D E L P H I N I U M

My entire body ached from the abuse Krasowski's soldiers had dealt me. But they'd succeeded in their goal: making me weak enough to stand in front of their leader without her being in danger. Well, physical danger.

I'd find a way to make her talk.

As my muscles throbbed and my head pounded, my purpose here was only strengthened. We couldn't make any real moves against Imperium being fugitives. And we were only fugitives because Krasowski decided we were. So I wouldn't leave here until I could find a way to get rid of her and reinstate Hunt.

Even if I had to cleave her head from her body, I'd do it.

Taking that action would lead to many more criminal charges brought against me—primarily the murder of a legally 'innocent' government leader. And this time, though I didn't have the excuse of being controlled, I didn't care. It would be my last resort. Whereas I was too broken to do it before, I was strong enough to do it now without batting an eye.

Therefore, I was prepared when the soldiers unlocked my chains and began dragging me from the cell—they didn't even trust me to move on my own. As my own booted feet slid against the smooth floor, I sensed I was in a large group of soldiers—much larger than the few that had come into my cell and beat me into weakness.

They were taking me to her, I knew it despite the blindfold. I couldn't be sure of what she wanted with me: answers, information, more torture. Whatever it was, I'd do it. She wouldn't be the victorious one coming out of this encounter. In fact, she'd be lucky if she walked away with her life.

A series of whispers and a door opened. Just as it had been when Benny brought me back to Orion.

"Sit her down." It was Krasowski's voice before me. She seemed to be across the room.

Hands on my shoulders shoved me into a chair. I resisted the urge to groan as my broken body was compressed into the cold metal. Even as the aching pain raged through my body, I remained completely silent and as motionless as possible. If not for the rigidness of my body, I might have appeared to be a shrouded corpse.

"Delphinium Tesla." She ran my name through her mouth, savoring the fact that she'd finally caught me. I said nothing.

"We know what you've done," she told me, still not appearing to move forward. "You've murdered thousands. You've gathered special intelligence for terrorists. You're a liar, a terrorist, a mass murderer, a serial killer." Someone shifted to my side; the soldiers were still guarding her from me. "I should send you to a mental institution. You should be on death row."

There was a pause and I wondered if she'd actually sentence me to either of those things. "But you're too valuable an asset to destroy."

Too valuable an asset to destroy... That meant she did want me for some purpose; she wasn't just going to hand me over like the rest of the criminals she locked up. I didn't know why I'd be different, but I knew I'd soon find out.

She expected me to be the shell-shocked husk of a human I'd been when she'd last seen me. And because I'd wisely not used my abilities, she trusted that I still was. The only reason she hadn't injected me with sedatives was because she thought I was more of a threat to myself than I was to her.

She wanted a scared, paranoid child? I'd give her one.

"What are you going to do with me?" I willed my voice to be soft and flighty as a breeze, just as it had been when I'd been interrogated.

"So you can talk," she remarked with mock interest. "You're going to be what you've always been: a weapon."

That didn't exactly answer my question. She was stalling.

Because of that, I figured it was time to get her to talk. "Don't. I don't...I don't want to. I can't be that anymore." I hugged my arms closer to myself in the straitjacket. "I'm willing to do anything."

"Anything?" The answer came faster than I'd been expecting. Had this been her plan the entire time?

"Anything. I'll tell you secrets about my team. I'll—I'll tell you what they know. Just don't make me kill anyone."

"Take off her blindfold," she told the soldiers. I wasn't exactly sure why she'd made the command. Possibly to show me she wasn't scared of my power. Or so that she could sniff out my lies more easily.

The soldiers obliged and the world turned blindingly white; all I'd known was darkness for what I could only assume were a few days. I shrank back in the chair and desperately tried to see my surroundings.

Squinting, I finally made out the director standing behind a metal table. The room was somewhat dark—only lit by dim lights overhead—and only allowed me to see the barest glimmers of the eyes of the soldiers lining the room. Good God. She had at least twenty soldiers in here. And a needle full of a sedative was rested on her desk. Perhaps she was scared of me, after all.

And then the irony of the situation hit me: this was the same room I'd been in when Hunt had first inducted me into the team. This was where it had all started.

Would this be where it all ended?

"What do you want to know?" My voice had the slightest waver, like I was on the verge of breaking down. Good.

She planted both hands on the shining desk, leaning into the light. It shadowed her features and made her look as sinister as she was inside. "Tell me...everything."

I leaned away ever so slightly. "I will. Just don't...make me do anything." Taking a deep breath, I began. "Benton is a goldmine of information for our team. He knows everything Imperium implanted in him and he knows everything you know here." Dropping my voice like I was scared of eavesdroppers, I said, "We know what Orion really plans to do. We know he's planning to slaughter three-fourths of the Earth's population to create a more perfect race of human."

"That's right," she said, nearly whispering. "So you're aware of the elements of the enhanced gene."

"Only what you learned: that an activated gene can be passed down through the parents into the child. And that three-fourths of the Earth's population can't have it. The other fourth have it inside them, inactivated. That's why only eight mothers were able to pass the...thing you put into them to us."

"Very good." She nodded, auburn hair swaying. "But much is not yet known about its properties." Her head cocked to the side. "Did you know I didn't even know quite what happened inside the patients' bodies during the experiment? I only knew what it did: produce children with enhanced abilities." There was a pause. "There is much I don't yet know."

Yet. "Are you...planning to find out more?"

"Yes." Those dark eyes bored into my own and I let myself squirm.

