Origin

Chapter 9

Katy

My legs ached as I trailed behind Archer, limping our way to the training room. Who would I fight today? Mo? The guy with a Mohawk? Or would it be the girl with the really pretty red hair? It didn’t matter. I’d be getting my butt kicked. The only thing I did know was that they wouldn’t let any of the other hybrids kill me. I was too valuable.

Archer slowed his step, allowing me to gimp my way up to him. He hadn’t said anything since he left my cell yesterday, but I was used to his silence. I couldn’t figure him out, though. It didn’t seem like he supported any of this, but he never said it outright. Maybe it was just a job to him.

We stopped in front of the doors I’d come to loathe. Taking a deep breath, I stepped through when they opened. No point in delaying the inevitable.

Sergeant Dasher waited inside, dressed in the same uniform he’d been wearing since the first time I saw him. I wondered if he had an endless supply of them. If not, he had to have one hell of a dry-cleaning bill.

These were the stupid things I thought of before I was pummeled into one giant bruise.

Dasher gave me a once-over. From the brief glimpse of my reflection in the foggy mirror in the bathroom, I knew I looked like a hot mess. On the right side of my face, my cheek and eye were an ugly shade of purple and swollen. My lower lip was split. The rest of my body looked like a smorgasbord of bruises.

He shook his head and stepped aside, allowing Dr. Roth to check me over. The doctor took my blood pressure, listened to me breathe, and then shined a light in my eyes.

“She looks a little worse for wear,” he said, tucking his stethoscope under his lab coat. “But she can participate in the stress test.”

“It would be nice if she actually participated,” grumbled one of the guys at the control panels. “And not just stand there.”

I shot him a glare, but before I could open my mouth, Sergeant Dasher cut in. “Today will be different,” he said.

Folding my arms, I fixed my eyes on him. “No. It won’t. I’m not fighting them.”

His chin went up a notch. “Perhaps we’ve introduced you to the stress test incorrectly.”

“Gee,” I said, smiling inwardly at the way his eyes narrowed. “What part of this whole thing is incorrect?”

“We do not want you to fight to just fight, Katy. We want to make sure your mutation is viable. I can see that you are unwilling to hurt just another hybrid.”

A tiny smidgen of hope flared inside me, like a fragile seedling poking through the ground. Maybe making a stand, accumulating all these bruises, had meant something. It was a small step that probably meant nothing to them but everything to me.

“But we must see your abilities under high stress.” He motioned to the guys at the panels, and my hope crashed and burned. The door opened. “I think you will be more accepting of this test.”

Oh God, I didn’t want to walk through those doors, but I forced one foot in front of the other, refusing to show an ounce of weakness.

The door closed behind me, and I faced the other door, waiting while knots formed in my stomach. How in the world could they make this acceptable? There was nothing they could—

In that instant, the other door opened, and Blake stepped through.

I choked out a dry, bitter laugh as he swaggered into the room, barely paying heed to the door closing behind him. Suddenly Dasher’s words about being more acceptable made sense.

Blake frowned as he stopped in front of me. “You look like crap.”

The simmering anger sparked. “And you’re surprised? You know what they’re doing in here.”

He thrust his fingers through his hair as his eyes moved over my face. “Katy, all you had to do was tap into the Source. You’re making this harder on yourself.”

“I’m making this—?” I cut myself off as the anger heated up in me. The Source stirred in my belly, and I felt the tiny hairs on my body rise. “You’re insane.”

“Look at yourself.” He waved a hand at me. “All you had to do was do what they asked, and you could’ve avoided all of this.”

I stepped forward, glaring at him. “If you hadn’t betrayed us, I would’ve avoided all of this in the first place.”

“No.” A look of sadness crept across his face. “You would’ve ended up here no matter what.”

“I don’t agree.”

“You don’t want to agree.”

I sucked in a deep breath, but the anger was getting the better of me. Blake moved to put his hand on my shoulder, but I knocked his arm away. “Don’t touch me.”

He stared at me a moment, and then his eyes narrowed. “Like I told you before, if you want to be mad at anyone, get mad at Daemon. He did this to you. Not me.”

That did it.

All the pent-up anger and frustration whipped through me like a category-five hurricane. My brain clicked off, and I swung without thinking. My fist just grazed his jaw, but the Source had reared its head at the same time. A bolt of light shot from my hand and spun him around.

He caught himself on the wall, letting out a surprised laugh. “Damn, Katy. That hurt.”

Energy crackled down my spine, fusing with my bones. “How dare you blame him for this? This isn’t his fault!”

