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“There’s nothing you can give me that I don’t already have,” I said and I reached into his mind and gave birth to his greatest fears.
They were real only in his mind, but his mind was all that mattered. As the audience pointed and laughed, I reached out to them and planted the same seed in their minds.
It was easy to manipulate them now — especially with the riot still raw in their memories. Nothing was scarier than losing control, and during the riot, all of them had done so. I released chaos into their minds and it spread like a contagious disease from one inmate to the next.
Manipulating minds was hard. People feared different things at differing levels. And it took time to find them and make them real. But when they all bore the same seed of terror… it was an entirely different story.
They attacked each other, violent and aggressive, rioting for the second time in as many weeks.
I calmly moved toward the exit leading to the Prize Pool. The females screamed, beside themselves. Their fear was not of my making but from their recent experience with rioting.
I sent out a shock wave to soothe them as best I could. “Go into the back room,” I said. “They will not find or harm you there.”
They did as I told them. All but one Prize.
She was strapped to her bed, her arms held tight above her, her ankles bearing her weight. She cried as I pressed my lips to hers. I savored her unlike I ever had before. Delicious as always, with a strong dose of salty tears.
“Let’s get out of here,” I said.
“Take me anywhere but here.”
I removed her restraints and caught her when she fell. I carried her in my arms, shunting the vicious prisoners out of my way as we passed through them. The guards fought bravely but they were massively outnumbered. I did not help them.
I glanced up at the Supervisor’s office, where I spied the shutters on the windows moving as we passed underneath.
We went unimpeded as I took Lily to the shuttlecraft still awaiting dust off. We climbed through the hatch door and I deposited my fated mate in the co-pilot chair. She was exhausted but managed to smile as I strapped her in.
I climbed into the captain’s seat and plotted a course off-planet. Where we headed right then didn’t matter. Only that we weren’t here.
We sailed into the atmosphere and left our pasts behind.
* * *
A light blinked on the console. “Looks like there’s a problem with the hatch door,” I said, unclipping my harness and turning the auto-pilot on. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.”
I kissed Lily on the forehead and left the cockpit. I took the three steps down that led to the back of the shuttlecraft bay area. Chains clinked as we hit turbulence and I stumbled to one side and braced myself on the wall.
A single stream of metal ran around the inside of the shuttle in a narrow band. It was shiny and reflected the inside of the shuttle back at you so when people were working, they could see what was happening in the rest of the space. In it, I caught movement that was not caused by the turbulence.
My instinct was to snap around and attack, but I controlled my response. I pretended to tighten the harness around the medical kits while my other hand reached for the wrench held firmly in place by a hook.
The figure in the mirror — and I was certain it was a figure now by the way it moved — crossed to my offhand side, perhaps sensing that I was now armed. They were draped in a hooded cowl and when I reached out for him, I found my ability blocked.
He drew closer and I let out a roar and spun the wrench around at what I guessed was head height.
The figure ducked and lurched back. I was so certain I was going to hit him with a vicious blow that I hadn’t even attempted to slow or stop the swing, and the wrench clanged off the shuttle’s wall, putting a thick dent in the metal sheeting.
I shifted my weight and prepared to bring the wrench around again when the figure held up a hand and said, “Wait.”
And the crazy thing? I actually did!
“I didn’t mean to startle you but I couldn’t think of another way to get you down here.”
If he’d crept up on me, there would have been harm and it definitely wouldn’t have been by accident on my part.
The cowled figure’s movements were slow as he reached up and took down his hood. The face I saw beneath it made me doubletake. It was not the one I was expecting. In fact, I didn’t know who to expect beneath that hood.
My muscles relaxed and I lowered the wrench. “I thought you were dead?”
