K A N E

I felt strange as I watched Riley approach the spot we'd been hiding, like I shouldn't be looking at her the way I was after what had happened. What my brother had revealed about her. But I couldn't help myself; it seemed that my eyes were drawn to her whenever she was near. I needed to know that she was safe.

Now was no exception. She'd somehow made it back safely, which I had feared she wouldn't do. But I knew that she always got what she wanted, and this time, it was to get in and out undetected. And she'd done it.

I tore my eyes off of her, hating how my heart pounded faster when she was near. She'd betrayed everyone, giving out secret information away to my brother. Even though it wasn't right, I might have been able to work through it with her if it hadn't been my brother. But she knew, she knew how difficult it was for me to see him as a monstrous shell of a person. I'd told her about my pain to let her know that even though everyone else had walked out of my life, I had decided to be there for her. And what had she done with that trust? Thrown it back in my face like it meant nothing.

"You're back," Arlo said, eyeing her pointedly. He'd made his distain of her very clear.

"Tell me everything," said Delphinium as she stood. "What exactly did you see down there?"

"The facility is huge, even bigger than it seems. We went all the way underground, down so many stories that I couldn't even keep count. And down there...they have missiles. The engineers were still building them, but once they're ready..." She shook her dark head. "I don't know what they're planning to hit with them, but whatever it is will soon be nothing but ashes."

"And the fuel that you were transporting powered them, along with many of the other weapons in the fortress." Delphinium paced back and forth. "There could be some way to work with that..."

"I also saw them taking those same containers into the engine room. They must be powering the entire fortress with it."

Delphinium stopped suddenly. "The engine room?" Riley nodded and I could see she was proud to have found something of such importance.

"There is definitely a way to work with that," Jake cut in.

Delphinium turned to him. "What are you thinking?" But he didn't answer, clearly in his head about this new plan.

"There's something else." That made the assassin's attention turn back to Riley. "There was this room, this white room." She trailed off a bit, seemingly at a loss for words to describe what she'd seen. It made me feel angry on her behalf, protective of her, despite now having mixed feelings.

Delphinium's full attention was on Riley, her eyes boring into Riley's alluring face. "What did you see in this white room?" My eyes narrowing, I watched the assassin. She seemed more tense than before.

"I saw...a machine of some kind. It was definitely incomplete, but it had a series of needles and pointed edges." She wrapped her arms around herself in an uncharacteristic act of unease. "I don't know what it could have been, but whatever it was, it gave me a strange feeling. I went away from the doorway as fast as I could."

"Was there anyone inside?"

"No. The room was empty when we were there. Why, do you have any idea what it was?"

"Not exactly." The two words came somewhat slowly. She was either thinking about her answer or hiding something. "During my enslavement, I heard whispers of torture machines, horrible things that would slowly skin you alive or poke hundreds of needles straight through your body. I'm sure that machine was one of them."

But Riley still wasn't sated. "Are you sure?" Had she caught onto Delphinium's suspicious behavior as well?

"No. But I'll look into it further."

The shorter girl gave a nod, dark hair spilling over her face as she did so. She then gave Delphinium and Jake a long look, which made me believe they were onto something that they hadn't shared with the rest of us.

"We have something else to discuss," Jake said. "Benny has powers like us."

"What?" The question came from several of us, me included.

"He can read thoughts. The only reason he was captured and imprisoned by the ONNT was because he knew it was the only way to tear us apart."

Finn muttered in a low voice, "He succeeded," just as Arlo said, "Reading our thoughts is such an invasion of privacy."

"How could you know this?" I asked, still reeling from this new information. "I mean, there has to be some kind of mistake. My brother never had any sort of power when we were children. Never as long as I knew him."

"You don't know him," Jake said. It was like a kick to the stomach. "Not anymore."

"We don't know what else he's hiding," added the assassin.

"When did you find this out?" I asked, struggling to keep my voice level.

