Delia only smiled. "This procedure will help us move closer to our goals. Are you ready?" She gestured to a gurney in the corner of the lab that had shackles on the armrests. The end of the bed was lowered as though in preparation for an internal examination. "Lie down."
I fought her now, every step, absorbing from the air as I pushed. One step and then another. One more. Panic filled me. They weren"t telling me what they planned to do, but I had a good idea. I felt almost naked in the blouse and knee-length skirt of the hotel uniform.
"I"ll just give you something to help you relax." Dr. Tunns plunged a needle into a vial and filled the syringe. Beyond her, I noticed Edgel had taken up position by the door.
I reached out to Dr. Tunns, pushing easily past her shield, and saw what wasn"t being said. The solution in the vial wasn"t just something to help me relax but to put me out completely, and the procedure was insemination. Lew had received treatments that gave his sperm a higher possibility of engendering Unbounded, and he"d also been taking injections that would enhance the sensing ability in his offspring. More enhancements had been made in the lab and now his genetic material was ready for use.
"I wish we had more time to discuss this," Delia said, compelling me forward, "but Stefan has heard about your capture and wishes to see you tonight." She cast a dark look in Edgel"s direction that told me he"d had something to do with informing Stefan. Could it be he didn"t want to see me tortured as I"d a.s.sumed? "We need to finish this and get you ready to leave," Delia continued. "Don"t worry. It"s just a little biopsy."
I knew the truth, even if I couldn"t sense the lie in her voice. She probably saw in my thoughts that I"d discovered exactly what they intended, but she wanted deniability and unconscious I wouldn"t be able to accuse anyone. Even if Dr. Tunns became the scapegoat, Delia"s power would protect her. Besides, Stefan wanted more sensing Unbounded, and I had the sick feeling that he"d look the other way, especially in light of how I continued to fight him. The Emporium"s breeding program was the reason they were so strong now, and every Emporium member was required to be a part of it.
Delia mentally forced me the few more feet to the bed. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I tried to resist. Dr. Tunns pushed me back onto the mattress, pulling my left arm into the first shackle and clamping it shut. After all the time I"d resisted my attraction to Ritter, in large part because I wasn"t ready for the commitment of a family, and here I was about to be forced. By the door, Edgel looked away, no expression on his face. I knew him well enough that even if he didn"t agree with what they were doing, his loyalty to the Emporium was unshakable.
A slow smile covered Lew"s crunched face, and I could see how much he was enjoying my helplessness. "We could let her stay awake," he said. "She"d prefer that, I think."
"No." Delia"s voice was hard.
I scanned the room frantically, searching for anything to save myself. I saw my confiscated weapons on the desk, including Keene"s switchblade and Ritter"s ballistic knife. Close but too far away to do any good. Even my cell phone was there. Useless now as its self-destruct would have activated the minute they"d tried to turn it on without my fingerprints and the proper codes.
Dr. Tunns neared me with the needle, and I slapped her away. The mental pressure to lay my other arm in the shackle increased. And why not set it down? It was after all, only a small procedure that would be over in a little while, and it would benefit everyone, maybe even the whole world by helping to usher in an era of utopia.
Vomit rose in my throat as I shoved the thoughts away. Not mine, but Delia"s, so skillfully put inside my thought stream that they felt like mine. I pushed harder against her.
Even as I thought I couldn"t fight any longer, the overhead lights flickered once, twice. Everyone looked upwards as they went out altogether, plunging us into darkness. "The generator will go on soon," Dr. Tunns said. "Takes less than thirty seconds."
Ritter, was my first thought, and by the frustration Delia exuded in my mind, I knew she"d heard.
"Edgel," Delia said. "Go check it out."
"Okay." The door opened and closed as he left.
"It"s just the storm," Dr. Tunns said. "It was raining when you got here. It"s happened before."
Delia wasn"t consoled. "I don"t like the timing."
I reached for the shackle with my free hand, searching for the release. My hand froze when I became aware of another life force in the building. With a glance at Delia to a.s.sure that her attention was elsewhere, I sent out my thoughts, rapidly pinpointing the unshielded newcomer.
