Page 14 of Revenant (Spirit Realm #2)

RUE

I fling open the door, then stop abruptly when I nearly crash into the four hulking guards waiting in the hallway. Looks like I’ve been upgraded to maximum security. Even though they’re armed and outweigh me by a hundred pounds or more, their forbidding expressions say they consider me the bigger threat.

Their eyes are dead, their snarling expressions oozing menace. Instead of seeing an eighteen-year-old girl, they see me as the enemy.

No, it’s worse than that. They are aware of the atrocities happening down here. They don’t even bother to try and rescue a bunch of kids being held by a sadistic doctor. Instead, they no longer consider us human, but a threat they won’t hesitate to exterminate.

These aren’t guards…they’re soldiers.

Maybe they’re here to escort me to the lab the others warned me about yesterday, but my subconscious recognizes them for what they are—a kill squad. Something horrible happened. I’m not worried about myself, I’ve dealt with their kind all my life, but the guys are a different story.

Despite Jaceson telling me they are trained for this shit, I don’t think he understands the type of hatred people who are different receive. The guys have the money and looks to keep most of the seedy underbelly of the world away. They just skim along the surface.

When people like me are taken, no one notices. There are no cops, no investigations—we just disappear from everyone’s memories like we never existed.

No, whatever Jaceson and Gunner planned, they failed, and unease gnaws at my gut like a swarm of angry bees. The guys aren’t dead, I would know if anything happened to them, but survival can be its own hell.

“Step out of the room,” the man in front of me barks, his face harsh as he waits for me to obey. If I hesitate for even a second, he will yank me from the dorm in a heartbeat.

Not that I’m protesting their escort.

If they have Gunner and Jaceson, I have no choice.

Instead of them rescuing me, it’s me who needs to rescue them.

The instant I step into the hallway, I’m surrounded. They’re so close, it’s like they’re sucking the oxygen out of my lungs. I cringe when the sweaty stench of body odor assaults me from every direction.

Just as I take a step forward, a sharp prick of something pierces my shoulder so deep that I swear it scrapes against bone. I slap my hand over the spot, cringing when it feels like I’ve been injected with liquid fire. It burns through my flesh, the sensation feeling like it’s eating away at my insides. I don’t even have time to curse before the world around me darkens. As I crash to the ground in a heap, I smack the floor hard, none of the fuckers bothering to catch me, then I know nothing else.

What could be minutes or even hours later, I blink open heavy eyelids to see an unfamiliar white room. It’s so bright that my eyeballs ache like they’ve been dunked in acid. I quickly slam them close, then suck in a sharp breath between my teeth when my muscles feel like I’ve just been through the most brutal workout of my life. Even the smallest twitch sends a new wave of agony shuddering through me.

As much as I want to wait for the pain to ease, I don’t have the luxury of sitting on my ass. Because if the guys are really here like I suspect, then they’re in trouble. After a minute of shutting down my pain sensors so my body is blessedly numb, I’m able to open my eyelids a crack and focus on my surroundings.

A slew of images wink in and out of existence, some so fast that I barely catch a glimpse of them, others so slow that every detail is shown in torturous detail, a side effect of whatever drug is swimming through my veins.

The ghosts here are different, more aware, almost like they have been waiting for something. When they catch me observing them, the majority of them wink out of existence like a school of startled fish, scattering in every direction.

A few of the ghosts freeze when they catch me watching them, waiting for my reaction. One of the older ghosts, who looks like she stepped out of the eighteen hundreds, glides forward wearing a full nun’s habit. She would almost seem innocent…if not for the copious amount of blood staining the edges of her wimple. She creeps closer, then presses her finger to her lips.

Beware.

Before I can demand answers, she fades out of existence in nothing more than a wispy puff of smoke. With a groan, I sit up slowly, my movements painful despite doing my best to block it out. Everything in the last twenty-four hours is catching up to me—the drugs, hitting the floor when I collapsed, and the fight from yesterday.

When I peer down at myself, I discover most of my burns have already disappeared. I’m uncertain if I should be worried that I’m healing faster and faster or grateful. I don’t have any new bruises, but I doubt it’s because the guards were gentle.

My left arm in particular aches right below the surface, pain radiating from the crook of my elbow every time I shift. I don’t have any needle marks, but since I heal so fast now, I suspect I wouldn’t see any trace.

I focus inward but don’t feel any different.

So, not a side effect of whatever drug is swimming through my veins.

Which means they took something.

Blood.

Maybe I shouldn’t feel violated after the abuse I’ve suffered for most of my life, but I do. I have so little of my identity left that taking anything more from me is beyond infuriating.

As much as I want to wallow in my anger, I’m not afforded that luxury with danger stalking my every step. So, like I have most of my life, I stuff my emotions into a box in the back of my mind and slam the lid shut. If I want to survive, I have to focus on the here and now.

The room looks like some sort of doctor’s office. I’m sitting on top of an exam table, and I take it as a good sign that I’m not strapped down or stripped naked. It’s happened enough over the last few months that I count it as a small blessing. My wrists, ankles, and chest tighten with the phantom pain of being pinned, and I quickly hop off the table to banish the unpleasant sensation.

