Page 137 of Nemesis

“You look like hell,” he informs me.

I roll my eyes. I don’t need to tell him that I’ve only caught a few hours of sleep in the past week, that everything seems to be tumbling ass over head around me, and Reese being poisoned is par for the course.

The paramedics questioned us incessantly about what he was poisoned with, but none of us knew. And beyond the bruises, we couldn’t find any puncture marks. So they fast-tracked him to the hospital and immediately began running tests, and we’ve been here ever since.

I cross to the row of chairs and drop into one.

“Can you tell us what this is about?” Wolfe asks me.

I bury my face in my hands. I feel them drifting closer, sitting beside and around me. It isn’t until the silence burns that I lift my head and woodenly tell them the story.

The same one I told Kade and Saint…

“I met Reese in Terror,” I confess to my brother and Wolfe.

This time, it gets a much different reaction.

Apollo springs to his feet, and Wolfe immediately grabs my hand.

Both Kade and Saint seem confused.

Hurrying on, I continue, “Hypnos is Gabriel.”

“Fuck,” Apollo grunts. Thecrackof his fist through the drywall follows.

Wolfe’s hold on my fingers tightens.

“I’m missing something,” Kade murmurs.

Saint nods in agreement, but we ignore them.

“Gabriel…” Apollo comes back to me. “That name sounds familiar.”

“It should.” I sigh. “He was one of the first that we managed to get out. Him and…” My throat closes. “Antonio,” I finish. “Remember?”

Wolfe nods gravely. Antonio has been with us, in our circle, for far longer than anyone else. He’s as much family as Wolfe and Jace.

“Drugging Reese would make sense, then,” Wolfe murmurs. “Because of the history.”

“So this has nothing to do with the Cyclopes?” Saint interrupts. “And can someone fill us in on why someone who used to go to a club is now a raging psychopath?”

Wolfe and Apollo exchange a look. They’re doing their mind-reading thing again, having a conversation without words. They’re probably saying something like,Wow, Artemis didn’t tell them about Terror. Must be for some good reason. We should keep it a secret, too?—

“Terror’s nightclub was a cover for a sex trafficking ring,” Apollo says.

So much for that.

Someone chokes. Sputters.

They’ll connect it to me in a moment.

I shove out of my chair and leave them to piece it together. I can’twaitfor the realization that my own fucking parents sold me into Terror when I was fifteen to hit them. How I was moved around so my brother couldn’t find me.

When he did…

“Miss?”

I cringe.

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