Mari.
Erin? Erin? She was thinking so loud, I felt she was in the room.
Hastily, I wove a barrier between Mari and the rest of my brain, not knowing if such a thing was even possible. Wait! I told Mari. Not safe. Shield!
Her barrier went up immediately. It was strong and masked her thoughts, but I didn"t know if it was enough to keep Delia out. Had Delia been too occupied to notice the exchange? Given the rapid flow of thought streams, it was possible, even if my attempt at masking failed. But she would definitely notice the extra life force in the building if she stopped to count.
Well, I"d give her something else to focus on instead.
I jumped from the bed as the lights flickered back on, dragging it a foot. Dr. Tunns grabbed my free hand, but I yanked away.
Lew had his gun out again, pointing it at me. The compelling pressure on my body eased as Delia stepped forward and gingerly stroked my cheek with a finger that felt like paper. "So much energy even now. I really wish we could be friends. But there"s someone else in the building, isn"t there? One of your friends. Are you going to tell me who, or should I find the information in your mind myself?"
"Probably one of your soldiers," I retorted. I pictured those soldiers in my mind so if she was looking at my thoughts, that"s what she would see.
I can always examine your unconscious thoughts, she told me silently.
Nausea clogged my throat. There was too much information I needed to protect from her greedy search-the Renegade safe house, the weakness of the New York Renegades, Brody"s ability, and Oliver"s as well. They knew about Mari, but not about what we were building in San Diego. Or where my parents lived. So many lives depending on me. The Renegades would have followed safety procedures from the moment of my capture, but damage would still be done. How much had she already seen in my mind just now as I thought about it?
Spaghetti, bacon, chocolate, shopping for jeans, Ritter"s kiss-anything to keep her focus off Mari. My only comfort at the moment was knowing that memories in the unconscious mind were much less detailed and often far more misleading than thoughts seen in the conscious mind.
Delia motioned to the doctor. "Lock the shackle. I think she knows more than she"s telling, but all I"m getting is a jumbled mess. I"ll have to probe deeper."
Lew pocketed his gun and grabbed my right arm as the doctor complied, his fingers like a vise. "Let"s at least get the drug into her. She"ll be more compliant that way. Less chance of permanent damage. We need to do the procedure anyway."
I spat in his face. "Is that the only way you can father a kid? In a doctor"s office when your victim"s unconscious?"
Releasing me, he jabbed his fist into my jaw. Pain reverberated up my cheek.
"You hit like a mortal!" I taunted.
Dr. Tunns slid the needle into my arm held by the shackle.
Desperation had me once again outside the thinner part of Delia"s shield, but this time in my imagination I held one of Ritter"s sai. I could feel the anger pulsing through my body, reminiscent of the energy I"d siphoned off Brody at the Hunter"s lair. Gathering all my energy into the sai, I plunged it into her shield with an upward thrust. It sank clear to the hand guard.
What are you . . .? Delia began, but this time she was too late. I was inside.
Channeling the strength of her ability, I shoved her from my brain, copying how she made her shield so I could keep her out. I was right that barriers strengthened with practice, but hers also had connections to the electrical paths that ran through her mind, much like the connections the technopaths had with their nanites. It was brilliant and required less effort to maintain than any shield I"d tried before.
Ha! I sent to her as I used her own ability and energy to hurl a blast of white hot light into her mind before severing our connection.
Delia grabbed at her head, a sharp scream coming from her open mouth. She wasn"t the only one affected by my violent mental blast. Next to me, Dr. Tunns collapsed to the ground unconscious and the needle fell out of my arm, the contents of the syringe still intact.
I was already moving, pulling the bed across the room. Lew dived after me, his strong shield having protected him from damage. He went for his gun, but I was faster. My hand came down on Keene"s switchblade, flicking it open and throwing it as hard as I could. The blade wasn"t long, but I hoped it"d stop him long enough for me to grab my .380 or the ballistic knife. Throwing had never been my forte, but I"d practiced long and hard to become better.
The knife imbedded in his chest, though it probably would have bounced off if he"d been wearing a coat. He laughed, bringing up his gun.
c.r.a.p! I thought.
