Page 10 of Cage of Starlight

CHAPTER FIVE

T he stolen scalpel warms between Tory’s fingers as Vantaras leads him to a sterile hall labeled Residence Quarters (C). “You’ll soon have a stellite tab to access your room and other public areas. For today, you’ll need to knock on the door and get your roommate to let you in.”

“Roommate.”

“You’ll be sharing with another Seed. Sword corps—the offensive branch. A Kineticist, I believe.”

Helner said Kineticists are bruiser types. This’ll be great.

“You’ll be in C114, at the end of the hall.”

Tory peers down the short hallway. The space between one gray door and the next doesn’t bode well for the size of the rooms. If he’s going to cut his tracker out tonight, he’ll need someplace more private. The changing room could work. “Then why aren’t we down there?”

Vantaras’ lips thin. “I didn’t wish to make a scene.”

Adrenaline floods Tory. “Make a—?”

The stellite lighting along the walls shifts red before Tory can finish, pulsing in beats like a living heart. Vantaras stiffens and turns to go. “Stay here.”

“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” Tory grabs his arm before he can walk away.

Vantaras twists out of his grasp, withdrawing a wicked black baton and pressing it against Tory’s chest. The force of his forearm behind it knocks the breath from Tory’s lungs and gives him a terrible close-up of Vantaras’ amber eyes, visceral and vibrant in this light, brighter than flame. “Stay here . I’ll deal with you later.”

The pressure leaves Tory all at once and Vantaras backs away, the communicator on his chest flickering brilliant blue. A cold voice comes through. “Infiltrators in Intake. Rebel Seeds. I trust you’ll put an end to them .”

Infiltrators.

The rebels . Hasra’s stories swirl in his mind, and terrible joy flickers to life in Tory.

If he can get to them, he can free himself.

Maybe even join them. The impulses he’s crushed down for years roar back all at once, unstoppable.

He has a weapon, meager though it is. Now is no time for keeping his head down, for not making waves.

If ever there was a time to fight, it’s now.

He’s following after Vantaras before he knows what he’s doing, scalpel clutched in hand.

Vantaras is already at the end of the hall, cranking a lever as he passes. Some sort of mechanism creaks and clanks, and a thick door begins to close from both sides of the hallway.

Tory barely makes it through before the thing can crush him.

Vantaras is too far ahead—Tory can do little more than chase whispers of his shadow around corners and the taps of his running feet on the polished floor. It doesn’t take long for him to lose Tory entirely, but by then he’s close enough to find the fray by sound.

When Tory first arrived here, there was something eerie about the wide, bright cleanliness, all stark lines and cruel precision.

The red light does no favors to the place, turning the halls dim and nightmarish.

Tory misses a step and catches himself on the wall when an ear-piercing boom splits the air, then another.

Gunshots. Someone cries out.

Tory rounds the corner and takes the chaos in.

Arms extended, gun gripped in gloved hands and hair dusting over one eye, Vantaras is something otherworldly in the flare and fade of the light.

With everything painted red, it takes Tory a moment too long to recognize the blood—a vivid smear of it on one pale cheek.

It pools on the floor ahead of Vantaras and marks the ground with spatters and smears for a few more feet before stopping abruptly.

Strange. There’s no one else in the hall, but judging by the blood, they didn’t make it to the door.

Relaxing out of a shooting stance, Vantaras holsters his handgun.

They’re gone.

Tory grips his scalpel harder.

He’s this close to the entrance. He could make a run for it. If the rebels are still out there, he could catch up. There’s only one person between Tory and the yard.

“Report.” A tall, lean figure paces toward Vantaras from the opposite direction, too obscured by the light for Tory to make out his face. Tory grimaces.

Two people, then, between him and freedom. Worse, but not impossible .

“Five infiltrators, Sir,” Vantaras says, unmoved. He withdraws a kerchief from his pocket and wipes the blood from his face. “I wounded one of them, two shots to the gut. When they realized they would make it no farther inside, they evacuated.”

“They escaped ,” the emotionless voice says. “You let them escape.”

“Sir!” Vantaras pockets the kerchief and stands rigid.

“Intake holds incredibly important records and resources, and Dr. Helner and the sensitive equipment in her lab are nearby. It seemed wiser to preserve the Compound’s resources and its sole Reacher than to pursue them and put STAR-7’s inhabitants at risk.

” He pauses. “They had a Teleporter, which I assume is how they got this far. I cannot pursue and wasn’t near enough to prevent them from ’porting away, but I don’t expect the Seed with the abdominal wound to survive for long. ”

Vantaras’ full attention is on the lean officer. His weapon is holstered, gloved hands clutched behind him. Tory might be able to sneak by before he can draw it. It’s worth a shot.

