Page 111 of Love, Nemesis
“Your skills in close combat, your shortened life span, your near obsessive loyalty to the State, and your temperament made you the best candidate for this test,” he said, finally looking at her. “You judge my harshness, but one day you’ll understand. You don’t want the Resistance to use you as their symbol, do you? That’s not what you are, and we both know it.” He knelt down before her, reaching a hand toward her face. “I think you’ll find your position with Chronos to be much more to your liking.”
She thrashed away from him, shouting through the rope in her mouth as she kicked her legs.
They held her down, and she felt a needle pinch her neck. A cool feeling rushed through her veins—a sedative.
“That’s the one problem with a martyr,” Hailey said to one of his colleagues sitting across from him. “They complain when you give them life.”
A few of the men chuckled.
She slammed her eyes against the humiliation as the carriage came to a stop. They pulled her out, loosening the rope from her mouth, and she stumbled forward.
“We’ll take her into the labs,” Hailey said. “At least until she comes to terms with her responsibilities.”
They walked her through the main hall, the guards pulling her up as she stumbled over her own feet, dizziness swimming through her brain.
Her eyes rested on the metal arm, the triggers suddenly making sense, the weight suddenly making sense. She’d never used an Atlas prosthetic before, but she knew the trigger system intuitively.
She felt one of the detainers loosen their grip slightly as if in response to how she fumbled.
Muffled voices were talking around her.
She tested her fingers against the rope. Two of the detainers started arguing, and she realized one of them was the one whose nose she’d broken. She heard Hailey’s voice again.
She shook one of her detainers off, sensing the weak grip, and hooked her fingers into the triggers of her arm. She pulled it back as far as it would go.
Chronos activated with a blast.
Chapter 29: Farewell
DARKNESS. LONG LENGTHS of darkness.
Stabbing pain. Flashing memories.
Darkness again.
At last, there was a loud, bothersome clinking in his ears.
Lethe groaned as his eyes opened to the trees above him. He squinted, trying to remember where he was.
The clinking grew louder. He winced, groaning again.
“You up?” a voice said.
He inhaled, opening his eyes as he rolled his eyes in the direction of the racket.
Cal was crouching with a large bag in front of him, blood on his sleeves, cheeks and hair. He had two black eyes and a swollen nose.
Lethe tried to focus.
“What—?”
“What happened?” Cal finished the question for him and then sat back in the grass under the trees, pushing his feet out. “You,” he said, pointing. “You happened.”
Lethe wracked his brain. He sat up slowly, searching the area. His utility belt lay near a tree. The horses were tied up nearthe forest’s edge. The city walls could be seen just beyond the clearing. It was early morning.
Lethe returned his gaze to Cal, who was still watching him with a stern expression.
“We beat him,” Cal said, but he didn’t seem happy about it.
