He’d still be alive.
The door opens without warning.
Two guards fill the frame, faces blank, movements efficient. I recognize the type. Syndicate through and through. The kind who follow orders without question because questioning gets you killed.
“On your feet.” The first one’s voice carries no emotion. “Transport’s ready.”
I force myself to stand. My legs shake, exhaustion and fear and something that feels like resignation. But I won’t give them the satisfaction of seeing me break.
Not yet.
Not ever, if I can help it.
The second guard produces a black hood. Heavy fabric that reeks of fear and desperate people who wore it before me.
They pull it over my head before I can react. Hard hands. No care for the torn skin at my wrists or the bruises blooming across my ribs. Just efficiency.
Darkness swallows everything.
For a moment, panic surges, but I fight it down.
Hands grip my shoulders. Shove me forward. I stumble, catch myself, force my body to move even though every instinct screams to fight.
Where would I run? My magic’s suppressed. My dragon’s silent. Luke’s dead and Mara’s dead and I’m alone in a facility designed to hold people like me.
I’m so fucking screwed.
We walk through corridors I can’t see. I count turns as I stumble blindly between the guards; left, straight, right, straight again. Try to build a map in my head even though it won’t matter. Even though I’m being transported to Syndicate headquarters, where the Ivory League waits.
Where being hybrid means certain death.
Cold air hits when we exit the building. Mountain wind that cuts through my torn jacket and filthy clothes. I gasp at the shock of it, lungs filling with forest air and diesel fumes. We must be out in some sort of loading area.
They shove me into a vehicle. Metal floor hard under my knees. The smell of oil and something chemical. Engine grease, maybe.
Hands force me onto a bench. Restraints lock around my wrists with mechanical clicks. More of that dull hum that speaks of energy suppression. Dragon-forged steel.
Secured. Contained. Property being transferred.
Two guards settle into the back with me. I hear their breathing through the hood. Controlled, professional. The creak of tactical gear as they shift position.
A third voice from up front. Muffled through what must be a partition separating the cab from the cargo area.
“Ready back there?”
“Affirmative.” One of my guards.
The engine starts. A diesel rumble that vibrates through the metal floor and into my bones.
We lurch into motion. If I’d eaten anything within the last twenty-four hours, my stomach would probably lurch, too. As it is, my mouth goes dry, nausea thickening my throat.
Through the hood’s fabric, I track sounds. Sensations. The crunch of gravel under tires. The tilt as we descend; mountain road, switchbacks carved into ancient rock. The sway around curves that presses me against the restraints.
Each turn takes me farther from the facility. From any chance of rescue. From the place where Luke died because I couldn’t save him.
Closer to headquarters. To the people who want my kind extinct.
Time stretches wrong under the hood. Minutes blur together. Could be ten. Could be thirty. Just the engine’s growl and the occasional crackle of radio static from up front.
