"Put the gun down," I ordered, using my abilities against him. It seemed he wasn't immune as his lackeys had been.
His hand trembled for a blink then slowly lowered. His face was filled with terror as his hand released the gun and it dropped to the floor.
It was finally beginning to dawn on him that he didn't have the upper hand. His fear perfumed the air.
"Have a seat," I said.
He collapsed into his chair as I walked around to the one I'd been sitting in. The chains were a pile on the floor, wrapped around the legs. I kicked them out of the way and sat down facing him, crossing my legs.
"Now, why don't you tell me exactly what you intended to accomplish tonight?"
"I wanted to gain your cooperation."
"Again, you could have just asked," I said. "What are you really after?" I pushed with my power, breaking the small bit of resistance he put up.
"We want to use you to help us in military missions and research your condition so we can replicate it."
"You're military?" I asked.
He shook his head. "No, we're a defense contractor. We weren't going to approach them about this until we had everything in place and your cooperation."
"And how did you intend to ensure that cooperation?"
"By whatever means necessary. Such as the woman who was in your house."
My body stiffened. "Have you harmed her?"
He shook his head. "No, she's sedated for now. But if you refused to help us, we would."
I leaned forward and clenched my hands into fists. "Would you really?"
Channing nodded even though his eyes were wide and terrified. "But only if you gave us no other choice."
"How many other people here know what you're up to?" I asked, relaxing back against the chair. I needed to know in the event I needed to kill someone.
"Only the people in this room."
"How did you get past our defenses?"
"What defenses?" he asked.
"The wards. The lights. Everything."
He shrugged. "I have no idea what you mean by wards. The lights and power we cut from the road in the event you had a sensor in the driveway or an alarm on the house. We knew you'd be stronger than the average human based on our surveillance, so we built a Taser that will send out enough power to knock out a rhino."
For fuck's sake. All the wards that Ava set were meant to keep out everything but humans because we didn't want to hurt someone who came on our property to make a delivery or check the water meter or anything like that. We never thought the humans would be watching us or planning to harm us in any way. They didn't even know we existed. Or so we thought.
"I'll need a list of names of everyone involved in this project," I said to Channing. "Written with their contact information. If your boss knows what's going on, you'll need to put his information on here as well."
Channing nodded. His fingers shook as he withdrew a pen and notepad from the inner pocket of his suit. As he made the list, I looked up as Callum returned. My first instinct was to kill Channing, but I also didn't want to raise questions that might bring more attention to us.
"You came back just in time. He's going to share everything he knows with us."
* * *
Thirty minutes later,Callum and I were on our way to an adjacent building to grab Merry and get the hell out of here. She was locked in a cell with a single human guard. Before we knocked Channing out, he'd called over and told him that two men were coming to get the prisoner.
"You should have let me kill him," Callum complained.