Lew"s eyes suddenly widened and he jerked them down at the knife, clawing it out of him with his free hand. He began screaming, still raking at his chest. The gun clunked to the floor. After another wail, Lew followed suit. Smoke curled upward from the blackening hole in his chest where the knife had penetrated.
I blinked. "Uh, that was so not like the poison used on me." I was grateful, though. Keene"s little present had saved me.
Another groan from Delia reminded me I was still very much in danger. At any moment she could recover or Edgel might return. As I s.n.a.t.c.hed up my ballistic knife and brought it around to launch at her, she scurried out the door, her dignity gone and her dress fluttering around her.
I reached out to Mari. Okay, it"s safe now. I threw up a stronger shield around her. At least for the moment, but we need to get out of here. They suspect the Renegades caused the power failure.
We did. It was the only way I could get in. Where are you?
Uh, in the lab. I"m a little tied up right now.
Are you alone?
I glanced at the two unconscious bodies. Pretty much. I"d barely finished the thought when Mari appeared next to me.
"Wow!" she said, looking around. "I can see you"ve been busy."
"Our old friend Edgel is going to be back any moment." I tugged at the shackle. "But I"m locked in. Don"t know where the doctor put the key. It"s around here somewhere."
"So shift out." She leaned over to take a better look at the smoking hole on Lew"s chest.
"Oh, right." Channeling her ability, I shifted next to her. "Thanks," I said rubbing my wrist. "How"d you find me?"
She tore her eyes away from Lew. "When Ritter discovered you"d been taken, he pretty much made mincemeat of those guys at the hotel who were trying to kill Jace. Then he somehow managed to shoot a tracking device onto the helicopter that took you. Good thing because your internal transmitter stopped working soon after. They must have disabled it. Anyway, we tracked the helicopter here."
"Impressive. Is Jace okay?"
"Well, he was shot, but he"s okay."
"And Ritter?" I stopped myself from finding the answer by examining her thoughts.
She frowned. "I don"t know if he"s okay, but he didn"t look good the last time I saw him. He and Ava rushed off someplace."
He"d left me here? That didn"t sound like Ritter, but I couldn"t worry about his reasoning now. We needed to get out. I scooped up Lew"s gun and shifted to where my own still lay on the desk. "So what"s the plan?"
"They left Dimitri in charge. All the rest of us are outside the compound, and the New York group, too. But the Emporium has like thirty men surrounding the building. And those are the ones we could count. It"s obvious they"re making sure we can"t get to you. Anyway, when we first got here, Ritter was all hot to barrel in and find you, all alone if he had to, but Ava took him aside and they exchanged some pretty heated words, and when they came back, he was all calm." She frowned. "Looked like a ghost, actually. But he was calm. Then they grabbed Jace and Oliver and left."
Oliver? I didn"t like the sound of that.
"I was supposed to shift in and you"d use my ability to shift out with me. But despite what Cort said about their machine shield, I couldn"t fold past it. It makes it so everything inside this building doesn"t seem to exist."
"I was afraid of that." I shifted to the door, motioning for Mari to follow.
She appeared beside me. "We used Brody to blow out the electric lines going inside the building."
"And that"s when you shifted in."
She made a face. "Yeah, we thought they"d have to call the power company before they could restore the electricity, but a generator kicked on right after I shifted in. Dimitri and Cort warned me it might be a possibility. I thought maybe Brody could destroy that also because it"s just another energy source, but now I"m thinking he probably can"t get through the barrier since the generator is keeping it alive. So we need to kill the generator ourselves and get out of here."
"Correction." I eased open the door, relieved to see an empty corridor. "We need to release the prisoners, hit the generator, and then get out."
"No." Her hand dropped over mine, still on the doork.n.o.b. "Dimitri told me to tell you that you couldn"t worry about the others right now. We"ll get them when they"re moved. Because we"ve got all our people out there, but it won"t be enough against the Emporium"s reinforcements. We can pick some of their soldiers off with rifles, but they"re wearing body armor and they"ve driven in huge concrete barriers for protection. We"d need an army to get our people out."