Blake turned around and leaned against the wall. Blood trickled from his lip, and he wiped at it with the back of his hand. A strange gleam entered his eyes, and then he pushed off the wall. “This is completely his fault.”

I flung my arm out and another bolt of energy shot forward, but he dodged it, laughing as he spun around, his arms out at his sides. “Is that the best you got?” he goaded me. “Come on. I promise I’ll go easy on you, Kitten.”

At the use of the pet name—Daemon’s pet name—I lost it.Blake was on me in a second. I darted to the side, ignoring the painful protest of my muscles. His arm came out in a wide sweep, and whitish-red light crackled. I spun at the last second, narrowly avoiding taking a direct hit.

Letting the rush of energy swell through me once more, I sent another blast arcing across the room, hitting him in the shoulder.

He stumbled back, hands dropping to his knees as he doubled over. “I think you can do better than that, Kitten.”

Fiery hot rage slipped over my eyes like a veil. Launching myself forward, I tackled him like an NFL linebacker on speed. We went down in a mess of tangled legs and arms. I landed on top of him, swinging my arm back and bringing it down repeatedly. I wasn’t really seeing where I was hitting, only feeling the flare of pain across my knuckles as they connected with flesh.

Blake shoved his arms between mine and swept them out, knocking me off balance. I teetered for a second, and then he raised his hips and rolled. I slammed onto my back, knocking the air out of my lungs. I aimed for his face, hell-bent on clawing his eyes out.

He caught my wrists and pinned them above my head as he leaned down. A cut had opened under his left eye, and his cheek was starting to swell. A vicious amount of satisfaction rushed through me.

“Can I ask you a question?” Blake grinned, turning the flecks of green in his eyes brighter. “Did you ever tell Daemon that you kissed me? I bet you haven’t.”

Each breath I took I felt in every part of my body. My skin became hypersensitive to his weight and proximity. The power built inside, and the room seemed to be tinted in a brilliant sheen of white. Fury consumed me, riding every breath and latching onto every cell.

His grin spread. “Just like you never told him how we liked to cuddle—”

The power burst from me, and suddenly I was off the floor—we were off the floor—levitating several feet in the air. My hair streamed down behind me, and his hair fell forward into his eyes.

“Shit,” Blake whispered.

Flipping upward, I tore my wrists free from his grip and slammed my hands into his chest. Shock rippled across his pale face a second before he flew backward, crashing into the wall. The cement cracked, and a fissure spread out like a wicked spiderweb. The whole room seemed to shake with the impact as Blake’s head snapped back, and then he slumped forward. Part of me expected him to catch himself before he smacked into the floor, but he didn’t. He hit with a fleshy splat that knocked the anger right out of me.

As if I’d been held up by invisible strings that had now been cut, I landed on the balls of my feet and rocked forward a step.

“Blake?” I croaked out.

He didn’t move.

Oh no…

Arms shaking, I started to kneel down, but something dark and thick spread out from under his body. My gaze flicked up to the wall. A Blake-size imprint was clearly visible, a form reaching through at least three feet of cement.

Oh God, no…

Slowly, I looked down. Blood pooled out from under his motionless body and seeped across the gray cement floor, stretching toward my sneakers.

Stumbling back, I opened my mouth, but there was no sound. Blake didn’t move. He didn’t roll over with a groan. He didn’t move at all. And the visible skin on his hands and forearms was paling already, turning a ghastly shade of white that stood out with such stark contrast against the deep red of the blood.

Blake was dead.

Oh my God.

Time slowed and then sped up. If he was dead, then that meant the Luxen who had mutated him was, too, because that was how it worked. They were joined together, like Daemon and I, and if one died…the other died, too.

Blake had it coming in more ways than one. I’d even promised to kill him, but words…words were one thing. Actions were a totally different ballpark. And Blake, even with all the terrible things he’d done, was a product of circumstance. He was only goading me. He’d killed not really meaning to. He’d betrayed to save another.

Just like I did—and would.

My hand shook as I pressed it against my mouth. Everything I’d said to him came back in a rush. And in that tiny second when I’d caved to the fury—nothing in a span of millions—I had changed, become something I wasn’t sure I could ever come back from. My chest rose rapidly at the same time my lungs compressed painfully.

The intercom clicked on, the initial buzz startling me in the dead silence. Sergeant Dasher’s voice filled the room, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Blake’s lifeless form. “Perfect,” he said. “You’ve passed this stress test.”

It was too much—ending up here, so far away from my mom and Daemon and everything that I knew, then the exam and the subsequent showdowns with the hybrids. And now this? It was too much.

