Blair lifted her head and blinked through the swirl oftears.
Maxine’s teeth clenched and her eyes narrowed savagely.“You are better than this,” she growled.“Strongerthan this.Stronger thanthem.”
Maxine was right.Blair was no petulant child orstay-at-home wife.She was the definition of resourcefulness and determination.Despite this oversight regarding her brother, thisoneoversight.Her knuckles popped as she released her grip and settled against her heels.Blair had nearly forgotten who she was.
Her gaze swung around the room, taking in the tangible evidence of everything she’d achieved, before finally settling on the wall of windows.The rain had started up again and it slid down the glass like tears.
The first tears of many, she thought, her lips twisting into asneer.
Blair fluffed the curls framing her face and dabbed at the moisture on her cheeks.“Maxine,” she said with a final sniffle, “be a dear and fetch me agun.”
XL
Aiden struggled to pin Elodie’s arms to the armrests as she thrashed and clawed the air.
“Get up!”Elodie screamed and kickedout.
Sparkman’s reddish blond braid whipped the air as her attention bounced between the numerous monitors that served as their unit’s main control center.
The saccharine scent of honeysuckles drifting in from the warehouse soured Aiden’s stomach.There shouldn’t be anything sweet about what was playing out in front of Elodie and on the screen just behind Aiden’shead.
“Astrid!Get up!”she yelled.Tears spilled from Elodie’s eyes and dotted her shirt with some of the onlyreal-lifeevidence of the horror that had occurred.
Besides Astrid’s lifeless body at home in her own VR setup, there was nothing except Elodie’s tears to show that the murder ever occurred.And when questions were asked...Well, the Key had a way of turning fact into fiction.
Anguish twisted Elodie’s features and Aiden blinked back the mist forming in his eyes.He turned his attention to Sparkman.“We have to get herout!”
Sparkman’s fingertips hammered against the control panel.“Tech deleted her profile from the main servers.She’ll be back in the real any minute.”
Aiden swallowed past the lump in his throat.“Sparkman, I’m lucky you werehere.”
For a moment, Elodie stilled beneath Aiden’s hands.Then, like she’d been struck by lightning, she jerked and exploded up from the chair.She ripped her VR headset off and threw it to the ground.
Aiden’s heart squeezed.He knew better than anyone that there was no way to bring back thedead.
Elodie swiped her hand against her cheek.“She’s gone!”It trembled as she studied her palm.“Astrid’s dead.”She offered her shaking hand as evidence.“There’s no blood.Nonothing.It’s like it never happened.”Elodie doubled over.Her sobs shook her so hard Aiden worried she’d splinter into pieces.
He crouched and cupped her face in his hands.“It doesn’t feel like it now,” he breathed, “but youwillget through this.”He’d said the same words to himself thousands of times over, but it wasn’t until Elodie that he’d known thatthroughwas an actual destination, a reward after suffering, as opposed to a constant state ofbeing.
Sparkman cleared her throat.A gentle signal that the world kept spinning even in the midst of tragedy.“You’ll need to get through sooner than later.Tech informed me that those soldiers scanned her.They know our location.This place will be crawling with Key Corp troops in notime.”
Aiden helped Elodie to her feet.“They can’tscan peoplein VR.”
Elodie let out a final trembling sob before speaking.“The Key can’t kill someone in VR either.”
Sparkman’s strawberry blond brows arched.“The Corporation seems to be learning new tricks all the time.”She cracked her knuckles and turned back to the bank of holoscreens.“I’ve given the order.Tech is powering us down and activating the light bath.We don’t want to leave behind any fingerprints or genetic material they could use to track the rest of us.”The image on two of the holoscreens pixilated before going completely black.“We need to move.”
Aiden grabbed Elodie’s hand and they followed Sparkman out of the office, running across concrete through the curtains onto moist earth, and into the light of the grow lamps and the rows and rows of plants.He ignored the thoughts writhing within him.All the living things in this building would die.The Key would make sure of it.He swallowed and tightened his grasp on Elodie.He had to make sure they were far, faraway.
Another crack of her knuckles as Sparkman turned and sped through a patch of budding tomato plants.“We’ll try to make it to the tunnels, but if anyone is arrested, we’ll need an alternate plan.I’ll send out a truck.It’ll make one pass through this district at exactlytwenty-threethirty.The Key soldiers will have cleared out by then.Protocol dictates that they immediately confiscate all technology.”Her braid slid off her shoulder as she motioned back the way they’d come.“They’ll return at first light to collect living specimens.They’ll know what we know—this place is cutoff, worthless to us.We just have to make it worthless to themtoo.”
They were fifty yards away from the hatch.Fifty yards away from the black depths of the tunnels that he’d been trained to navigate with his eyes closed.After all, that was how Eos operated—in thedark.
“Tech will also contact Echo.”Sparkman continued.“The next—”
Aiden stopped so sharply, he jerked Elodie backward.“They can’t notify Echo!”The idea that Eos would bring in Echo hardened his feet into anvils.
Sparkman’s brisk pace widened the space between them as she neared the hidden hatch to the underground tunnels.“She’s in charge of this region.More than that, she needs to know what’s taking place.We have our own protocols that we must adhere to in order to survive.”She reached her destination and brushed back the thick curtain that lined the walls of the warehouse.
