J A K E
I stood at the kitchen counter, rifling through some paperwork and trying to block out the others' discussion.
Ever since the incident in which Jaxon lost his arm, Hundsen had been silent. I wasn't sure if it was because he was rebuilding his numbers or if he was planning to strike again, but I did know that I would need to attack him soon. The next phase of my plan would move into action. Because of the events of the last weeks, I hadn't gotten to move through with it. But soon, I would make Hundsen feel the weight of my power again.
"You saw him wake up?" Arlo asked loudly from the other room. "What was he like?"
"I don't know." Kane's quiet voice. "I didn't see much before they took him."
"Then what makes you think he's turned back?" That was Jaxon's skeptical tone.
"I just...felt it. He called my name before they took him. Not in a mocking way, like usual. Like...he wanted me to know he was aware I was there."
"It's been a week. You didn't think to tell us this before?" Jaxon again.
"The soldiers told me to stay silent about him. But it's been a week with no information. It's too important to keep hidden," Kane explained.
There was a silence heavy with the possibilities of what Kane had revealed.
Finn's voice broke the quiet. "Well, if he was turned, maybe Delphinium will be too."
"That's if she even wakes up."
"Why do you have to be so pessimistic?" Finn asked Kane. A snort from Arlo.
Kane went on. "I want her alive as much as anyone, but I know you're all thinking it too."
"If she doesn't wake up..." Finn trailed off when he saw me approach the doorway to the sitting room. They all turned to look.
"You said your brother might be turned," I addressed Kane.
A small incline of his head. "It was a theory, yes."
With that, the beginnings of a plan began to form in the back of my mind. If Benton wasn't simply pretending, he could potentially be on our side. And if he was, that meant his power could be mine to harness.
No one had time to say anything else before the phone rang. With a look shot to the rest of us, Finn picked it up and answered it. I watched him closely; the only possible caller would be the hospital. Perhaps they would finally tell us Delphinium and Benton's states.
Whatever he was told made Finn's eyes go wide and skin whiten. "Are you positive?" He asked the person on the other end.
When he slowly hung up the phone, he turned back to the four of us. "We don't know how or why, but Delphinium's gone missing."
▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂▂
"And they said the restraints on her bed were destroyed?" Jaxon asked Finn as we rode in the car to the hospital. "What if someone broke her out?"
"They had soldiers positioned before her door. They didn't see anyone get in or out the front way. The window was ajar, but it was on the third story. And the nurses said the metal of the handcuffs had been pried apart, almost as if with some superhuman ability." He gave us a pointed look. "She somehow did it herself."
That was meant to be impossible. The soldiers and nurses both had assured us that she would be watched with the upmost security. But she was a trained assassin. Her jobs had relied on her getting in and out without a trace. I'd never expected the security to do much against her.
"As we speak, they're sending out more soldiers to help us search for her," Finn added. "We'll get there around the same time they will."
"And what if they find her as an Imperium soldier?" Kane asked softly. "They already have my brother for questioning."
Jaxon finished what he was implying. "She might be expendable. They might shoot to kill."
"We have to find her first," Finn said.
"Finding a girl trained to hide in the shadows and blend in anywhere?"Arlo asked sarcastically. "Should be easy."
"That's the spirit."
The ONNT driver stopped the car. We'd arrived. Quickly, we all got out and approached the building.
"Look." Arlo pouted to the side of the building, where a single window was opened on the third floor. "That must be where she came from."
She had to have used her power to open the window itself; I'd checked if they were locked when we were in her room, and they'd been tightly bolted down. My gaze dragged down to the flat wall underneath. Wounds or not, there was no way she could have survived that fall. So she somehow climbed down. The question was: what did she do once she hit the solid ground?
If she truly was turned from Imperium's grasp, where would she go?
And then I knew.
As the others were talking about splitting up and finding her, I broke off from the group and started down the street.
People passed me by on the sidewalk, averting their eyes as I approached. Cars blew by just next to the sidewalk, the wind ruffling my hair into my eyes. I ignored it.
There weren't many thoughts in my mind as the stores and buildings gave way to the ocean, opening up before me to the horizon. Something inside me knew where she'd be if she was her old self again. I didn't like it—I hated being aware of how close I'd gotten. Too close. But this one time, it might save her life.
The waves crashed against the concrete wall beside the pathway I walked. I blinked away the sea spray that misted across my face. Above, the mid-afternoon sky had turned gray and cold as my ever-freezing soul.
Ahead, I could see the pathway turned off to a small abandoned grassy outlook of the sea. There were a few benches, but it was abandoned.
Well, nearly abandoned. One lone figure stood before the expanse of ocean, staring out. I'd know her anywhere.
I'd also known she'd come here, to the sea. Though I'd done my best not to notice or remember, I knew she loved beautiful things. The raging ocean. The way the setting sun hit the clouds and turned them pink. The glow of the stars overhead.
Aside from that, she was honorable enough to feel guilty enough to pitch herself into the ocean to escape the things she'd done. And she was dangerously close to the edge of the wall.
