The tablet on Malcolm’s desk makes a noise, and the screen lights up. He picks it up, takes a look, and there’s a flicker in his eyes, his interest piqued.
Sebastian’s voice cuts in from the radio in my ear, low and tight. “Fuck. You’re not going to like this, boss.”
I don’t react, even as my pulse spikes.
“Something wrong?” I ask, keeping my own voice casual now.
“You wanted something in it for you?” Malcolm looks up from the tablet, and the wolfish smile on his face is one I knowwell, one I fucking loathe. “I think I may have a way to convince you.”
The doors open, and two of Malcolm’s Ascended step inside, dragging someone between them.
Cason.
He’s unconscious, blood dripping down his temple, head lolling forward, green hair hanging over his face like a curtain.
Something inside me goes very, very still. A calm before the storm, me standing on the eve of destruction. Everything goes red, and every rational part of me just cuts out completely. My vision narrows until there’s nothing in this room except him and the way his chest barely moves, the way his hands hang useless at his sides. The way someone—someone who’s fuckingdead—hurt him badly enough to draw blood.
I try so fucking hard not to move, not to speak. But each beat of my heart is heavier and louder than the last, like everything inside me is trying to break out of my body just to get to him faster.
Malcolm watches me, and I can feel it. I canfeelhis satisfaction.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him set down the tablet before opening the top drawer of his desk. He reaches inside, and metal scrapes softly against wood. He pulls out a gun. Every muscle in my body coils tight, ready to snap.
Malcolm steps around the desk, unhurried, as though there isn’t a storm building inside of me.
He moves behind Cason.
He lifts the gun.
And presses it to the back of his own nephew’s head.
Something inside me cracks wide open, and I swear I can hear the break. My jaw locks so hard it aches. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to move. To fuckingkillhim. Right here, right now. To tear this entire place apart with my bare hands if Ihave to.
But I don’t.
Because he could move first.
“That’s what I thought,” Malcolm says, almost conversational. “Cason made it pretty obvious how he felt about you, and you’re even more obvious right now. So what’s it going to be, Reese? You both walk out of here and disappear, or are you going to keep playing this game without him?”
“You’d hurt your own nephew?” I ask, my voice low enough it barely sounds human.
Malcolm doesn’t hesitate.
“I killed my own brother.” He says those words casually, like he’s commenting on the fucking weather. “So why not?”
It’s not what I expected, but I’d be lying if I said I was surprised.
But what comes with it is the very real, very immediate knowledge that I’m standing in a room with a man who has already proven there is no line he won’t cross.
And now, he’s daring me to find mine.
I wake up tothe third worst headache of my life and a particular personality trait.
“I’m really fucking tired of being knocked out!”
My rough, weak voice somehow manages to echo back at me as my brain is still catching up, piecing things together in fragments. Server room, data, someone hitting me. Whether physically or with some superhuman ability, I have no idea.
Then I feel it—cold metal pressed to the back of my head.
