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“I…don’t know exactly. Blue means you want to communicate or understand something. Black can be anything but is usually negative. It could just be something that upset you this morning like traffic.” We both knew there was no traffic on the island, but I wanted it to seem like no big deal. It usually was a big deal, though.

“And the pink?” he asked.

“Excitement,” I said, averting my eyes.

“Accurate. This is quite exciting.”

“I really should get back to work now.”

A spike of black displeasure shot out of the doctor’s aura, and I jerked backward as it reached for me. Trying to play it off, I made to get down from the table.

“Wait, wait, wait.” He rushed toward me, reaching for the electrodes. “I’ll take these off. But we must do more research as soon as possible. There is another machine I’d like to try out. How does tomorrow sound? I may not be able to get ahold of it that soon, but we can still do another EEG. The more data the better.”

“What machine?” I asked as he worked on my head.

“It’s fae. It crosses dimensions. I want to know if your experience will be different than other supes when connected.”

There were so many questions I wanted to ask about this strange machine. But we were interrupted by an alarm blaring and dimmed lighting. The doctor held the last electrode in his hand as we both searched around us for answers.

“What is that?” I demanded, hands over my ears.

“We just went on lockdown,” Orpheus answered, rushing into his office with me on his heels.

He pulled up his screen, and I fished out my cell. The alert had come in along with a text from Julian.

Where are you?

Where was I? Where the fuck had he been for the last day? I typed back a bit harder than necessary. Orpheus’s office.

The elevator appeared moments later, and Julian rushed out in his black uniform and gold regalia. The alarms stopped, but the lights remained flashing red.

“What is going on?” I asked, crossing my arms.

“There’s been an abduction on base. The alarms triggered immediately so the perpetrator should still be trapped here.”

I rushed past Julian into the still open elevator and started jumping for the grate.

Julian blew past me, sending my already messy hair into an even further wreck and within seconds, he’d opened it and climbed through. I waited, chewing my cheek until he dropped back down seconds later.

“No one, but good thinking.” He smiled at me.

That smile stirred something in my traitorous body. But I wasn’t going to let him know that. I did not return the gesture.

“Who was it?” Orpheus asked. I’d almost forgotten where we were.

“A relatively new islander. Lauren Gray,” Julian said.

My stomach dropped. “Lauren? As in young, shifter, pretty with long dark hair?”

“You know her?” Julian’s brows creased. He reached for me, but I took a step back.

“Not really. I saw her last night at the pub when I was there with my sister.” I hugged myself, recalling Sam’s unpleasant conversation with her. “What was she doing here?”

Julian cocked his head, a stray curl falling onto his forehead. “She was here to see the general. Gladys said she wanted to file a complaint of some sort. But she never made it to the command center.”

“Complaint?” I asked weakly.

“We don’t know what it was about. But she got on the elevator, and when it opened again, she wasn’t there. The only thing the kidnapper left behind was the distinct scent of something burning. I smelled it when I went up to check the ducts just now as well. It’s a good clue, and one I wouldn’t have been able to detect after Maryanne’s murder, since it took too long to get to her.”