If James responds I can hardly hear it. I’m sinking into myself again, retreating inward, walls rebuilding. I try to push my mind free of this electric cage, but the static is inside my nose, then crackling in my throat, searing behind my eyes, blinding andblinding—
A strangled scream escapes me and I lose my footing again, slamming into another wall before falling to my knees.
“Turn it down,” James explodes. “Don’t you see how small she is? You’re overloading her body—”
The electricity retreats almost at once, returning me slowly to myself. I feel wrung out suddenly. My lungs tight, my mouth dry. My bones trembling.
Then hands on me, under me, and I’m in the air, my cheek against his chest, eyelids fluttering. My blood is fizzing, carbonated. I’m trying to wake up.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” James is saying angrily. “You were torturing her—”
“That was the default setting!” Samuel shoots back. “I’m treating her just like every other piece of shit who comes through here.You’re the one who’s clearly lost his mind. I came out there to help you—”
“I didn’t ask for your help,” he snaps. “Where the hell is Warner?”
“Put her down,” says a cold, familiar voice.
My eyes flicker open. Fear forces me back into my skin, adrenaline pushing my heart to work harder. James slides me carefully out of his arms, helping me stand, but he doesn’t remove his hand from my lower back. I look up into the bright, blinding light, my eyes tearing slightly. We’re at the edge of a common space, an interior quadrangle that anchors the multistory building. I count floors, stunned by the dimensions and the clean white lines. A few people mill about on every open level, moving from place to place.
“Step away from her,” says Warner, moving into my sightline. He’s looking at me, not James, when he says this, and the fury in his green eyes is so cold—so intensely palpable—I’m beginning to understand his reputation.
This man was raised by The Reestablishment. Forged in blood. Just like me.
James doesn’t move. “I need some time,” he says.
Warner turns toward his brother like a rising tide, the movement slow and powerful. “Excuse me?”
“I need more time. I have to talk to her.”
“Your days of talking to her are over. What happens to her from here on out is no longer your concern. Go home.”
“What are you talking about—”
“Go home, James.”
“Look, I know it’s been a crazy night, but there are some developments I need to discuss with you—”
“Developments?” Warner echoes, astonished. “In the time it took you to walk her from a morgue to a penitentiary? Let me guess.” Warner levels me with a look so black it borders on hatred. “She’s opened up to you. Shown remorse. Given you just enough information to make you think you’re special without telling you anything at all.”
“Stop,” James says angrily. “Don’t do this. Everyone around here thinks they have me figured out—”
“I thought she told you her parents were dead.”
At this, I inwardly flinch, and James stiffens beside me.
“Tell him,” Warner says, addressing me directly for the first time. It surprises me how difficult it is to hold his undivided attention. There’s a steel in him so severe it’s disorienting. “Tell him the truth. Are your parents dead?”
I have no idea whether my father is still alive.
Still, the fact that Warner has somehow managed to figure out who I am—that he’s managed to unearth unsavory details of my family history—does not come as a great surprise. After all, my father abandoned his family in order to pledge his allegiance tohim.
To this man standing before me.
“My mother is dead,” I say. “My father is dead to me.”
This earns me something like a smile. “Take her away,”
Warner says. “Tell Hugo we’ll begin in the morning.”
