Page 110 of Amethyst Flame
Dane turned on the Great Basin Highway, weaving the Kidnapper in and out of traffic. “You’re worth it.”
“Me?” I laughed bitterly. “Or the tech?” We all knew the answer.
“You,” Dane said. He found an open lane and laid on the speed. “You, Imogen. Of course,you.”
I just shook my head, my eyes burning with tears, and folded my arms over my chest. I couldn’t believe we’d come all this way just to turn tail.
“Listen to me, Imogen,” Dane said. “I’ve known for a long time that it was a stroke of wildly good luck thatyouwere the one to receive and synergize the MoTH hive.You, in particular. A woman with your talents, intelligence, and guts. And, despite your best efforts to the contrary, you’re fundamentally good. We could easily have two Hive Wills at large in the world. We might already. We might have a dozen. But we’ve only got oneyouon our side…and by god, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
“Dane’s right,” Jacob said. “We keep you safe. Make you stronger while you stayyou. And with an army behind you, take Hive Will down.”
I gave half a laugh. The truth was I wanted to go hide in a hole in the ground surrounded, protected, by Dane’s spy people. Really, I did. Hive Will was fucking scary. And I didn’t want to die, which, yeah, sure, was what would probably happen if I engaged in any battle with him.
But… “I can’t run away.”
“You’re not running away,” Dane said. “I’mmaking the call on this. I’m ordering a tactical retreat.”
“I can’t give up. Giving up before the fight, even.” I laughed again. “Because then…then how do I stand a chance when my own bugs attempt a take-over?”
Was I going to go the way of Will and become Hive Mo?
“They’re butterflies, Mo,” Jacob said from the back. “And they’re yours. You’ve got this. We just need a little more time.”
I’d told Will the same thing, and he’d known it wasn’t enough.
Far off to my right, past the freeway and the palm trees and the ugly low buildings, the glitz and blinky glamour of the Strip promised a mindless good time. An oasis of forgetfulness. Not too long ago, I’d come here for that. But now that EDM concert and the possible night with Jacob seemed like a dream, a strange, silly escapade that had nothing to do with the nightmare I faced. But Vegas still shimmered like an electric garden for unsuspecting lotus-eaters hoping the next roll, the next hand, the next spin would be the Big One.
“Will’s hive is capable of causing a lot of destruction,” I said, my mind racing ahead. “But worse, it can also spread to infest new hosts and more systems. By the time you think I’m ready—which will be never—who knows how big, how complex, Hive Will might be?”
Dane glanced over at me, but his clenched jaw of determination had released slightly, a different kind of tension flattening his eyebrows.
I turned in my seat to include both of them. “I’m more like Will than you think—the person, Will, without the hive. Will-the-man wanted to fight, too. And I didn’t give him one. I should have. Maybe he’d still be in control if I had. But I left him there, alone in the desert, so that his hive could eat him up from the inside.” I was right, and I knew it. I needed to hold my ground. “If Will’s hive wants me, for fuck’s sake, let it come and try me. I don’t want to go down—to give up—without a taking a few shots of my own.”
Jacob’s gaze swiveled to Dane for his rebuttal.
Dane drove for a few seconds in silence, then abruptly turned the steering wheel to the right—I braced again—cutting across three lanes and the pebbly triangle of the roadside to an exit. Running a red light at the freeway junction, he crossed an intersection, causing a slow-speed fender-bender behind us, and made a U-turn into a gas station parking space near the tire air pumps.
The Kidnapper came to an abrupt halt.
Dane closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “Say that again.”
“I’m not special,” I told him. “All I’ve got is a mild addiction to gaming and an eye for color and composition. I’m Will, pre-takeover.” I shrugged. “Something about my physiology accepts and synergizes nano-technology…so I’m not really afraid of the dragon potion. I mean, what’s a little vomiting among friends? But Iamafraid of giving up. I’ve been afraid of that from way before I got my butterflies, and I think if I start now, then I’ve lost this battleandthe whole damn war. And maybe I hope that Will is still in there somewhere. That there’s hope for him.”
“You mean you,” Jacob said. “That there’s hope for you.”
I rested my head back on the seat. “Yeah, dumbass. That’s what I meant.”
Dane gripped the wheel. “My people are only thirty minutes out.”
“Then give me the dragons and thirty minutes to draw his fire.”
From the parking spot, the blinking shimmer of the Strip was garish against the cool indigo of the early evening sky. A pillar of rotating lights advertising an all-you-can-eat buffet exploded into raining sparks.
“Fireworks,” I said, although I was pretty sure it was something—someone—else. “I think Hive Will made his way to the Strip. That’s a lot of people in danger.”
“Jacob,” Dane said, “give Imogen the case.” He set his always-steady gaze on me. “I don’t know if you can synergize it quickly, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take.”
I stared at him.
