Total pages in book: 173
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 846(@200wpm)___ 677(@250wpm)___ 564(@300wpm)
“I don’t care.”
“But you should. She was going to kill you if ordered. That was her mission—seduce the asset, gather intelligence, and if necessary, eliminate the threat.” Julia steps closer. “Do you understand? She was going to kill you.”
“And I said I don’t care,” I snap.
“Then you’re more compromised than I thought.”
I manage to take another step toward Mia before I go still again. My body is screaming at me to go to her, to rip those restraints off, to carry her out of this place and never look back, but there’s something holding me back.
“Your mission is simple,” Julia says. “Kill her. Prove your programming holds. Prove your loyalty to Global Dynamix. Pass this test, and we forget the last few weeks ever happened. You go back to being America’s Hero. Everyone’s happy.”
I turn slowly to face her, unable to process her words.
“You want me to kill her?”
“I want you to do what you were designed to do. I mean, it’s not been for lack of trying.”
Everything seems to go still. “And if I refuse?”
“Then Paragon finishes the job while you get to watch.” She shrugs, a small, cold gesture. “And afterward, we’ll discuss whether you’re still useful—or whether you should join our other research subjects.”
I look at Mia. At the blood drying on her skin. At the way her chest barely rises and falls, each breath a fight.
She’s still alive. Barely. But alive.
Put her out of her misery.
The voice—that voice—comes from somewhere inside my skull. Not mine. Cold and mechanical, pressing against my thoughts like fingers digging into my brain.
Complete the mission. Eliminate the threat.
Generating directives.
“The activation codes work faster when you’re emotional,” Julia says, holding up that slim dark thing in her hand. It’s a remote. “This is what I’ve been finding with you, that your darkness is most easily corrupted when you’re in the thick of it. I’d hoped we wouldn’t need this. But you’re not making this easy for us.”
Pain spikes behind my eyes. Sharp, blinding, an ice pick driven straight through my skull.
Kill her.
Kill her now.
She’s the enemy.
She used you.
She lied to you.
She made you weak.
“Do it, Nate, and it will hurt less.” Julia’s voice is soft now, borderline tender. “It’s what you were made for.”
I take a step toward Mia. Julia clicks her device.
Good.
Closer.
Finish it.
CHAPTER 44
MIA
I come to slowly, like swimming up through tar.
Everything hurts. My face, my ribs, my wrists where the restraints have bitten down to raw meat. My mouth tastes metallic and there’s a gap where my molar used to be, my tongue probing the wound before I can stop it. Pain flares and I almost slip back under, back to the dark place where nothing can reach me.
But something is different, the air feels different, the smell familiar…
I force my good eye open—the other one won’t cooperate, swollen shut and throbbing—and the first thing I see are boots. Black boots, military grade, standing right in front of me.
I know those boots.
My gaze travels upward. Black tactical suit. Broad shoulders. Arrow symbol. Hands curled into fists at his sides, trembling slightly, like he’s fighting something.
Vanguard.
Nate.
He’s staring down at me, blank and empty behind the eyes. Like someone’s reached inside and scooped out everything that made him him. I’ve seen that expression before.
Behind him, I can see Julia, holding something small and dark in her hand, watching me, us, with interest. And beyond her, by the door, is Conrad Marsh, his expression apprehensive, as if he’s waiting for something to happen.
I know what that something is.
I know what they’ve asked him to do.
The ultimate obedience test.
“Nate,” I manage, and my voice comes out as a croak, shredded from screaming. “Nate, look at me.”
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even blink. Just takes another stiff step forward, and his hand comes up toward my throat.
“That’s it,” Julia murmurs from the doorway. “Good boy.”
His fingers close around my neck.
The pressure is immediate, crushing, and I can’t breathe, can’t think, black spots already dancing at the edges of my vision. His grip is impossibly strong—of course it is, he could snap my spine without effort, could crush my windpipe like tissue paper—and I’m going to die here, in this white room, at the hands of the man I—
No.
Not like this.
I reach up with hands that are clumsy and weak, the restraints not letting me stretch very far, and I grab his chin. Force him to look at me. His eyes are a husk but I stare into them anyway, searching for something, anything.
“Nate.” It comes out as a wheeze, barely a whisper. “I know you’re in there.”
The pressure increases. My vision starts to tunnel.
“I know—” I’m choking now, the words barely forming. “I know what they did to you. I know it’s not your fault. But you have to fight it. Please.”
Nothing. His face is a mask. Julia’s voice drifts in from somewhere far away: “Finish it, Vanguard. Complete your mission.”