Once she joined him, Brad led her past the empty screening rooms and turned down another hallway that led deeper into the basement.
“How’d your Bio II final go?” he asked.
“Well, I think.”
“Just out of curiosity, does your gift ever come into play when you take exams, maybe help you guess correctly if you don’t know the answer?” He and the other researchers truly believed she had a psychic gift.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never really thought about it.”
“Do you always get As?”
“Yes. But I attribute that more to taking good notes and studying my butt off than to anything else.”
He opened a door and ushered her inside.
It was the same room they’d been using since she’d been selected. Larger than the first, this one held a longer table with more comfortable chairs. Upper and lower cabinets painted steel gray lined two walls. A third wall—the one opposite the door—boasted a large framed mirror. Lisa glanced at it, wondering anew if perhaps it was a two-way mirror behind which faces peered at her.
Creepy. She hoped not.
Brad crossed to a minifridge beneath one cabinet and retrieved two bottles of water.
Lisa settled herself at the table as he took the chair across from her.
Once more, a wooden slat divided the table in two and kept Lisa from seeing the surface on the other side. But this time a laptop graced it rather than a clipboard and Brad typed in her responses instead of scribbling them down.
Reaching across the divider, he handed her a water bottle. “It’s hot today, isn’t it?”
“It is.” And she still had to walk all the way from the farthest parking lot, so she was pretty much a sweaty mess. “I think it’s supposed to reach a hundred degrees tomorrow.”
He grimaced. “Great. The AC just went out in my car.” The cap on his bottle crackled as he turned it, breaking the seal. He took a long swig, then set it aside. “Okay. Today we’re going to focus on faces.”
“Okay.” Lisa picked up her water bottle. Condensation already gathered on the exterior, dampening her hand. The cap made a crackling noise as she twisted it and removed it. Then she tilted her head back, brought it to her lips, and let the refreshingly cold liquid slide down her throat.
A chill skittered through her as it instantly went to work, lowering her body temperature.
“We’re going to start with face cards taken from several different standard decks,” Brad continued. “We’ve painted the backs so they all look alike, but the royal images bear some differences.” He held up the cards to show her the black backs, then turned them and fanned them out so she could see the array of figures. Some of the royal figures were dramatic and fancy. Some were funny and cartoonish.
“So you want me to tell you whether it’s a king, queen, or jack?”
“The first time,” he confirmed. “Then we’re going to go through it again and I’ll ask you to include the color—red or black. Then we’ll do it one more time and I’ll ask you to include the suit, too.”
“Okay.” She set the water aside.
“Great. Here we go.”
Lisa spent the next fifteen minutes guessing the figure on the cards he held up. As she did, her head began to ache. Reaching up, she rubbed her temples.
Brad’s brow furrowed. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Just a headache. Probably the heat. Or a sinus headache. My allergies have been bugging me a lot lately.”
“Mine, too. You want me to find you some aspirin or acetaminophen or something?”
“No, thank you. I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
They began round two.
Lisa got the distinct impression she wasn’t doing as well today.
Brad really did have an expressive face and looked alternately puzzled and concerned. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I’m sorry. My head is really pounding. And my vision is a little blurry. Maybe that’s throwing me.”
“Your vision is blurry?”
“A little.”
His brow furrowed. “Do you get migraines? I don’t remember any mention of that in your medical history.”
“No. I was up late last night, doing some last-minute cramming. That’s probably all it is.” That and the heat, though the room they currently occupied was nice and cool.
“We can reschedule if you want. I don’t think Dr. Jensen would mind.”
She waved a hand. “No. We only have another half hour to go, right?”
“Right. Okay then. Let me know if you change your mind.” Brad shuffled the deck and once more began holding up cards.
Lisa did her best to concentrate, but her headache just got worse and worse by the second. Her stomach began to churn a little, too. Crap. She hadn’t picked up the flu, had she? She was run down from staying up late studying too many nights in a row. And the guy next to her in her US history class two days ago had spent the entirety of the final-exam period coughing and hacking with his mouth wide open.
“Lisa?”
She blinked. “What?”
Brad was studying her with blatant concern.
She glanced at the card he held up.
Oh. Right. “King of shpades.” She frowned. Wait. Had she said spades or shpades?
Brad slowly lowered the card. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
A wave of light-headedness washed over her. Lisa gripped the edges of the table as she reeled to one side in her seat.
“Shit!” Eyes wide, Brad leapt up and rushed around the table. He gripped her shoulder firmly with one hand to steady her and knelt beside her. “Lisa?”
“I’m not feeling so good,” she murmured.
He gently brushed her hair back from her face, then felt her forehead. “No fever.” He leaned closer and stared into her eyes. “Your pupils are dilated.”
“So’re yours,” she murmured. His nearly eclipsed the blue of his irises.
His frown deepened. “I’ll go get help.” Rising, he spun to face the door… and lost his balance. Staggering to one side, he threw out a hand to brace himself against the counter. “What the hell?” He sank to his knees.
Lisa tried to call his name, to ask if he was all right, but couldn’t seem to make her mouth work. Darkness floated at the periphery of her vision, then rushed forward. The sensation of falling took her. A clatter arose. Pain pierced her when her head hit the floor.
She tried to move. Tried to call for help.
But everything went black.
Chapter Two
Taelon ground his teeth as pain assaulted him. Endless agony. Excruciating.
Every time he thought it couldn’t get worse, the butchers would find a new perverse torture to inflict upon him. Neither remorse nor empathy glittered in the eyes that followed the path of the knife as it cut away a piece of flesh here, another there. Instead, gleeful fascination lit the expressions partially obscured by masks, pleasure in the face of his pain. Needles pricked his skin, stealing more blood than he could afford to lose. One of the doctors injected a substance in a tube that ran into his vein. His head swam. His thoughts grew hazy.
He should have listened to Ari’k. The stoic Yona guard, whom Taelon considered a friend despite the latter’s emotional detachment, had urged caution and counseled patience. But so much time had passed since the Earthlings had gotten their hands on Amiriska that Taelon could find no patience. The information Janwar had unearthed was outdated. The Gathendiens knew where Amiriska had been taken—a military base in the province of Texas. But that base had been destroyed shortly thereafter.