Page 38 of Amethyst Flame
“You invaded my home and my privacy. You always have your reasons—end of the world or whatever—but this crossed a line.”
He chewed on that for a sec before saying, “Point taken. I apologize.”
Passing through Palm Springs made me yearn for the fun and relaxation of the resorts. It wasn’t like I’d had the opportunity to enjoy Vegas what with Dane crashing the party, and ever since then, my life had turned into one long anxiety attack. I deserved some R&R.
But, of course, he took us out of the welcoming lights to the ugly, industrial side of town. The facility was down some long, unmarked surface road that speared into the dark desert night.
Dane flashed a badge at a hut with armed guards, and then again when we finally came up to a complex of low buildings. I refused to look at anyone, and the glare of metal-halide light off the tire spike strip reminded me too much of the first-person shooter games I didn’t like because I died way too often. Tall fences parted, and Dane slowly accelerated inside.
As he navigated the roads of the compound, my moths fluttered in my belly.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said.
“I can’t run in these heels,” I told him. “Just FYI.”
“You won’t need to.”
He parked outside some kind of annex. We entered a barren little lobby with guards manning a recessed, transparent alcove next to what appeared to be some high-security space station doors.
Dane turned toward me and said in his best I’m-in-control-voice, “Wait here. I’ll only be a moment.”
I used the cover of his body to flatten my hands into the [map] command, and my moths immediately returned a schematic of the small lobby, but it seemed as if they couldn’t penetrate beyond this space.
Uh-oh.
Dane left me to swipe his card and then had to deal with the guards beyond the glass wall for whatever secondary authentication was required to let him enter. Some of my moths hitched a ride with him and sent back more mapping information, but I had no idea how I would communicate with them once the doors closed again.
Um…?I inhaled to say something to abort the mission—we needed a safe word, or like whateverstop-right-nowterminology spies used—but Dane was already moving quickly away, and the doors hissed closed.
Sure enough, I got nothing from my moths on the other side.
Like, nothing.
As in…whoever fucking built this place knew enough about nanotech that they could engineer Molecular Tactical Hive deterrents into the shitty lobby.
Rubbing my palms together, I disguised the slicing gesture of the [seek] command that would send my moths searching for any crack, duct, or minuscule fissure that they could sneak through to follow and warn Dane. But the walls and vents were similarly reinforced by, well, I had no fucking clue what it was—some kind of disabling energy field?
This was big news. Bad news.
That a field like this even existed scared the shit out of me.
A field like this could cage me.
I nervously tapped my fingertips against my thigh as I considered my options. It wasn’t like I could blast my way through. It would blow my Team Dane cover, and then we’d be really screwed.
I could bolt. The Kidnapper was right outside. My moths could jump the ignition. Dane could talk his mid-level-clearance way out of here and hitch (or beg) a ride to one of those swanky resorts, where he would find me deep in a relaxing, sudsy bath.
Butnoooo.Unlike my so-called father, I wasn’t someone who would cut and run when faced with a challenge.
The guards stared at me.
I thought about flirting with them. Sexy women did that in movies—you know, short-circuit the higher functions of male brains. I was gonna go for it when someone new stepped into the guard alcove and glanced through the window toward me.
A woman in a trim tactical uniform. High and tight ponytail.
Her gaze slowly swept down my body and then back up to my face.
I felt a smile tug up one side of my mouth.
