I clench my teeth.
“How interesting,” the woman says. “Give me the vial.”
The lab technician hesitates. “She must be added to the record so she can receive her implant and?—”
“Now,” the woman bites out.
He gives it to her, and she lets it fall to the ground. I wince as the glass shatters and my blood stains the floor.
“Check the girl,” she says.
The lab technician seems annoyed, but he peels back my eyelids and presses on my ribs.
“Mild lung bruising,” he says. “She’ll need time to recover and should avoid any strenuous activity.”
“Good,” the woman says. She turns to the boy beside her. “Tell him to forget everything and send him on his way.”
“Wait, I won’t say—” the man begins.
The boy grabs him by the collar, silencing him, and drags him outside, the door sealing shut behind them.
The woman sits on the seat the technician left behind. His kit is there just lying open, and the metal synthesizer taunts me with my results.
“What can you do?” she asks.
“I’m not telling you anything,” I say, glaring at her. “I told you I didn’t want to be tested.”
“I had to know if you were one of us.”
I scoff.
“Well, I’m not. You’re not nice. Not a single bit.”
She lifts her hand and removes her mask. I recognize her face. It is the same one that was shown to us on the projector.
Prue Miller.
Her face is fine-boned, with a quiet severity. Her silver hair falls to her shoulders in a practical cut. Her eyes are a pale, washed-out gray, almost colorless.
“My name is Prue,” she says. Her eyes soften. “You look just like your mother.”
My throat tightens.
“You knew her?” I ask.
She pauses, like she’s deciding just how much to tell me. It seems webothdon’t trust each other.
“Before your mother, we feared the Bind because we didn’t understand it,” Prue begins slowly. “But when she fled the research facility at Arrow Hill, she left with proof that everything was a lie.”
My pulse thunders in my ears. I sit as still as a mouse in fear that she’ll stop talking.
“The first generation of Binds only suppressed power. But your mother realized the system was adaptive. Every bind is capable of transmitting large amounts of data back to a central network, like neural patterns, emotional spikes, and psychological responses. The researchers watch how fear enhances obedience, how pain dulls resistance, and how love weakens people.”
My hands curl into fists. I have a suspicion about where she’s going with this. And I don’t like it one bit.
“They plan to update the Bind remotely. Small changes at first. Increased compliance and dampened empathy in strategic operatives.” Her eyes flick to me. “The Commons are not a threat to them. So, they need to control the Gifted. Those who have the power to topple the regime. It is why they are going to include a kill switch to it.”
I feel sick.
