Page 6 of Silver Elite

They leave me in the room for nearly three hours. Alone, but not truly alone. I’m conscious of the red light in the corner of the ceiling. They’re watching me, so I maintain an anguished expression. They need to believe I’m scared. Worried about what they’ll do to me. I slump forward in the chair, wringing my hands on the cool tabletop. Meanwhile, I’m taking advantage of the veins I’ve been gifted with and attempting to link with Declan. But the man is taking the role of silent contact literally. As in, he remains emphatically silent. I guess I’m not surprised. They tried to set me up in a safe house and I ran. He’s probably pissed.

Besides, they couldn’t be bothered to rescue Jim, and he’d once been a crucial cog in the Uprising machine. I’m not even crucial-adjacent.

That makes me disposable.

Tana is also quiet, which is cause for concern. Declan said my village was teeming with soldiers, and that was before I got detained. Are they questioning anyone who might know me? I hope Tana and Griff are safe, but as long as she keeps our link closed, all I can do is worry and pray.

When Ford and Mr. Silent return, they’re accompanied by a different woman.

This one doesn’t need an introduction.

It’s Jayde Valence.

Anxiety flutters in my stomach. I’ve never heard of a single person who’s come out triumphant in an interrogation with Valence.

Even Uncle Jim’s shield couldn’t hold up.

I try not to stare at her, but it’s difficult. It’s no secret why the General, who ranks Mods on the same level as the rabid rats that scurry in the Point’s alleys, chose to swallow his revulsion and allow Jayde into his inner circle. She’s too powerful a tool not to use. Proof of that is literally written on her face. Her bloodmark sits high on her left cheek. It’s a perfect red circle, about two inches in diameter and a stark contrast with her lily-white skin.

I shudder to think about what might have been if my own mark appeared somewhere other than my thigh. Would Jim have burned my face? I’d like to believe he wouldn’t have, but deep down I know the answer is yes. He made my parents a promise, and he would’ve gone to any lengths to protect me.

Jayde walks toward the table. The two men flank the door, leaning against the cinder-block walls. Arms crossed. Bored expressions.

“Wren Darlington,” she says.

“Yes.”

“My name is Jayde.”

“I know who you are.”

She lifts her brow.

“I’ve seen you on broadcasts with the General.”

She nods.

Her pale hair is tied at her nape in a severe knot, emphasizing her cheekbones. She’s much prettier in person. But her symmetrical features and heart-shaped mouth aren’t enough to distract me from what she is.

A traitor.

A sympathizer.

She oppresses and kills other Mods. People like her make me sick.

I swallow my disgust and try to settle my nerves. Level my emotions. But my confidence is slipping because…what if I’m not good enough?

Jim taught me how to shield. How to construct a steel vault around my mind and keep it tightly locked and thick enough that nothing can penetrate it. Except that wasn’t all we practiced. He also showed me how to leave that vault door open a crack and empty the mind it protects. Clear that mind until it’s nothing but blackness. Silence. And then…

Think whatever you want them to hear.

I’m already starting to prepare my mind as Jayde pulls out the chair in front of me. Jim told me there was a study conducted on Modified brains once that determined there was no difference in the number of thoughts a Mod held in their brain compared with a Prime. That same study revealed we think about ten thousand thoughts a day. Some people think more, some less. It averages to six or seven thoughts per minute.

Of course, that’s without factoring in the anxiety. An innocent person would be nervous in my current situation. My mind should be racing.

Jayde sits and stares at me. She doesn’t say another word.

This is the interrogation I’ve heard about from people in the Uprising. She won’t ask a single question.

When she forms a path, it’s not subtle. She’s not trying to hide it. She isn’t gently pushing her way into my mind as if dipping a timid toe into frigid water. There’s a reason for that. Because if you don’t ease into it, it sends an electric shock up the back of a Mod’s neck. It’s nearly impossible not to react, not to jerk, flinch, move, when an electric current courses through you.

Unless you’ve trained for that, too.

Unless you experienced that shock from the age of five, repeatedly, mercilessly, while you sat in the Blacklands training with Julian Ash to decoy your mind.

I don’t even blink as I feel her thrust her way in.

She continues to stare at me.

“Are you going to say anything?” I ask in aggravation.

Why isn’t she talking?

What is wrong with her?

She stares.

“Okay,” I say.

Self-consciousness washes over me. I try to avoid her eyes by staring down at my hands, but Xavier Ford barks at me from the door.

“Look at her.”

I gulp and raise my gaze to Valence.

She’s trying to read my mind. She must be.

The General is a fool if he thinks he can trust her. I don’t care how long she’s been working for him. You can’t trust those people.

I meet her gaze head-on now.

I. Don’t. Trust. You.

Do you hear me, you toxic bitch?

She stares.

Unblinking.

She would’ve reacted if she was in my head, right? I would react to that.

These people are out of their minds. Why do they think I’m Aberrant?

I didn’t do anything wrong.

Fucking prickholes killed Uncle Jim.

There’s no way he’s who they say he is.

He can’t be.

What if he is?

