R I L E Y

My lungs felt overwhelmingly tight, like the air had been sucked right out of my chest. I'd always been afraid of Imperium's extensive power but this was far worse than I had feared. Imperium had another fortress. And if this one somehow existed against all odds, that meant that there could be more.

I found myself unable to tear my eyes from the second fortress. This was bad. This was very bad.

The shock on my teammates' faces was obvious. Out of all the outcomes of this mission, I doubted anyone had expected this one. I'd thought they might turn on me again, that another fight might break out because of my presence. I'd been prepared for that to happen again. But not this. I wasn't sure how we'd ever be prepared for this.

Kane uttered a soft string of Spanish curses as Arlo let loose with some of his own in English. Arlo had the mouth of a sailor, but I knew that Kane only cursed when something was bad enough to admit it. That somehow made things seem even more dire.

"I think it's safe to say that nothing can shock me anymore," I said, my words flatter than I'd intended.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Arlo said in front of me. He was still furious with me—like everyone else—for what Benny had told them I'd done. Jake and Delphinium had said nothing of it yet, knowing that another fight would surely break out when they did. I'd gone into this mission worrying about that, but now...?

"We need to get in there. I need to get in there. It's not as large or advanced as the one in Romania. Those workers would be easy to sneak in with. I can do it." Delphinium was practically shaking—with anger or fear or something else entirely, I wasn't sure. She seemed unsure of what to do with her hands, so they were clenched as she paced back and forth.

"Your hair is so white it's nearly blinding me," Jake said cooly. "They'll notice you in seconds and the plan will be ruined." He had a point; even if they didn't know exactly who she was, she had a fierce energy around her now, an aura that demanded people give her respect, and if they didn't, their blood. That, paired with her stunning features, would give her away.

No, if anyone was to get inside the fortress, it would have to be someone able to blend in, someone they wouldn't recognize. Someone like...

"Me," I blurted out. "I'll go inside and investigate."

For the first time in a long time, I felt small under all their stares. They hated me for what I did, even if Benny had been the puppet master of it all. But I needed to make things right. Even if this went badly, even if I got caught...I'd be glad to do this for them and for the sake of bringing Imperium to its knees.

I gestured to the men in the distance. "They're going to be leaving soon. Delphinium, you were right. I can sneak in with the soldiers and get as much information as possible."

"Yeah, we all know how well you can gather information," Arlo muttered. I let it slide, having nothing to try to protect myself with anymore.

"We need a way to communicate," the assassin said slowly. "Some way for you to tell us your findings in case..." She trailed off, but I knew what she'd been about to say: in case I didn't come back.

"Luckily for all of you, I'm a genius," I told them as I pulled out one of Jaxon's inventions from my pocket. He'd happened to have left lying on the kitchen counter and I thought they might be useful. "I think these will allow us to talk to each other."

Delphinium put one side in her ear and I took the other. "I'll do my best to guide you from what I know about the other fortress. But I just hope..."

"What?" I asked, hoping that she wouldn't say anything about me dying in there.

"I hope the signal doesn't cut out the deeper underground you go."

"If it does, it does," I said softly, still slightly numb to the gravity of what I was about to do. It was so sudden and yet I knew this needed to happen. "I'm not dying in that tin can. I will make it back out to tell you my findings."

She nodded, understanding my need to do this. "Then go. Those soldiers won't stay forever."

I took a few steps back, turning to look at my teammates one last time. Even if we were so broken, even if most of them did hate me because of this misunderstanding with Benny, I was still willing to do this for them. It was what they deserved.

My eyes met Kane's for a moment. The frown on his face deepened and I partially wished that he'd say something. I knew that I had hurt him when I had given their intelligence to his own brother. But I'd make it up to him. When this was all over, I'd tell him everything. I pulled my gaze away from his and went on my way.

I could feel their eyes on me as I weaved between trees, enveloping myself deeper and deeper into the misty darkness. The night was so overpowering that I had to squint my eyes for better vision. It would be unfortunate if I bumped into a tree, or worse, an Imperium soldier.

Gradually, I made my way around the circle of forest and found myself directly behind the place where the soldiers unloaded the supply trucks. I needed to get one alone.

So when a single female soldier went to unload the last of the supply boxes, I audibly snapped a stick in half. I watched with glittering eyes as her head snapped up in my direction. She could see me, but she knew that someone was out there...

As the Imperium agent took a few marching steps into the forest, I inched closer. Snapped another twig under my heel. My lure worked, bringing her deeper and deeper into the dark woodlands. My focus was the rifle held firmly in her hands. As long as she had it, she could fire it either to kill me or as a signal for help.

When she was mere feet away from sighting me, I made the ivy plants beneath her boots tangle and trip her. As I'd hoped, she fell to her knees—dropping the gun—and I surged forward, determined to not miss my chance. When the woman first caught a glance of me, her eyes narrowed into slits and she unsheathed a small knife from a sheath on her thigh and began swiping it towards me.

I didn't back down, even when she sliced a few cuts into my thighs. It was too late for her; I was close enough to hit her on the head with a falling tree branch. The second she hit the ground, I took her clothes and left her in her underthings, tied up in ivy. Her body sank deeper and deeper into the soil until it appeared as if she'd never been there at all.

