D E L P H I N I U M

It was official: I hated being caged. I despised the new straitjacket around my arms, the chains keeping me close to the floor on my knees, the blindfold over my eyes.

It was ranked second only to my hatred of waiting. Especially when I was waiting for Imperium to come for me again. My legs felt weak with the horror of that thought—and the fact that it was real again, not some made-up paranoid fear.

I wanted to relax my legs, loosen my rigid spine and lean back against the wall. But despite the burning pain in my body, I didn't move a muscle.

Because there were twenty men in this room, and there were twenty machine guns aimed for my head if I dared to move before Imperium came for me. Trying to manipulate their guns was too risky; if I couldn't pull it off exactly right, I'd end up getting shot in the head.

So I stayed still. And waited.

I'd told Neve to bring my teammates here if I didn't make it out. And though I had the information we needed, had threatened Krasowski and killed a group of Imperium agents, I certainly hadn't made it out. So where were they?

It was a race against time—and my teammates' race against Imperium. I had a horrible vision of my friends arriving too late and discovering an empty cell. But I had faith in them. And I would continue to have faith up until I was put in that wretched machine again.

I spent the time imagining how they'd do it. A massive explosion by the front lobby, maybe. It would divert attention away from the cells and would draw soldiers away. Perhaps it was too high-profile. But that had never stopped us before.

The fear of Imperium—of Orion—being near me made my hands cold with sweat inside the straitjacket. So I imagined who would come here. Jaxon, probably, with his love of danger and pausing off authorities. My dear friend. Benton too, for his hatred of anything Imperium-related. And although he was not the same boy I'd known in Romania, I saw glimpses of his old self sometimes and knew he did care for me, if even just a little.

Riley would want to come, but she was injured. I could practically hear her complaining about it now and it nearly made me smile. And Kane would work from the sidelines to secretly stay to watch over her, as I would hope he would. Finn, loyal and brave Finn, would fight. He'd do it in a heartbeat for any of us. Insane, wild Arlo would never say no, especially to something this dangerous. I supposed we were somewhat alike in that way.

And Jake. I secretly hoped he'd come, that he'd give me a sign he cared at all. But he'd been busy for the past few days with something vengeance-related. He was planning, I knew it. That meant he had more important business. But for some reason, I couldn't stop holding onto the stupid hope.

I was far, so far, from being a damsel in distress. I was not weak, I was not helpless. And I was not without weapons of my own; I could wreak havoc just fine. All they had to do was open my cage.

Something above us shifted. The air vent. I smiled.

There was a clatter as it fell from the ceiling. And then there was the repeated squelch of metal on skin. I smelled blood.

I didn't move until there was the sound of a person landing on the ground. And then a second of silence. Concentrating, I broke one chain after another and let the blindfold fly off my head.

The first thing I noticed were the bodies. Every single soldier was dead with a small throwing knife imbedded in their flesh. I raised my eyes to see Neve standing amongst them, watching me determinedly. She gave me a small smile. "You didn't come back."

"We had to make other plans," said Jaxon, who stood to her right. "Of course, you couldn't have just made it easy for us."

"I like to keep you all guessing," I replied, getting to my feet. Jaxon approached to cut me out of the straitjacket and when I looked down, I saw that it was with one of my own knives.

When I was free, he tossed the knife to me. "You'll get the rest, I promise. We just couldn't carry them all through the vent." He gestured to the large hole in the ceiling. "Apparently, they have them in case they need to gas a rowdy prisoner to sleep. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"Not that I remember." Was that how they kept their prisoners docile? Hunt certainly never used it. But now that I thought about it, I did only really wake just before the soldiers came in. Both times.

As I was staring at the ceiling, I saw the camera bolted in the corner and my heart skipped a beat. But Jaxon saw me looking. "Don't worry. Kane's got it all covered. They're going to be rewatching the past hour of footage in this room on a loop and they'll never know the difference." The past hour, I'd been sitting on the ground with the soldiers around me, not moving. No one would know we were in here.

Arlo dropped from the open air vent and landed smoothly. "I was getting bored guarding the vent entrance," he said, shrugging.

"Yeah, right," Jaxon scoffed. "Finn just wouldn't flirt with you in a time like this." Arlo's sneaking smile was his only answer.

"Where's Gigi?" Neve asked, dark eyes seeking mine. She seemed genuinely concerned.

A dark look passed over Jaxon's face and the three of us shared a look. "It might be better to keep her here," Jaxon said softly, remembering just as well as I did what she had caused.

"She should be in one of these cells," I said slowly, remembering what Krasowski had said. "But she's not here for the same reason I am. She's...meant to be experimented on." I watched Neve's reaction closely, not knowing what it would be.

