Kelan returned a few minutes later, leading Fiona by the hand. He pulled out a seat for her at the table opposite Kit, then sat next to her.
Kit leaned forward. “Fee—Kelan said you had some info for us. I know this is a difficult thing to do, talking about what happened, but we need to know what you know.” He looked at Greer, who set a digital voice recorder in front of her. “We’re going to record it so that we don’t miss any of your story.”
Fiona nodded.
“Can you tell us about meeting King?”
She looked at Kelan. He tried to give her a reassuring look. “I had just come back from meeting the guy I was supposed to marry this weekend. Erick Ansbach—the one who…who…”
“He’s the guy King wanted her to marry,” Kelan finished for her.
She nodded. “He tried to cheat at the arena fight. Kelan had just fought three men, and more outside the arena before he ever went in, and probably more even than that. It was too much.”
Kelan smiled and shot a look at Kit. “She stopped the fight. Then the sirens made us all clear out.”
“Kelan said to play along with whatever was happening, but none of it made sense. When they took me to meet Erick, I told Mr. Edwards that I was disappointed they had selected a substandard fighter, that I refused to marry him.”
“Mr. Edwards is the one you told me about?” Kit asked Kelan.
“Right. The other shot caller,” he said.
“After that, King came into my room.”
Kelan noticed the tension deepen in the room as the team focused on what she was saying.
“There’s not much I can tell you about him other than his height and size. He wasn’t as tall as Kelan, but he was trim. He was covered from the top of his head to his feet. He wore gloves, some kind of mask that covered his face, neck, and hair. He wore eyeglasses and a baseball cap. And he used something that changed his voice. I don’t even know if he really was my father.”
“Okay.” Kit nodded. “What did he say to you?”
Fiona drew a long breath, sending another glance toward Kelan. She closed her eyes. Kelan was glad they were doing this debriefing now rather than waiting; he knew Fiona was going to block the memories as she began healing.
“He said a lot of things. I don’t know what it all meant. He watched me grow up. He talked about a breeding program they started long ago. He said he killed my mother and a boy I sometimes dated because he threatened my”—she paused and looked at her hands in her lap—“virginity. He said he killed my mother because she was supposed to keep me pure. He made it clear that they died because of me.”
Kelan reached over and held her shoulder. “Fiona, you didn’t kill them. He did.”
“But if I had made other choices—”
“He would still have killed them. He was done with your mother and your friend was in the way.”
Her eyes looked tortured when her gaze met his. “He let us have our night together because that way, when he kills you, your death will break me, and then I’ll have a second chance to become the daughter he wanted.”
“Yeah, that shit’s fucked up,” Max said. Kit gave him a quelling look.
“He said he’d engineered his War Bringer, after generations of careful breeding”—she looked at Kelan—“and that you had no right to the same title because you’re a mixed breed. He said his War Bringer was a pure Arian son.” She paused. “He left then.”
“Thank you, Fiona,” Owen said, breaking the silence that followed her words. Greer shut off the recorder.
“Were the girls in the tunnels found?” she asked, looking around the table.
“No,” Kit said.
“You told Kelan they were from the Friendship Community?” Greer asked.
She nodded. “They wrote letters to their families.”
“I gave you the letters yesterday,” he said, looking at Max. “These girls are being held against their will. If Lobo hasn’t seen them, I have to go get them out.”
Max leaned forward. “I’m going, too. I want to look for Lion and his boys. It would be easy to hide a large group of kids in a place like that.” He looked at Kelan, then Fiona. “While you were in the tunnels, did you see or hear about the watchers?”
“No,” she said.
“Were they using Lion and his boys as guards?” Max asked.
“The guards I saw were adults, not boys,” Kelan said. “Doesn’t mean they aren’t there. I just didn’t see them. I want to make a stop on our way down and talk to a friend of Fiona’s. Stacey Atkins. She was integral in getting info about Fiona to King’s people. I want to see what she knows.”
“Who is that?” Kit asked.
“My friend from CSU.”
“The girl got close to Fiona and found out everything about her—her taste in clothes, in jewelry,” Kelan said. “Helped King prepare for taking her.”
“Shit. All right. Kelan, take her upstairs. We have a little more to do here before you head out.”
The team stood when Fiona got up. She nodded at Kit. Kelan took her hand and led her back to the elevator. “You did great. Really great.”
“I don’t know how that helped.”
“We now know more of the things that King’s interested in. It’s good.” He pulled her into a hug as they rode the elevator up. “Don’t let him do a mind freak on you. You can’t control his crazy.”