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The brightly-lit labs stand empty, sending an eerie sensation over my skin. Hairs raised, I pad after Atticus, eyes sweeping over the stillness.

It’s too quiet.

Way too quiet.

As we make our way toward the door at the end of the hall, which leads to those creepy human tanks, a ticking sound skates up my spine.

Atticus comes to a stop, and both of us turn around at the same time, facing the door through which we entered. The fluorescent light overhead flickers.

A figure steps into view.

“Oh, God,” I whisper, backing myself toward the door. Muscles trembling, a tight grip of panic squeezes my lungs to nothing more than shallow breaths.

At the opposite end of the hallway, two white, translucent creatures with soulless black eyes block our only escape. Atticus slides a blade from a side holster at his hip, never taking his eyes off the mutations.

“Get out of here.” His voice is as steady and calm as his hand when he pushes me behind him.

I slip through the door at my back, leaving him alone in the corridor, and the second I’m on the other side, I peer through the small, glass square window, to find the mutations charging toward him.

An electric jolt of terror seizes my muscles on watching Atticus rush forward toward the monsters.

“Hello, Thalia.”

A scream flies out of me, and I spin toward the familiar voice, but find only the bodies suspended in their glass compartments about the room.

“Show yourself, Jack.” The nervous wobble in my voice matches the tremble moving through my body, as I slide along the wall to hide behind one of the capsules.

“It’s fascinating how predictable you are. I knew you’d come. I don’t know how, but … I had this strange feeling.”

“You killed my father.” The room stands still, save for the occasional twitch of the encased bodies, as I scan for him.

“Yes. I confess. But what does it matter now? He’s gone, and when those mutations finish off your friend, you will be, too.”

I kick my head to the side, listening for the thumps and grunts on the other side of the door that tell me Atticus continues to fight them. “You underestimate the Alphas.”

“And they underestimate the advancements we’ve made in the last couple of years.”

The sound of Atticus’s outcry proves the point, sending a wave of fear through my muscles.

“What do you want?”

“What I’ve always wanted. Power. Respect. You.”

“Me?” Lips crimped with disgust, I shake my head of the grotesque thought. “You arranged to have me kidnapped by a psychopath.”

“I made a deal with a criminal I shouldn’t have trusted. I realize that now. He wasn’t supposed to touch you, but I suppose I’m not the only one who was tempted by your beauty and innocence. In my defense, I did send Will to retrieve you.”

“You sent Will on a death mission, and you know it.”

“Partly true, yes.”

“Why? How did you possibly justify his death in your head?”

“Fairly easily, actually. Particularly with you as a prize. I’ve watched you grow from a child. This sassy, wild spirit that couldn’t be broken by anyone. Not even the church. How much I wanted to break you myself.”

“Show yourself, coward. I want to look you in the eyes as you confess these things to me.”

Lights flick on inside a room that’s separated by glass, behind which, the silhouette of a man stands looking out. His lower half is blocked by the back end of a panel that cuts across the window. The soft glow of screens on the wall behind him suggests it might be a control room. One I didn’t take notice of the last time we were here to rescue Atticus, with all the fighting and flying of bullets.