Chapter 11
Kinzer’s hallucination had kept him up, the image of the specter haunting him. When he’d first seen the vision, he’d almost felt excited to see Maggie again. She was the woman he’d fought alongside, the only person he could really trust. She wasn’t entrenched in the politics of Heaven and Hell. She was a victim of the politics of the heavenly realms. She never should have been pulled into it.
But Kinzer had to stop making lists of things that shouldn’t have been…
Janka shouldn’t have betrayed him.
Dedrus shouldn’t have died.
His wings shouldn’t have been clipped.
The list went on and on…well beyond recent events, back to his early existence and the inequity of Heaven. A mortal being trapped in immortal affairs was one of many things that shouldn’t have been.
But the Maggie he’d seen earlier hadn’t been the Maggie he’d known in her lifetime. The woman he had known had been vulnerable, frail, but a fighter nonetheless. What he saw had been an angry, resentful creature. It preyed on his mind because he interpreted her outburst as her rage for how he hadn’t been there for her when she’d met her end.
It wasn’t real, of course, he reminded himself. It couldn’t have been real—there wasn’t a possibility she could have been reaching out from some other realm, because there was no afterlife.
Only the darkness.
Only annihilation.
That was all that awaited them once their lives came to an end. Knowing that always made death even more painful for immortals because they knew, unlike mortals, where they came from and what they would return to whenever they reached their unfortunate end.
Despite his awareness of how impossible it was to have been the real Maggie, it didn’t change how rattled he was by the experience. He hadn’t been able to sleep because he was so on edge, but not being able to sleep wasn’t new for him. He hoped that the time would pass quickly. He didn’t have any light—or a phone or a watch—to tell time with. He just had his own thoughts, which stretched out through his lengthy existence, drifting through various memories, even those he tried to forget. The only luck he had was that everything that had happened recently to him was so compelling, it prevented him from being able to concentrate on any of the hurts and wounds from eons before.
Although, even Quintz’s assurance that Kid was all right hadn’t been enough for him. What if he’d been lying and Kid was actually dead already? Or even worse, what if he was really in the Nest? If Quintz was being honest with him, how in the fuck were they going to infiltrate the most heavily guarded prison in all the realms?
After what must’ve been hours of thinking like that, the door creaked open.
Kinzer was already facing the door, keeping his eye on the only entry into the room since every so often he would get lost in his own crafted conspiracy theories as to why Quintz and his team really needed him.
Quintz walked in, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose as he approached Kinzer. He stopped a few feet from the cot, as though he didn’t want to risk getting too close because Kinzer might try to attack him once again. He folded one hand over the other before saying, “I think it would be good if you came with me and had some breakfast since you didn’t eat your dinner last night.”
Kinzer eyed the plate of food Quintz had left on the tray beside Kinzer’s cot.
“I would think,” Kinzer said, “that someone who had such an affinity for pain would not be concerned about how I chose to injure this body.”
“I care a great deal since you’re now part of my team.”
“I’m not part of anyone’s team. I’ve gone rogue, as far as you should be concerned. But I’m willing to participate because right now, as you pointed out, I don’t have much of a choice.”
“That’s good enough for me, Kinzer.”
Quintz led him out of his room, through a series of hallways. It was a fairly large facility, one that roused of lot of questions in Kinzer’s mind.
“How did the Leader manage to keep such a big construction project secret?” Kinzer asked. “I mean, I’m assuming this was no small undertaking.”
“As far as the Council is aware, this was a university he was working on before the War. In reality, we were creating a weapons base.”
Quintz walked down a small set of steps to a thick metal door. He opened it for Kinzer and waved him inside. The scent of cooked meat and eggs filled the air as what must’ve been two dozen immortals crowded the room, some walking around, others seated at tables.
He recognized a few of them from when he’d attempted his escape. And of course, he couldn’t miss Brock on the other side of the room, at the counter, which was packed with various dishes, like a hotel breakfast buffet. He stacked food onto his plate, clearly needing to provide a plentiful amount of energy to his massive body.
As Brock turned and glared at him, Kinzer noticed his eye had healed up entirely. Too bad, since Kinzer wished he could have put Brock through as much pain as he’d put Quintz through. Although, he wouldn’t have wanted it to be as satisfying as it had been for Quintz.
“I don’t imagine you have any coffee,” Kinzer said, slightly annoyed since he’d come to rely on the stuff for energy. Most immortals didn’t require the boost.
“We have finnegee,” Quintz said.
