Slowly, my eyes traveled over the room. It reminded me of a weird doctor’s office, outfitted with tiny tables with instruments on them, cabinets, and black hoses hooked to the wall.

When motioned forward by the sergeant, the man in the lab coat approached the table and carefully held the cup to my mouth. I drank greedily. The coolness soothed the rawness in my throat, but I drank too fast and ended up with a coughing fit that was both loud and painful.

“I’m Dr. Roth, one of the physicians at the base.” He put the cup aside and reached into his jacket, pulling out a stethoscope. “I’m just going to listen to your heart, okay? And then I’m going to take your blood pressure.”

I jumped a little when he pressed the cold chest piece against my skin.

He then placed it on my back. “Take a nice deep breath.” When I did, he repeated his instructions. “Good. Extend your arm out.”

I did and immediately noticed the red welt circling my wrist. There was another above my other hand. Swallowing hard, I looked away, seconds from slipping into full freak-out mode, especially when my eyes met the sergeant’s. They weren’t hostile, but the eyes belonged to a stranger. I was utterly alone—with strangers who knew what I was and had captured me for a purpose.

My blood pressure had to be through the roof, because my pulse was pounding, and the tightening in my chest couldn’t be a good thing. As the pressure cuff squeezed down, I inhaled several deep breaths, then asked, “Where am I?”

Sergeant Dasher clasped his hands behind his back. “You’re in Nevada.”

I stared at him, and the walls—all white with the exception of those shiny black dots—crowded in. “Nevada? That’s…that’s clear across the country. A different time zone.”

Silence.

Then it struck me. A strangled laugh escaped. “Area 51?”

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There was more silence, as if they couldn’t confirm the existence of such a place. Area mother-freaking 51. I didn’t know if I should laugh or cry.

Dr. Roth released the cuff. “Her blood pressure is a little high, but that’s expected. I would like to do a more intensive examination.”

Visions of probes and all kinds of nasty things lit up my brain. I slid off the table quickly, backing away from the men, on legs that barely held my weight. “No. You can’t do this. You can’t—”

“We can,” Sergeant Dasher interrupted. “Under the Patriot Act, we are able to apprehend, relocate, and detain anyone, human or nonhuman, who poses a risk to the Nation’s security.”

“What?” My back hit the wall. “I’m not a terrorist.”

“But you are a risk,” he responded. “We hope to change that, but as you can see, your right to freedom was relinquished the moment you were mutated.”

Legs giving out, I slid down the wall and sat down hard. “I can’t…” My brain didn’t want to process any of this. “My mom…”

The sergeant said nothing.

My mom…oh my God, my mom had to be going insane. She would be panicked and devastated. She would never get over this.

Pressing my palms against my forehead, I squeezed my eyes shut. “This isn’t right.”

“What did you think would happen?” Dasher asked.

I opened my eyes, my breath coming out in short bursts.

“When you infiltrated a government facility, did you think you would just walk out and everything would be fine? That there’d be no consequences for such actions?” He bent down in front of me. “Or that a group of kids, alien or hybrid, would be able to get as far as you did without us allowing it?”

Coldness radiated over my body. Good question. What had we thought? We had suspected it could be a trap. I had practically prepared myself for it, but we couldn’t walk away and let Beth rot in there. None of us could’ve done that.

I stared up at the man. “What happened to…to the others?”

“They’ve escaped.”

Relief coursed through me. At least Daemon wasn’t locked up somewhere. That gave me some sort of comfort.

“We only needed to catch one of you, to be honest. Either you or the one who mutated you. Having one of you will draw the other out.” He paused. “Right now, Daemon Black has disappeared off our radar, but we imagine it won’t stay that way for long. We have learned through our studies that the bond between a Luxen and the one he or she mutates is quite intense, especially between a male and female. And from our observations, you two are extremely…close.”

Yeah, my relief crashed and burned in fiery glory, and fear seized me. There was no point in pretending I had no idea what he was talking about, but I would never confirm it was Daemon. Never.

“I know you’re afraid and angry.”

“Yeah, I’m feeling both of those things strongly.”

“That is understandable. We are not as bad as you think we are, Katy. We had every right to use lethal methods when we caught you. We could’ve taken out your friends. We didn’t.” He stood, clasping his hands again. “You will see we are not the enemy here.”

Not the enemy? They were the enemy—a greater threat than a whole flock of Arum—because they had the entire government behind them. Because they could just snap up people and take them away from everything—their family, their friends, their entire life—and get away with it.

I was so screwed.

As the situation really sank in, my tenacious grip on keeping it together slipped, and then completely fell away. Stark terror whipped through me, turning into panic, creating an ugly mess of emotions powered by adrenaline. Instinct took over—the kind I hadn’t been born with but had been shaped by what I’d become when Daemon had healed me.




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