And I had to somehow gauge whether or not they’d found Trenton, who we’d tried to hide on the small shuttle. What had happened with him?
But I said nothing. Keeping my mouth shut when I wanted to talk was something I’d learned how to do early on. I’d say very little and try to get more information than I gave.
“I need to see them. I’m not agreeing to anything until I see for myself that they are okay.”
He lifted his eyebrows. “They said you were bright.”
Who had said that? Who did they know that could possibly have told them that? My uncle who had initially sold me out to them? Did he know me well enough to make a statement like that? I didn’t ask for clarification. That would wait. The doctor put his hand on my arm. “Easy. You were concussed. We fixed you, but take it slow.”
I took a long breath. “Are you sure you should be in here with me? I might infect you with the diseases you gave to me.”
He narrowed his gaze. “I was under the impression that Wade had gotten you to where you weren’t contagious.”
“Well, it’s a day-by-day thing. You never do know.” His statement had told me what I needed to know. Wade hadn’t given him instruction on how to read the device on my arm. I looked down, and it still read a seven. Much as I wished it had magically gone down to zero, it didn’t surprise me. If stress played a role in this, then I’d had my fair share.
This doctor, Evander’s so-called vice president, didn’t know that it had been at seven for a bit and that I wasn’t a problem for him until it was ten. I wasn’t going to tell him.
He scowled at me. “I think if you were contagious, then Wade would be dressed to protect himself from you. Since he wasn’t, we’re going to proceed that way.”
I shrugged. “That’s entirely up to you. You made me sick. You’d know best, I suppose. Show me my men. And then we’ll discuss how things are going to go.”
I might zap him if I could figure out how to get us all free. I could zap the whole damned ship if I needed to. Even if it knocked me out for weeks, I’d do it.
He walked ahead of me, which would have been stupid if a man hadn’t come out of the shadows of the room to box me in from behind. He was huge, an obvious Super Soldier. But when I turned to look at him, I saw none of the light that I was used to in my guys’ gazes. No, this man had dead eyes. I rubbed my arms at the goose bumps breaking out on them. Had my men been like this? Lost to nothingness?
Or was he just hiding deep emotion? I didn’t intend to find out. I had a plan, or the beginning of one, and I wasn’t going to blow it right out of the gate. Wade banged on the glass between us, and I nodded to him, hoping he’d understand that meant I was okay.
He visibly exhaled a breath. There were dark circles under his eyes. How much had he suffered until I woke up? I wouldn’t forget that he’d been through hell. Whatever happened next, I would find out finally how to make things okay for Wade. For all of us. Somehow.
What was funny was I was absolutely a prisoner right now. And yet for some reason, I’d never been so sure that I was powerful, that I was capable of doing what I thought I could do. This wasn’t how my story was going to end. I was sure of it, and for the first time in my life, I believed in myself. Why the miraculous change had suddenly come on an Evander ship, I couldn’t say, but there it was.
Wade banged on the glass, and I stopped to regard him again. “Let me the fuck out of here.” He spoke to the doctor but glared at the dead-eyed Super Soldier who followed behind me. “Now.”
I turned toward my captors. “I’d like him out.”
“We can talk about what Wade will and won’t get to have happen when we get back in here. If you don’t want him left alone in there endlessly, then I suggest you hurry up.”
It would be so easy to knee the doctor in the dick. It really would, and it was everything I could do to stop myself from giving in to the urge. Wham. He’d be rolling on the ground. Instead, I looked at the man following behind me.
“Why do you guys follow him? You’re bigger and stronger than he is. What is he giving you to get you to continue with this charade? Your people are on the other side of the galaxy, and you’re never getting back. Why bother with this? Find your backbone or something.”
The doctor yanked on my arm. “Now, that is just what I’m talking about. Your mouth. That isn’t going to earn you any points speaking to him like that. They aren’t going to turn on me. Or Evander. These men understand where and how their futures are laid out. They will be rewarded for their loyalty, whereas your men will be punished. That is the way of the universe. And if you think that black hole is closed, you underestimate our capability.”
That was information I needed, and he’d easily provided it. Mental note, this asshole was easy to manipulate. I nodded at him, and he strode forward while I followed. We walked for a while, and I made notes in my head about where we turned and how many people I saw.
I counted ten other Super Soldiers, including the lethal yet silent man behind me, There were probably more. This ship was huge. How many people did it take to run it? I chewed on my lip when the doctor finally stopped.
He turned to sneer at me before he opened the door to the room. What struck me first as he gestured like he was showing me a new piece of art he’d designed was the blandness of the place. There was no floating air, no drift of sound other than a constant low-pitched buzz to my ears. Still, it was the scariest place I’d ever stepped into. “This, my dear, is where we keep people who we have placed in cryogenic sleep.”
I sucked in a long breath. If there were ten, or more, Super Soldiers awake on this ship, there were hundreds upon hundreds of them asleep in pods in this room. It was a bigger space than all of Artemis combined. I rubbed my arms. All of that temporary confidence fled. Did every Evander ship have this many people on it? How had we not known it was this tremendous? Had the guys been fighting this all along or something else smaller and not understood this was still out there?
“It’s impressive.” He sneered at me again. “Xavier, show the woman where her friends are.”
I loved how he downgraded what they were to me when he knew full well they were more than my friends. And by loved, I was, of course, being sarcastic in my own head. I hated it. With a passion. But I kept my facial expressions benign as I followed after the now named Super Soldier. Pod after pod was filled with people sound asleep, kept in a stasis until they were needed. People who fought for Evander. People who were very much what my guys used to be.
This had been their lives. Wake up, fight, maybe nearly die, and go back into the pod. Until one day, they didn’t anymore. They had different experiences leaving this, each one of them in their unique way, but they’d done it. And now here they were, locked up again, and it was all because of me.
Right here was just what I didn’t want, what I’d told everyone I couldn’t have happen. I didn’t want anyone dying for me. Or in this case, being put in cryogenic sleep when they’d had to endure this for so many years. All of this was because they’d tried to spare me this fate that I had now anyway.
My father should have left me to Evander to begin with. Then the beautiful souls who’d tangled their fate up with my own would not be in this predicament.