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Octavius grabbed a second laptop and opened the web browsers he’d used in the past to connect to Atlas. If he could attack Atlas from multiple angles, he might find a way in.
“And hey.” Storm rubbed his face and sighed. “You think you can stop this?”
“I think I’m the only one who can try, and right now, that’s the best we’ve got.”
“You’re not filling me with confidence.”
“You know what you should do?” Octavius asked without looking up. He tapped away at the keys, half his mind already lost in the code. Then, with a quick smile, he flicked his eyes up to Storm. “You should trust me.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Storm smiled. “Trust you, when you kicked me out of a chopper.”
“You were going to kill me.”
“I was, and I’d have done the same as you. We all would. It’s good to have you back.”
“Because I’m your last resort.”
“I’m sure I’m not the only one who missed your quick temper and vicious threats.”
Octavius smiled as he continued working. Not so long ago, he’d have lashed out at anyone who dared laugh at him. Things had changed. He’d changed. And it looked as though the Brotherhood may be changing too.
* * *
Raiden’s countdownwas drawing close to its conclusion, but Octavius had found a way inside Atlas and had begun picking the code apart around the edges, undoing all the work he’d thought he and Raiden had made progress on together.
“Hey, asshole.” Zaine tossed a blood bag onto the table beside him then parked his ass in a chair next to Octavius. “You good?”
“I gave Storm instructions not to be disturbed.”
“I know, and aren’t you glad I’m not very good at following orders?”
He was. It had to have been Zaine that had the Brotherhood coming around. Zaine had always irritated him. His snarky mouth, his lack of respect, how careless he was, and then bringing Eric into their headquarters. An outsider, and a feeder! But it was those things that had allowed him to see outside Mikalis’s creed.
Octavius hit the return key and watched Atlas peel open on the screen in front of him. “I’m in.” But what he saw was not good. Atlas was already spread far and wide, its tentacles knotted into countless worldwide systems. All this time, it had been working its way into all the keyholes in all the electronic locks across the world. The countdown was ticking down to the moment it turned the locks to open.
“I’m assuming from your paler than usual face that we’re still fucked.”
He needed a moment to think. There had to be a way to cancel the command, to at least mitigate the damage.
He grabbed the blood bag, bit down, and almost choked on the days-old donor blood. It tasted… flat, cold, dead. He swallowed anyway, needing it, but it would take three or four bags to give him the kick just a few swallows from Jayden’s vein would have given him.
“Not good, huh? Used to blood from the vein?”
Octavius downed the bag, then retracted his fangs and returned Zaine’s unimpressed glower with one of his own. “I’m not getting into that with you right now.”
“Sure.” Zaine shrugged and leaned back in the chair. “You may not be the only one questioning certain things, that’s all.”
Did Zaine drink from Eric? If he did, then he knew why the blood bag had almost repulsed Octavius. “It is us changing our—your partners.” He wasn’t going to say feeders. A feeder was a tool. Eric wasn’t Zaine’s tool, Felix wasn’t Kazimir’s. Octavius had been so very wrong about them. “Raiden claimed their blood weakens you, but he doesn’t understand because he hasn’t felt it.”
“And you do?”
“Yes. I do.” Jayden had healed a gunshot wound to the chest. He had the same blood quirk as the rest of the Brotherhood’s new human partners. They had run the numbers and looked at hospital records. Felix’s and Eric’s blood was unique. Ithadbeen changed. When they’d come into contact with a nyktelios, it had triggered a mutation, or an evolution.
“I’m sorry about Saint, man. Storm said you guys were tight—”
He waved his sympathy away. It wasn’t Saint, or maybe it was, maybe it had been the three of them together that had triggered Jayden’s change. “There’s a different way.”
“How do you mean?”
