The lump in her throat swelled until it hurt.
Emerson sighed, eyes still on Mihail. “Chin up, killer,” he murmured. “You’re headed home.”
Mihail spun away from the glass and clapped his hands, the sound carrying in the gloomy room. “Alright, prisoners. Pick a cage and lock yourselves in.”
Five metal, cramped cages were bolted to the floor. Audrey stepped into the nearest one, pulling the door shut. The lock engaged with a heavy clunk.
Oh God. I’m going to die in here.
She rubbed her face, then grabbed the grates.
“All you have to do is shut your eyes,” Mihail said, moving down the line, checking their doors to make sure they were locked. “There will be a bright light. Your body temperature might spike. When you open your eyes, we’ll be there.”
A high, thin whine built in her ears. The poison coursing in her veins warred with the flood of adrenaline.
This was happening. There was no waking up.
She wrapped her fingers around the bars and squeezed until her knuckles ached.
Beeping started—sharp and methodical. One. Two. Three. Four?—
On five, light filled the surroundings, bright even through her closed lids. She pressed them tighter, as if she could block it out.
Heat rolled through her, starting in her hands and feet, rushing inward. It was the wrong kind of heat—rewriting her edges, making her blood hum.
The light shone again. Then everything went black.
No restraints. Just a crate and physics.
She screamed as gravity seemed to disappear, and she fell backward. Her neck banged against the back of the cage; her head smashed sideways into the metal, and sour bile surged up into her throat. She puked onto the floor.
Darkness pushed against her eyelids, and a crawling dread slithered below her skin.
Did we make it? Or did I get cut in half somewhere in between?
Her hand shot to her stomach, her neck, her legs. Everything felt… attached. Intact. But she had to imagine there was a risk for someone getting sliced. And what about the radiation? Audrey prayed that a society as advanced as the Ezebethians would have figured out a way to protect themselves from those deadly effects—but did it apply to cargo? She could only hope it did.
Still, she never wanted to do it again. Not for anything except a means back to her sister. If she survived Nepra, she would find Cary—even if she had to claw through every layer of this system to do it.
Lights flickered overhead, dim at first. The room around her resolved slowly—white walls, clean floor, the mess of her own vomit the only stain.
Footsteps sounded, then a curse in Voírían. Mihail came to her cage and unlocked it. The door banged open. His hands caught her wrists, fingers pressing hard against her pulse points, and her forehead.
“She’s fine,” he called over his shoulder.
Fine?Inside, she was still screaming.
He dragged her out of the cage. Her knees wobbled, but the floor stayed where it was supposed to. Emerson stood nearby, leaning against the wall, wrists secured, expression carved from stone.
Audrey swallowed hard, trying to force her thoughts into order. “Where are we?” she asked. “What are we doing?”
“Transit station DF-3,” Mihail said briskly. “Waiting for clearance to board a cargo ship to Jalnor. Capital of Nepra.”
“What happens in Jalnor?” she pressed after a beat.
“We procure a vehicle,” he said, checking her restraints.
“To go where?”
