Page 3

James

Chapter 3

“Okay. All right. This is fine. You’re fine,” I say, pacing up and down the short length of my prison cell. I hesitate, then look around for the hundredth time.

I mean, I’m guessing this is a prison cell.

It’s clean, which is weird. It’s also well-lit, fully illuminated by a light source I can’t identify. The walls and floors are made of gleaming steel—so glossy I can see myself from every direction—and the warped reflections keep freaking me out. I have no idea how long I’ve been in here. Every once in a while a weird mist is released into the room, and each time I lose what feels like a few hours.

My brilliant plan is not exactly going to plan.

“Look,” I say, pointing at a melted blur of my face. “There’s no reason to panic. You’ve still got your own pants on, plus all your original body parts, and if you were supposed to die here, no one would care if you had to use the bathroom, okay? They’d let you die in a heap of your own shit—”

As if on cue, a mechanical whirr precedes the reveal of an aperture in the ground. I’ve been here long enough to have learned that every time I say the word bathroom a panel slides away to reveal a bottomless black pit, the opening of which is lined with metal teeth that all but promise to bite off your dick. I’ve never been so terrified and relieved to take a piss in my life. I fucking hate it here.

I tried shouting other things, too; things like Get me out of here and Motherfucker and Ice cream sundae , and all I got was more mist in my face.

I wonder if anyone back home has realized I’m gone.

“Of course they have, moron,” I mutter.

Adam is going to be pissed. Warner is going to be super pissed. Juliette might already be crying. If I survive this, Kenji will probably kill me himself.

A week ago it seemed like a good idea, trying to break into Ark Island. This shithole is the last refuge of The Reestablishment—the last gasp of a fascist psychopathic government that basically wants to enslave the world—and no one’s ever been able to penetrate their defenses. Back in the womb of home and family, where I’m still treated like a baby who doesn’t know how to wipe his own ass, doing something like this seemed genius. If I could do the one thing even the famous Aaron Warner Anderson couldn’t do, maybe they’d finally respect me. Maybe they’d finally look at me like a man and not a ten-year-old boy who used to cry for his big brother every night.

“Great job, idiot.” I bang my head against the wall.

If I ever make it back home, they’ll never let me do anything again. My own half brother is basically running the world with his wife, and I’ll be reduced to desk work. Back in diapers. All my security clearances revoked.

I let out a nervous laugh, then push both hands through my hair. I don’t know how Juliette did solitary confinement for nearly a year. Before she single-handedly orchestrated the downfall of The Reestablishment, she’d suffered in ways I could never imagine. Now, looking around this gleaming hellscape, I realize I’ve never appreciated her enough. I thought I couldn’t love her more than I already do—hell, she and Warner helped raise me—but imagining how The Reestablishment tortured her—

Nah. I can’t go there. Not here. Not now.

“Shower!” I shout at the wall.

Nothing happens.

“Piece of shit!” I shout at the wall.

The toilet hole opens again.

“Listen,” I say angrily, “if you’re not going to kill me, the least you could do is offer me some snacks—”

The words have barely left my mouth when I’m startled by memory. Propelled into motion, I search my pockets until I find it—a little plastic pouch of gummy bears, half-melted.

I can’t help but smile.

These assholes stripped every weapon off my body but left me the candy. I’d swiped it from five-year-old Gigi’s snack bag on my way out the door; a moment that now feels like a lifetime ago. I rip the packet open, then stare at the melted gummies for half a second, the artificial scent of various fruit flavors generating sense recognition so strong my heart nearly gives out.

“Hey,” I say, narrowing my eyes at my liquid reflection. “Pull yourself together.”

I empty the bag of gummies into my mouth, then stuff the plastic into my pocket. I’m still chewing when I say, “You’re going to go home. You’re going to see everyone again. You’re—”

The room begins to vibrate with a soft, mechanical rumble, and the words die in my throat. I stiffen and back up, shielding my eyes as one of the walls disappears, then reappears in a flare so bright I can’t clock the change.

Suddenly, I have a visitor.

I knew The Reestablishment had seriously advanced tech—we’ve been studying their work for a decade—but this girl materializes as if out of thin air. We’re face-to-face, trapped by steel in all directions, and she’s standing so inhumanly still that for a second I think I’m hallucinating. She looks like an elfin creature out of a fairy tale, so slight she’s practically a beam of light. White-blond hair, icy eyes. Skin like glass.

