Page 102 of Villainous Intent

The door shut behind him, the magnetic lock engaging with a definitive thud.

My body was screaming, every nerve ending oversensitive and raw. The throbbing hollowness inside me was agonizing.

I looked down at the glistening streak on my thigh.

He was arrogant. He was cruel. He was a murderer who viewed my body as just another thing to control.

I squeezed my eyes shut, hating the twisted truth echoing in my head. I wanted him to come back and do it all again.

CHAPTER 20

ANNIE

As soon as we arrived at the Labyrinth, Cipher took me to the command center and ordered me to sit and stay like a good little prisoner.

I’d waited exactly thirty seconds after the door sealed behind him before I bolted.

With every step I took down the hallway, I cursed Cipher. It was a friction-filled reminder of his arrogance and my own stupid traitor of a body. Don’t touch yourself, he’d ordered and like a dumbass, I’d obeyed. Now I was paying for it dearly.

I wanted to punch him. Mostly, I wanted to find a shower and scrub the scent of him, and the evidence of what I’d allowed him to do to me, off my skin. But since he hadn’t provided a map to the bathroom, and I’d refused to stay in the command center like he had asked, I was wandering.

The Labyrinth wasn’t what I expected. I’d seen it before, just that small glimpse when Twelve had fixed my forehead and Cipher had given me access to League files, but now that I was wandering, I was getting a better picture. I’d see several other lairs before but they had smelled like damp concrete, stale beer, and desperation. This place smelled like ozone, expensive cleaning products, and the kind of money that could buy small countries.

It was annoyingly impressive.

Subtle blue lighting ran along the baseboards and ceiling, mimicking the lighting accents on Cipher’s suit, providing just enough light to move around. The floors and walls were polished black metal that somehow swallowed the sound of my movement. My thighs brushing one another, my own breathing, even my bare feet creeping along the floor should have made at least a little sound that would echo in the empty hallway, but there was nothing. The quiet was unnerving.

The entire thing made me kind of feel disoriented and a little like I was underwater.

I hugged the wall as I crept along. When he’d taken me to the command center, Cipher had said memorizing the layout was useless, and I was beginning to believe him. The corridors angled in ways that didn’t make sense, subtle shifts in perspective that made straight lines look curved.

The effect of everything, the sound dampening, the lighting, the odd curvature of the halls, it was all incredibly disorienting, designed to make you question your own eyes.

Muffled voices drifted from around the corner, low and masculine.

Henchmen.

I froze. If they found me, they would drag me back to the command center. The thought of being deposited back where he’d left me, like a misbehaving child caught trying to run away, was unbearable.

I ducked around another corner and pressed my back against the wall. I had no idea how close they actually were since sound traveled so oddly. A second later, two men in black uniforms walked past the intersection ahead. They moved with the precision of soldiers, not the shambling gait of the usual hired muscle. Cipher’s numbered henchmen seemed loyal and, unfortunately for me, terrifyingly competent.

I counted to sixty after they passed then peeled myself off the wall and hurried in the opposite direction.

The hallway opened up, lined on both sides with thick glass. It looked like an aquarium, but instead of fish, the rooms beyond held the fruits of Cipher’s intellect.

I crouched low, keeping below the sightline of the glass, and crept forward. Curiosity was a dangerous vice for a Keeper, but I couldn’t help myself. I needed to know what he was doing down here. I wanted to understand the scale of the monster I was dealing with.

I risked a peek, lifting my head just enough to see over the ledge.

The room beyond was a white lab, a jarring contrast to the dark hallways. Three men in lab coats were huddled around a long workbench. They were assembling drones? Maybe. I couldn’t really tell.

I squinted. The metal casings were matte black, shaped like predatory birds. The internal wiring was exposed on one, a complex nest of gold and copper that looked more like a nervous system than circuitry. One of the men picked up a delicate, glowing blue chip with a pair of tweezers and slotted it into the chassis.

I snuck along the hall and found most rooms to be similar to the first, with a few very obviously working on weapons. One window opened onto a much larger sunken area that dealt with larger scale assembly.

I ducked back down, my pulse thumping in my ears. I definitely wasn’t supposed to see any of this. And here I was, wandering around in the belly of the beast, unarmed with no shoes, while aching for the man who owned it all.

“Stupid,” I whispered to myself and squeezed my eyes shut. “You are so stupid, Annie.”