Diana’s voice followed—low, urgent, barely audible beneath the throb of distant conversation between the men enjoying the pain of others.
“Focus, Kiki. You have to hold it. You have to help save Brie and Oscar. We are only concerned about them, no one else. Remember what you were told to do.”
Kiki swallowed. Her mouth was dry. Her throat burned.
Save them.
She nodded once, her eyes narrowing.
Where Brie is the light, I am the dark.
Sometimes, the world needs the dark.
So the light can shine.
She whispered the words in her mind. They weren’t necessary, but they helped drown out the noise of the world. She lifted her hands, palms outward. They were steady. Over time, she had grown stronger.
Much stronger than our handlers realize, she thought with grim satisfaction.
The man near the girl snarled and raised his pistol toward the bloody soldier.
A heartbeat later, the gunman’s skull exploded like a melon hurled from a rooftop.
Kiki gasped but didn’t flinch. Not this time. She froze for a second, shocked. She hadn’t done anything! That is not how she hurt others.
Gunfire erupted suddenly in the distance. She closed her fingers into a fist. When she did, the generator across from her shuddered, then blew apart in a shock of sparks and flame. The lights snapped out, throwing the compound into darkness.
That’s when the chaos really began.
From behind the low rock walls, the private security team she was with surged like wolves—hard, fast, brutal. She knew their firepower wasn’t for the benefit of the man who had been monitoring her every move since she was taken years ago.
His death would be collateral damage and worth it.
They definitely weren’t there to protect the other man strung beside him either.
They only cared about how Brie and she performed.
That was their mission. That had always been the mission. Kiki and Brie both knew the truth: they weren’t humans to the people who held them captive, they were assets.
The Founders had sent them into the field to temper them like swords. They were weapons with blood and bones and inconvenient hearts.
Kiki’s hand moved again, her fingers twitching. She kept her eyes focused on the A-frame. She curled her fingers?—
—only to be caught mid-motion in a crushing grip.
“Don’t!” Andre snapped, his French accent obvious even in the single word.
A cloth snapped around her wrist, binding her before she could fight. The shadows behind her came alive as a figure wrenched her back into the darkness. She struggled, kicked, bit—but it didn’t matter.
She had accomplished her objective.
She glanced over her shoulder as she was dragged backwards. Hatred simmered low and hot in her gut.
She didn’t want to go back to the prison they called home. It was nothing more than a concrete box where her childhood had died four years ago.
“Let me go!” she hissed, reaching up to grabhis arm.
Andre didn’t answer. He grabbed her hair, forcing her head forward as he shoved her into the waiting vehicle.
