Page 94 of Amethyst Flame
I scowled. “How’d that work for you last time, boys?”
Drew edged away, summoning his goons with him. They hustled about, locking down the facility and reviewing the cams from the console at the front desk.
None of that mattered of course.
Oluwa knew it too and stayed close to me. “Imogen. You’re our only hope.”
A deliberate Star Wars reference cuz she knew I was a nerd? Ugh.
And look what happened to Obi-Wan!
I’d said I wanted someone, anyone, to listen to me, and now the woman in charge was looking to me for answers.
Well, two could play that game. I crossed my arms over my chest as I squared off to her. “Then you have to help me and give me the dragon hive so I can beat him. I know you have it here somewhere.”
She squinted. “Dragons?”
I huffed. “You know I mean the next-gen tech. The dragons are better than my butterflies. So fucking gimme.”
She could only hold my glance for a moment. “No. Absolutely not. How do you even know about…?”
I choked out a laugh. “We’ve all got secrets. Look, if you want me to go up against Will, I need to be able to slow him, contain him—and maybe this will stop him.”
She wrung her hands together. “But the, uh,dragonsare still in the research phase. They are too volatile and too dangerous—”
“Too valuable,” I finished for her. “But holding them back is going to cost you Ruskin.”
“Wecan control them remotely. We don’t need you—”
“You’re not fast enough!” I told her. “Not nearly. And you can’t adapt in the moment. If youwereandcould, then Ruskin would still be here. You needsymbioticcontrol of them. And none of yourcollaboratorshave achieved that. Just me.”
From the way she deflated, I knew I’d hit my mark. I blew out a breath so hard that all the hair that had escaped my ponytail fluffed in every direction. I should probably assign a small portion of my hive to continuous frizz control. When the end came, at least I’d look good, unlike Will and what seemed to be his accelerated aging.
But still she shook her head. “The dragons are different than your hive. You aren’t likely to be able to achieve symbiosis anyway, and, uh…”
She was stalling. Trying to think up an alternative. Yeah, I wished there was one, too.
“I’m your best shot,” I told Oluwa. “Get those fuckers for menow.” Maybe Jacob could figure something out to make my butterflies play nicely with the dragons. “And see if you can track Adley.” Oluwa perked up a little at that, so maybe they had an extra security measure in place in the event Adley went missing. That implanted microchip thing, for example. “Will’s bugs are probably blocking signals,” I warned her, “but he won’t be able to sustain that energy level indefinitely, especially if part of him is still fighting the hive.”
“Imogen, I think—”
I cut her off. “Your thinking is what got us here. So if I am your only hope, then don’t think, justdo. Will is getting farther away.”
Oluwa gave an incredulous half-laugh. “I can’t just give you everything. Even Adley would say that her life isn’t worth losing what she’s worked for.”
“Well, she’s not here.”
There was another long moment. “And you’ll go after Adley? You’ll save her? Swear to me.”
I shrugged. “She’s the only one who can save my life. I swear I’ll try to save her.”
We stared at each other for a long moment, and then she turned and moved swiftly back toward the elevator. When the doors slid open, she looked over at me. “Are you coming?”
“Just bring me something to go,” I told her. “Last time it was a vial.”
Her face contracted into an incredulous laugh. “And you think you can achieve symbiosis outside of the lab…on your own?”
“I did it last time while drinking a smoothie,” I said cryptically. She opened her mouth to argue, but I reminded her, “You haven’t had any success in your lab.”