"A few days before his escape." Her chin was held high, gaze pinned on me. Almost like a challenge.

"So you knew about this. You were aware of this information and didn't tell the rest of us? This was the one thing Benny planned to do to us, and you just kept it to yourselves?"

"This is why," Delphinium said, perfectly calm. Her blue eyes bored into my own but I was unmoving. "We needed to be in a place and time like this, because another fight about this subject was inevitable."

But Jake wasn't nearly as diplomatic as he gave me another answer. "You were also a little busy getting the shit pounded out of you. Did you want me to tell you before or after you got your ass handed to you by Jaxon?"

He was trying to rile me, mock me, and I knew it. "The whole fight could have been prevented by you getting off your damn high horse and giving us some vital information, for once."

"Kane." Riley's voice was low. A warning. "Don't make things any worse."

"Things are already as bad as they can get." This new fortress was here and we'd only discovered it a few hours before, meaning that Imperium's might was double what we'd originally thought. Our team had never been in a worse place. I didn't think I could trust anyone. And Jaxon. He'd already lost an arm. Despite fighting with him, despite the fact that he initiated the battle both with Riley and I, I felt bad. If I could have taken back our fight, I most likely would.

"No. They can get worse," Delphinium said.

"We should get the hell out of here," Riley said, shooting a glance over at the fortress. "We need to decide what our next steps will be anyway."

"Agreed," said Arlo. "This place gives me the creeps."

"Funny, I thought you weren't scared of anything," Finn retorted.

"Not the things normal people are afraid of. But having my flesh peeled off or being impaled by hundreds of needles?" Arlo shook his head wildly.

We walked back for a bit before Riley said quietly. "What are we going to do about...everything?"

Everyone was silent after that. No one knew the answer to her question. With each passing day, our situation seemed to get darker. Every time we found out something else about Imperium, it seemed more impossible to take them down.

"We tell Mr. Hunt everything," Finn said finally. "The ONNT is part of the United States government. They have armies, weapons. We can still fight back."

"Better now than later," stated Delphinium gravely. "This fortress may be fearsome, but they're not done building it. It's their weak link."

"But for now," Riley said, glancing over her shoulder back through the thick forest, "We should hope that they don't send those missiles out when we're gone."

I glanced sideways at her. If this was true, if my brother truly did have the ability to read thoughts, had he read Riley's? She had said something alluding to it. Even so, even if she didn't directly tell him, she had still sought and collected our information. I wasn't sure how to feel about that.

After what Riley had said, we then began the long walk back through the Russian forest, hoping that we wouldn't be seen by any enemies weaving between the trees.

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Hunt remained characteristically businesslike as Finn broke the news to him. His face barely changed, even when we described what Riley had seen and done inside the fortress. No one had told him about the fight we'd had, but he didn't seem to notice the obvious tension in the room. If he did, he didn't make any remarks about it.

Silence ensued after we were finished telling him everything we'd seen and done. Then he folded his hands on his desk and said, "We suspected that the fortress in Romania wasn't the only one. But for it to be equal in size and power as this new one..."

"It's bad," Arlo summed up lamely.

"But if ever there was ever a time to attack, it would be now," Delphinium said, walking up from the back of the room. "You heard what Riley said. They're growing more powerful every day. It would be best to engage them in Russia now, rather than when they're unstoppable."

Hunt nodded. "You have a point. This requires immediate action. As soon as the council—along with select other governments—hears about this, they'll want to move forward in our offense against Imperium."

"We need a plan of attack," Delphinium sounded as if she was ready to fight the entirety of her old brethren herself.

"I agree. But because this is an international issue, we'll need to speak with other higher-ups before taking action. We'll be most powerful together."

"Will that take long?"

"It shouldn't. I'll speak with the council immediately. There should be an emergency meeting in about two or three days. Until that day..." He paused. "Speak with your families. This could be the last time they hear from you."