Page 102 of Amethyst Flame
Dane shot me a hard look but didn’t interrupt.
“I’ll let them know you’re in charge,” she said.
So nice to not be questioned. “In the meantime, send me whatever else you guys come up with. All wacky ideas are welcome.”
“Will do. And, Imogen? Please be careful.”
She probably mostly meant with Ruskin and the dragon hive, but I could pretend some of it was for me. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Send her the lab address,” Dane said with a glance at Jacob in the rearview. “But tell her they are not to make a move without your word.”
We were almost to Kingman when Jacob abruptly announced, “St. Croix told me to fuck myself.”
I glanced back at him. “That’s sweet of him.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “He was a long shot anyway.”
I realized my knees were bouncing nervously so I kicked off my shoes and pulled my feet up onto the seat. “Will is stronger than me.”
Dane glanced at me. “You’ve held out against more persistent, experienced, and motivated forces before with far less control than you have now.”
I squinted at him. But it was obvious he genuinely thought he was complimenting me. “That’s the problem,” I explained with more patience than I felt. “Will doesn’t have anything holding him back now. He doesn’t want to live if he can’t be free of them.”
He inclined his head in acknowledgment. “I have to believe that with the right incentive, our instinct for order can overcome entropy.”
I stared at him. “Aren’t you the one who brought an RPG to this philosophy fight?”
His lips quirked. “I did say we needed the right incentive.”
I always thought that saying about “peace through superior firepower” was just an excuse to keep funding the military-industrial complex. Maybe hives were the latest iteration of firepower, but I doubted Will could be stopped by conventional means, no matter how big the boom. Dane’s group and their Artemisia Protocol seemed the best option. Now I just had to get Will to agree to it.
“How much longer?” I put a little whine in my voice, partly joking but also partly serious because, well, my nerves weren’t getting any steadier.
“The lab is on this side of Boulder City,” Jacob said. “I’m tapping into CCTV and local telecom systems now—thanks for the dubiously legal authorizations, Dane—but I am not seeing any concerning reports.” He frowned. “Actually, I’m not seeinganything. This time of day, there should be plenty of phone call traffic at least.” He peered closer at his screen. “And streetside cameras aren’t finding anyone coming or going from the building. Let me see if I can tap their internal systems.”
I tightened my grip around my knees as if that could still the shaking. Abruptly, I shoved my feet back into my shoes and laced them up tight. I gulped down half the remaining snacks, trying to ignore the gurgle of my stomach.
“Still nothing,” Jacob reported. “Place looks abandoned or locked up tight.”
“Or under siege,” Dane said.
“It’s Will,” I whispered. Showtime. This was worse than those dreams where I couldn’t find my college classroom, finally stumbled through a dark corridor only to find myself out on an empty stage without knowing any of my lines, and standing there buck naked. Little too on the nose, subconscious, thanks for nothing.
Maybe Will’s Best Minds and Dane’s all hands, and Ruskin’s bright future bullshit would come together here, and we’d find a way to save Will and, eventually, save me too.
So why did that possibility leave me as cold as the Kidnapper’s A/C?
“Got it,” Jacob crowed. “About half an hour ago. Here’s the security footage from the place next door.” My phone pinged with a video attachment, and I thumbed it open, barely hearing as Jacob dictated the action to conscientious driver Dane. The white Tesla, not invisible, pulled into the parking lot, going too fast and parking cockeyed so the car took three spaces. Entitled rich kid jerkwad or out of control? Why not both.
Will emerged from the driver’s side door, dragging Ruskin with him as if she were no more than an oversized fancy purse.
She was hunched and stumbling; had he hurt her, or was she feeling the effects of the bugs he’d forced into her? They headed for the double doors and disappeared inside.
“There’s something wrong with the Tesla,” Jacob said. “Can’t quite tell, resolution is poor, but…”
I redirected my attention to the car and zoomed in on my phone. What I’d thought were mottled shadows—despite the blank, treeless expanse of the parking lot, great powers of observation, Mo—were leprous splotches in the finish of the car.
Like a contagious echo, patches of goose bumps prickled across my skin. “Whatever technique he used for invisibility,” I said, “it’s destructive.”
