I shook aside the idea that all my fears were being confirmed. Act now. Feel later. I remembered the static screens in the guards’ office, and my belief in the young man rose a little. “How the heck do we find the garage—”
“Ms. Dale said it’s the lowest room of the palace… All we have to do is keep going down.”
I nodded as we kept walking, ducking into an empty room as we heard the clatter of feet coming down the corridor. When they’d safely passed by us, Owen exhaled, and said unexpectedly, “Violet—she punched Elena in the nose.”
I felt a grim smile crack my lips. “Of course she did,” I said, my determination redoubling. “Tell me how to get to her,” I demanded.
“I’m going to show you—”
“Tell me where Violet is, and I will find her. Owen, if you’re on our side, I need you to try to radio Alejandro, the Patrian riverboat captain, and tell him to move the boat.” With a rudimentary escape plan forming, my mind was already leaping to my friend and the two boys on the boat—our only way of getting out of territory that, if Desmond and Elena were truly working together, was incredibly hostile.
Owen blanched. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. I lost most of my gear. Without one of Thomas’ secure handhelds, anybody might track that signal.”
He didn’t understand how vital this was. “Then go to the garage without me. If Violet and I can’t get out, you and Ms. Dale have to get to the docks and warn Alejandro to get out of here. I have to save the people I can.”
I didn’t tell him that Tim, Jay, and the eggs were on the boat too. If he made it that far with us, he would earn the right to know.
We crept down the corridor, and Owen talked while I focused on his instructions on how to find Violet, hoping we wouldn’t be too late.
2
Violet
“Isn’t this a bit cliché?” I asked, struggling against the restraints that strapped me to the table they had placed me on. It was like a hospital bed, covered in crinkly paper, but hard, and tilted at a steep upward angle about ten degrees short of ninety. My hands and feet already felt sore within the leather cuffs.
Elena, the queen of Matrus, ignored me, as did Desmond Bertrand. They spoke to each other in furtive whispers, as if I didn’t exist. To my utter shock, I hadn’t been thrown back in my cell after my attack on Elena, Tabitha, and Desmond. The queen and Desmond had come in not too long after the guards had affixed me to this contraption, dismissing their attendants now that the crazy woman was safely restrained.
I couldn’t hear what they were saying, so it didn’t matter. To be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention. My body ached from the guards’ rough treatment and my mind buzzed with manic adrenaline, so I stared at Elena’s nose, watching how rapidly it was beginning to swell and turn purple. Considering I had been the one to give her that bruise, I was quite proud. It was definitely broken.
Hopefully it would heal crookedly and she would be doomed to snore for the rest of her life. For that matter, I hoped that life would be short and brutal.
Although, given my grim surroundings, I was drawing a blank on how to ensure a much longer lifespan for myself.
“Seriously, if Viggo has to rescue me again because of this, I’m going to be really mad,” I chimed in at a lull in their conversation.
Once again they ignored me, and I sighed. Maybe my little outburst in Elena’s office had truly meant I was going off the deep end. I certainly hadn’t expected that kind of defiance to spew from my own mouth. Then again, I hadn’t thought that only one person would be responsible for all my misery in the last few months. Or that I would be meeting that one person after trying to save her life. Or that she would be the queen of Matrus.
I felt entitled to that anger, and I had no regrets. Well, maybe one. But that was only because I loved him. I didn’t want to see him die because I had assaulted the queen, her sister, and Desmond in one fell swoop.
Hell. If I survived this, I was going to tell that story to everyone I knew. It was too good not to tell.
Still, my anger wasn’t helping me here, and neither was trying to find the humor in the situation. I had gotten this far on a blithe refusal to be afraid—but my knees hadn’t gotten the message that we were supposed to be projecting confidence. A part of me knew that something bad was in store for me—I just didn’t know what yet.
Which meant I needed to implement a little Viggo-ness. If I could get them to spill their secrets to me, maybe I could learn what they had in store for both of us. I sent a silent prayer to anyone who was listening that he was all right. If they harmed a hair on his head, I was going to do horrible things to them. Things that would redefine the Violent Violet taunts I had received when I was younger.
“Could you at least tell me if Viggo is okay?” I asked, hating the pleading tone in my voice.
This time Elena stopped and turned to me, a look of disdain in her eyes. I resisted laughing—she looked like a pretentious clown with her nose like that. “If I were you, I would be much more worried about your own fate, Ms. Bates,” she said, drawing closer to me.
I waited until she was close enough, and then lunged at her with my body, snapping my teeth at her. It was a childish ploy—I couldn’t move more than that—but I was gratified to see her take an involuntary step back. “Made you flinch,” I taunted. I watched the anger roll across her face like storm clouds gathering over a mountain.
“Should I just kill her for you, My Queen?” Desmond asked, approaching us.
I stared at the woman who had betrayed my trust—and the trust of the people she had recruited—and felt an intense stab of hatred. I had almost come to respect her. Then I had found out she was using us—not just Viggo and me, but all of the Liberators—to help her get to the genetically modified boys Mr. Jenks had been using in his experiments to create an advanced human. She had even sacrificed one of her own sons to the procedure, then used the false tragedy of his ‘selection’ as the foundation to create a rebel group of similar victims.
Lies upon lies with a topping of despicable lies. I scowled at Desmond, unable to keep the displeasure from my face, but the older woman just smirked at me. “It doesn’t matter what you do to me,” I spat, taking pleasure from interjecting before the queen could say anything. “You can’t break me.”
Desmond looked at me with something almost like pity glistening in her eyes. “Oh, my dear, sweet Violet,” she crooned, and I resisted the urge to gag. “Everyone breaks.”
I sneered, but inside I was beginning to feel fear again.
My suspicions were confirmed when there was a knock at the door and Tabitha entered the room.
Elena and Tabitha were about as opposite as siblings could be. Where Elena was tall and elegant, Tabitha was solidly built, her bulging muscles rivaling a man’s. Her breasts had all but disappeared, and her neck was so thick that it was hard to discern where her shoulders stopped and her chin began.
She was wearing a blood red outfit and carrying a black case with her. Elena greeted her warmly, but it seemed Tabitha only had eyes for me. Eyes that were wild with barely suppressed rage and open glee.