"She's being experimented on?" She asked, voice low. "And you three think it would be better to leave her here, after what she's already been through?"

"She did try to kill all of us," Jaxon reasoned. "You were there." I wasn't sure if I agreed; Jaxon was right. But she also had bought me time...

"She's not the person she was," Neve snapped and it was the first time I'd heard her use such a tone. "Even if she was, does she deserve to be experimented on like an animal? The girl already spent half her life in a mental asylum." Her eyes switched between Jaxon and I. "Nothing? Fine. I'll go find her alone."

"Not alone," Arlo said suddenly, unusually serious. "I'll help find her." He'd spend his whole life being experimented on. Hearing Gigi's situation clearly struck a chord in him that I hadn't known he had.

Jaxon nodded as if it was all settled, but I knew he was just happy there hadn't been an entire fight. And he was keeping his true feelings about Gigi under wraps. "Now we just have to wait for the—"

The door unlocked and I jumped, my hand already on the hilt of my knife. Only high-ranking soldiers could open cell doors like this one. None of the others had the same reaction.

When the door slid open, it revealed Jake Evans standing there holding a severed arm. I blinked, as if he wasn't really there. But he was. Before I could stop it, I smiled and took a few steps to him.

Throwing aside the bloody arm—which he'd apparently used the handprint of to open my cell—he pulled out my other five knives and handed them to me. I took them all in my hands and looked at them for a moment.

And in that moment, I was happy. My friends were here. I'd done what I'd come to do. And I'd triumphed over Imperium again. Times like this didn't come often. And times that I let myself feel happy for things like this came even rarer.

Perhaps it was time to let myself be happy. So I looked up from my daggers at Jake and said, "You certainly know the way to a girl's heart, Evans."

"Straight through the chest with a sharp dagger is best." Behind me, Jaxon and Arlo snorted. I wasn't even slightly surprised those were his first words to me in the days since we'd been apart.

When Jake learned where Neve and Arlo had decided to go, he scowled. "If you two ruin this plan with this second idiotic rescue..." He began to threaten them ruthlessly, though I figured they were somewhat used to it by now. Arlo simply listened in oddly-timed excitement and Neve looked determined enough to know she wouldn't ruin the plan.

From there, we split ways. Arlo and Neve went together into the air duct to find Gigi as quickly as possible. Jake, Jaxon and I went out into the open hallway and began making a break for it.

When I looked back, there was a blockade of solid ice at the end of the long hallway; Jake had sealed anyone left on this side in with us. If they wanted to get out of the exit, they'd have to beat us to it.

I strapped my daggers onto myself again, marching between the two larger boys. A few soldiers came running our way, but I took care of them faster than the other two could.

More soldiers were cut down as we ran up the stairs in single-file. The closer we got to the exit, the more my heart ached for freedom. Hopefully, I wouldn't be here again until Hunt was reinstated.

Benton was on the other side of the exit, guarding it from incoming soldiers who were attempting to go the long way around the ice blockade. Bodies lay around him as he leaned casually against the wall, snapping his switchblade in and out. The second he saw me, he looked into my mind and I let him see what I'd found. When he did, the expression on his face became grim, but he didn't seem surprised.

"The others went to rescue Gigi," he said aloud, having read it from my thoughts. "That should lead to some rather intriguing outcomes."

Especially given he'd murdered her mother. I had no idea how she'd react now, especially since Neve had claimed she'd become more stable. My only hope was that her rescue wasn't another disaster for our team.

In the calm silence of the night, I turned to Jake. "I wasn't expecting you to be here."

"You think these idiots could break into the ONNT headquarters unscathed?" He jerked his chin to Jaxon and Benton, who were glowering at his insult. "Besides, I needed your skill. I have another job for you."

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I followed Jake's directions and went straight to the address he'd recited to me. The only thing I knew about where I was going was that it was probably owned by Hundsen, and therefore, ridiculously hard to get into—and even more difficult to spy in.

I'd throw that in Jake's face now that I made it inside smoothly.

As I stared downward from the dark bannister I peered from, I could see Hundsen sitting at a long table in a room on the first story. There were seventeen other people sitting around the mahogany table—Club members, probably the ones most loyal to Hundsen.

According to Jake, my only goal was to find out if this place was truly owned by Hundsen. And now that the dark-haired crime lord was talking to his men downstairs, I knew it was. Though, as I looked around the opulent place, I figured I could have known it was his—Hundsen always seemed to have expensive tastes.

I didn't know what Jake was planning, but as I stared down at Adiago Hundsen rallying his men, I hoped he was ready for it.