“I know what you’re doing and it’s a waste of time.” My frustration accelerates my heartbeat. “Can you please just say something?”

She stares.

What does she think is about to happen? Her silence will scare me into confessing to crimes I didn’t commit? I wonder if people actually do that.

But what if he was Aberrant?

They said his arms were glowing at the execution. I didn’t see anything glowing, damn it!

If he was defected, then that means he lied to me this whole time. It means I was living with one of them.

What if he could read my mind, too?

I choke down a strangled noise.

Was Jim a goddamn ’fect?

“Say something!” I snap at her.

She stares.

I glance at the door again. This time I’m not reprimanded for it.

He might be a total prick, but that Xavier guy is smoke. I wonder if he’s going with anybody. They probably don’t fraternize in Command. Or maybe he’s gay. I don’t know. I just want to get out of here.

I want to go home.

What if Jim lied to me?

I

want

to

go

home.

I bite my lip hard.

Do not cry in front of this woman.

Jayde slides her chair back.

Where is she going?

Where are you going, you feckless quat!

“What’s going on? Where are you going?”

She ignores me. At the door, she flicks her cool gray eyes at Mr. Silent.

“She’s clean. Do with her what you see fit.”

Jayde exits the room. I feel the path close, the mental connection break, yet I maintain the decoy. While Mr. Silent swipes a finger over the screen of his tablet and Ford stands there in silence, I allow the false thoughts to run rampant for another sixty seconds.

It’s only when I’m finally thinking my own thoughts again that the wave of relief slams into me. Primal and dizzying.

I did it.

I actually did it.

I fooled Jayde Valence.

I open a path to tell Jim, only to feel the hot stab of agony in my chest. I keep forgetting the link isn’t there anymore. The reminder is gut wrenching, and it takes all my willpower not to keel over in tears. He’s truly gone.

Why did my shield hold up against Jayde when his didn’t? How was I able to decoy my mind and Jim couldn’t—when he’s the one who taught me how to do it in the first place. He was far more skilled at decoying than I could ever be, so why—

Because of me.

Dread grips my throat as the thought occurs to me. What if Uncle Jim did decoy his mind during his interrogation, feeding Jayde a train of thought that deliberately led her away from me?

With my composure in danger of crumbling, I order myself not to think about Jim. Not here, and not now. Later. Think about him later.

Mr. Silent moves his finger across the screen one last time before addressing Ford. “Put her in Stock C until I’m ready for her.”

Until he’s ready for me?

Because that isn’t ominous.

—

The cell is painted a dull shade of gray that hurts my eyes. There’s a metal sink and toilet in the corner, and a single bed that takes up most of the limited space. I assume this is where the base holds its prisoners. It’s cramped and cold, but at least this room has a window, making it an upgrade from the last one.

After the door locks with an electronic beep, I climb onto the bed and try to peer out the window, which is barred and grimy. It’s set too high to offer a view of anything beyond the bleak concrete courtyard one story beneath it.

I sink onto the worn mattress and breathe in the stale air.

Do with her what you see fit.

The uncertainty of my fate gnaws at my insides. My life is in the hands of strangers, and I don’t like it. Not only that, but this is the first time since I woke up at the crack of dawn that I’m able to reflect on what happened in the South Plaza today.

I controlled eight minds.

Eight.

I almost killed eight people.

Eight.

My stomach twists, sending a rush of bile to my throat that I force myself to choke down. I don’t regret what I did. I was trying to save the most important person in my life.

But the way I did it…

My body begins to tremble, and I curl over on the mattress to wrap my arms around my knees. I don’t care if they’re watching me. I wasn’t allowed to fall apart during their daylong interrogation, but it’s fair game now.

Some people find power addictive, but I want nothing to do with the one I’ve been cursed with. I don’t want the ability to incite. I don’t fucking want it. I can’t erase the looks on their faces when they realized their own weapons were out of their control. The idea of interfering with someone’s autonomy, the thought of someone ever doing that to me, makes me want to vomit.

Yet at the same time, I wish I’d succeeded in killing every member of that firing squad, because then Jim might still be alive. But he’s dead, and now I want nothing more than to see them dead. The need for vengeance is so strong, I can taste it.

They’ll pay. Every last one of them.

I don’t know how, and I don’t know when, but even if I have to use incitement again to do it, I’ll make them pay.

I sit up and lean back against the wall, hugging my knees. When I feel the poke in my mind, I’m overcome with relief.

It’s Tana.

“Wren! Are you okay?” she says the second we link. I feel her concern rippling through my body.

“They killed Jim.”

I want to bury my head in my hands and cry, but I don’t. If there’s a camera on me, I’m willing to show some weakness, but not tears. Never tears.

“I know. I’m sorry. Where are you?”

“Command base. Sitting in a cell.”

“Fuck.”

“I’ve been trying to link with you since the execution. Where were you?”

“Working. Hamlett’s been flooded with soldiers, and the overflow is staying at the inn. I’ve been behind the front desk all day and being watched like a hawk. They’re questioning everyone in the village. Asking about Jim. About you.”

“I know. They’ve been interrogating me all day.”

