Finally!
Lucas paled. He fought her for a moment, lips pressed together. They parted to allow a sound that was half-gasp and half-cough to wheeze out. Beside Alex, the agent swung his hand out, preparing the Taser. With her attention focused on Lucas, Alex shot a hand out to intercept the weapon and took it, holding it down behind his thigh.
Lena’s chest rose and fell, her face mottled red beneath dark freckles. “All I wanted was to be left alone!”
Lucas stood, knees locked, fighting for consciousness.
Her glower dipped down to his knees. They buckled, and Lucas collapsed to the floor at her feet. The mean smile crept back.
Alex took a deep breath. “Damn, Lena. You are truly amazing.” The words were soft, but not so soft that she wouldn’t hear them. He shook his head. “I am so sorry.”
Her brows knit together. She slid one foot back in a cautious step away from him. “What are you sorry for?”
“The headache.” He flipped his hand out and up, pulling the trigger. The darts shot out and impaled her with small barbs to deliver their voltage and shatter her concentration. She went down. Her head cracked on the floor, and she remained down, small and crumpled.
Bitterness flooded Alex’s mouth and coated his tongue. He sighed and shook his head.
She’s definitely going to hold this against me.
Chapter 7
Lena came back to a world of crackling white energy. White light glowed from under her cracked eyelids. White noise hummed in her ears. The white buzzed beneath her skin. It crawled and bit in stinging waves over her head and down her body.
She opened her eyes. Light blazed in. She squinted and tried to turn away from the twin lamps hanging above her head, shadowy metal arms bent behind them. A strap ran across her brows, pinning her head to a hard mattress. She jerked her arms up to reach for it, then her breath caught in her chest like a fluttering bird of panic. Restraints yanked her wrists back. She tightened her fists and lifted, pulling up more and more violently. When that failed to free her, she bucked her body up. Restraints bound her at chest, hips, and ankles. Air chilled her skin. They’d taken her clothes?
Her breath sawed in and out. She blinked tears back and rolled her eyeballs, straining to see past the light. It was no good. At the edge of her field of vision, wires curled away from her temples and down.
Were the wires the source of the constant biting sting at her temples?
Lena lay still. She had to stay calm, to focus, and to think, so when an opportunity presented itself she could take it. But she couldn’t stay focused. Each time she almost had her breath under control, the controlling thought would slip away, lost in the white noise coating the inside of her head or in the stinging that caused her flesh to crawl. She’d have to start again.
After the fifth or tenth or twentieth attempt, her tenuous hold on control snapped. Her breath gasped out again, wet and raw with tears. This was it. Everything her father had warned her about. She’d failed. She’d taken a chance, grabbed at an opportunity to keep her mother safe, and had walked right into the trap. The Council had her now, and the Council did terrible things to powerful girls.
Please no please no please no.
Her father’s serious, freckled face flashed before her. He smelled like heated metal. Fear. His hands held her shoulders as he reminded her again. But when he opened his mouth, she heard no words, only the buzz of static.
Stop stop stop stop stop.
Her mother came to her, pushed her father gently away and stroked Lena’s hair away from her face. Her mother had been the patient one, the one who’d reassured her when her father’s insistence made her cry. She had a gentle touch, like her smell—rain in the desert, sky and earth, clean water. Mama had been as soothing as cool water before Lena’s father died. Before Mama began to blame Lena.
Mama I want to go back. I want to go home. I want to go back. I want to go home. I want to go home.
A moan filled the air. She listened, rigid and still, straining to hear beyond the soft static. Had it been her own voice crying the words aloud? In the wash of shame and fear following the realization, there came another sound from outside her own body. Voices.
Lena closed her eyes to the bright light and her mind to the static. She breathed deep once, twice, calming the hysteria-tinged hiccupping breaths. She listened. Yes. Voices. The low rumble of men talking outside the room. Not talking. Arguing.
Reyes.