"So what"s to stop the Emporium from bringing a hundred men to guard our people when they"re moved?" I shook my head. "We have to try to get them out while we can."
"They might die." Mari"s voice was scarcely a whisper.
"There are things a lot worse than dying." I handed Lew"s gun to her. "Besides, I think I have a plan."
"Oh?"
"In a minute I"ll explain. First we have to get rid of the cameras in the rooms where they"re holding the prisoners. We"ll need a technopath."
"Stella"s out there, but you can"t channel her ability until we kill the generator."
"Yeah, but I know another one who"s a lot closer." I shifted back to the desk and unhooked the laptop that was connected to a keyboard and the large monitor.
"Let"s go," I said to Mari, linking our minds. "Follow me."
MARI AND I SHIFTED TO Patrick"s dark cell. He was awake despite the bullet hole in his chest, his shield tight over his mind. "Patrick," I said softly. Pain sluiced off him like water.
He gasped and scrambled away from me. "Who is it?"
"It"s me, Erin. I was here earlier."
I felt him relax. "How"d you get in?"
I moved closer and whispered so softly I didn"t know if he could hear. "I"ll explain later. Right now, I need you to drop your mind shield. I can"t risk them hearing."
"You"re like her then." Disgust in his voice.
"No, because I"m asking. I don"t have to."
He considered a moment before dropping his shield. "Okay."
I need you to disable the cameras, I told him. I know you"re hurt, but you"re the only one who can do it. Even channeling his ability, I doubted I"d have enough expertise to do it quickly. I have a friend here and we"re going to help you and the other prisoners here escape. How we"d do that wasn"t exactly clear, but my idea involved taking out the generator, using the prisoners as soldiers, and communicating with the others outside, especially Brody Emerson.
I saw Patrick"s consent in his mind and I opened the laptop, fumbling a little with my anxiety. I had no idea what Delia and Edgel were up to, but I didn"t suppose it would take them long to regroup. I had to free the prisoners before then.
Mari helped me prop Patrick against the wall. He was cold to my touch. The light from the laptop showed me he"d been bandaged, but his face was pale and drawn. I should have thought to bring him a painkiller because I doubted the guard had given him one. His Unbounded genes would help with that, but a little mortal medicine sometimes went a long way to staving off the pain until true healing set in. Mari removed her jacket to lay over him.
His fingers flew over the keys. I could feel his comfort at the familiarity of the computer. It"d been eight months since they"d let him touch anything electronic.
We need to either disable the cameras altogether or loop in feed from other days, I said in his mind. Don"t say anything aloud; just think the words and I"ll see them. As long as he didn"t think about too many things at once.
He shook his head, typing fast. After a moment, he said aloud. "I looped in another room"s feed to the lobby desk where they"re monitoring everything. They can"t hear us now. But I can"t do anything with the camera feed. They have them protected and it"d take too long. I can, however, insert my own program that will crash all the cameras. It"ll take them an hour to clean and reboot."
"Do it," I said. It would be a clear signal to Delia that someone was in their computer system, so we"d have to get the prisoners out fast. But she already knew something was wrong with what happened in the lab, so maybe it didn"t matter. Even as I had the thought, a blaring alarm came from the hallway. "Looks like they"re letting everyone know about my escape."
"My phone won"t work." Mari stared at the device in her hand. "c.r.a.p, I thought we"d at least have that."
I hadn"t even considered that she might have her phone. "Delia suspected our people were behind the electricity failure, and she knew someone had come inside. Makes sense that she"d try to block communications." While the phone couldn"t get us out of here, it would have been a line of communication with the outside.
"I don"t see anything here related to blocking cell phones," Patrick said.
"Well, they have a generator, so whatever"s blocking my phone is probably getting energy from that." Mari returned the phone to her pocket. "Can you do anything about the generator from here?"
Patrick shook his head. "Must not be connected to the computer. If I had a few tools and could get to the wires in the wall . . ."
"No time for that," I said. "Look, we"ll release the other prisoners and kill the generator. We"ll be back for you within the hour."