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“You’re drunk,” Zoe said then pointed to the couch, where I sank into the cushions and groaned.
“Have you found out anything about my adopted brothers and sisters?” Em asked, sitting beside me.
I gazed into her hopeful eyes and spilled everything. “They’re in a lab in Greenland. Orpheus is there, the perimeter is heavily guarded, but we don’t have an exact location. And the general is acting on the direct orders of the board.”
“Hang on,” Em said, leaping from the couch and hurrying over to the table where she grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and began scribbling.
“Sounds like a shit but informative day,” Zoe said, sitting on the arm of the sofa. “I don’t blame you for drinking.”
I leaned my head on her lap. “Everything sucks.”
My sister opened her mouth to say something when Em rushed back over and handed me the paper she’d been working on. Zoe and I exchanged a glance. It was a dome-shaped structure drawn at the top of a glacier with coordinates in the upper right-hand corner.
“This is the lab?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“Yep. That’s what they used me for. Locating hidden places and people,” she said proudly.
My heart sank. It seemed all anyone wanted to do was create and use psychics to their advantage. We weren’t people in their eyes, just weapons. At that moment, I’d never hated my abilities so much. I reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear where it promptly popped out again. My heart swelled with love and understanding. Em was a lot like me. She and her adopted siblings had been used as an experiment in someone else’s game. Just like our father had done to me and Zoe.
“Good job, sweetie. We’ll talk to Sam and Daphne in the morning and get a plan together. Now do me a favor and go to your room so I can have a private talk with your aunty.”
Em smiled and bounced off to Zoe’s old room. I waited until she shut the door then turned to my sister. “There’s something I have to tell you about Dad and our abilities.”
* * *
I didn’t like the idea of visiting the vampire estate while Silas was away on business, but Zoe and I had things to discuss with our father. We portalled over early the next morning, a couple of hours before Sam, Daphne, and Hazel were due for our strategizing meeting.
“We’re here to see our father,” I told the vampire at the door.
“Follow me,” the man said and led us down the stairs to a subterranean level where he guided us to a metal door.
“You sure you aren’t trying to capture us?” Zoe joked, no concern in her voice. After all, she could get us out of pretty much anywhere.
“Your father’s laboratory,” the vampire responded then zipped away at superspeed.
“No humor,” Zoe mused as I knocked on the door.
Lydia opened it and tipped her goggles onto her head. The shocking white of her lab coat contrasted with the black of her clothing. “What are you doing here?”
“Nice to see you too,” I said. “We’re here to talk to Dad.” I shoved past her to where my father concentrated on a helmet-shaped hunk of metal that hung suspended over a tilted platform that might’ve been made to hold a Frankenstein’s monster in place. It was something out of an old black-and-white movie about a mad scientist with all the steel, zapping energy streams, and blinking lights.
In the back corner was what looked like a sensory deprivation tank lined with silver. It had hollow tubes coming out of each side. One ended at an empty blood bag and a large cooler, the other ended at another cooler, but no bag was present. I didn’t like the looks of it.
“Hey, Dad.” I yelled to get his attention. He’d always been so intent on whatever his latest project was, it was hard to get through. Memories of sitting on the stool in his lab, watching him work when I was young, assaulted me, but I shoved them aside as I reached for his arm.
He caught my hand before it touched him, and he gripped it so tight I yelped with pain. He stopped, staring at me through his goggles like he’d just recognized me. It felt like he’d nearly snapped the bones in half.
“Girls! What are you doing here?” he asked, echoing Lydia’s earlier question. I guessed they didn’t want us snooping on their research.
“We need to talk to you,” I said. “What’s all this?”
“Top secret,” he quipped and forced a placating smile. Too bad I was an adult and that wouldn’t work.
“We know what you did to us,” Zoe said, stepping up to join me. “You experimented on your own children, you nutcase.”
His face fell, and he set down the soldering tool he’d been holding. “Lydia, please give us some privacy.”
I heard the door shut. He gestured for us to sit at the nearest table where schematics and coffee stains littered the top. Zoe stayed put, but I shoved some of the papers aside and sat on the top.
