demanded Ezra.
The guard twisted and then expelled the contents of his stomach in the hallway. After several deep breaths, he looked up, his eyes rimmed with tears. “The bitch kicked me in the balls.”
“And she’ll do it again!” shouted Alice from her cell. “No means no, jerk.”
Pleased Alice had defended herself, Ezra hid his smile and touched the guard’s shoulder. “Head to the infirmary. I’ll handle her. She’s being transferred anyways.”
The man nodded. “Good. She’s fucking crazy.”
Ezra bit back a laugh as the guard limped away. When he was sure the man was gone for good, he entered Alice’s cell and found her with her arms crossed in front of her, her hip cocked to one side and an expression that said she was incredibly proud of herself.
Total trouble , he thought.
She winked. “Thanks.”
He clucked his tongue on his cheek. “I assumed I’d managed to block your ability to read my thoughts.”
She shrugged. “I hear it quieter in my head now, but it’s not fully gone yet.”
He’d been surprised the first time she’d let on about her ability to connect with others mentally. She’d read that he was working undercover and that he was unhappy with what he was witnessing. And she trusted him because of it.
She also possessed a good deal of Fae in her genetic makeup, as he discovered by reading her chart. The little troublemaker didn’t realize it yet, but she was able to wield magik with the levels of Fae in her. Ezra wasn’t sure he wanted to tell her. She was hard enough to handle as it was. They didn’t need magik coming into play as well.
“Come on,” he said, putting his hand out to her. “You’re being moved.”
She eyed him and then glanced around the room. “Something bad is going to happen and you want to try to move me to safety, right?”
“Alice?”
She stiffened. “If you’re wondering if I got that from you mentally, no. I didn’t. I put it together on my own. Bart and Nile don’t know to block their thoughts from me, and trust me when I say they’re planning to do something really bad.”
His chest tightened. “I know. Come on. We need to get you transported.”
“I’ll be there alone?”
The fear in her voice moved him. “No, kiddo, I’ll find a way to stay close. Then we’ll get you to freedom. Sound like a plan?”
“Thank you.”
Chapter Six
Brad paced the cell that had become the newest in a long string of them, his body on edge. He was no stranger to being held prisoner. He wasn’t sure of the exact timeframe that he’d been held in total, as he rarely saw glimpses of sunlight, or was able to track days, but it was probably a year—or close to it, since he’d been captured while on the trip in South America.
He’d played that fateful day over and over in his head during his time in captivity, always coming back to the same certainty. He’d been betrayed by Professor Krauss and he was pretty sure Vepkhia had been involved. Brad had to wonder if anything he and Vic had been told about PSI was real, or if the organization was simply made up to lure them into a false sense of security before grabbing them and testing on them .
He sighed.
The blame game would get him nowhere. It wouldn’t change the fact he was a prisoner. That he’d been held in some form another for nearly a year. He felt like a trapped rat, stuck on a wheel with no hope of ever getting anywhere. There for scientists to view and mock at will, his fate in their hands. And most of them were sick bastards. They got off on inflicting pain and being sadistic pricks. When he’d found himself being yanked from the last facility by men in masks, he’d foolishly hoped it was a rescue mission.
He’d been wrong.
Nearly dead wrong.
He was back in the clutches of madmen, different ones, but mad all the same. He should have been used to it by now. Used to the constant prodding and poking. Used to guards who took great pleasure in being as brutal as