Letting my head fall back, I opened my mouth to scream, but there was no sound. Nothing as Archer entered and gently placed his hand on my shoulder, steering me out of the room. Dasher said something, sounding very much like an approving father, and then I was taken out of the training room and into an office, where Dr. Roth waited to take more blood. They brought in a female Luxen to heal me. Minutes turned into hours, and still, I said nothing and felt nothing.

…

Daemon

Being handcuffed with metal coated in onyx, blindfolded for five hours, and then put on some flight wasn’t my idea of a fun time. I guess they were afraid that I’d bring the plane down, which was stupid. It was getting me to where I wanted to go. I didn’t know the location, but I knew it had to be where they were keeping Kat.

And if she wasn’t there, I was going to go postal.

Once the plane landed, I was hustled to a waiting car. From underneath the blindfold, I could make out bright light, and the smell was really dry and acidic, vaguely familiar. The desert? It hit me during the two-hour drive that I was going back to the place I’d last been to damn near thirteen years ago.

Area 51.

I smirked. Keeping me blindfolded was pointless. I knew where we were. All Luxen, once discovered, were processed through the remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. I’d been young, but I’d never forget the dryness to the air or the remote, barren landscape of Groom Lake.

When the vehicle rolled to a stop, I sighed and waited for the door beside me to be opened. Hands landed on my shoulders, and I was dragged out of the car, thinking whoever had their hands on me was real lucky that mine were handcuffed behind my back, or someone was going to be leaving work today with a broken jaw.

The dry heat of the Nevada desert beat down as I was led several yards, and then a wave of cool air hit me, raising the strands of hair off my forehead. We were in an elevator before the blindfold was removed.

Nancy Husher smiled up at me. “Sorry for that, but we must take precaution.”

I met her eyes. “I know where we are. I’ve been here before.”

A single thin brow went up. “Many things have changed since you were a child, Daemon.”

“Can I get these off yet?” I wiggled my fingers.

She glanced at one of the soldiers in camouflage. He was young from what I could tell, but the khaki-colored beret hid most of his upper face. “Unlock the handcuffs. He’s not going to give us any trouble.” She looked back at me. “I do believe Daemon knows this place is outfitted with an onyx defense system.”

The guard stepped forward, fishing out a key. The set of his jaw said he wasn’t too sure if he should believe her, but he unlocked the cuffs. They scraped along the raw skin of my wrists as they slipped off. I shook my shoulders out, relieving the cramped muscles. Red marks circled my wrists, but it wasn’t too bad.

“I’ll behave,” I said, cracking my neck. “But I want to see Kat now.”

The elevator slid to a stop and the doors opened. Nancy stepped out, and the soldier motioned me forward. “There’s something you need to see first.”

I ground to a halt. “That’s not a part of the deal, Nancy. You want me to go along with this, I want to see Kat now.”

She glanced over her shoulder. “What I’m about to show you has to do with Katy. Then you will see her.”

“I want—” I whipped around, eyeballing the guard breathing down my neck. “Seriously, dude, you need to back the hell up.”

The guy was half a head shorter than me and nowhere in my league of extraordinary ass-kicking abilities, but he didn’t back down. “Keep. Walking.”

I stiffened. “And if I don’t?”

“Daemon,” Nancy called, her voice laced with impatience. “All you’re doing is delaying what you want.”

As much as I hated to admit it, she had a point. Sending the punk one last promising look, I turned and followed the woman down the hall. Everything was white with the exception of the black dots in the wall and ceilings.

I didn’t recall much about the inside of the buildings from when I’d been here as a kid, but I did remember there were very few places we’d been able to go. Most of the time we’d been kept to a community floor until we had assimilated and been set free.

Being back here didn’t sit well with me for a multitude of reasons.

Nancy stepped in front of a door and leaned down. A red light clicked on and shone in her right eye. The light on the panel turned green and the door unlocked. That was going to prove tricky, and I wondered whether, if I took on Nancy’s form, the systems had been prepped to recognize that. Then again, I felt as drained as the desert floor from whatever this building was outfitted with, so I wasn’t sure what I could actually pull off.

Inside the small circular room, there were several monitors manned by men in uniform. Each of the screens showed a different room, hall, or floor.

“Leave us,” she announced.

The men stood up from their stations and hastily exited the room, leaving Nancy and me with the tool who had come in with us.

“What did you want to show me?” I asked. “EuroCup?”

Her lips pursed. “This is one of many security control rooms stationed throughout the buildings. From here, we can monitor everything in Paradise Ranch.”

