Page 236 of Silver Elite

With his lazy, impudent stride, Roe moves to stand in the center of the pack. He tilts his head, examining me from head to toe.

“Show us where it is,” Roe says.

My forehead wrinkles. “What—”

But he’s not speaking to me. He’s dragging someone forward, jerking her arm to force her beside him.

Lyddie.

“I promise you, I saw it,” she tells him.

I stare at her in horror. “Lyds…”

She ignores me. “It’s on her left thigh.”

“Lyddie,” I plead.

But I don’t know what I’m pleading for. It’s too late. She already turned me in.

Not Ivy, but Lyddie.

Shepromised.

I bite my lip to stop it from shaking, but there’s no stopping the sharp, hot sting of tears behind my eyelids.

Roe nods at one of the soldiers, who steps forward.

“Don’t touch me,” I warn.

The bastard doesn’t listen. An outraged growl leaves my throat as he yanks the hem of my dress up to reveal my thigh.

My bloodmark.

Desperation courses through me as I try to link with Cross again. Why isn’t he letting me in? Ineedhim.

Heart pounding, I focus on Lyddie, willing her to look at me. When she finally does, it’s with such bone-deep, spine-chilling hatred that I have to wrench my gaze away.

I turn back to Roe, bitterness twisting my lips. “Are you going to shoot me in the head now?”

“Sadly, I’ve been asked to show restraint.” Roe glances at the soldier to his left. “Take her to the stockade.”

—

I’m right back where I started.

In the stockade.

At least I was finally able to link with Cross. Although when I told him where I was, all he said was, “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

That was hours ago.

Hours.

I’ve had time to sit and think. To obsess. To try to make sense of everything that happened tonight. The Uprising is destroying people’s minds. Adrienne confirmed that tonight. But on what scale? Does her ability to corrupt have something to do with the fragmented hospital ward I stumbled upon? Were some of those people corrupted rather than fragmented? Were some of them actually Primes? Most of them, from the look of their veins, were Modified. And I can’t envision Adrienne being okay with experimenting on our own.

But I also wouldn’t have believed she could stand there and fry a man’s brain if I hadn’t seen it firsthand.

Another thought occurs to me. Had Cross’s mother been corrupted? Is he right and she’s not Modified? Is Vinessa Redden another casualty in the century-and-a-half-long war between Primes and Mods?

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