Rubbing my wrists, I glance around the sterile room for any information, but not even a computer remains for me to hack.

Out of curiosity, I check the door.

Locked.

I’m not surprised.

While I can pick a normal tumbler lock with ease, electronic locks are beyond my knowledge. I bet Jaceson would be able to escape the room in seconds. I totally need to have him teach me that skill. At the thought of the guys, a pang pierces my chest.

I don’t want to admit it, but they have never been far from my thoughts, despite my best efforts to banish them. Forgetting them is like trying to forget how to breathe—it’s impossible. I missed them like they stole a vital part of me. Knowing they are close is like an itch that I can’t scratch, not until I can see them, touch them, and verify for myself that they are safe.

I pause by the black curtains in the room, and my brows scrunch. We’re underground, so why another window?

I reach for the material with nerveless fingers, the curtains bunching in my hands, and my insides tremble with trepidation. Nothing is worse than not knowing, right? Rolling back my shoulders, I do my best to shake off my unease…then I rip them open.

Oh, fuck.

I was totally wrong.

Knowing is way worse.

My hands fall to my sides, and my mouth drops open in disbelief. While I knew I was bound to end up locked away eventually, what I didn’t expect to see was all five of my guys unconscious and strapped to gurneys.

Though my side of the window might look like a doctor’s office, their side resembles a fucking lab. The guys are hooked up to IVs. The image of them lying so vulnerable is like a dagger to my chest, and my heart thumps hard against my ribs.

Frost creeps across the surface of the glass, thorny spikes growing thicker and more ominous by the second as I struggle to yank back on my abilities. The glass pings like hot water being poured over ice, and the thick panes turn cloudy.

Only when my view is completely obscured am I able to yank my gaze away, and I quickly note the six different cameras observing us.

And by showing them my abilities, I gave them exactly what they wanted.

Closing my eyes, I inhale deeply, then gather the threads of my power and slowly pull the icy chill of it back inside me. I wish I had my rings to help ground me, wish I had more practice warding myself against my abilities. Unfortunately, the stronger my powers, the stronger my connection to the afterlife.

It’s a vicious circle.

Every step forward is like taking two steps back.

Banishing my hold on the afterlife after seeing the guys in danger is like trying to cut out my soul. My powers want to rescue them and damn the consequences. So instead of releasing the icy tendrils, I reabsorb the power. I don’t know any other way to get rid of it. I need to read my ancestor’s diaries again and figure out how they were able to use their abilities without killing themselves. From the few diaries I read, not all of them were successful.

Cold air scorches along my throat and crackles painfully in my lungs, my body temperature dropping lower and lower until the normal air temperature burns against my skin. Ice creeps through my veins, encasing my bones, and I idly wonder what will happen if it reaches my heart.

With one last breath, the bitter chill lances through my chest like I’m being stabbed with an icicle before it sinks into the very marrow of my being. My heartbeat is erratic when I crack open my eyes, and it’s all I can do not to flinch when the first thing I see is Dr. Hershamn standing on the opposite side of the glass watching me like a bug in a specimen jar.

His nerdy round glasses should make him appear harmless, the lenses washing out his green eyes, but they do little to disguise the sharp intelligence buried in their depths. I suspect he has been recording me since I entered the room and will dissect every second of it over and over again until he wrings every bit of information from the footage.

I cringe at what it will reveal. It’s only a small mercy that I didn’t go all Ghostbusters. Thankfully, while the ice might look strange, there is no way he could guess my true abilities.

And yet, when I peer back at the doctor through the window, his eyes gleam with too much recognition.

He knows something.

Though he might appear to be a feeble old man, the ruthless cunning he wears like a cloak says he knows how to get what he wants, no matter the means.

My gaze flicks back toward the guys, noting their slightly roughed up exterior. Then my eyes narrow when the facts don’t add up. No bruised knuckles, no broken bones, no blood or gore on any of their bodies. Even their clothes are relatively neat, and a furrow forms between my brows with that startling realization.

Then understanding dawns.

The idiots allowed themselves to get taken!

If they wanted to fight, carnage would have ensued. I’ve seen Gunner after a fight. He wouldn’t go down without serious injuries and possibly even death.

The fools!

That they willingly surrendered has the back of my throat burning with emotions I have no hope of understanding. Any doubt that I harbored about whether the guys cared for me vanishes.

That doesn’t mean I’m not pissed as hell.

Then I recall the rules Jaceson quoted me— leave no one behind.

Pleasure warms my chilled soul with the knowledge that they consider me one of them. They came for me, even if they were idiots about it.

And according to their rules, it’s my job to protect them now, especially when they are vulnerable.

Tearing my eyes away from how they are laid out like specimens in the sterile room, I turn my attention back toward Dr. Hershamn. My determination hardens at his smug, arrogant expression, and my lips curl in disgust. Any pretense that I’m just a silly girl is well and truly gone. “What do you want?”