“I wonder, female, if you would change your mind if you knew what was in his?” He lunges across the one container that stands between us and whips out both his hands, grabbing the faceplate I’m holding and slamming it across my cheeks. Again, I can’t get out of the goddamn way fast enough.
At first I don’t feel anything. I’m stunned stupid with his hands gripping both sides of my face, holding my entire body in place with his superhuman strength.
“Let’s see what you think of your pathetic general after you live inside his mind,” he grunts.
That’s when I feel the pain, like fire slicing through my forehead and down the bridge of my nose. The metal casings of Pious’s fingers seep through the skin of my cheeks where he’s crushing the faceplate to my temples. Then he yanks me close to the armor on his chest, sending scorching heat through mine.
“Maybe,” his voice whispers in my ear. No, it’s not in my ear. His voice is inside my head. “Maybe I’ll show you mercy when this is through, female. Then when I capture him, I will torture him with you and your pink blushing skin.”
A low-pitched humming fills my ears. I want to reach up and cover them, but my arms are useless lumps at my sides.
This is it.
This is how I’m going to die.
I try to struggle free but I can’t.
I have to get away. I have to get to Claire.
The humming rises into a harsh screeching sound that grates over the gums of my teeth and brings tears to my eyes. I want to buck and scream, but I’ve lost all ability to move. Panic sparks over my skin and bubbles up through my veins.
There’s a sudden sensation of floating, of a rush of air, then metal clicks into metal. My eyes are half slits. They’re too heavy to hold open.
Against my eardrums the screeching pitches to an impossible teeth-jarring noise. It triggers my gag reflex and I heave and retch, but my stomach is too empty to expel anything.
Then everything goes pitch black and the pain and noise come to an abrupt stop. For a few moments nothing happens. I wait for the icy-cold liquid to get poured in around me. For the rip and tear of my clothes. But only a low hum of electricity begins to crackle and whir around me. I can feel it under my skin. It feels the same as when I first put on the armor, it’s the same heated feeling as when the metal moves through your pores and sets itself up beneath your flesh, deep inside your organs and bones.
Out of nowhere, a bright blue light flashes across my face. To the left of my vision, a small, green light blinks spastically, then a display of words and numbers flashes quickly before my eyes.
This is a faceplate. I need to remember Pious put a faceplate on me.
I’m just encased in a Caelum suit.
I’m not being frozen under milky oatmeal-like ice. I need to keep control of my own thoughts.
The armor vibrates over my skin, buzzing and rippling. In front of my eyes, a circular scope appears with a bull’s-eye in the middle. Numbers and names and colors whip and scroll across my view.
BEGIN CALIBRATION. The words flash across my line of vision. They pulse quickly then stretch out into a straight horizontal line and expand to fill my vision. Pain sears through my retinas.
A blurry digital image appears and sizzles with static. The display blinks on and off. Data rolls and flickers up the right side of my view and all my nerve endings feel as if they are shattering into millions of tiny pieces. The pain is worse than anything I’ve ever felt before.
Then it’s instantly gone.
REPLAY.
Replay? What the hell is he going to replay for me? The word hovers for a moment then blips out to a still shot of me and Claire, crouching in the small space between two buildings. Our faces are covered with dirt and debris. My old baseball cap is pinned to my head; next to me, Claire is frozen in a horrible expression of complete and utter terror.
Pious is making me watch the day I took Claire and my father to look for food and help. The last day we were all together.
The day I met Rune.
But this time, I’m seeing it all through his point of view.