Having no time to waste, I put her Imperium uniform over my own clothes. Thankfully, she was about the same size as me, so it fit well enough—save for a few tight spots on the chest, backside and upper legs. I hoped that no one would notice that I looked slightly different from the last Imperium soldier.

I joined the other six soldiers and placed the last package on a trolley. As I glanced back up, all the other soldiers were staring at me. My heart sunk down, down deep into my chest. One of them asked me a question. In rapid Russian.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I had hoped that at least someone here would speak English but that was clearly too good to be true. My entire body was frozen. I couldn't be found out at all, but especially not like this.

"He asked what took you so long," came Delphinium's whispering voice through the earpiece. She told me what to say in Russian and I relayed it as flawlessly as I could. There was a horrible quiet moment when I half-expected them all to shoot me at once. I had no idea what Delphinium had just told me to say. Then, they all looked away and began pushing the trolley into the massive iron doorway. Masking a sigh of relief, I shouldered my gun and followed them.

As soon as we entered the fortress, my entire body felt heavy with fear. I didn't normally let myself feel scared or weak, but now that I was in one of Imperium's biggest gathering places, I couldn't hold it back even if I wanted to. Delphinium had hinted at the awful things they'd done to her and she had been one of their own soldiers. What would they do to a spy?

But then the weight of the gun I held reminded me that I wasn't completely defenseless. I was strong. Even if I got caught, I would go down swinging. I wasn't going to let them kill me without taking a few of them with me. I would make the memory of myself a good one for both my team and Imperium to remember.

I now wore the same expression as all the hundreds of soldiers and agents around me: hard and threatening, like they would kill anyone they had to in order to satiate their leader's lust for death. It was strange how for my entire life, I'd been struggling to make myself stand out more than just another pretty girl, to make myself into someone worth remembering. But the irony lied in the fact that I now had to do the opposite: blend in perfectly.

A few murmurs could be heard through the earpiece as my teammates conversed. "Ask her what she sees in there," Finn said faintly to Delphinium.

I glanced around the massive hallway, being sure not to stray too far from the soldiers I'd entered with. I didn't want to be lost in the swarm of bustling Imperium agents in the place. "There are soldiers everywhere. Easily hundreds. Maybe thousands." My lips barely moved as I glanced upwards. "I'm in a massive hallway. There's machinery here. Weapons being transported deeper inside. It's very well put-together. They clearly have good funding." I spoke so softly that I hoped Delphinium could hear me.

"It's from all their blood money," she spat, not happy to hear how well this fortress was stocked.

As we went farther and farther into the fortress, the hallway began to close in. I wasn't claustrophobic but something about the tightening walls made me skittish, like even the building itself would crush me if I wasn't careful. So I kept my eyes straight ahead and didn't meet the eyes of any passing soldiers.

Then, the trolley-pushing soldiers took a sharp right off of the main hallway and then a left. There were less people here, only a few. Somehow, it made me feel even more trapped. Because of the commotion in the hallway before, I'd been able to get away with talking to Delphinium. Now I couldn't.

After heading down a slightly smaller passageway, we reached a sort of elevator. One of the soldiers placed her hand on a screen and had it scanned. After entering a number onto the keypad, the doors slid open. The trolley was slid in, me following directly after. I gritted my teeth as the doors slid shut again, forcing myself to not move a muscle. The other soldiers were so close behind me that I could feel their body heat. I had an eerie feeling they could smell my fear.

The elevator moved down, making us all sway slightly to the side. I made sure not to make any physical contact with the others. Behind me, the soldiers began to talk in Russian again. I frowned, not understanding a single word.

But Delphinium did. She must have had a visible reaction to whatever they were talking about, because I heard Arlo remark, "You look like you're trying to burn the fortress down with your glare alone. What did they say?"

It took her a second too long to respond. "Nothing. They just mentioned...Orion."

"What about Orion?" asked Kane. It was good to hear his voice, despite his question not being aimed toward me.

"Nothing major," was Delphinium's clipped reply and I knew something was awry. But I couldn't say anything about it, lest the soldiers hear me speaking English.

"You're lying again. If it's about something of importance-"

She cut him off sharply. "It's not." I closed my eyes, praying that they wouldn't pick up their fight where they'd left it. At least before, they hadn't been on speaking terms and had left me in almost complete silence.

The doors opened and I stepped out first. My eyes drank in the sight before me, knowing I needed to memorize this place to tell the others every detail.

The place we were in was actually more of a cavern than a room, the ceiling so high that it was almost enveloped in darkness above. Metal scaffolding filled the place, but was focused centrally on the main part of the area. I squinted my eyes at the tall thing. It was some sort of building, something that they'd been making down here.

We neared as the trolley was pushed closer and closer to the center of the place. Imperium workers came closer to receive whatever the trolley carried but I hardly payed attention. My eyes stayed on what they'd been building.

Then, it hit me. We'd originally come here because of the stolen weapons. But here was one staring me right in the face. This was some sort of missile that they were enhancing for some dark purpose. They were making it better. They were preparing it to launch.