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Anyway, I knew Vikram and the others would keep an eye on her.

Dante, I mean.

That’s all that mattered. Ifanyof those guys were stupid enough to go after jailbait, they’d have to answer to more than just Vikram, or even Revik. Dante had been adopted by every comp-nerd on the seer tech team, in addition to a good number of the more dangerous ex-Rebels. A hell of a lot of seers got sexually abused when they were underage, mostly by male humans. It was a sensitive point for a lot of them.

And yeah, Dante was family now.

Thinking about all this, I only half-watched the feeds.

I had the sound up on an old Russian news station, probably our most-watched of the remaining feeds. They reported news a lot of the human channels wouldn’t cover. That same feed, calledDrahk,provided the only reliable source of global news left in the world, really.

It was reliable from our perspective, anyway, in that it didn’t come from one of Shadow’s mouthpieces, nor did it suffer from the same issues of ideological bias, propaganda, or religious nuttiness as some of the other feeds. Moreover, it was the only remaining feed with contacts in all or most of the established quarantine cities, both Shadow cities and independents.

They even had someone in New York.

Drahkmeant “Truth” in Old Prexci, as in higher truth, above the level of base fact.

The infamous black market feed,Rynak,still existed, too, but could only be accessed via private channels. Balidor said they hadn’t managed to hack that yet, but Dante recently turned it into a pet project-slash-personal challenge, for reasons Balidor didn’t even attempt to explain. Regardless, he and Vik seemed confident we’d have access to it soon.

Dante didn’t like to lose.

I was still half-watchingDrahkas they reported on deteriorating conditions in China, trying to think ahead to the meeting that afternoon on Dubai…

…when the wall monitor went dark.

Chapter20

In Through The Out Door

Ilay there, unmoving at first. With the power out, the organic walls were dead. I tugged briefly on my wrist, but the cuff remained in its previous configuration. It hit me that Revik might not be able to release me long distance without the power…

My mind clicked sharply back into focus.

Lily.

I sat up violently, breathing harder.

I yanked on my wrist chained to the wall. I yanked harder when it didn’t budge, using my light until the mechanism shocked me and I let out an angry cry. I tried the telekinesis, yanking on it as I did, but it only shocked me harder.

It just figured that the whole damned room would be out but the organic would hold.

After cursing a blue streak and yanking until my wrist hurt, I forced myself to sit there. I closed my eyes. I made myself breathe, in and out. My heart hammered in my chest, but I made myself think, be logical.

Revik.

Revik was outside.

If this was a breach, or some kind of attack, he’d find a way to get to me.

He’d come for me and Lily first.

Twisting towards the nightstand I could no longer see, I felt over the top for the headset. Remembering I’d tossed it to the bedspread, I felt over there next.

My fingers had just closed around it––

When a bright light jerked my eyes to the center of the room.

Blinding, blue-white light shone like a sun just past the foot of our bed, illuminating the whole room, illuminating the bed, my bare legs, my feet, my hand where I held it up to protect my eyes.