Page 46 of High Seas

I replayed Enoch’s words in my mind.

My God. What mess had Eve gotten herself into? Enoch wants Eve, and I don’t know if I want to know why. What did she do? Would he execute her publicly? Was Victor waiting for Eve so he could send her to be slaughtered?

Yarrow cut the feed and the image faded from my communicator screen.

Eve and the others didn’t land where Kael swore they would, which meant they weren’t sent back seven days to this vamp gala. But I watched her jump…watched with my own eyes as she and the others disappeared. They went somewhere, to some other time, and I’d bet my life that Kael engineered exactly where. And he didn’t want Victor to know what he had done behind his back.

Yarrow would already be trying to find out where they were. She wouldn’t rest until she’d obliterated Kael’s encryption. Soon, I would know where, or when, the Assets were.

Unless Eve was still in the Compound, and they’d sent her clone back in time instead. I needed to get back into Kael’s lab – without being ratted out by a telepath this time.

My mind raced. I was scared out of my mind for Eve. I gripped my communicator and pushed my hair out of my face, and was considering my next move when the door of The Atrium opened.

A teenage boy stepped in, hovering uncertainly near the door. “Are you Maru?” he asked.

He was human. With close-cropped black hair and coffee-colored skin, he shifted his weight from one foot to the other and back again.

“Who are you?” I finally asked.

“I have a message,” his voice squeaked.

“What message?”

The kid swallowed. “Someone wants to speak with you.”

“Does someone have a name?” I asked, raising both brows.

“Enoch,” the boy replied.

* * *

Abram

Titus circled me, his knife handle securely gripped in his beefy hand. “You want revenge?” I asked. “I’ll give you the chance to get even. Just tell me how you managed to survive.”

Back in the turret room, I’d stuck the knife’s blade deep into his belly. There was no way it wasn’t a mortal wound. How did his suit manage to accelerate his healing, but fail to keep me from turning?

I shook my head quickly. No. I can’t think like that. This is my purpose now. To be a creature of the night, so I can stop them. So I can stop Eve.

“You got me mistaken for someone else,” he asserted. “I’m Titus, but I wager I ain’t the Titus you think I am. I ain’t used that name in a long time, and I don’t want nothin’ to do with my old life. I don’t want trouble.”

“Did they turn you, too?” I asked, watching him carefully as he inched toward the steps.

“The vampires? I avoid them like the plague,” Titus maintained. “I don’t mess with them and so far, they’ve left me alone. I just lay low and live my life here, ya know? I just… I want to be free. That’s why I took my tech out, and why I don’t wear the suit. I don’t want no part of that mess anymore.” He moved the knife from his right hand to his left, and held out the right so I could see the thick scar bisecting his skin.

“Since when?” I growled, losing patience.

“I’ve been here six years.”

“Where were you before you came here, then?”

“The Complex, of course. It’s where we all came from.”

“Compound, you mean?” I corrected.

“No, I mean the Complex. It’s where all the clones were made and where we were trained. Don’t you remember? Did ya hit yer head or somethin’?”

“Clone?” Every muscle in my body constricted.

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