Page 40 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
It was a hoarse whisper, but it was enough.
Leander leapt from the bed, his face transformed from wary to tormented, craving, disbelieving. “Jenna! Jenna!”
Thorne said, “Bidirectional audio off,” and Leander’s voice went silent, though she could see he was still calling out her name. She closed her eyes and bowed her head to block out the image of him stalking wildly around the cell, mutely shouting at the ceiling and walls.
“Why now?” she whispered. “After all this time . . . why now?”
She heard Thorne move to the other side of the room. He sat in a chair, crossed his legs. “Because now the Phoenix Corporation is approximately fifteen days away from replicating the specific aspects of your DNA that we’ve so successfully used in our patented medicines.”
When she raised her head and looked at him, he was smiling blandly at her, hands folded in his lap.
“Now, my dear lady, we don’t really need you at all. This entire facility can be shut down. And all four thousand nine hundred eighty-seven subjects in it can be terminated.”
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. On the screen behind Thorne, Leander upended a table, shredded the book, tore the thin mattress from the folding cot and ripped it to pieces in his bare hands.
“You can’t save them, but you can save yourself, and your daughters. And,” he glanced at the Oracle, watched for a moment as Leander took the single metal chair in the room and began slamming it against a wall, over and over, until it crumpled in his hands, “you can save him.” He turned his gaze to her again. “But if you don’t tell me where the rest of your kind are hiding, I will kill your entire family, and I’ll make you watch while I do. Then, of course, I’ll kill you.”
I thought you said you weren’t violent.
She didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud until he answered her, explaining as one would to a child. “It’s a figure of speech. When I say ‘I’ll kill you,’ I’m referring to one of my minions, of course.”
He actually calls them minions, she thought, stupefied. But he was still talking.
“I prefer to leave such distasteful things to hired specialists. Like another associate of mine you might recall: a certain legless, one-armed zealot named Two? You’re right; you wouldn’t know him by that name. He was promoted from Thirteen when he successfully captured you. Everyone in the Corporation has a number indicating his status in the hierarchy; I find that much more straightforward than titles. He’s also known in the Corporation as Agent Doe, or simply the Doctor, but the general public know him as the Grand Minister. He’s a former German special forces soldier whose mother was mauled to death in front of his face when he was a child by a tiger at the circus.” He shuddered. “Can you imagine? Well, it certainly explains his pathological hatred of cats. His loss, my gain. And so it goes with life.”
This didn’t make sense. What was she missing? She knelt before him silently, awaiting the explanation she knew would be forthcoming. And because he was carefully watching every emotion that played over her face, it was.
“You can’t imagine the cost and effort I’ve invested over the years into capturing your people, Jenna. If you give me the location of the remaining free Aberrants, I’ll no longer have to expend energy chasing them down. My ultimate goal will be complete.”
“Ultimate goal,” she repeated, trying not to look at the screen, her heart flayed open inside her chest.
His trustworthy newscaster face broke into a grin. “The extermination of your entire species.” He let that sink in a moment, then added, “But in exchange for pointing me in the direction of the rest of your wayward kin, I’m willing to let you and your immediate family live out the rest of your natural lives together, here. I think it’s the least I can do for your helping me achieve my goal.”
Her mind was splitting apart. The earth was lurching to and fro beneath her. Everything in the room was on the brink of exploding into pieces. “How would you know I was telling you the truth? How would you know I wasn’t holding something back, letting a few of them go, pretending to give you what you want?”
“Oh, that.” He waved a hand dismissively. “Rest assured the Phoenix Corporation has the technology for making sure a subject is telling us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Your friend Alejandro can attest to that.” He paused. “If he were still alive, that is.”
Jenna whispered, “And how do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain? That you’ll bring my family to me if I do tell you what you want to know . . . that you’ll keep us alive longer than even a day?”
His smile faded. He gazed at her in contemplative silence for a moment. “I wasn’t always a businessman, Jenna. I didn’t always want to rule the world. I had a family once upon a time. A wife, a daughter, both of whom I loved very much.” His face clouded. “They were taken from me by a simple fault of human biology. A rare neurological disorder my daughter inherited from my wife. We’re so frail, humanity. So many things can go wrong with a body. So many diseases can rob us of our lives. Even a wrong step off a curb can spell disaster; the tiniest jolt to the head, applied in just the right spot, can end us altogether!”
He seemed outraged by the thought. He looked at her and his gaze grew fierce. “But you . . . you’re different. You’re not plagued by disease. Viruses, bacteria, fungus, sickness, you’re immune to them all. You heal faster, you age slower. Your strength, speed, and agility are vastly superior to ours, you have powers we’ve never even imagined.” He sat forward in his chair, rested his elbows on his thighs, and threaded his fingers together. “I’m man enough to admit that your species is, for all intents and purposes, better than mine. But I’m also intelligent enough to foresee the inevitable decline of humanity inherent in that reality. It’s the most powerful universal law of them all: survival of the fittest. Even though we vastly outnumber you, evolution would eventually win. The Ikati would claw their way up to the top of the food chain.”
He leaned back. “Unless, of course, one of the species on a lower rung took them out before they could.”
Her laugh sounded insane, even to her own ears. “And so Sebastian Thorne single-handedly saves the human race.”
He shrugged, unapologetic. “Yes. Well, with help from the minions, of course.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question; how do I know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”
He seemed pleased she was considering it.
Was she considering it? Was she only buying a few more precious seconds with Leander, even if he couldn’t see or hear her? What was she doing? She didn’t know. The universe was imploding inside her mind. All the stars were blinking out.
“I didn’t get to where I am in life by burning bridges, Jenna. I keep my promises. But beyond that . . . as I said before, I think you can tell when someone’s lying. I think with all your enhanced senses you just know. So look at my face. Look into my eyes. Listen to my voice.”
He leaned forward again, and this time his newscaster smile didn’t make an appearance. Solemnly, he said, “I promise you I will reunite you with your family, and allow you to live here in this suite, unharmed, in peace, for the remainder of all of your lives. If you or your husband die before your children, they will be left alone until they die of natural causes, or old age, however it is you normally die. You will never again want for anything; only the freedom to leave these rooms will be denied.”
