Imara pressed her lips together and shook her head. The room strobed with blinding blue light as Imara was filled with another bout of electricity.
Gemma wanted to shout at Imara to tell the interrogator what she wanted to hear. She clamped a hand over her mouth, shaking her head back and forth, unable to fathom that anyone was capable of such cruelty.
After what felt like days, the interrogator finally backed away, waving a hand at her guards. “She’s useless. Get her away from me.”
Gemma placed her trembling fingers against her cheek. Imara had survived without breaking. They were one step closer to passing their Trials, and Imara didn’t have to suffer any more pain.
Two of the guards practically dragged Imara back to their cage, dumping her on the floor.
Gemma was about to hurry to her friend’s side when the interrogator pointed at her. “The girl of British descent next.”
Gemma’s knees locked. She’d forgotten that both she and Imara would go through questioning before the men.
The doorway of the cage shimmered as the female guard reached in and grabbed her.
Every step Gemma took toward the chair was like sinking into the sand on Reva’s surface. Her shoes may as well have been packed with the very rock she’d mined; they were so heavy.
She glanced over her shoulder at her teammates. Hawk tended to Imara now, but Christian stood at the front of the cell, bracing himself against the barrier with his hands.
Tears pooled in Gemma’s eyes.Stars, help me. She hoped she had the same strength as Imara to not break when the interrogator centered on Gemma’s secret, a secret she’d been trying so bloody hard to contain—a secret that would end her life.
Maybe the shocks from the collar would distract her from the pain that would follow when her friends stared at her with nothing but hatred in their eyes.
The chair was like ice on the back of Gemma’s thighs, deepening the chill in her bones. Her teeth chattered as the restraints tightened around her wrists and ankles. The monitors were stuck to her skin, and the collar was secured around her neck.
The interrogator placed the gas mask over Gemma’s mouth and nose, and a moment later, it filled with the vile smell of chemicals, like those used to scrub patients’ bodies before surgery. Gemma gagged, her eyes burning.
The room started to wobble and hemorrhage color. A weightlessness filled her arms and legs until she felt as if she could sail on sand dunes of purple and blue.
“What is the code to your bomb sequence?”
“What code?” Gemma replied nonchalantly.
A current of excruciating pain jolted through Gemma’s body from her neck up into her brain and down into her feet. Her mind instantly reconnected with her body, and a scream tore through her on instinct.
“You know the code!” the interrogator shouted. “Tell me now, or I will share with your comrades why you really stole those drugs from the infirmary.”
Gemma’s hands shook despite the wave of relief. They wouldn’t know the truth about why she was here in Zion.
She clenched her jaw. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The agony that jolted through her was like burning her hand on a hot kettle, yet so all-consuming that she couldn’t breathe or think. Her stomach was in her knees; her heart was in her spine. Every muscle in her body contracted beyond the point of pain. Her scream tore her throat on its way out.
Another round of inhalant was pumped into Gemma’s mask as the interrogator spoke to Gemma’s teammates. “Did youknow that Gemma tried to kill herself with those drugs? What kind of person would do something like that? Can you even trust that person?” She spun back around to Gemma. “The code. Now.”
Gemma’s head swam, full of the hallucinogenic gas that, once again, flooded her system.
The drugs she had stolen were right in front of her: five syringes, all with sedative properties. A sixth was in her hand. She tied a tourniquet around her arm, stabbed the needle into her vein, and flushed the drug into her system.
The ecstasy was instantaneous. A few more, and she could drift into a permanent slumber.
Gemma squeezed her eyes shut and tried to drive the memory into the back of her mind.
She reached forward and injected into her arm another syringe, then another, until her eyes couldn’t focus, and her neck couldn’t balance her head. All she had to do was keep going, and all her pain would be gone. Forever.
Gemma shook her head. She wouldn’t give in—she couldn’t give in.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gemma forced out, word by word.
