A smile drifted over my lips. “Hi, Tide.”
She laughed quietly. “Hello, honey. Rest. We’re all close and won’t go far.”
“Except that you need a goddamn pool out back,” someone else said.
“If we had a pool, you’d never leave,” Saar countered.
“Besides, we have two downstairs - one of which is technically outside. Why would we need more out back?” Gale said.
“Because there’s a giant yard that needs to be filled with water!”
Laugher followed the quiet banter.
“Alright, since we’re all here, let’s talk,” someone said. I kept my eyes closed, not at all caring who was speaking. Once in a while, I recognized a voice, be it one of my men or someone else I’ve talked to regularly. But who was speaking didn’t matter. I only cared about the conversation that followed.
“The nets and a report as to what happened to the extent that we know were given to The Harem Project. Of course, when you’re feeling up for it, your words would be appreciated.”
“I’ll call later,” Saar said.
“Before we can have any real hypotheses, I think we need a little more to go on.”
“Especially since we found exactly a dozen vans, theoretically equipped to neutralize a storm waiting at the bottom of the hill.”
“We suspected that the nets were doing just that,” Raiden said. “They forced us from our monsters, leaving us helpless.”
“Aside from the final attack, we don’t get the impression that they were trying to kill us. Kidnapping was their M.O.” Taranis said.
“Does that mean we need to be concerned that storms are hunted, now?”
The question hung in the air for a minute before an answer was offered.
“I think we need to now acknowledge that everyone is public enemy number one to them. Species no longer matters. Silence made a strike after a year of no activity at all. And they came with new weapons and a battalion of hybrids.”
“But what do they want by dragging us away?” Nephele asked.
“You’re not going to like that answer,” a female said. “I can tell you from experience, that it’s nothing good.”
“I was always under the impression that they fucked with you because they didn’t understand banshees. What you’re capable of and what you can withstand. I didn’t think it was the same concerning storms.”
“Maybe we need to think about this in a different light,” a different female said. “ORKA tortured monsters when they didn’t understand. Which was more times than not. Do you suppose that whoever is in charge of Silence is doing the same? It supports why they were experimenting on Ady. And at the same time, testing Cobalt’s healing limits.”
Murmurs broke out, but it sounded like the voices were cursing under their breaths instead of adding anything useful to the conversation.
“I know that the mountainside was obliterated—and on a side note, the human populace is making all kinds of comical speculations about what happened there, including but not limited to, the apocalypse has begun—but were there any other new weapons left behind? Anything in the vans?”
“The vans were confiscated. My thoughts are pretty straightforward on this. They didn’t actually think they’d have any issues taking you out. Whether they relied on the sheer number of men they sent after you, they strongly underestimated the strength of storms, or a combination of both, I can’t say. But there’s no way they’d have just laid a bunch of new shit at our feet. So we can surmise that theyexpectedto win and come home with the prize of twelve storms in their possession.”
“And the preliminary reports are thatthere isa whole lot of new shit from the vans. Some really fucking scary new shit.”
I took a breath, chills racing down my body. Zilan’s arms tightened around me in response.
“Okay, then they were going for abduction. I feel reasonably certain we can agree on that. Then the next question is—through these experiments, are they simply trying to gain knowledge?”
“I have a theory,” a woman said. The one I deemed was the banshee but still not inclined enough to know by opening my eyes to confirm. “What if they’re looking to make weapons out of us by learning how to control us? Ana said the aerial shifters they found were kind of offline. As if they were waiting for an order of some kind to proceed.”
“Controlling the scream of a banshee would certainly be a useful weapon.”
“Eliminate a species until there’s barely any left, using those remaining as guinea pigs for… a purpose we’re not entirely sure of yet. So why attack the storms now? They’re nowhere near extinction.”
