stare, blatantly fixing my eyes on Jax’s back. How many times had I marched beside him or scurried in his wake as he strode forward, driven by his intent? Enough times to know the emotions warring inside that made him move the way he did now. His was a stride with purpose. No way would someone like Jax get caught. Was there a reason? Or was my stupid heart begging for a reason? His walk could be nothing more than a man refusing to be humbled by fear in the face of defeat.
We all gathered at the lift, but the sweepers positioned themselves to block my view of Jax.
“I will take him now,” Archon said.
With helmets on, it was impossible to know what they thought, but turning their heads to each other said what didn’t need saying. Confusion. This was not how the rules went.
“You may log your data and then leave.” Archon’s voice hardened with an edge of steel.
The lift opened with the sweepers remaining where they were. Archon ignored their stymied departure, touching my back to prompt me forward and into the lift. “You too.” His eyes moved to Jax.
My eyes remained on Jax for most of the charade, but he was watching Archon, even caught the hand he placed at the small of my back. I darted forward, freeing myself from the contamination of Archon’s touch and into the lift.
Archon followed me in, sweeping Jax up as he went. The lift was big enough, but we crowded inside. My body hummed. It was like someone plugged me in. The distance between Jax and me was mere meters, but it might as well be brimmed by a chasm for how much I wanted to touch him but couldn’t, not with the greedy eyes of Archon yearning for ammunition.
One of the sweepers whipped out his hand to block the sensor at the door. “This is unregulated, sir.”
The conversation brewed, taking Archon’s attention. With his back to us both, it freed us to share a glance. There was too much cramming my head to be said, so I said nothing at all. In typical Jax style, he just stared. We weren’t in Dominus, so I should be able to read his expression, but the black of his eyes was still nothing but a deep well, and I’d yet to learn how to climb out.
What happened? Why are you here? The others? Too much to say. But he only needed to know one thing. We were back in the Amex Tower on the cusp of my explosion. I’d given him one look, and he had understood. I needed to give him more than that now.
A slight nudge and destruction purred, arced, lashed. My mental hold was tight. It was like chains yanked through a fisted hand, a little release on the stream of my stare, a piercing jab through the pits of his eyes, funneling, funneling inside. Jax stiffened, his eyes flaring wide. I reeled destruction back, blinked to sever the link, stepped back with the force of fighting to leash it again. Jax ducked his head, his body exhaling, the whole of him. His understanding lapped outward like the ripple on a pond, caressed over me. And for the first time in so long, it felt like we were joined.
How many seconds had passed? A few and the conversation was over. The sweeper relinquished his hold on the door. They hissed closed, locking the three of us inside. Mere seconds was all to reach our stop, so Archon didn’t bother to look at us. But we looked at each other. Jax’s eyes were on my nose and lip, still showing signs of my kiss with the stairs, and maybe the bruising was still visible on my jaw. How long had it been since we last saw each other? My eyes were ravenous.
The feeling that washed through my body was not the sensation of descending. We were going up. The lift doors opened to a maze of white corridors and paneled doors creating dead ends as we walked. It felt like we were crossing the circumference of the compound when Archon finally entered an open doorway. The view slowed me to a standstill. The desert expanded across the entire wall like the window in Jax’s apartment. What we saw was the distant horizon, inhospitable and unforgiving. And I hoped to cross it.
“Please, take a seat.” Archon was all smiles and hospitality.
Jax led me in. This was a place within the compound I’d never been before. Situated above everythi
ng meant the person who occupied the room had to be important. Yet Archon’s office was a level or two below. Or at least the one he’d taken me to. Compared to the other rooms I’d been inside so far, this place oozed comfort from the chairs and couches to the muted color of the sparse furnishings.
Archon moved around like it was home. Jax did as told and headed for a chair, but I was drawn to the window. I’d never seen a desert, except in books back home, but even then, there’d been some stumpy, sick-looking vegetation managing to get a foothold. In front of me, there was nothing but red dunes looking like an endless roll of waves. Up close, I looked down the wall of the compound to the desert below. Violent sandstorms had built a giant mound of sand up the side. No wonder there were no windows below. The compound looked to be in the process of slowly being buried. I pressed my palm flat to the glass, but the thickness meant the heat from outside couldn’t penetrate. There was nothing but madness in my plans to escape across the desert. But desperation made mad plans the best plans you could make.
