“And if I fail the test?” I say, my voice faltering.
“Paragon is on standby.” Marsh checks his watch, casual, like he’s fucking bored. “He’ll complete the objective. Then we’ll have a very different conversation about your future utility.”
“What objective? What are you?—”
Then I smell it.
Seeping through the seams of the door, through the ventilation, through the cracks in this concrete tomb. Blood. Copper and iron, thick enough to taste. Sweat. Antiseptic. And underneath it all?—
Mia.
Her scent. That natural musk and coconut vanilla that brings me back to every memory we’ve shared.
But now it’s mixed with blood.
So. Much. Blood.
Something inside me snaps.
I grab the door handle and rip it clean off—not just the handle but a chunk of the steel frame with it, metal shrieking as it tears. The door swings inward, half off its hinges.
The observation room is small, monitors along one wall, a window looking into another room beyond. Through the glass I can see a chair. A figure slumped in it. Dark hair matted with blood.
Mia.
I’m still holding the twisted metal in my fist. I look down at it—steel crumpled like tinfoil—and I squeeze. The metal groans, compresses, folds in on itself until it’s a dense ball the size of an apple. I can feel every ridge digging into my palm. I want it to hurt. I want to feel something other than this.
“Nate—” Marsh starts.
I spin and grab him by the throat. Lift him off his feet. Slam him against the wall hard enough I nearly crack the concrete behind his head.
“Open it!”
His eyes bulge. His hands claw at my wrist. He’s making choking sounds, feet kicking uselessly.
“Open the door to her room,” I say, quieter now. “Or I crush your skull the same way I crushed that handle.”
“Julia—” he rasps. “Open?—”
I hear the beep of a keycard, then the pneumatic hiss of the inner lock.
I drop Marsh. He crumples to the floor, gasping, clutching his throat.
The inner door swings open.
The room beyond is small. White walls, white floor, a drain in the center. Bright lights, no shadows, nowhere to hide. Medical equipment against one wall—steel trays with terrifying instruments, an IV stand with an empty bag, monitors showing vitals that look all wrong. And in the center of the room…
A metal chair, bolted to the floor.
Mia is in that chair.
Her head hangs forward, dark hair matted with dried blood. One eye is swollen completely shut, purple-black, the flesh so distended I can barely see her eyelid. Her lip is split in two places, crusted and cracked. Her jaw is bruised from chin to ear, the kind of bruises that come from being hit over and overby someone who knows exactly how much damage they can do without killing you.
Blood has dried on her chin, her neck, soaking into what’s left of her shirt. Her arms are covered in bruises—finger-shaped marks, boot-shaped marks, marks that tell the story of what happened here. Her wrists are raw and bleeding from the restraints, skin scraped down to muscle because she fought. Of course she fought.
She’s so still. So small. So fuckingbroken.
The smell is worse in here, too. Blood and fear and something chemical, maybe drugs to keep her alive. It makes my head spin until I’m dizzy.
