No answer.
The woman kept the gun trained and reached with her remaining fingers. Audrey recoiled instinctively but hit the hard metal behind her. Then that hand pressed flat against Audrey’s collarbone.
A brush of awareness slipped into her mind.
Audrey shut her eyes and reached back on instinct. Number Three’s aura was powerful but flat in a way that Ryker’s was not.No depth for true telepathic descent, only superficial pressure. Still, it felt precise like a needle, making Audrey feel raw in a way physical pain never had.
After a minute, the woman withdrew as if she’d been burned. The connection snapped. Audrey sucked in a breath like she’d been underwater.
So, Number Three had come to verify something, not to kill her. At least, not yet.
The woman jerked her chin toward the cage door. A silent order. Audrey hesitated—until the gun nudged harder against her skull.
Fine.
With a bruising grip on Audrey’s shoulder, Number Three led her out of the holding shed, across the courtyard, and into Home Field proper.
Audrey had only observed the structure from the outside when they first brought her here. Seeing it again, she realized it was no single building but a vast complex that was too large to be a typical rebel safe house. Even the Aggregate’s own checkpoint centers lacked this tireless design. Home Field belonged in its own category: not just a stronghold but a nerve center built for one purpose...processing bodies and power.
Audrey dug her heels in. “Where are you taking me?”
A rough shove answered.
“What am I doing here?”
No response.
Armed officers sprang to attention the moment they recognized Number Three. No one looked at Audrey for long. Whatever Number Three wanted with her outranked curiosity. They shifted aside without question, fear obvious in their posture.
The woman didn’t even need words. One glance from her empty eyes, and soldiers obeyed like puppets.
Banks of elevators waited. Number Three entered a code. The platform shot sideways, then up, so fast Audrey’s stomach tumbled. She gripped the rail and swallowed against the motion sickness.
When they came out, the hallway was deserted and unforgiving. Ten minutes of walking meant ten minutes of imagining what waited behind each identical door.
Finally, they stopped. After a palm scan, Number Three typed in a dozen rapid keystrokes with skilled efficiency.
Even before entering, Audrey knew the space was occupied. And whatever lived here gave off a heat that nearly suffocated her.
A public confrontation had meant witnesses, but this new place indicated they wanted privacy. After all this waiting, it had been chosen specifically for her, and that piqued Audrey’s interest.
Number Three shoved her across the threshold. The lights turned on automatically with the movement. Audrey stumbled on a pile of...something.
“Take off your boots,” the woman said. Not a shout—simply a command carved from steel. Audrey glared at the mess: a backpack, shoes, debris. She yanked her shoes off with a grunt and took in the space. Her eyes squinted.
The flat was a disaster, although it wasn’t squalid. It was simply pure chaos.
Modern and sleek beneath an avalanche of clutter. Books, crumpled clothes, stacks of paper, ruined tablets, scorched laptops, bloodied towels, cracked glass. The whiff of bleach floated underneath it all—cleaning or concealing, who could tell. The table looked less like a place someone lived and more like evidence from a failed containment procedure.
“Go wash off the blood,” the woman ordered, tossing Audrey some clean clothes, then taking off the restraints so she could shower.
Audrey didn’t argue. She followed the hallway into the bathroom—shockingly pristine. She washed herself raw under a tepid shower, pulled on the black clothes provided, and cleaned her leather jacket as best she could.
Her reflection revealed bruises spreading over her cheek, a split lip, and exhaustion shaped into every line of her face. Let them stare. She wanted people to feel uncomfortable when they saw her wounds. Let them know what monsters they were.
She cracked the door—and halted at the voices. One frantic. One loud and irritated. Mihail’s name surfaced again and again, weightier each time, and always with a tone that suggested history, maybe betrayal. Vital to Ryker’s regime, whatever had happened between him and the others mattered enough that even these hardened loyalists sounded tense when they spoke about him.
She moved closer.