Really, absurdly gorgeous.

My heart beats a little too hard as I blink and straighten, fake candy flavors coming alive on my tongue at the worst moment. My mouth is full of half-chewed gummy bears. I’m trying to chew without looking like I’m chewing. Jesus.

The tiny elf takes a step toward me, and I flinch.

“State your name and date of birth,” she says quietly, her cold eyes appraising me.

Something about the way she tilts her head—that, and the smooth, measured sound of her voice—and suddenly I understand. This beautiful weirdo isn’t a real person. She’s artificial intelligence.

I exhale, irritation doing the counterintuitive work of relaxing my body.

The fact that she’s a robot makes things easier. First of all, I’m not going to talk to a fucking robot. I might be an idiot, but I’m not uninformed. I know how much The Reestablishment loves surveillance. I know that this cell is being watched. They love mind games. Love to torture. If they wanted me dead, they’d have sent a real person to mess with my head at least a little before killing me. Instead, this thing is probably recording and analyzing my vitals while doing a background check. I bet it’s mining some database right now, figuring out that Aaron Warner Anderson is my half brother; that Juliette Ferrars is his wife; that I’m the youngest son of Paris Anderson, the dead, ex–supreme commander of North America. They’ve caught themselves a big fish.

Mentally, I kick myself in the face.

“I gave you a directive,” she says, and takes another step closer.

I chew a little more, trying to swallow without killing myself. “Look, if the computer in your head doesn’t already know who I am just by scanning my face, I’m not going to answer your questions. So if you’re here to extract information, you’re shit out of luck. Maybe just send in the guy who’s supposed to torture me.”

She hesitates, surprise coloring her features so briefly I nearly miss it. Fascinating, lifelike tech.

She blinks those strange eyes at me before saying, softly, “Are you eating something?”

“Gummy bears,” I say with my mouth full.

She blinks again. There’s something so human about the way she studies me then that it gives me goose bumps.

“I don’t understand,” she says.

“Gummy bears? It’s, like, a chewy candy—”

“You’re not afraid to die?”

“Uh.” I stop chewing. “What?”

And then she moves toward me, closing the gap between us in two strides, and I realize with a sudden, palpable fear—

This is a real woman. Not a robot.

I’m so distracted by this fact, so alarmed by the warmth of her small hand as she touches my face that, at first, I don’t even notice the knife she’s pressed to my throat. She has my head in a surprisingly firm grip, my neck open and exposed to her blade, but I can feel her breath against my skin and it’s messing with my head. She’s got doll hands. She smells fresh, like pine trees and soap. Up close her eyes are a pale grayish blue and her dark coat is moth-eaten and oversized. Underneath she wears a baggy sweater, the collar gaping to reveal a glimpse of skin so fine I feel lightheaded just looking at her.

I don’t think I understand the point of this exercise.

I’m a high-profile prisoner; any idiot would know not to kill me right away. They should be torturing me for information. Using me as bait or leverage. Instead, they’ve assigned me an elf who needs to stand on tiptoe to reach my neck. It feels like I’m being assaulted by a flower.

It’s annoying, though, the knife at my throat.

I decide to toss her across the room just to be safe, but when I slip my hands inside her coat she takes a sharp, startled breath and nearly stumbles. I grab her on instinct, holding her steady without thinking, but I’m thrown by the feel of her—a waist so small it seems almost dangerous. I study her face, my eyes narrowing in confusion, and she stares back at me with a flare of emotion so intense I swear to God I feel it in my chest.

“You smell like apple,” she whispers, and I’m actually about to smile when she slits my throat.

I see the flash of metal, but the blade moves fast and the pain doesn’t hit me until she’s backed away. I lift a hand to the wound as my vision deteriorates, blood seeping against my fingers just as I realize I can’t speak.

Motherfucker.

She’s cut my trachea, too.

Doll Hands has clearly done this before, and done it well. I sway slightly, making a strangled sound as I land badly on my knees. She looms over me, watching, expressionless.

As if from outer space I hear her say, “He’s ready for organ extraction,” just as I slump to the floor.

She swipes the gummy wrapper from my pocket before she disappears.