“This all seems like déjà vu to me.”
I spun at the sound of the voice, seeing Carter in the doorway. Two emotions distilled all others away. The warp of déjà vu was also real for me, only this time the fear, present and churning my still unsettled stomach, was soon eclipsed by the furnace of hatred. My veins burned with the emotion, and destruction fueled the fire.
Jax had risen from his chair, and our eyes met for a brief moment before both of us turned back to the doorway. Carter! Here, mixed up with the compound, Archon, and the experiments. We now had our answers to what he was up to. Where was his legion of recruits from my world?
“You were always so good at hiding your emotions,” Carter addressed Jax as he advanced into the room. Jax eased back down into his seat, but I wasn’t as skilled with my acting. Barbs should be showing through my clothes from the number of prickles I felt.
“And you,” he said, settling his gaze on me. “I guess it’s to be expected.”
“Her memories may return in a few days,” Archon said.
“How much has she lost?”
“I’m not sure. Seems the most recent ones. She remembers nothing of the trial.” Said like I wasn’t in the room.
“And meeting me, it seems.”
Sweet Jesus. What happened?
This nauseating tête-à-tête infected me with some disease of their making, slicing a divide between Jax and me. They’d done something to me, and now I couldn’t bear to look at Jax and see his scrutiny. I felt like a traitor, like I’d given away something important. Maybe I had. Myself. Without a choice.
I kept my eyes on Carter as he strolled toward a recliner. The large room wasn’t large enough. This world wasn’t large enough. Would we ever be free of him? As in Archon’s office, the chair responded to his presence by molding to his body, looking like a giant hand cupping him in comfort.
His predatory eyes ate me up. “I must thank you for your interesting insights. We are mobilizing as I speak.”
Stomach acid burned up my throat. The desert was in my mouth, dry and scratchy, and my lips felt sealed tight. Mobilizing? As in attacking the fringe. They did that all the time. Razing it out of existence? I had given something away, and it was more than myself. This time, I couldn’t stop my gaze from seeking Jax out. More controlled than I could ever be, he showed no outward sign of emotion from what Carter said. I knew Jax enough to know his mind would already be ahead of mine.
I could do it now. Learn first. “Where are your followers, all the people you brought back from my world?”
Carter tapped his time out with his fingers. “They have not been assimilated into daily compound life as of yet.”
Holy crap. Yet again, I couldn’t keep my stare from seeking Jax out, but he kept a steady gaze on Carter.
“They are here?” What a pathetic question. It reflected the daze in my head.
“To do anything else would be premature. And the work here is very important. Your kind have proven interesting subjects. We are similar in many ways, but the differences are enough to provide interesting outcomes.” Carter shifted his gaze to Archon. “Any updates on our progress?”
“We have pleasing results from the latest test subjects. It seems you were right. Their biosystems are easily manipulated.”
Carter’s eyes were back on me. “You will undergo your second trial today. I’m afraid that will really fog your brain, but I’m assured it will sort itself out over time.” He settled his hands in his lap. “Jax, Jax, Jax. It’s good to see you again.”
Jax stared but didn’t reply. Here was the mentality that made him a prized fighter. The force behind his silence pounded my heart. Slouched in the chair, he could be here for a friendly chat. I read something else. I didn’t need to see his expression, dive into his eyes, to understand what his body was saying. He was not cold-hearted like Carter, but he was unremitting and resolute and like granite to crack.
“Your sudden arrival has messed with our schedule. You’ll be happy to know you’ve been bumped to the front of the line. We’ve had little success with our own kind, but there have been the odd positive result. Enough to make me keen for your results.” Bumping his thumbs together, he said, “Should I let you know the reason I lied to Nixon about your father?”
