Page 32 of Under a Wicked Moon
Roman pulled a second metal chair close to Ky to sit. Its scrape on the concrete floor hurt his ears. “She was in there fortwo years. She’s in good shape, unlike you. You think she willingly takes care of herself? Everything about this is messed up. We got in there way too easy. Got out, too.”
“What about the Curmsun Disc?”
“Reeks of someone on the inside setting us up. What better way to destroy those who’re involved and us, too, than to give them that artifact? That thing might give big power, but it also destroys whoever uses it. There wasn’t a lot of security in the building. I got what I could off the computers and implanted Flynn’s virus into their system, but I have a suspicion the information we got won’t be helpful. There’s something bigger, more dangerous going on. Felt to me like theywantedus to get you two out.” He resumed pacing and muttering. He froze. “We should dump her somewhere. Let her find her own way.”
He forced his fisted hands to relax and tried to think through this. This wasn’t typical for how Roman operated. The three of them, especially his big brother, inherently felt bound to protect victims like her. “She needs our help. Maybe we can undo whatever shit they did inside her head. What’s really going on here? This… This isn’t how you work.”
“I’m worried about her, too. She’s by herself and confused. Mad Sigge used trigger words to activate his soldiers. She might have those embedded in her brain. Someone says them in passing to her, over the phone or wherever, and then she’s activated. The problem is we won’t know what she’s been ordered to do or who her target may be until she goes robot killer on us. Or she gets pregnant and disappears.”
“I won’t sleep with her. Already avoided it so far.”
“You have it real bad for her.” Roman rubbed the back of his neck without making eye contact. Tightness gripped his face. “You’ll resist for only so long. Trust me, I know. If what you have is more than a connection from being cellmates, you’ll give in. I think she might have some level of commitment to you, because it’s full moon, and she hasn’t so much as checked out me or Flynn in that way.”
She better not have.
Ky said, “She’s searching for her sister, a lycan named Nova who is registered in their computer system as terminated by the Crown’s Wolves. Did you and Flynn kill her? If so, that’s going to be a problem at some point in the future.”
“Vivi ishersister?” Roman blinked.
Ky nodded.
“Shit.”
“I didn’t tell her we’re the Crown’s Wolves or that you guys killed her, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Roman ran a shaky hand through his hair and released a long hiss of air. “We didn’t kill Nova.”
“What? She’s registered as dead in the computer system at the lab. Were you ordered—”
“Yes, the newly crowned king ordered we kill her. He considered her a threat. It’s complicated, but she died and then was brought back by an angel.”
“An angel brought her back? Why?”
“It’s a long story. The bottom line is that she has to stay dead in the eyes of those who care about her existence. Good to know your kidnappers still consider her eliminated. She got out, erased her entire memory, and… In essence, she did die in so far as her use to them is concerned. The king agreed she was dead, and the kill order was therefore fulfilled.”
“Does that mean if we escape via a fake death, we’re free of the curse?”
“I don’t know. Hers wasn’t a fake death. The curse knew the truth. She did die, at least for a few minutes. The bigger problem for us right now is someone high up shared information about us and our missions, perhaps the monarch himself. Someone is trying to breed lycans and control them through brain triggers.”
A slow intake of uneven breath didn’t clear the welling dread. The logical person to be involved in this was their handler. “You think Gerard turned on us?”
“He gave us Sigge’s notebook. Why give us that if he was the one on the inside?”
“Maybe he’s cocky and thinks we won’t catch him?”
“Sigge? Balls, I thought we killed that bastard.” Roman scrubbed a hand through his hair. “His kind of mental programming didn’t work in fiction but seems to work in reality. I think it worked on Nova. She chose to erase her memories of the past on purpose to also forget those triggers.”
“Who helped her escape?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s great about Nova. Let’s get the sisters together and send them on their way.”
“Complicated,” Roman muttered. “Nova can’t remember anything from before we met.”
“I have memory gaps, too. It’s from the drug they injected us with when they needed to control us.” Ky’s head thundered as he tried to access memories that wouldn’t emerge. When his right eye became blurry from loss of vision, he cradled his head with his eyes closed. Helped.
“This goes way beyond memory gaps from a tranquilizer. She’d been brainwashed and programmed into becoming an assassin. They triggered her and sent her to kill people. To stop the cycle, her only option was to forget everything. To start a new life. She was a blank when I found her, which was caused by her injecting some experimental amnesia drug. She won’t remember Vivi. Ican’t run the risk that seeing her sister might activate some dormant memory that might wake up those triggers.”
