Page 58 of Violet Spark
Something was off—the subtle stench of bullshit in the air—but I couldn’t risk a miscommunication. Or take time to source the shit. “Well, Dane has the glove. Will you still release my mom if I go with you?”
“Yes,” Alling said, stepping backward. “I have the matrix aspect covered.”
He was going to leave the glove behind? That didn’t make any sense. My knees locked up in reluctance; I couldn’t walk away from the one thing that gave me leverage. “But what if mine’s different than what you have?”
“Rest assured, we know exactly how it works. We made you.”
“Imogen!” Dane shouted. “Stay where you are.”
I glanced back at him. He was finally upright. Still squinting though. And now had a gun pointed at me. Carlo had managed to range some ways from the SUV and had a different angle of fire on me. And Jen aimed from behind the vehicle’s open driver-side door.
All three targeted me.
Not Alling, who still held the moth blaster, thumb on the trigger.
I guess that said something about knowing my own worth.
“I don’t mean to tell you your job,” I called to Dane, not caring that I was outing him as a could’ve-been ally. “But in these kinds of situations, you point the weapon at the bad guy.”
“Get in the car,” Alling said, opening the rear door. “It’s bulletproof. You’ll be safe.”
His security—two huge-shouldered bruiser dudes—stepped in closer.
“And your ambush protection didn’t work for shit,” I shouted at Dane as I moved to the car. “With a littlediscipline andmaturity,I’m sure you can improve. Because this situation”—I circled the pointer finger of my infected hand in the air, while using Alling’s car door as a shield for my body—“is a cluster. That’s short for clusterfuck, in case you need to put it in an official report.”
Dane had kidnapped me, drugged me, and used me.And he’d lost my mom.
Dane dropped his arms. “I’m sorry I lied to you!”
“Too late,” I told him.
Alling glared at me. “In the car, Imogen!”
Dane said I had no control. Well, his control of this mess was pretty shitty too.
I wasn’t going to feel bad about turning on him. No, I was not. He could try to save the world all he wanted. I’d take care of my mom.
I ducked to sit—Jen 2.0 kinda pushed me in with his hand between my shoulder blades. Carlo 2.0 got in on the other side, and Alling climbed into the front passenger seat.
The driver pressed something on the steering wheel, and the vehicle hummed to life immediately, clearly protected from the impact of the bug blast that had shut down the SUV and drones. I snorted. That madetwovehicles Dane had lost on this mission. Some super sneaky secret agent man he was.
We pulled out onto the narrow road and then the highway, and soon we were whizzing with fast traffic.
“I want to call my mom.” It was a test.
“Sure thing,” Alling said. “She thinks you took a prototype by mistake when you interviewed for a job with my team.”
“I can work with that,” I told him.
He pulled a mobile out of his pocket and hit the screen a couple of times. The call connected with the vehicle’s system and soon an electronic warble sounded through the car.
Without waiting for a reply, Alling said, “Put Ms. Taylor on.” His usual jolly note was utterly gone.
The line rang again, and then my mom picked up. “Hello?” Her voice was tentative, but her tone was strong. She was okay.
The relief was a hot, almost painful rush, like a tequila shot in my empty stomach. “Mom!”
“Imogen! What is going on?!”