I gnaw on my bottom lip, debating whether to tell her about my encounter with Jayde Valence. On one hand, it’s the kind of feat that would provide a Mod with boasting rights in perpetuity.

But Tana has no idea how powerful my abilities are. That I’ve got a bloodmark hidden beneath layers of burnt flesh.

“We’ve also been hearing there was an inciter at Jim’s execution,” Tana says, a note of awe in her voice.

Yeah.

She doesn’t know about that, either.

“I honestly don’t know what everyone is talking about,” I tell her. “I was there. I didn’t see anything that looked like incitement. I think the squad was just confused about when they were supposed to fire.”

The lie triggers a jolt of guilt. But I made Jim a promise a long time ago that I would never reveal, not to a single living soul, that I possess the power to incite, and I don’t plan on breaking that promise today.

“Anyway,” I say, eager to change the subject. “We can talk about that later. Right now I need you to contact someone from the network. Someone high on the food chain. They need to get me out of here.”

There’s a long beat.

“Tana?”

“Nobody’s coming to get you.”

I swallow my resentment. Nice. Good to know where I stand.

“They said you had your chance at a safe house and a new identity, and you chose to run. Polly told me to check in when we know what they’re going to do with you.”

“I have to go.”

“Wren—”

“I need to think. I’ll talk to you later.”

I sever the link and ignore her subsequent pokes. The only voice in my head I can concentrate on right now is my own. I need to consider my options.

Are there any?

The network isn’t interested in rescuing me, but even if they were, then what? I’ll be shuttled from one safe house to another for the rest of my life? Live in hiding? Locate a surgeon who will alter my appearance so that I can return to society and live in plain sight of the Command? The amount of Luxury credits required for even a few paltry cosmetic injections is astronomical—I can’t imagine how much a full-blown facial reconstruction would cost.

And anyway, fuck that. I like my face.

I suppose I could try to track down a Faithful camp, but I don’t find that option at all appealing, and not only because they’d likely kill me on sight. Those people don’t take kindly to strangers. I remember a few years back, when two teenage boys from Hamlett went missing after they decided to search for a Faithful camp rumored to have sprung up in the woods outside of town. Controller Fletcher’s men found the boys’ skeletons a year later in the remnants of an abandoned campsite.

But more than the fear of my skeleton turning up in a forest a year from now, I’m not a believer that the Old Era was any better than this new one. Or at least, I’m not sure how it could be, given that it led to global destruction.

I clasp my fingers over my knees and think about how limited my options are. How utterly hellfucked I am. The sun is setting, and the cell is losing the meager light the tiny window allows in. Although there’s a strip of fluorescent lighting across the ceiling, it doesn’t give off any light. Maybe it’s on a timer.

Another hour passes. Now the room is bathed in shadows. But only for a few minutes. As I’d guessed, the ceiling lights flicker on as if on cue. They proceed to make a crackling noise that I’m forced to listen to for another hour before it softens to a barely audible hum.

Footsteps echo in the hallway. I instantly tense, waiting. So far, every set of steps has passed right by.

This one stops at my cell.

I hear the sharp beep of a keypad, and then the door opens.

My pulse quickens when Mr. Silent walks in. He’s no longer in his Command uniform. Now he wears black pants and a black shirt made of a stretchy material, its long sleeves hugging the defined muscles of his arms.

He steps inside, silhouetted by the overhead light. Anyone else standing in that harsh glare would look pinched and severe—these unforgiving shadows aren’t your friend. Yet his face remains nothing less than stunning. Someone this pretty shouldn’t be a soldier. He’d probably be raking in the credits if he worked in Human Services. He’d make an excellent whore. The elites in the Point would pay up the nose for a couple of hours in a bedroom with him.

He gives me an appraising once-over.

I wonder what he’s seeing. I can’t even imagine what I look like right now. I feel tired and grimy, and my hair is loose and messy from my fingers running through it all evening. I hop off the mattress so we’re both standing. He still towers over me, but it’s better than giving him the upper hand by remaining subserviently seated.

“My name is Cross.”

I hide my surprise. I didn’t expect a proper introduction. I raise my brow. “What kind of name is Cross? Is that your surname?”

He lifts an answering brow. “Funny that someone named after a bird feels like she’s in any position to critique mine. Why Wren and not Sparrow? Or Dove?”

I narrow my eyes.

“I’m the captain of Silver Block,” he continues.

I knew they were Silver Block. Their ironclad shields. Their interrogation methods. The smug confidence.

“Captain Cross,” I mock. “Aren’t you a little young for that rank?” He can’t be a day older than twenty-two.

He ignores that and says, “You can call me captain or sir. No preference.”

“What about Asshole? Can I call you that?”

He ignores that, too. “Did anyone bring you dinner rations?”

“No,” I say tightly. “I assumed your plan to starve me to death had commenced.”

“Nobody wants you to starve.” His voice takes on a mocking note. “We need you strong and healthy for the Program.”

Tension stiffens my shoulders. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means you’re joining the Command.” He smiles without a trace of humor. “You start tomorrow.”