He ignored me and picked me up, cradled me in his arms like a sleeping three-year-old who needed to be carried to bed. “Thank you, Doctor.”
“Of course.”
“Her leg?”
“Healed. She might be sore for a few days. And before you ask, I scanned her for other injuries. Other than elevated adrenaline and heart rate, she is physically well.”
“Excellent. I will inform her family.”
Helion turned and carried me out of the medical area. I was loopy, but not asleep. “Where are you taking me?” Again with the slurring. What was in that drug?
“Home.”
Home? I wanted to cry. Earth wasn’t home. Atlan wasn’t home. Kovo was home, and he was dead. “I hate you.”
“I am aware.”
“No, you don’t get it. Ihateyou. I want to claw your eyes out.”
“Why do you not?”
I thought about that and spoke truthfully. Whatever that doctor had given me wasn’t just a sedative, more like a truth serum. “My arms feel too heavy. I can’t lift them.”
The jerk actually chuckled. “Do you love Kovo, Adrian?”
“I won’t tell you anything about him. You shouldn’t even be speaking his name.”
“Do you love him? It is a simple question.”
“I don’t trust you.”
“Then you are wise as well as beautiful.”
“You’re strange.”
“Do you love him? Would you die for him? Stay with him forever? Bare his children? Care for him if he were ill? Accept and love his beast as much as you claim to love him?”
“Yes.”
“Which question are you answering?”
“All of them.” I thought this super-spy, doctor, mega-asshole was supposed to be smart. “You’re stupid for a doctor. I thought doctors had to be smart.”
“No one has insulted me to my face for years.”
“A tragedy. You might not be such an ass if they had.”
He laughed this time, a full-throated laugh that completely transformed him from a demon to something different. Something not quite as scary. I still hated him, but sustaining the emotion was more difficult.
Or maybe that was just the drugs.
“Here we are.” Two Prillon guards stood outside the door. They each nodded at him as the door opened and Helion carried me inside.
I blinked to clear my vision and looked around. Nothing I saw made sense. Was this a factory of some kind? Under the prison? There were huge metal boxes, three times as tall as the Warlords next to them. They glowed from the inside like small suns. The floors were dark, bare and smooth as glass. There were no chairs, no desks, no indication of what was happening.
At the center of each giant box, someone stood. Sometimes multiple people. Some elderly, some children. Always, they looked sad.
As sad as I felt. “What is this place?”