“Paradise Ranch?” I laughed bitterly. “Is that what you’re calling it now?”

She shrugged and then turned to one of the stations, her fingers flying over the keyboard. “All of the rooms are recorded. That helps us monitor activity for various reasons.”

I ran a hand over the scruff growing on my cheek. “Okay.”

“One of our concerns whenever we bring in new hybrids is to make sure they are not a danger to themselves or others,” she began, folding her arms. “It’s a process we take very seriously, and we go through several rounds of testing to ensure that they are viable.”

I really did not like where this was heading if it had anything to do with Kat.

“Katy has proven to have some issues and can become very dangerous.”

I ground down on my teeth so hard I was surprised they didn’t crack. “If she’s done anything, it’s because she was provoked.”

“Really?” Nancy punched a button on the keyboard, and the screen above her to the left flickered on.

Kat.

All the air went out of my lungs. My heart stopped and then sped up.

Kat was on the screen, sitting down with her back pressed against a wall. The image was grainy, but it was her—it was her. She was in the clothes she’d worn the night she was captured at Mount Weather, and that had to be weeks ago. Confusion rose swiftly. When was this taken? It couldn’t be a live feed.

Her hair hung down on the sides, shielding her beautiful face. I started to tell her to look up but realized at the last minute that would make me look like an imbecile.

“As you can see, no one is near her,” Nancy said. “That is Sergeant Dasher in the room with her. He is doing the initial interview.”

Suddenly, Kat’s chin jerked up, and she sprang to her feet, racing around a tall man in a military uniform. The next second, she hit the floor. I stared in open horror as Kat withered, and then one of the men unhooked a water hose from the wall.

Nancy flicked a button, and there was a different image. It took me a second to recover from the last scene and get what was going on now, but when I did, pure, red-hot rage lit me up.

On the screen were Kat and freaking Blake, squaring off. She whirled, grabbing for a lamp, but he darted in front, blocking her. When she swung on him, pride swelled in me. That was my Kitten, claws and all.

But the next thing had me searching for a way out of the room. Blake had intercepted her punch, twisted her arm, and swung her around. Pain registered on Kat’s face, and then he had her down on her back, pinned to the bed.

I saw red.

“This isn’t happening now,” Nancy said calmly. “This was a while ago, when she first arrived. It’s muted.”

Breathing heavily, I turned back to the TV. They were struggling, and Blake had obviously overpowered her. She was still fighting, though, her back bowing and her body twisting under his. Violence rose in me, powered by potent rage and a level of helplessness I’d never felt before, and it tasted like Blake’s blood. My hands formed fists, and I wanted to smash them in the monitor, since his face wasn’t in front of me.

When he had pulled her off the bed, and I saw him dragging her across the floor and off the screen, I spun toward Nancy. “What happened? Where did he take her?”

“Into the bathroom, where there are no cameras. We do believe in some sort of privacy.” She clicked something and the video fast-forwarded a couple of minutes, and Blake entered from the right. He sat on the bed—her bed—and Kat appeared a few seconds later, absolutely soaked.

I stepped forward, exhaling out of my nose. Words were exchanged between them, and then Kat whirled, opened a dresser, and grabbed clothes. She disappeared back into the bathroom.

Blake dropped his head into his hands.

“I’m going to fucking kill him,” I promised to no one in particular, but it was one I was going to keep. He would pay for this—all of this—one way or another.

The soldier cleared his throat. “Blake isn’t an issue anymore.”

I faced him, breathing raggedly. “Care to tell me why?”

He pressed his lips together. “Blake’s dead.”

“What?”

“He’s dead,” the guy repeated. “Katy killed him two days ago.”

The floor felt like it dropped out from underneath me. My first response was to deny it, because I didn’t want to believe that Kat would have had to do something like that—that she had to go through it.

The monitor was turned off, and Nancy watched me. “The reason I’m showing you this isn’t to upset you or to make you mad. You need to see with your own eyes that Katy has proven to be dangerous.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that if Kat really did do that, she had a reason.” My heart thudded in my chest. I needed to see her. If she had done this… I couldn’t bear to think about what she had to be going through. “And I would’ve done it, too, if I were in her shoes.”

Nancy tsked softly, and I added her to my Going to Die Painfully list. “I hate to think of you as being unstable, too,” she said.

“Kat isn’t unstable. All these videos show is her defending herself, or that she was scared.”

Nancy made a sound of disagreement. “Hybrids can be so unpredictable.”

I met her gaze and held it. “So can Luxen.”