“One of my men informed me that he heard there were children living there. That’s a clear violation of our population laws.” Ferris sneered. “In fact, everything you do is a violation. You’ve broken every law in the book, and now you’re going to face the consequences.”
She rolled her eyes. “You’re doing a lot of talking, Commander, but it doesn’t seem like you’re saying anything important.”
“How’s this for important? I’m going to set your little town on fire. If you don’t tell me the names of the people involved in the attacks, I’m going to assume they all helped you. I’ll line them all up and shoot them in the head, one by one. I’ll make sure one of my men records it and then I’ll sit beside you while we play the tape so you can watch your people die.”
She said nothing. Foxworth had protocols in place. Escape plans. Rylan and the others knew she’d been captured—as long as one of them made it back to Foxworth, they would instantly implement a plan and take the others to safety.
“You’re not going to let those people die,” Ferris said with a harsh chuckle. “I know you.”
She smiled again. “You don’t know a damn thing about me.”
“Oh, I beg to differ.” He nodded at the blond-haired Enforcer behind him. “Dominik.”
Hudson’s twin stepped forward, bending over Ferris’s shoulder as he placed a blue file folder on the table. When he straightened up, Reese met his gray eyes and said, “Your sister says hello.”
Dominik flinched. It was barely noticeable, but she’d been looking for it, waiting for it.
Then he set his broad shoulders in a rigid line, his lips curling in a sneer. “My sister is a wanted fugitive and an enemy of the Colonies. If you know where she is, you need to tell us her location.”
So that’s how they were playing it? Reese suddenly had to wonder—was Dominik playing both sides, or did his loyalty really belong to his sister? Hudson seemed to think it did, but Reese was having a tough time reading the man.
Ferris flipped open the folder and said, “I don’t know you, huh? Trust me, I know everything about you, Teresa.”
She didn’t even blink at his use of her full name, and when he didn’t get the reaction he’d desired, he began spouting off details from the file.
“Teresa Robertson, daughter of Sylvia Robertson.” He tapped one of the pages. “We ran your fingerprints when we brought you here—imagine my surprise when I discovered you were a firstborn. That the most feared outlaw woman in West Colony is not even a real outlaw, but spent the first thirteen years of her life in the city. I wonder if your people would feel the same way about you, offer the same undying loyalty, if they knew the truth. That you haven’t struggled the way they have. That you didn’t spend your childhood running and hiding and starving in the ‘free land.’” He used air quotes at the end.
Again, she didn’t answer. The people she trusted knew she was from the city. It made no difference to them.
Ferris kept reading. “Last seen the day of her mother’s burning . . .”
Reese’s stomach churned at the word. Her mother’s burning, not burial. That was how the city disposed of bodies, because the council was too worried about disease. They couldn’t have corpses rotting underground and people breathing that air, so they burned the bodies and held a ceremony that was attended by anyone who cared to attend.
Not many people had been at her mother’s burning. As a breeder, Sylvia hadn’t spent much time with the general population. She was given her own house, had her own kitchen so she didn’t have to eat in the dining halls. Her only contact had been with her daughter, the doctors, the studs, and the babies she got to keep until they were weaned and stolen away from her.
“Who helped you out of the city?”
Ferris’s question brought another smile to Reese’s lips. “Who says I had help?”
“You’re telling me a thirteen-year-old girl snuck past the city gates? There’s no way you could have done it alone.”
Actually, she had. But she wasn’t surprised he didn’t believe her. From what she’d heard about him, Ferris didn’t have much faith in women.
The previous commander—Hudson and Dominik’s father—had made it possible for women to train as Enforcers if they chose to. Most didn’t, but at least the option had been available to them. When Ferris took over, he dismissed every female Enforcer and recruited only men. And if Hudson was right, he was drugging those men and turning them into bloodthirsty maniacs.
Reese hadn’t believed it before, but now that she was sitting across from Ferris, staring into his cold face, into eyes that didn’t contain a trace of humanity . . . Hudson’s claims didn’t sound so outlandish.
Ferris closed the file and released an annoyed breath. “You won’t talk, will you?”
She leaned back in her chair again.