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“I’ve got your attention, don’t I? You know we can’t just let you loose out there, Jana. If you’re not on our side, you’re too dangerous. At least, as you currently are.” Beth exhaled heavily. “But with a few modifications, you wouldn’t be a threat anymore. You’d just be a regular human. Like all the others we protect.”
Still spouting that protection bull, but… “You can stop the fire?” Jana had to ask.
A slow nod. Beth’s blond hair brushed against her fire-stained cheek. “You can be normal, Jana. It will only take a few moments. Just a few. Then you can walk out of here and have the life you’ve always wanted.”
The temptation was so strong. “You’ve been hunting me all this time.”
“Because you’re too dangerous with the fire.” Her jaw hardened and stretched her scars. “Without it, you’re no threat.”
“But if I keep my fire?”
Beth didn’t speak. But then, Jana already knew the answer. Keep it and die. Because she wasn’t just going to have the chance to walk away with her power.
“Don’t you want to be normal?” Beth inched closer. “Don’t you want to know what it’s like to have a family? Real friends? To not be the freak who’s always standing on the outside?” Beth’s hand lifted. The hand marked with the raised and red flesh reached toward Jana. “I can give it to you. I can give your life back to you.”
“And what do you get?” Because she wasn’t a fool. No way would Perseus toss her this shiny, tasty apple without having one big worm crawling around inside of it.
“We get you off our asses.”
If only it were that simple.
“It is that simple, Jana. Just take what we’re offering and walk away.”
* * *
Davey waited for him in the hallway. When he saw the guards lead Zane out, his lips tightened. “I got him, okay, guys? Go take a break.”
The guards didn’t move. Davey straightened away from the wall. “I’ve got him.”
They shuffled back.
“Beth wants me to take you to meet the witch,” Davey told Zane as he thrust back his shoulders. “She thinks Jana’s screwed with your mind. Convinced you that we’re evil.”
No, when they’d blown up Night Watch—that had convinced him.
“But maybe if you can hear that we aren’t monsters, if you hear that from someone you trust, you’ll believe us. You’ll realize that Perseus isn’t some sick nightmare that needs to be put down.” A deep breath. “We’re a group that you can join. You can help us, we can help you, and in the end, we’ll make this world one hell of a lot better.”
Zane stared back at him. Someone that you trust. At those words, he’d gotten a real bad feeling in his gut. There was only one witch that he truly trusted in the world. She’d disappeared from Baton Rouge a few months back, right after Dee Daniels, another Night Watch agent, had almost been killed. “Take me to the fucking witch.” Now.
Davey turned away and led him down the hall. Past the locked, metal doors. Past more guards.
Zane’s heartbeat thundered in his ears. There was no way, no damn way, that they were talking about the same witch. They couldn’t be. They?—
Davey opened a door. The room inside was dim. A long, skinny table, a few chairs, and a woman waited inside. The woman spun toward them with her hair—so blond it was almost white—flying around her face. Oh, hell.
“Zane?” she breathed his name.
He stared at the witch he’d known for five years. His ex-lover, a woman he’d trusted with his darkest secrets. Catalina Delaney.
“Go ahead, Catalina,” Davey encouraged, walking closer to her. “Tell your friend the truth about Perseus. Tell him that Jana Carter lied to him. Tell him what we’re really like.”
He stared into her moss-green eyes—eyes the color of the swamp she’d been raised in—and waited for the truth. Because Catalina had never lied to him before.
“They’re not evil, Zane,” she whispered. “They want to save the world. Not destroy it.”
No, she’d never lied to him before.
So why was she starting now?