Tory sucks in a breath and moves.

A steel-solid grip closes on his upper arm before he gets far.

“Sir,” Vantaras grits out. “It seems my new supervisee was in a hurry to arrange introductions. Colonel, this is Tory Arknett, STAR-7’s new Channeler.”

Tory tries to free himself from Vantaras’ grip, but it’s stone-solid.

“He should have been secured,” the so-called colonel says.

The coldness of his voice is what makes Tory look. Standing in a well-ironed dress uniform with platinum-pale hair in an undercut, the colonel is unremarkable at first glance—willowy-tall and fine-featured. Early forties, maybe, just enough for crow’s feet.

That’s where the normalcy ends.

He offers Tory a cursory smile. It has all the necessary tweaks—the upward turn of the lips, the crinkling of eyes paler than the silvery edge of a blade, the flash of white teeth—but it’s cracked-mask cold and soulless.

It falls too fast. He doesn’t rock or shift where he stands, statue-still like his heart doesn’t beat.

Tory knows this kind of man, has cleaned up after his type in the Houses when they left one of the employees bleeding and half-conscious.

“Seed,” the colonel says with a thin-lipped nod in Tory’s direction.

Tory spits on the floor to let the guy know what he thinks of the greeting.

“Insubordinate.” The colonel retreats like Tory spat on him, expression warping with delicate distaste.

Vantaras goes still, grip on Tory’s arm going bone-crushing. “I’ll see to it that he’s put away in his room.”

Put away . Like a weapon, a thing. Tory seethes.

“See that you do. Your father will be hearing about this, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Sir.” Vantaras turns so quickly and pulls so hard that the socket of Tory’s arm shrieks with pain and he has little choice but to follow, a potent mix of helpless rage boiling in his belly.

He looks back, wondering if he can free himself and make for the door, but the colonel has moved to stand in the middle of the hall, deadly sharp gaze narrowed on Tory.

Vantaras yanks harder, his too-fast stride nearly pulling Tory off his feet. He hisses, “Do you not understand the meaning of stay ?”

They wait for what feels like an eternity until the massive, mechanical door that closed the inhabitants of Residence Quarters (C) into their hallway clanks open again.

No one left their rooms to see what was happening.

The single person standing in an open doorway yelps and retreats inside her room at the sight of Vantaras.

Once they’re inside, Vantaras pulls Tory to such an abrupt stop that he nearly overbalances.

Face beaded with sweat in the eerie, flashing light, Vantaras shakes his gloved hand like he handled something wriggly and wrong instead of holding Tory’s arm through an additional layer of cloth. “When I give you an order, I expect you to obey it.”

“Do you really?” Bile burns the back of Tory’s throat. He was so close he could smell fresh air. He could see the light of the outside, yellow-dim and warm. Those rebels had a Teleporter. They could have gotten Tory out.

But he still has the scalpel. “You said my room’s at the end of the hall?”

“I did.”

“Good. I’ll find it myself. Thanks for nothing.”

“No.” Two quick steps. An extended arm stops Tory from advancing.

Turning, he bares his teeth at Vantaras, but the asshole’s impassive expression doesn’t even twitch. He’s clearly been taking lessons from the colonel.

“I’ll need you to hand it over.”

Tory’s fists clench—a mistake. He hisses as the scalpel’s blade sinks into a fingertip. “Hand what over?”

“Whatever it is you’re holding.”

Blood tickles a path between his fingers. Tory presses them tighter and forces out a surprised laugh. “I don’t know what you mean.”

The plink of his blood on titanium-white tile betrays him.

Vantaras’ eyes follow the path of another drop—two, three—that make a trail as Tory shifts that side of his body away.

“Surrender it willingly, or I’ll take it by force.”

Anger and humiliation make a wreck of Tory’s gut. If his mom were here, she’d tell him to let it go. Maybe she’d be right. But Tory’s been beneath the heel of men like this all his life, and he’s had a perfect smile for every one of them. He’s been so very, very agreeable.

“Why don’t you try then, Sena .” The words burn on their way out, equal parts thrill and adrenaline.

“If you insist.”

It happens too quickly to process, between the moment the red lights sink into darkness and when they blare bright again.

Darkness: a hand on his opposite shoulder makes him jerk away, exposing his left side.

Red light, making something cruel of Vantaras’ silhouette: he seizes Tory’s upper arm again in a manacle-tight grip and lifts it, snatching the handle from his fingers.