She must have heard me approaching with wary steps, because she turned around, moving stiffly. It seemed she hadn't expected it to be me, but she didn't move.
It was her. Delphinium. Not from a dream, not with her cruel master's mind. She was real.
She'd been a lethal killer for so long that I forgot she was just an eighteen-year-old girl. I remembered how light she'd been as I carried her. Her bones had felt fragile enough to break under my touch. The dark circles under her eyes and the even sharper jut to her cheekbones told me Orion didn't take good care of his assets.
Now, her light eyes were a mirror of the raging sea, both heaven and hell. I ignored it. Drops of sea spray hung in her hair and caught the subdued sunlight, making it look like she wore a halo. I ignored that too.
Even before she spoke, I knew she was different. She wasn't the bold, fearless girl that had helped burn down the Russian fortress. She looked the same as when we were first put into the team together. Shattered. Paranoid. Her eyes had a strange shiftiness, like she knew an attack was coming soon but didn't know where.
"Don't," she said shakily. The sound of her soft voice soothed the demons in my mind, calmed the monster in my chest. "Don't come any closer."
I hadn't been planning to. "Tell me you hate Imperium." I already knew it was really her; it was obvious. But I needed to say something to break the silence...
"You think I'm not me?" Her voice broke like on the night she was taken. "You think I'm that...thing, that monstrous shell of myself?"
"Say it."
"I hate Imperium." It was a whisper. "I hate them for what they did to me."
"Good. Now, let's go before the ONNT finds you here and decides to shoot first and ask questions second."
She didn't move. "I remember everything."
I said nothing, just gave her a glare. The sooner we left, the better.
"I remember everything I said, everything I did." Her breath came shaky and uneven. "I remember all of the victims I killed. There were forty one. Forty one."
"You kept count."
"It's what they deserve. The very least of what they deserve." She hesitated. "What happened to Riley?"
"She's in the hospital." And after a moment's hesitation, I added, "She lost some of her memory."
She went still. "How much."
"Enough to make her forget all of us and think she still lives at her old orphanage."
At that, she closed her eyes and turned away. "It's my fault. It's my fault. I almost murdered her too. There could have been forty-two." It was more to herself than to me.
I wanted to know all about her time in the fortress: what Orion had done to her and Benny, if he'd revealed any future plans to her, all the jobs he'd had her do. I wanted to know every last scrap of information. But something held me back from asking at this moment.
"Your neck was broken," I said slowly, assessing her reaction. "You were bleeding freely out of your side. You weren't even alive when we found you. Your injuries should have killed you. How are you still standing?"
Her voice was barely there. "They pumped drugs into me any chance they could get. New ones that make their soldiers...even more unstoppable. It was their drugs in my bloodstream that saved my life. I heard the doctors talking when they took a blood sample before I fully awoke."
The cogs in my mind were turning. I'd known Imperium drugged their soldiers for various reasons, but this was new. Making soldiers able to survive an explosion, a fall into the water and being underwater for several minutes was new. Could all soldiers do it, or was it just the higher-ups like her and Benton?
Before I could ask, she repeated my words. "My injuries should have killed me. They should have."
I said nothing. What was there to say?
"You don't even know what he made me do." Her gaze raised back to meet mine. Her face looked more grief-stricken then I'd ever seen; usually she covered her emotions with a mask of cool. But that mask was off. "I did...I did things for him, horrible things. I just wish..." She trailed off and didn't finish her sentence.
"You're alive now. This is a second chance."
"No." She shook her head despite the slight pain it seemed to cause her. "No, this isn't a second chance. This isn't even a third or fourth chance. Every time, I fail. I should have been better. I should have been stronger. I should have resisted him, killed myself before he got to me, something. But I didn't."
She heaved inna breath. "You haven't been there. I would never want that for you, but...you haven't seen him. Any of the soldiers that might have had doubts about Imperium fell back into line when they saw what he did to me. Obedient attack dogs. That's what we were." Her voice shook.
"If they had doubts in the first place, we can prey on them. And take advantage of their fear."
"Jake, you don't understand. You're strong. Stronger than me." Her voice broke again, but still no tears fell. "I shouldn't be back. I'm not supposed to be back." She paused. Then, quieter, "Being taken back to Imperium was my worst fear. I've had nightmares where that very thing happens to me. I was terrified of it. And now it's happened. Do you even know what that's like?"
I thought of a gun, finding a broken body on the floor. I thought of the night she left, how she'd been blinded and pulled away. I thought of a week ago, when I'd found her broken body on the sea floor, her neck snapped. Immediately, I wished I hadn't.
"No." A lie. But I pushed that thought down deep with the others.
She simply stared at me with wide eyes and said nothing else. "Now let's go," I urged, knowing it wasn't the right thing to say.
None of what I'd said to her was right. I could properly threaten enemies, I could make deals, I could trick men out of their own money. But this...? I didn't know what to say to her.
This time, she obeyed, taking a few tentative steps closer. As she turned, I saw the thick slice through her skin of her forearm, the blood beginning to dry. Right where the tracking device had been. She'd cut it out of herself.
I made no comment. Neither of us said anything as I led her—shaking and pale—to the others.