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TREY

I bang a fist against the wood table. “Where is she?”

The Keeper sitting across from me sighs.

With the long sleeve of his navy-blue uniform, he rubs the fingerprints off the golden nameplate pinned to his upper chest. It reads ortiz .

“Mr. Grant, if you don’t want to cooperate with me, I’m happy to ask the Enforcers to put you back behind bars until you do. Now answer my question.”

I burst out of my metal chair. It falls behind me with a clank! against the hard floor of this stuffy interrogation room. This bullshit little space is barely bigger than a bathroom stall. Plus, it’s musty, it’s windowless, and, most of all, it’s Arella-less.

“I’ve been cooperating with you for the last three days!

” I shout at the useless example of a Superior in front of me.

“Now I’m done cooperating, because every time I ask you where she is, you refuse to answer.

If you don’t tell me now, I’ll tear this whole place apart until I find her! ” And that’s a fucking promise.

Ortiz leans back in his chair and chuckles. “This prison is packed with Enforcers whose powers aren’t subdued by perrizo—while yours are. How do you plan to tear this place apart without your gifts?”

Each injection of perrizophine forced onto every inmate is supposed to last twelve hours. To ensure there’s never a chance an inmate’s perrizo has worn off before their next injection, doses are handed out like candy every eight hours.

I never realized how much I relied on my Empath power until now.

I have to pay attention to people’s facial expressions and body language to guess how they’re feeling.

Even then, it’s just a guess. When I get outta here, I’m never talking shit about my mind power ever again.

And I say when because it’s a matter of when, not if.

Three days ago, I woke up in a large holding cell, surrounded by the remaining ZIRDA (Zordinary Innovations Research and Development Agency) agents and double that number of Royals, the chaotic assholes who think all Zordis are better than Ordinaries, just because we were born with powers—something outside of our control.

The Enforcers stated that if we could prove we hadn’t broken any laws, they’d let us go.

One by one, they took us into an interrogation room. Depending on our answers to their questions, a Detector on the other side of the wall either confirmed that our words are true or that we’ve lied.

On day one, every Royal was taken out of the holding cell, interrogated, then relocated to separate cells to await their trials that will determine how long they’ll be incarcerated for.

Depending on the severity of their crimes, they could be trapped in prison for the rest of their lives. I hope that’s the case for all of them.

As for the ZIRDA agents, they were also interrogated on day one, then released within twenty minutes of their interrogations starting. I’m not that great at math, but I’m good enough to know that three days is a hell of a lot longer than twenty minutes.

The first ZIRDA agent to be freed was Ruby.

She was also the only person left I knew by name.

Everyone else I knew by name had been killed: Dash the Speeder, who helped me get Arella out of Shadow Ridge by making sure the hidden tunnel was safe.

Carlos the security guard, who helped fend off the Royals while I got Arella to safety.

Pixie the Ear Blower, who was barely twenty years old and one of the bravest people I’ve ever known.

The youngest to die was Katie. She’s the one I owe the most. She preloaded some perrizo guns for me, which was crucial in our escape. Katie is also the one who pushed Arella out of the way when a Royal tried to stab her with a knife. Sadly, Katie ended up on the other end of that knife.

I barely had time to process Katie’s death before Aunt Jodi, in Victor’s body, stabbed me in the side.

Then Victor, in Jodi’s body, tackled her to the ground.

They tried to kill each other until the Enforcers showed up seconds later, but it was too late.

Victor—who I thought for all my life was my uncle but was really my dad—had already stopped breathing.

Jodi had suffered some injuries too—a few blows to the head and a dagger to the chest. She didn’t make it long enough to see the prison’s Healer. I did, though, and now I don’t even have a scar to memorialize that battle.

I’d like to say I’ve had a moment to mourn the loss of my dad, but I’ve been too busy trying to figure out what the zovernment has done with my girl and wondering why they’re still keeping me here when they’ve already deemed me innocent.

They’re not holding me for being a Royal, nor are they holding me for committing crimes as a ZIRDA agent.

Surprisingly, they aren’t holding me for exposure to an Ordinary either.

After their many questions, all of which I answered with the truth, they determined that since I used my powers to protect Arella and only did it after she’d already found out about the existence of Zordinaries, they’re dropping the charges.

