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CHAPTER

THIRTY-SEVEN

KARLIN

K arlin forced her legs to continue carrying her forward as she tried to make sense of everything.

She knew the truth about Lily’s identity, but should she play her hand and confront her, or should she wait?

The rain was beginning to fall now, quickly dampening the sand and dirt beneath her shoes. It took most of her concentration just to keep walking without slipping.

Lily had gone quiet again, more interested in jabbing her with the gun and snapping at her to keep moving than in explaining herself further.

At last, after several more minutes walking in silence, debating what to say, Karlin finally realized where she was.

Up just ahead was the downward slope that led toward the old cabin where she had met with Axel.

“Careful on the rocks,” Lily said, breaking the long silence.

It was everything Karlin could do not to laugh as she navigated down the steep, wet slope.

The rain was picking up by the minute, and the trail was becoming downright treacherous, but if Lily was so concerned about her safety, why did she have a gun pointed firmly at her back?

Any hope that the woman might be somehow on her side was dashed as they reached the door of the old building.

“Get inside,” Lily said flatly as she opened the door.

Karlin shook her head, but the woman only jabbed her harder with the gun until she stepped over the threshold.

“You can’t leave me here,” Karlin protested.

The dark interior looked suddenly frightening.

Sure, it would be mostly dry, and warmer than outside, but as far as she knew, no one but herself and Axel–and apparently Lily–knew the cabin was here.

Who knew how long it would be until someone came to look for her, even assuming Axel was still safe?

Even assuming he was still alive.

She swallowed hard, not wanting to even entertain that thought for a second. Whatever was going on, she was sure he’d be okay. He had to be.

“I told you, I need you out of my way,” Lily said, raising the gun again as she reached for the handle of the door.

She looked so different now from the sweet hippie grandmother she’d once appeared to be. Her long gray hair hung loose, and thanks to the rain and rising wind, it now looked as wild as her eyes.

Karlin knew those eyes.

And had she been looking closely, she would have recognized them a long time ago.

“Dana, please don’t do this,” she pleaded. “You can just let me go. I just want to get away from here, I promise.”

She’d been expecting some kind of surprise to show on the woman’s face, but instead, she could see only contempt.

“Are you planning to start calling Axel by his real name, too?”

Before Karlin could think of a response, Lily had shoved her backwards. She stumbled on the leg of a chair, crashing to the ground just in time for the door of the cabin to slam shut.

She got to her feet immediately and rushed back through the darkness, but it was too late. No matter how much she shook the door and yanked on its handle, she couldn’t open it. She shouted after Lily until her voice felt hoarse, knowing all the while that it was pointless.

She was alone.

Leaning back against the door, she pressed her eyes firmly shut, trying to adjust to the dark as much as she possibly could and forcing herself to breathe deeply.

She was scared, but she knew this cabin.

She knew there were candles and matches here somewhere. In a cabinet near the far side of the room, if she remembered right.

After a few moments of fumbling, she took hold of the box of matches, drew one out, and struck it. The light was blinding as she hurriedly lit a jar candle she found sitting on the table, filling the cabin with a scent that she assumed had once resembled vanilla.

She could see for certain now that the few windows were too small to provide an escape route.

Outside, the sound of wind battering the cabin walls had joined the pounding of the rain. If she was going to break a window and try to call for help, she was going to have to wait until morning at the very earliest. There was zero chance she’d be heard now.

There was a little firewood beside the stove, some canned food in the cabinets, and a case of water bottles still stuffed in the corner of the room like they’d been last time.

This was the good news.

She wasn’t going to die of thirst or starve. If Lily had wanted to kill her, she would have done it with the gun–unless she’d just assumed it would be empty in here. But she didn’t want to think about that option.

Now that her immediate panic had passed, her mind was reeling.

Every answer she knew seemed to lead to several more questions.

She knew that Lily Moonchild was, in fact, a woman she’d met before–a woman named Dana Corbett, who had been part of the same retreat as Amira Gorsky.

She could imagine Dana in her mind now, and she could almost forgive herself for not recognizing her.

Though it had only been a decade, she looked a lot younger than Lily did now.

She had been at least fifty pounds lighter, and she’d worn her hair in a pixie-like brown crop.

The most distinguishing feature that Karlin remembered, however, was Dana’s dress style.

She’d usually worn tailored dress pants, crisp white shirts, and simple gold jewelry.

Karlin could remember being impressed by the way she managed to look elegant in the middle of the desert.

She reminded her of a slightly more androgynous version of Destiny.

Everything about the way Dana had presented herself back then was a complete one-eighty from how she looked now as Lily.

But there was one clue that Karlin could not forgive herself for overlooking.

Dana had frequently thrown up after taking the earlier iteration of DX8.

She had never seen anyone else experience the same side effect, and it should have rang warning bells immediately, but it hadn’t.

Clearly, Axel hadn’t suspected anything about the woman, either–by the sound of it, his twin brother Ben would havebeen able to dig up the dirt on Lily if he’d decided to look.

No, the woman had them both fooled, and now they were paying the price.

Karlin rubbed her hands up and down her arms to warm them, considering whether or not she could focus long enough to start a fire.

The weather seemed to be getting even worse outside, and try as she might, she couldn’t shake her fear that something terrible might have happened to Axel, not to mention Cora or Paul.

Not that she had any idea as to what Lily’s motives were, or what was even going on. Clearly, the woman knew Axel was undercover, and if she knew that, she probably knew that he and Karlin were trying to take down Senera.

But why did Lily care?

Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine any scenario where Lily was working with Senera, and especially not with control-freak Bajwa.

Then again, the woman had managed to come across as harmless. For all Karlin knew, she was actually the evil genius mastermind, and Bajwa was her lackey.

Nothing would surprise her any more.

She pressed her fingertips to her temples, feeling the twinges of a headache coming on. She was missing something.

There was some connection that she wasn’t making, but no matter how many times she turned over the information she had in her mind, she couldn’t seem to find an answer.

ASHER

Asher stared down at the needle.

He expected the world to go black immediately, like it always did in the movies.

Instead, he found himself staring open mouthed up at Cora, who had crossed her arms firmly over her chest.

“You can take that out now,” she said. “Just be careful. It’ll probably bleed a little.”

“What did you do?” he asked, taking hold of the syringe and pulling it carefully out of his thigh. Despite the droplets of blood it left behind on his jeans, he couldn’t feel anything now that the momentary pain had passed.

Which probably wasn’t a good sign.

Cora ignored him.

“What did you do, Cora?” he demanded again, forcing the last of his energy into raising his voice at her.

“It’s just a sedative that Lily stole from the lab. You’ll be fine soon.”

“Are you going to hurt Karlin?” he asked.

He hated the fear he could hear in his own voice. Even the gun he carried did little to reassure him.

For the second time in less than twelve hours, he’d been drugged against his will. If he didn’t have the clarity of his own mind, even a powerful weapon wouldn’t be enough to save him.

He could threaten Cora now, but if he did, she might stop talking.

And getting her to talk was his best chance at figuring out what on earth was going on.

“I would if I had to,” Cora said, her voice sad, “but I don’t think she’s going to give me a reason. Neither are you. Just go to sleep. This is all going to be over in a couple of hours.”

He could feel the effects of the sedative intensifying now.

His vision seemed to be ringed with a halo of darkness, and every limb felt unbearably heavy. All he wanted in the world was to lie down and take a nap.

“What will be over? I just want to understand.”

Cora paused, standing over him.

“We need to finish our ritual,” she said. “Once it’s done, I’ll be able to go home. My entire family will be able to go home at last.”