Audrey’s hands balled into fists. Whatever was curled up inside her, she didn’t want Mihail—or anyone he answered to—peeling it open. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
The confession caused her heart to pound against her ribs, each beat full of anxiety and resolve. She knew she was going to lose this fight, but the need to make someone pay for Cary and her father swallowed everything else.
The moment she moved against him, Mihail’s aura came down like a bolt of lightning. Pressure threatened to crush her body, dragging her forward even as it held her back; she twitched. The air warped, turning hostile. Mihail grabbed both her wrists, wrenched them above her head, and shoved her backward. She collided with a brick, pain biting into her back. “You have no control,” he said. “That makes you dangerous."
He was right. She heaved against his grip, frustration and shame roaring so intensely she almost gasped. Whatever slept in her, whatever seized Erik and blistered Mihail, it wasn’t enough—not against him. He was too fast, too practiced. Every unsuccessful effort lanced through her with humiliation. She hardly understood her power.
But God, she wanted to hurt him. She wanted to claw back some scrap of control. Red inched in at the border of her vision. The pressure around her wrists shivered as something under her skin answered—violently.
The atmosphere between them buckled.
Mihail’s grip broke.
A force blasted outward from her—clumsy and raw. It knocked his arms wide and sent dust skittering off the brick. Audrey stumbled, gasping. The gun at her feet scraped across the street with a shriek. Mihail went preternaturally still, bloodstill coating the side of his head from earlier. He arched a brow. “Now that is unexpected,” he said.
“Fuck you.”
She went for the gun, hand stretching out, but before she could touch the weapon, it flew away from her. The gun spun in the air, caught between her panic and Mihail’s telekinetic pull. Their struggle played out, neither using fists but both fighting for control over the weapon in the space between them.
Audrey threw herself at the gun with her mind before she even understood that was what she was doing. The weapon shuddered in midair, and Mihail’s head tilted.
The pressure in the alley rose, and the gun lurched toward him, then turned back toward her. She clenched her fists, focusing on the pressure—and the gun moved toward him again. It shook so hard the barrel rattled.
Mihail’s amusement thinned. “There you are,” he murmured.
Audrey made a strangled, furious sound and pushed harder. Her temples throbbed. Pressure built behind her eyes. The floating gun whipped to the side, smashed into the wall, and dropped. Before she could move, Mihail flicked two fingers and sent it skidding across the pavement into his waiting hand.
“We could use you.” The humor was gone. “You’ll need to be tested for all three abilities. You’ll need to be tough enough to withstand the stress.”
Audrey darted a look at Sophia.
Her mother was no longer struggling—she was actively working the bindings, and they were actually moving. The restraints shifted, loosening without the use of her hands, rope dragging over rope as if an invisible force worried at the knots.
Just like Mihail had torn the gun away.
Audrey faced him again, breathing hard, her hands empty now although buzzing at her sides. “Not tough enough?” shesnarled. “Try prison.” Prison had taught her how to fight for respect. And she had.
His answer came without hesitation. “I’ve seen worse,” he said. “I collect people who survive it.”
The gun hovered between them now, no longer still, but tracking her—following the smallest shift of her weight while Mihail stood several paces back, not even bothering to raise his arms. The thing moved as if it were attached to his will. Or maybe to both of theirs.
A sense of foreboding grew inside her. Whatever he was, whatevershewas, it was more than telepathy and cheap parlor tricks. She drew in a ragged breath, fighting to steady the spiraling fear that she might be dragged off to some unseen hell, experimented on, cut open, and left alone with her worst nightmares.
“Why don’t you just fucking shoot me and get it over with?” she ground out. “If you want me dead, do it.”
“You’re volatile,” Mihail said. “Out of control. Just like your mother said.”
Behind Audrey, the brick cracked with a sharp pop. Her mother said that? Shame and denial clenched her guts. She certainly didn’t feel dangerous—only broken, smaller under Mihail’s cruel scrutiny.
“But are you like her?” he went on, studying her like a specimen. “Do you have all three abilities? Ryker was sure you didn’t. But I’m not.” His eyes narrowed. “It would be unwise to act rashly before we know.”
Her lip curled. “Over my dead body will you drag me to some lab and study me like a freak.”
“A freak?” he said, mocking, though his eyes were intent. “You’d never be like that to anyone.” His gaze swept her slowly from head to toe, and his voice lowered, oily. “Among our kind,you’d be considered particularly lovely. It’s in here”—he tapped her chest—“that you’re strange.”
She ignored the comment, forcing herself to think tactically rather than emotionally. Emerson was down. Sophia was bound but not helpless. Rope shifted and writhed near her wrists.
Could she use her telekinesis?