Real horror struck deep within me. "You're not...you're not going to use me for your experiment, are you?"

She shook her head and my panic calmed. "Not you. You're meant for other things."

Then I realized I hadn't come here alone. "Gigi."

Her growing smile was my answer. "Why do you think your master wanted her? He needed someone enhanced to test on—someone that he didn't need. She was the easiest to bring to him through one of his assassins."

"But...he doesn't have her. She went rogue with Neve." I let my real confusion show through. "You already know that."

"She doesn't need to be at the fortress to be with him." Her smile was wide now, the shadows dancing in her eyes.

No. That same chord of horror returned, this time tenfold. What had she done? "You," I breathed out. "He approached you, didn't he?"

The director leaned back, satisfied I'd guessed correctly. "Almost as soon as your crew broke away from the ONNT and went on the run. He made me offers I couldn't refuse." She took a step away from the table and began to circle it, growing nearer to me. "I always wanted the nine of you to myself—I wanted to look inside you and explore the possibilities my own abilities brought you." The shiver that passed down my spine wasn't all fake.

"I've made many discoveries in my career. The nine of you, however, are my legacy. With you, I pushed the laws of science itself. And I thought it would be enough for me." She took another step closer. "But it wasn't. I wanted more. Orion sensed that within me. He made me a deal: he'd spare one of your teammates for me to look inside, as long as I worked for him." Crossing her arms as she leaned her hip against the table, she admitted, "I wanted Arlo Damari, for his past experimentation. But Julia Henderson will do."

She was near enough to look down on me. "You said I'm a terrorist and a serial killer. You hate criminals." I was stalling now, but didn't care if she knew it. It fit my fake persona. "If you think I'm bad, he is worse. Are you really going to work for someone like that?"

"Orion is seeking to restore complete order to the world. The rules will be rewritten under his regime." Curling her lip, she confessed, "Although I'm not overjoyed to be working amongst thieves and liars, the offer is too good to refuse. I will continue to create new horizons, to expand our understanding of science. I will forge my new legacy with Imperium."

The rules seemed to apply to everyone but her. And she believed what she was doing was right. She was insane. She was just as insane as him.

And if she was working alongside Orion, and I was still here, that meant...

"They're coming to take me back, aren't they?" I didn't think I could fake the note of pure terror in my voice.

"They'll be here soon," she said, still staring down at me. "And when they come, they'll give me the authorization to begin my work on Julia."

There was too much to digest. Imperium agents would be here to take me back. Maybe even Orion himself. They wanted to take me back.

Foolishly, she'd believed my weakness. She thought herself to be untouchable now that she was protected by Orion, so she hadn't cared about telling me all of this; I'd be gone and turned into his lapdog soon, anyway. But I had what I needed. Working with a terrorist regime was certainly a fireable offense, not to mention the counts of treason that could be stacked against her once the counsel knew.

Finally, they could out-manipulate her. Hunt could return. And we would fight this war alongside the American government.

I only had to get out of here.

Chains holding my body down snapped with a single thought and shot out to wrap around her body. She fell, stiff as a board, screaming all the way. I savored the way her body thudded against the concrete floor. I'd leave her alive—she needed to be convicted of her crimes before we forced Hunt's reinstatement. But she didn't have to be unhurt.

Soldiers loyal to her came for me all at once. I wondered if this elite guard of hers had been manipulated into joining Imperium as well. With a jerk upward of my chin, the table ripped away from where it had been welded into the ground and soared into the incoming soldiers.

A knife went flying for me, but I summoned it—handle first—into my hand concealed by the straitjacket. It met its mark and I ripped the straitjacket open from the back. The white cloth lay in tatters by my feet.

I met the circling soldiers in battle, my single knife flying through flesh and bone. If they dared to lay a hand on me, I cut them off. Blood dripped down my hands and sprayed on my clothing and still, I whirled and danced with anyone who opposed me. Until they were all down.

With Krasowski's fury-filled screams behind me, I ran to the door and blasted it open with my mind. My hair blew back with the sheer power of it, but I still walked right through. The soldiers guarding the interrogation room had their throats cut nearly simultaneously.

I kept marching down the hall, hands balled in fists at my sides. Adrenaline forced me forward when my injuries probably would have impeded me. Power flowed through my every move. My power. Not Krasowski's or Orion's or Imperium's. I belonged to myself, and myself only.

Imperium soldiers were marching freely through the hallway ahead of me, coming from the back exit. They didn't meet any opposition from the ONNT, as I was sure Krasowski had asserted her dominance and let them through. Plus, when they were down here, no one would see them come or go. No one would see Krasowski's crimes.

No one but me.

As adrenaline-filled as I was, my body could only be stretched to such limits. I'd been beaten half to death before this and had to fight off twenty ONNT soldiers already. The pain was starting to return and I knew I couldn't take another fight.

So I simply used the rest of my waning power to bring the roof down and crush the entire group.

I was planning to march over the settling debris and the bodies. The exit wasn't in sight, but I knew where it was. A few more staircases and I'd be out.

The dust from the destruction I'd caused washed over me like a wave and I accepted it, not wavering. It blinded me. I blinked back dust, starting to walk through.

Until several arms dragging back made me let out a scream. I stabbed out with the small knife, but made no killing wounds. Not before the syringe was stabbed into my vein in my neck.

I could feel myself going limp as they pulled me back into the depths of the ONNT headquarters. And I screamed and fought the entire way until I was too weak to.