Invincible (The Aerling Series Book 3) by DelSheree Gladden Read Free Book Online

keeping me together.
    Shifting, I wince as my battered body
complains. The cot groans under my weight. I contemplate for the millionth time
how I’m going to get myself out of this mess. Escaping would require being able
to stand, and that isn’t happening right now.
    All I can think about is Olivia. I was
barely coherent when I saw her literally vanish with Mason. When I first came
to and was faced with Olivia looking like a misty specter, it was enough to
jolt me back to semi-consciousness. In my haze, I was convinced I was seeing
her ghost. Olivia leaving with Mason, I can handle. Olivia dead? Not even in
the realm of what I can face.
    Seeing Olivia and Mason vanish together in
the middle of a rain of bullets convinced me they weren’t dead, but seeing
Robin reach out at the last second and grab Olivia’s hair took all the fight
out of me. I still have no idea why Robin wanted to go with them. If just
knowing it was Robin behind the plan wasn’t enough to convince me it was bad,
the general chaotic hum of excitement running through the Sentinel base makes
it pretty apparent.
    That and their questions and their
favorite way of trying to get answers out of me. They assume I’m just hiding
things from them. I am, of course, but half the questions they’re asking, I
have no clue what the answer is anyway. Yeah, I’m an Escort, but a failure. I
didn’t protect Levi. I didn’t save him. I didn’t take him home. I have no
freaking idea how Olivia was finally able to cross over to Mason’s world.
    She wouldn’t have kept it from me if she
had figured it out. I can only assume that when the time was right, she
understood what it took and did whatever she had to in order to get Mason home.
Left behind, I can only hope that didn’t mean giving up her life. I keep
telling myself she went with Mason when they both disappeared, but I don’t know
if I’ll ever actually know that for certain.
    When I’m not worrying about my friend,
thoughts of my family wrap around me, sometimes in comfort, sometimes like a
noose. Thinking about them comforts me. What are they thinking, though? I left
the house that morning to follow Robin, telling my parents I’d be home when
Mason was on his way. That was the last they saw of me. Do they think I’m dead?
Is anyone looking for me?
    “Time for a few more questions!” a
Sentinel I’m all too familiar with yells through the slit in the cell door.
    I groan, but I don’t get up. If they want
me, they can come get me. I’m not expending any energy I don’t have to for
them. Everything hurts as the Sentinel I can’t quite remember yanks me up from
the cot. He stops pulling once I’m on my feet, and starts to let go, but grabs
me again when my knees buckle. Huffing, the other Sentinel grabs my upper arm
and they both start dragging me out of the cell.
    Closing my eyes, I concentrate on not
throwing up. I don’t need to try and remember the turns anymore, because I have
those memorized. Not that it will do me any good, unless I plan to escape my
cell and run straight for the interrogation room. That’s the only place they’ve
taken me since being dumped here.
    When I’m thrown roughly into a hard
plastic chair, I take a few shallow breaths and refuse to look at them. It
doesn’t do a lot of good. The Sentinel who usually takes the lead yanks my head
up and glares at me. Before he can say anything, though, I ask, “What are your
names?”
    The man pauses, seeming uncertain of
whether or not I’m trying to pull something.
    “I’d just like to be able to refer to you
in my head as something other than the guy who seems to be in charge and the
guy I can’t quite remember,” I say.
    The second guy smirks at me. “I knew you
did not remember me.”
    He seems to find that fact extremely
funny, which only irritates me even more. Grinding my teeth, I glare at him,
trying furiously to figure out why he looks so familiar. “I didn’t say I don’t
remember you,” I growl, “just