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She nods, her breath quickening.
“You were sedated for hours, and the medic cleaned your wounds.” I flick my head toward the ceiling. “She took blood samples and swabs.”
Her eyes go round. “Swabs?”
“To track the DNA of any man who touched you,” I snarl. “They’re going to die.”
Suppressing a shudder, she nods again.
“They moved you to this out-of-town hideout. I noticed acres of land with outbuildings.”
“Studio sets?” she asks, her voice rising with alarm.
I wince, the weight of her fear tightening my gut. Injecting a note of reassurance into my voice, I add, “The point is that you’re alone in the house with Isabel, who’s here to monitor your vitals.”
“Maybe Delta no longer trusts the male guards,” she mutters.
My jaw tightens, and I grind my molars. I clench my fists so tightly that my nails dig into my palms. Every instinct screams at me to ask what happened with the man who stole her away on the bus, but I force back the question. Her Xero alter would know everything she suffered because he was with her the entire way.
“Can you eat something before we find an exit?” I ask.
She shakes her head and grimaces. “It’s hard enough to keep down that shake. Everything I eat reminds me of the force feeding.”
My chest burns, and I clench my teeth, swallowing down a burst of rage. The thought of them forcing her to do anything makes me want to tear Father and his cohorts into shreds.
Footsteps echo down the stairs, making us both freeze. Isabel was supposed to stay in her room, leaving me to handle Amethyst. My heart races, my insides twisting with dread. Not for my sister, the fully trained assassin, but for Amethyst.
“What do you want to do?” I ask, my voice soft.
She glances toward the stairs, her gaze sharpening. “Anyone who associates with Delta knows what they’re doing.”
I swallow, wanting to avoid a confrontation. Knowing Isabel, she’s armed with both a tranq gun and a syringe.
“Or we can find a way out without setting off any alarms,” I whisper.
“Or I can just kill her,” she whispers back.
A chill runs down my spine. Amethyst is no longer in denial about her murderous instincts. I wanted to unlock her cold, ruthless determination, but not at the cost of her sanity. Or my family.
“Don’t risk it.” I raise a hand, ready to drop the pretense of being a hallucination and grab her if she springs out at my sister. “Isabel might raise the alarm.”
Her eyes dart around the kitchen, and her body tenses as if she’s on the verge of bolting. My pulse quickens, every muscle in my body primed to react. The tension mounts, thickening with every heartbeat. Perhaps it was a bad idea to let her take so many knives.
Finally, she nods. “Let’s find another way out.”
I rock forward, my chest deflating with relief. “If she comes in, we’ll round the island and slip out through the hatch I noticed earlier in the utility room.”
Isabel’s footsteps grow louder, and I motion for Amethyst to move. The last way I want my oldest sister and the woman I love to be better acquainted is through a fight to the death.
FORTY-SEVEN
Saturday August 15, 2010
I need to write this down before I forget, because what I overheard on the phone was too twisted to be believed.
Amy asked where they were going, and Lyle said they would meet their mutual friend, Dalton. That didn’t make sense. The only Dalton I know is Lyle’s former colleague, who recommended Three Fates. He came for dinner a few times, but that was past the girls’ bedtime.
Lyle explained that Dalton was Mr. Delta. And he had a job for her that required twins. My brows pinched as I tried to pick through his ramblings over the sound of Amy’s crying. She said a jumble of words, mostly about not wanting to return to Three Fates, but I managed to piece together that the summer she spent there was terrible and involved getting hurt.
