“He’s in bad shape. It’s not going to happen tonight,” Nikos said over the music and shouting in the background.
“That’s not good enough,” Number Three hissed. “It must be tonight. I don’t care what you give him. Get him lucid.”
They couldn’t be talking about Ryker then. Nothing about it fit the man in the hologram. Or perhaps that was the point. Maybe power on that scale always rotted something around it.
Number Three continued. “She killed Nassar, and she nearly killed Basir. I need him to be coherent.”
Audrey smirked at their fear.
“He personally deferred her intake, but that was a mistake,” Number Three muttered.
“If she’s not specified for intake, then what is she?”
Number Three sighed. “According to him? She’s a problem Mihail delivered and failed to explain.”
More muttering followed in Voírían, fast and useless to her. Still, one fact was patently obvious: whoever they were trying to drag back into coherence, it wasn’t Number One. Ryker did not sound like a man anyone had to coax into control.
Then—
“Audrey, stop hiding,” the woman called. “Get the fuck out of here and sit down.”
Well, it sounded like they were going to be here for a while.
“Let’s get this over with,” Audrey muttered.
Her nostrils flared with the certainty of it all. This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
Whatever lived in this apartment had been close to Mihail.
Close to Ryker.
Close to the center of all of it.
Audrey stepped into the room.
27
Time dragged as they waited for what came next. Audrey pressed for information, but all she gleaned was her captor’s name—Katja, or Kat.
Kat wasn’t talkative. Or maybe she simply didn’t care to speak English.
Stranger still, Kat’s mind wasn’t just shielded; it was muffled. Audrey was used to thoughts bombarding her, or—with other trained telepaths—confronting a barrier. But Kat was unique. Instead of a torrent of thoughts or an impenetrable wall, there was only dry static, like a radio dialed to emptiness. The strangeness unsettled Audrey.
After a while, Kat offered her a glass of liquor and a cigarette. The gesture jolted Audrey, her heart skipping a beat. She took them without pause, desperate for warmth, numbness, something human.
Stockholm syndrome?
She didn’t care. Boredom and terror were slow poisons, and keeping her hands busy was a mercy. So, Audrey drank and smoked whatever she was offered. Whoever owned this place had an endless stash.
Still, she stayed alert. Every action, every word, could be important. And she wouldn’t stop listening until she got what she needed to get to her sister again.
A bizarre clock hung on the wall, crammed with too many numbers and alien symbols to decipher. Audrey couldn’t guess the hour—midnight? Near dawn? Did it even matter on a moon locked in perpetual dusk?
Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, Nepra sat frozen in twilight. Audrey forced herself to remember where she came from.
Earth.
Prison.
