Audrey stumbled, anger grinding her teeth.Don’t fucking touch me.
“We’ll be spending a lot of time together,” Nikos murmured. Then, without missing a beat, he snapped orders to Nassar in their alien tongue. Audrey caught the edge of a few words now—finally familiar, almost decipherable after all this time.
“Where are you taking me?” she demanded, interrupting them.
Nikos ignored her, packing another gun in silence. Then to Nassar, “We keep her here till the route’s clear. Then it’s Home Field.”
“If Number Two survives long enough,” Nassar muttered.
Audrey felt guilt stab her. Mihail was captured—maybe dead, maybe smirking through Aggregate interrogation. With Mihail, both seemed possible.
Nikos’s expression stiffened. “He knew the price.”
Voices ebbed, absorbed by the arid wind, as they marched her to a squat cinderblock building wedged between clusters of strange, spindly trees.
She had overheard someone saying Nepra was tidally locked, with no real day or night. Merely an endless, unchanged sky. Audrey looked up at the yellow and wondered how she’d escape, as promised.
Inside the safehouse was barely better than outside. Ashen walls. Broken furniture and assorted chairs were scattered, although it was warm, with a fire burning in a shallow pit. Just as Emerson described, the place was rough, low-tech, and almost backward for people with powers to bend metal and burn cities.
The safe house was clearly temporary. It had to be a relay where they sorted people and moved them on.
Home Field sounded bigger. It carried an air of respect, as if it were the core of the whole operation, somewhere important enough that people lowered their voices when they said it. It had to be the endgame: the place where they took prisoners and significant assets for proper processing.
If they removed the cuffs there, it wouldn’t be for mercy—it’d be to see what happened when they aimed a weapon they wanted to control.
“Basir, Nassar,” Nikos barked, “we’re taking this wild one to Number One and Number Two.” He slapped Basir’s back, leaned in. Basir’s eyes went too wide, raking over Audrey with open hunger. She curled her lip, a snarl flashing.
Basir marched her into the dingy bathroom, looking at her as she began to strip. “Move it.” Rage shot through her blood, hot as acid. “Out,” Audrey snarled, shielding herself with filthy clothes.
“Oh, you’re far too dangerous to leave alone,” he cooed. “A valuable little asset like you? My job is to watch. My pleasure.”
He didn’t remove the cuffs, either. He simply watched her struggle one-handed around them, as if the inconvenience were part of the entertainment. The taunting didn’t stop either as she washed vomit from her skin, not even when she faced away from him.
“One night,” he mused, “maybe Number Two will let me have a go with you. Heard you were a real slut. The whole galaxy knows your face. Girls like you—working on your backs—never last long.”
Something inside Audrey snapped. She stared at the comb and toothbrush they’d given her. They weren’t anything special. Most would say they were harmless.
Then again—so was she, once. Look how that turned out.
When he flung her clean clothes at her, Audrey quickly hid the comb and toothbrush he had given her, stashing them in the pockets before putting the pants and shirt on. They’d do.
She cleaned her sister’s jacket and clutched it, imagining Cary’s arms around her. Her throat clenched. Emerson saw Cary alive and said nothing, forcing Audrey to dig through his head for the truth. Alex had stood in the checkpoint room, speaking Cary’s name like a game, always withholding more than he said. Audrey didn’t know which betrayal hurt more.
After her shower, they tossed dried meat and stale bread at her and locked her in a room with a narrow bed. It was a new prison.
When the footsteps faded, Audrey sat up in the dark and drew her improvised weapons. She worked on them with shaking hands.
Basir would be first. She would carve the grin off his face. Then she’d take the others if she could.
Sleep came in violent fits, her mind drifting in and out of alertness.
A few hours later, their voices dragged her from half-consciousness. Basir and Nassar bellowed in Voírían from the other room. Audrey rolled off the bed, pressed herself against the wall, and listened. With great effort, she managed to catch fragments.
“...caught a few Hunters...”
“...Home Field still has no word from Number Two...”
“...tore them to pieces...”
