“You bitch,” he growled, his breath hot and furious.
With the cuffs off, her telepathy came roaring back—but not enough, not fast enough. Her aura sliced into his, searching for weakness.
Nothing.
Just rapid Voírían, like a vault she couldn’t break. It was impossible for her to translate even a few words when he thought that fast.
Audrey’s body sagged. Exhaustion almost consumed her entirely, and hopelessness pressed into every limb. Without her powers or freedom of movement, she felt threadbare all the way through, fear leaking out past her barriers.
I’m not dead yet,she reminded herself with stubborn pride.
All she had right now, though, was nothing but her crude little weapons and the plan hardening inside her: survive Home Field, get close to Ryker, and use the damage to carve her way toward Cary.
It would have to be enough. Audrey didn’t fear death half as much as she feared meaningless death. If she was going to die here, she’d do it with her hands buried in Ryker’s mind.
Some monsters would chew through chains if left alone long enough.
Back in thetruck’s rusted bed, Audrey watched the captured female Aggregate security officer with interest. According to Nikos, the woman would know the layout of a working Field, and they needed that information to get his sister and Mihail back.
Home Field was the Separatists’ base, but the working Fields were something larger. Exactly what a Field was used for, Audrey didn’t know. From the scraps she’d picked up from Nikos and Basir, she knew they were places people entered but rarely left—places where powerful Voíríans were processed, tested, and swallowed whole. She’d heard them called factories and, at other times, prisons. What did know was that the Fields were wrapped in fear, and every version sounded more terrible than the last.
She and the other captive were shoulder-to-shoulder. Zip-ties gnawed raw rings around the officer’s wrists; Audrey’s burned with the unforgiving cuffs. Bodies jolted in a graceless tandem as the truck battered down the ruts. Dust snaked like uneasy ghosts, unspooling from their graves.
Now she and the other woman were the only ones left in this convoy, along with the three male captors. Audrey didn’t think being left with the enforcer was random. It meant they were still useful. Or still dangerous. Maybe both.
The female enforcer looked carved from sturdier stuff than most—thick-legged and forearms honed with the kind of power born from repetition and obedience. Although stripped of her armor, she was reduced to the same fragility as everyone else in the presence of fire. Audrey had seen Nikos burn a man to ash with nothing but irritation scrunching his brow.
Fire was king here. Fire ruled.
And if Audrey could only find hers again—if they ever took off the restraints choking her—she would ignite this truck, these men, the whole dying moon, and burn a path to her sister.
Instead, she sat hollow with her power shoved somewhere unreachable.
Needing a distraction, Audrey gently kicked the woman’s boot with her own. The woman’s dark eyes assessed her, clearly skeptical.
“Hey,” Audrey murmured, her chin lifting. “Name?”
The slight razor-edge of Ezebethian in her thoughts should have told Audrey she wasn’t from Nepra, but she wanted to hear it from the woman herself.
She pointed to herself. “Audrey.” Slow, unthreatening.
“Taryn,” the woman said, touching her own chest.
“Great.” Audrey nodded, then pressed on. “Where are we going?”
“To Number Three,” Taryn replied, the words shaped with dread.
“To Ryker?” Audrey asked, slightly above a whisper.
Taryn barked out a rueful laugh. “Number One won’t be there. Number Two and Number Three rule Home Field, and once we arrive, we’re already dead. They’ll kill us after the questions.”
She said it without drama, as if she were reciting a weather report she could no longer change. Audrey recognized such resignation after hearing it in prison from women who had already made peace with their fate.
A dense silence unfurled. “What do you do here?” Audrey asked, trying to ease the tension.
“Keep the peace,” Taryn said with a shrug.
Audrey’s eyes narrowed. “I can virtually taste lies.”
