He blinked, faint surprise playing across his face.
Why lie? He was built like something sculpted for war. A beautiful killer. Temptation with teeth.
The lights went in and out as the ship lurched forward. Damn it.
“They’ve initiated docking,” Emerson murmured. “We’ll hit an Aggregate checkpoint first. Then a smaller transport down to Nepra, if they get clearance.”
“There’s a chance we’ll be denied?”
“Unlikely,” he said. “The Separatists are more resourceful than the Aggregate likes to admit. Higher-ups go where they want. Mihail is almost as high as it gets.” Emerson’s eyes glanced at the ceiling. “This isn’t a standard prison transport,” he said. “Hear the pitch under the engine? That’s a checkpoint lock. We’re already queued into the Aggregate corridor.”
Audrey stared at him. “You’ve been on this route before,” she said.
“Yes.”
She sensed it even with the restraints on—he knew the machinery from the inside.
Heavy footsteps and voices sounded in the hallway, then metal scraped outside.
Emerson’s head lifted. “Get away from the door.”
His tone made her stand up straighter and listen. “Why?” she whispered as she backed up and sat down on the cot.
Something close to urgency crossed his face. “Because,” he said, “those aren’t routine guards just standing watch.”
Before all this, Audrey might have panicked. Instead, determination rose in her blood. She wasn’t completely helpless anymore. If they took her out of here, she might get a window of opportunity.
Locks disengaged, and the door cracked open. Brightness flooded the cell, making Audrey squint. A pale-uniformed officer stepped in and pointed directly at her.
“On your feet, Simas,” he said. “He said you go first.”
20
Despite the barked order for her to stand, Audrey didn’t move.
The ship rumbled around her. It was a sound she’d only just started to understand and already hated. The blue barrier still buzzed between her and Emerson. Beyond it, he stood restrained exactly where they’d left him—broad shoulders set, shining eyes indecipherable in the half-light.
He only watched her.
An officer’s hand closed around Audrey’s upper arm. The grip wasn’t rough enough to bruise, but it made clear she could not refuse.
The officer dragged Audrey to her feet.
As she passed the threshold, the black bands around her wrists throbbed once. They continued to snuff out her power. Heat licked up her arms like the memory of a burn. Audrey bit back the sounds of pain and fury rising in her throat. She thinned her mouth into a hard line and let them lead her into the hallway.
Behind her, metal scraped over metal.
She looked desperately over her shoulder, straining to see into the darkened cell. Even restrained as he was, she still hoped Emerson would try to intervene.
Emerson’s mouth moved, barely. “Listen more than you speak,” he said. Then the door slid shut between them, the locks shifting automatically back into place.
Dread crawled along her back at his words. They weren’t encouraging. They sounded like a warning—Emerson would let her go if it served his mission. The thought stung more than she wanted to admit, fusing with the pain of being used and discarded by him. A part of her longed to scream that she wasn’t expendable. She mattered. But another part already braced for being alone in whatever waited for her next.
Trusting him any further would be fatal.
Fuck him.Let him rot with his calculations.
Inside the corridor, everything was too white, too polished, too cold to belong to anything human. Hidden lights bled from the seams in the walls, flattening every face they passed.
