Page 5 of Capture of Capricorn (The Thirteenth Zodiac #3)

Given her lack of choices, she studied the fucking relic.

Did everything Crius asked, even though nothing made a difference.

In return, she received three healthy meals a day—so healthy she might kill for chocolate—got to sleep in a room with a real bed instead of a thin mat on a floor, and in the evening, when she was done for the day, could binge Netflix—and plot her escape.

It wouldn’t be easy, between the locked doors, patrolling guards—who escorted her from room to lab—and the electronic monitoring bracelet that couldn’t be removed, Zora had yet to find a single crack in the security that she could exploit. But she wouldn’t give up.

The phone she’d answered hummed with static before Crius spoke.

“Zora, proceed to lab ten with the relic.”

“What for?”

“A new test.”

“Did you get that new plasma laser I was asking for?” Having run out of ideas, she’d been asking for new tools, things she could never dream of accessing in her old life but wasn’t a problem for Crius. The man had the funds and the pull to get her anything she wanted.

“It will be arriving next week. But hopefully we won’t need it by then. Please take the relic to lab ten.”

He said please, but she knew better than to fall for his politeness. Crius was a sadistic bastard. The laxative had only been the first of his tortures. She hung up the phone and sighed as she mentally prepped herself for the next test.

The door to her lab unlocked, and Zora scooped the relic under an arm and headed out into the corridor, a concrete space lit by harsh fluorescent lights and lined with locked doors with numbers painted on them.

She worked in lab thirteen. Lab ten wasn’t far from hers.

Still, she wondered what to expect. Last time she’d taken her metal football for a walk, they’d had her bring it to lab one, where they kept primates and rats.

She’d been ordered to rub the orb against them.

The dumbest test ever that achieved fuck all.

Then there’d been an earlier excursion to lab three with strobing lights that kept changing hue.

She’d left that room feeling utterly out of sorts and seeing bright dots for hours afterward.

Lab ten’s door clicked as she reached for the handle. Bloody people watching her every move on camera. She entered to find a space more suited to a hospital. Ultrasound machine, EKG monitor, IV poles lacking bags, a mechanized medical bed—and someone strapped to it.

She blinked. Yes, there was another person.

A novelty after weeks alone with almost no human contact.

If it weren’t for the occasional footsteps in the hall, the grim-faced soldiers, and Crius’ voice, she’d wonder if the world outside still existed.

Other than Crius, the only other human conversation she’d had was with a lab technician who’d been ordered to take blood and tissue samples from her.

She’d tried questioning him and kept pestering despite his tight lips, which only parted to tell her to breathe deep and to not move while he poked.

Her attempt to subvert led to her getting literal gruel for dinner that night.

The man strapped to the bed had a sheet pulled to his neck. Was he dead? His eyes were closed, but they opened as the door clicked shut. Brilliant blue, which offset his dark, oddly white-streaked hair and tanned skin. Tanned by sun, and not genetics like her.

“Hello there, gorgeous.” He offered a bright smile. “Here to take another sample? Were the liters of blood stolen by your coworker not enough?”

Someone sounded as salty as her. “I don’t do bodily fluids,” she replied with a grimace. Although she did like his use of the word gorgeous.

“Pity. I know what kind of sample I’d like to give you.”

Wrong time. Wrong guy. Wrong place. Tell that to her body, which flushed at his innuendo. “Not here for that, either.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Dunno. I was told to come.”

“I see. I don’t suppose you’d loosen my restraints. They’re awfully tight.”

At his words, she noticed the cuffs holding him in place. Wrists, legs, torso. He’d been strapped down.

“You’re a prisoner.” She blurted out the obvious.

“No shit.” He didn’t hide his disgruntlement.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?” he countered.

“Zora, and I’m a prisoner too.”

At her reply, his brows rose. “Says the woman wearing a lab coat carrying the artifact I seek.”

“I was kidnapped and forced to work all because of this stupid hunk of metal that doesn’t do shit!” The last part she yelled at the ceiling.

“Then you won’t mind handing it over.”

“I could give it to you, but I doubt they’ll let you keep it. The fucker running things is pretty obsessed with it.”

“By fucker you mean…”

“Crius, the asshole behind our abduction.”

“Oh, I wasn’t kidnapped. I handed myself over to Cetus willingly.”

The claim widened her eyes. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

“Because Sage told me to.”

“Does your wife not like you?” she blurted out, making an assumption about this Sage.

“Sage isn’t my wife.” He chuckled. “She’s a seer, and according to her, I needed to be captured. So here I am.”

“You dumb fuck.” She shook her head. “Sounds like this fortune teller fucked you over.”

“Guess time will tell. What about you? You say you were kidnapped.”

“Yeah. In the middle of the night while I slept. Cowards.” She glared at the camera on the ceiling. “All because I picked up this boring metal ball at a garage sale.” She held up the relic.

His eyes widened. “You found it at a garage sale? Do you know what it is?”

“No, and I don’t think they do either, seeing as they keep having me run tests on it.”

“What kind of tests?”

“Anything and everything. You name it, I’ve probably done it.”

“I take it the white coat means you’re a scientist.”

“Yeah. Used to work as a metallurgist until I ended up here.”

“Have you tried to escape?”

“Nah, I just rolled over and said spank me harder,” she drawled. “’Course I tried, but they got this place locked down tighter than Mama’s candy stash. But I haven’t given up. If there’s a way out, I will find it.”

“I’m surprised to hear you admit that, given they’re watching and listening.”

“Those fucks know what I think about them.”

“That is enough, Zora.” Crius spoke, his voice emerging from a speaker in the ceiling.

“Why not come tell me that to my face?” she grumbled.

“Place the sphere on his chest.” Crius ignored her challenge.

“Why? You hoping he’ll absorb it and become Relic Man?” muttered as she placed the orb on his belly.

“Pull down the sheet first.” Her captor huffed with exasperation.

“If you wanted him naked for it, then you should have said so,” she snapped, grabbing the orb, yanking the sheet, and then dropping it back on the stranger’s belly, flat and ridged with muscle. “Happy now?”

“Tell me what you see.”

“Other than a metal egg on a half-nekkid man? Nothing. Are we done?”

“Lose the tone,” Crius ordered.

“Or what?”

She shouldn’t have pushed so hard, because next thing she knew, her wrist monitor jolted and everything went dark.