So if I’m not being convicted for anything, why am I still here?

More importantly, why am I talking to a Keeper?

Keepers are high-level zovernment officials who make the laws.

Enforcers are the ones who enforce those laws.

The people who were arrested with me were all interrogated by Enforcers, which makes sense because this is mid-level Enforcer work.

So why is there a Keeper sitting in front of me?

Ortiz points at my knocked-over chair. “Pick that up, sit your ass down, and answer my question.”

Glaring at the man, I scoop up my chair and set it upright with a clank! Then I plant myself back onto the metal and cross my arms with a huff.

“What else do you know about her immunity?” Ortiz asks for the third time. Since he’s so insistent about getting my answer to this question, I’m gonna assume this is why they’re still keeping me around. Arella must be an anomaly to the zovernment too.

“I’ve already told you everything I know.”

Like it did the last two times I said that, a device on the wall glows red with the word lie . Whoever that Detector is who keeps pressing that lie button on the other side of that wall needs to stop.

This Keeper already knows I was sent on a mission to find out the source of Arella’s immunity.

He also knows I never found it. I told him that she was able to project her immunity onto me multiple times.

I even told him the way she did it was by imagining waves of water drenching me.

I’ve told him everything I know—except one thing.

What I haven’t told him is that I was able to break through Arella’s immunity walls by making her orgasm.

I don’t want the zovernment knowing that, for two reasons: First, I don’t want them to take advantage of that knowledge and scrub her memories.

Second, they’ve already let me off the hook for fake- dating an Ordinary.

I doubt they’ll be as relenting if they find out I had sex with her too.

Sadly, getting locked up for that is the least of my worries.

My biggest concern is that they’ll find out Arella and I were able to conceive, even though it’s biologically impossible for us to do so.

I still have no idea how that happened, and it doesn’t matter.

What matters now is that the Keepers don’t find out about it.

Who knows what they’ll do with that information.

If it’s anything close to dissecting Arella to study her reproductive organs, fuck that.

This is why I need to know where she is, because if they’ve already locked her up for research, then I need to bust her out.

“You can’t tell lies in here.” Ortiz folds his hands together over the table. “So how about you stop wasting?—”

Knock-knock.

The door unlocks, then opens to reveal a slender Asian woman in a fancy-ass burgundy suit. Her heels clack against the floor as she lets herself into the room. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Ortiz. You may dismiss yourself.”

Ortiz lets out a scoff and wrinkles his face together. “Excuse me? I’m in the middle of an interrogation. Who are you?”

In a sweet tone, the twenty-something woman says, “I’m Mia Wang, Executive Keeper.”

“Executive Keeper?” Ortiz chuckles under his breath. “Yeah, right. Those people never come out from behind their desks.”

“I assure you, Mr. Ortiz, when needed, we do come out from behind our desks . I am here to speak to Mr. Grant. Therefore, you are no longer needed.” Mia gestures a shooing hand out the door again.

Ortiz remains in his seat. “You can’t be serious. Where is your badge?”

Without hesitation, Mia pulls back the left collar of her silky shirt and suit jacket.

Right over her heart is the official crest of the Keepers branded into her skin.

It’s something I’ve only ever seen in books.

Only the highest level Executive Keepers get that symbol branded onto their skin.

They’re the Executive Keepers who are allowed more information than the other executives and the lower level Keepers—like this toe-jam sniffer who’s just dropped his jaw.

It doesn’t take more than a second for Ortiz to hop onto his feet and scurry out the door. With an apologetic smile, he closes and locks my precious exit behind him.

Mia makes her way to Ortiz’s newly vacated chair and sits. With a smile, she says, “How are you today, Mr. Grant?”

I’m not fooled by her gentle voice or the way she just asked that question like she actually cares about my answer. “Been better.”

“I hear you’ve been pretty concerned about the Ordinary the Enforcers found you with.”

Concerned is not the right word for it. Obsessively tormented over her well-being is more accurate. “Where is she?”

Like Ortiz, Mia doesn’t answer me. “I only have one question, Mr. Grant. Once you answer it, you’ll be free to go.”