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One of the men returns with a bundle of towels. I grab one and pack it around her wound. Sunlight streams down on her too-pale skin that contrasts with her dark hair and eyes.
“He said I let him down,” she says through gasping breaths.
“How?” The word grates on my vocal chords.
She isn’t going to make it. Not after losing so much blood. From the amount soaking the towel, the only way to save her is with an immediate transfusion.
“It was me who suggested getting you to infiltrate the university.”
My stomach plummets to the rug. “That’s impossible.”
“Crius and I have been in contact the entire time,” she says with a hoarse rattle. “When I heard about what happened to poor Viktor, I knew I had to get you involved.”
“Wait,” says Thor. “You’re not a hostage?”
Mother’s eyes flutter toward the men standing in the doorway. “Pretending Crius had taken me was the only way I could get Marius to agree to help.”
ChapterForty-Six
PHOENIX
I back away from Professor Segul, my mind a buzz. Too much is happening at once. Odin’s gaze doesn’t leave the professor’s, and neither do the eyes of the men pointing guns at his head.
Shit, shit, shit.
At this rate, he’s going to get killed.
As I reach the white van, a layer of tension rolls off my shoulders, replaced by a slew of emotions that hit like blows. Relief that I’m no longer a captive, confusion because none of this makes sense, and nausea.
It’s a thick swirling sense of sick dread that I’ll hear the sound of a gunshot and that will be the end of Professor Segul.
Burrowed beneath all this are the claws of betrayal. Odin says Veer wasn’t the only target of today’s abduction. Professor Segul also told me Dad was the new warden of Seacroft Prison, which means I was also a useful hostage.
As I round the van, I find Veer standing beside a black car, still looking shaken.
“Phoenix?”
He launches himself at me, wraps his long arms around my shoulders, and pulls me into his thin chest.
I give him a weak pat on the back. “Are you alright?”
He draws back, his eyes wild. “How were you so calm?”
Cringing at his touch, I force back all the memories of having to stay tranquil during the worst of Dad’s rants. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t cry, couldn’t answer back unless I wanted the words to escalate into blows.
My hand rises up to rub at the back of my neck, and I glance over my shoulder.
“Survival instinct, I suppose.”
All I can see around me is the front of the white van. I ignore the leg sticking out from beneath it to focus on the two men standing at either side of the vehicles, both holding their guns at Professor Segul.
Did he really set this up, like Odin said? Nothing about his actions said he did. If he arranged our abduction then why now, when he could have taken me any of the times I visited his house?
He could have abducted me the time he tricked his way into my apartment and made me kneel.
“Unbelievable.” Veer’s voice breaks me out of my concentration.
I turn to him and frown. “Huh?”
