The Girl Who Dared to Endure (The Girl Who Dared #6)(8)

I arched an eyebrow as I stepped off the ladder, thinking that was good. I knew I shouldn’t be dismissive of him like that—being dismissive of his feelings and wishes was what had landed me in the doghouse in his eyes. And he had a point. I’d had my own difficulties in processing my mother’s death and had allowed myself to cut him out as a result. Part of it was unintentional, but I knew I should’ve given him a better effort.

However, now was, unfortunately, not the time to start. “Good,” I replied, echoing my internal thought. I checked my watch and gritted my teeth. Nine more minutes before we would lose Jasper and Rose. “Now, up the ladder you go,” I told him. “I need to get Sadie out of my quarters, and you being there will only make things more difficult.”

“What did you find in Sadie’s apartment?” he demanded, ignoring my statement completely. Anger welled up in me, and I took a step closer to my twin.

“I will tell you after I get Sadie out of my home,” I hissed, trying not to tear into a rage at the precious seconds this was costing us. “Leo is up in the Attic, alone with the man who cut my throat. Get up there and make sure that the man doesn’t wake up and hurt him while I’m handling Sadie.”

Alex’s eyes gleamed with a dark light that suddenly filled me with doubt about telling him who was up there, but I couldn’t give this any more time, and I had nowhere else to send him. “Maddox, you’re with me. We’ll switch out my net in the elevator. You brought mine with you?”

She nodded and patted her pocket, but her glittering green gaze didn’t drop Alex’s until he began to move toward the ladder. I did my best to ignore the eager motions of his arms, suddenly concerned about what would happen once he got up there, and reminded myself that Leo would be with him. He wouldn’t let Alex do anything to Baldy. Still, the look in his eyes scared me—it had been like I was looking into the eyes of a stranger.

I tried to shake it off as I watched the ladder retract behind him, and then started walking down the hallway, heading for the elevator that would take us to the area between the thirty-first and thirty-second floors, where the entrance to my quarters was. I paused to let Maddox give me access to the elevator, knowing the neural blocker would keep the scanners from reading my net, and therefore keep me from using the elevator. Still, I practically leapt onto the black pad that slid out of the wall as soon as the scan was done.

Maddox followed closely behind, and within seconds I had set the hard drives on the elevator pad and presented her with my back, pulling the collar of my uniform down to give her access to my neck. I heard her rummage around for a second as the floor numbers tracked by, followed by a long silence.

Then her fingers were on my neck, and there was a sharp sting as she cut through the skin at the base of my skull. I endured it easily enough at this point—I had changed nets too many times to count—but still winced as the tendrils of the net began to pull back from my brain. The pressure was intense for several excruciating seconds, but then it passed, the relief palpable in every muscle in my body. I exhaled slowly as I felt her extract the net, now in the form of a square white chip, her fingers disappearing for a moment.

I forced a deep, calming breath, knowing that this was only the halfway mark, and watched as floor forty-five slid past. “Hurry,” I said, trying not to shift my weight from one leg to another.

“Don’t rush me. I’m not as good at this as Quess is,” she replied tersely. Her fingers returned a second later, and the wound on my neck began to sting as she shoved my own net into it. She probed it a few times, seating it in place, and then suddenly the tendrils returned, slithering across my brain like worms wriggling through paths carved out by previous creatures. I withstood it without moving a muscle, and even managed to wait patiently as Maddox dabbed some bio-foam into the wound, letting the pink goo seal up the damaged flesh.

The elevator came to a stop a second later, and I hastily handed Maddox the hard drives. “Move these over to the pile of our stuff that the reset left against the wall, discreetly,” I ordered softly.

She nodded, her face pale and tight with worry. I felt it, too, but had to be careful with my face. Sadie might be sedated and getting regular Spero doses, but I couldn’t afford to let anything show. She might be out of it, but she was no slouch. And if she picked up on the slightest thing out of place, she might figure out that we were behind what had happened in my apartment—and hers. I wasn’t about to let that happen. Not after we had gotten this far. I took one last deep, calming breath, trying to ease away all of my panic, worry, fluster, and anxiety, and then squared my shoulders at the opening doors and stepped through.





4





My quarters were just as I had left them: in the shape of a large, circular platform that doubled as an elevator, enclosed by a domed ceiling. Before Leo and Quess had initiated the reset meant to lure Sadie into my quarters, there had been walls and rooms of my own design, laid out like a snail shell. Now there was nothing, save a central column that controlled the features of the room and a terminal that was suspended from the ceiling next to it.

And next to that stood two figures who were opposite in every way. He was tall, with broad shoulders, while she was short and slender. Her hair was a mass of fire, vibrant against the dark gray of her uniform, while his colors were a direct juxtaposition: crimson uniform and black hair. They stood together, speaking in low voices that were hard to discern over the sound of our boots on the ground.