For once I caught the first crack in Jax’s face, nothing more than the finest veining on Jax’s marbled expression. The slightest twitch in his jaw muscle. A faint glimpse was all, but I felt the fury, the wild turbulence of it, enough to turn stomach acid to poison, enough to annihilate any previous plans or thoughts, twist them into revenge, revenge now, revenge absolute. My breath was bound up in that small twitch, concealing to everyone but me what dark drive Carter’s words festered within him. Archon wouldn’t see. Jax was a stranger to him. Carter would miss it because he only saw what he wanted to see.
“Renus was proving as much a problem for me as Nixon.” Carter continued oblivious, as I suspected, to the warning signal seeping from Jax’s expression. “You were meant to have passed through the trial long before now, but Renus refused to allow it. As did your mother. Familial bonds are tiresome.”
Jax was motion before I managed to force the breath through my tight throat. Destruction was not delayed by my paralyzed reflexes. It rose. As a wild cat it lashed its tail. The sudden force of its impending burst and I was on the verge of peeling my lips back and snarling.
Jax was over the table, nothing but a blur of furious motion when Archon shouted, “Stop. You won’t do this.”
Too late, the impact of Jax’s weight toppled the chair backward. But both were Aris and Aris, as I’d learned, came with agility and sped beyond normal. Either Carter had lurched himself sideways or Jax had dragged him, but both missed the impact of the chair on the floor, so that they were sailing backward, backward until Jax had Carter against the wall, hands clasped at Carter’s throat, nails indenting deep into the flesh. He could do it, gouge a hole through Carter’s throat, mute his toxic words, mute the torturous taunts. His eyes would be shot with bloodlust, thoughts lost within the insatiable desire for bloody death. But he was caught, his hands tremoring over Carter’s throat, his mind now locked in a war. Set words shackled him.
“Release him.”
I could cry with the restraint of tying destruction down. Feral, it thrashed inside, churning me up like a tin boat bucked on a stormy sea. Be smart, Sable. Neither Archon or Carter knew destruction was free. Now was not the time.
Distract. “What are the trials for?”
Carter pushed Jax backward. Seized in his internal struggle, Jax staggered away, but kept his feet. Carter straightened his clothes, adjusting his collar as if to emphasis he’d won, as in kept his throat intact, and returned to his seat without bothering to look at Jax. “He needs to sit.”
“Return to your seat,” Archon commanded. While not directed at me, my legs buckled with the need to find a seat. Dirty Set asshole.
I couldn’t watch Jax shuffle to the sea
t he’d just vacated, hated to witness how easy he was tamed by Archon’s voice, hated to see the anguish in his eyes brought on by his internal fight. How could anyone want to see Set free of their grafts?
Jax sat heavy, his hand frozen in a claw, just as it had been at Carter’s throat. It was as if his muscles held onto the memory of Carter’s flesh captured underneath.
“Maybe it’s time this one left. I’d like a chat with Jax.”
Archon moved toward me.
“Just a minute.” Carter held up a finger. Finally he gave me his attention. “I’m curious to know how it felt when you discovered Holden had betrayed you.”
What did he mean? How would he know? My mind was on a sprint.
Carter snorted a laugh. “Never mind. But I am curious to know why you didn’t get Jax to bump your dad from goal.”
I would speak if I had the saliva to lubricate the words.
“You’ve saved his life, you know. Tucked safely away in prison, he’s no threat to me now, so I have allowed him to live. The senate paid tribute to his death, of course, and has now replaced him with someone else. Unfortunately it meant I had to foster knew relations, which take time. But things are progressing with the senate member for Negal.” A flick of his finger, “you can take her now.”
Archon came alongside me resting a hand at my elbow. “Your next trial starts soon.”
I jerked my arm away. “I’m not going anywhere with you.” No way would I leave Jax.
Destruction was in my throat squeezing it shut. It was hammering against the barrier of my skin and turned my heartbeat into a spastic gallop. Now. It had to be now. Destruction flooded up into my head. I was on fire. I was going to explode.
I glared at Archon. I wanted to dagger through his eyes into his mind and heart. The force of my hatred prickled my eyes. Glee, there was glee. I fought not to laugh. It tickled up with triumph. Luscious and compelling.
What was in my stare? Whatever it was forced Archon back one pace. The shift in his demeanor was like a storm descending. He inhaled himself taller, broader, crueler. Lethal shards scissored in his eyes.