Vengeful (Villains #2)(62)

Klinberg raised his hand. “Which team gets to kill them?”

Dominic’s chest tightened, but Rios’s expression didn’t falter. “Neutralization is a last resort, and its teams are built from those who’ve proven themselves in other departments. Safe to say, Klinberg, you won’t be killing EOs any time soon. If that’s a deterrent for you, let me know so I can address the remaining five candidates without your distraction.”

Klinberg had the sense to shut up.

“Before we begin,” continued Rios, “you’re about to sign a nondisclosure agreement. If you break it, you will not be arrested. You will not be sued.” She smiled grimly. “You will simply disappear.”

A tablet was passed around, and one by one they pressed their thumbs against the screen. Once it was back in Rios’s hands, the soldier continued speaking. “Most of you have heard the term EO. And most of you are probably skeptical. But the fastest way to disabuse you of doubt is through a demonstration.”

The doors opened at her back.

“Follow me.”

*

“KEEP your hands inside the ride,” whispered Klinberg as they filed into the hall.

Remember this place, thought Dominic as he fell in line. Remember everything. But it was a maze of white, sterile and uniform and disorienting. They passed through several sets of doors, each sealed, requiring a swipe from Agent Rios’s key card.

“Hey,” whispered Bara. “I heard they have that killer here. The one that offed, like, a hundred other EOs. You think it’s true?”

Dom didn’t answer. Was Eli really somewhere in this building?

Agent Rios tapped a comm on her shoulder. “Cell Eight, status?”

“Irritable,” answered the person on the other end.

A grim smile crossed her lips. “Perfect.”

She swiped them through a final door, and Dominic felt his heart lurch. They were in a hangar, empty except for a freestanding cell in the center of the room. It was a cube made of fiberglass, and trapped inside, like a firefly in a jar, was a woman.

She knelt in the middle of the floor, wearing a kind of jumpsuit, its fabric glossy, as if coated.

“Tabitha,” said Agent Rios, her voice even.

“Let me out.”

The recruits moved around the cube, as if she were a piece of art, or a specimen, something to be considered from every side.

Matthews even rapped his knuckles on the glass, as if he were at a zoo. “Don’t feed the animals,” he muttered under his breath.

Dominic felt sick.

The prisoner rose to her feet. “Let me out.”

“Ask nicely,” said Rios.

The prisoner was beginning to glow, the light coming from beneath her skin, a deep red-orange like heated metal. “Let me out!” she screamed, her voice crackling.

And then, she ignited.

Flame licked up her skin, engulfing her from head to toe, her hair standing up in a plume of blue-white light, like the tip of a match.

Several of the recruits recoiled. One covered his mouth. Others stared in fascination. Surprise. Fear.

Dominic feigned shock, but the fear was real. It crept through his limbs, a warning, that old gut feeling that said wrong wrong wrong—just like it had the second before Dom’s foot hit the IED, the instant before his world changed forever. A fear that had less to do with the woman on fire, and more to do with the cell holding her, the heat that didn’t even penetrate the foot-thick fiberglass.

Rios hit a switch on the wall, and sprinklers went off inside the cell, followed by the sizzle of a doused fire. The cube filled with steam, and when the water cut off and the white smoke cleared, the prisoner sat in a heap on the floor of the cell, soaking wet and heaving for breath.

“All right,” said Rios, “show-and-tell’s over.” She turned toward the recruits. “Any questions?”

*

THE black van was waiting at the end of the day.

All the way back to the city, the other recruits chatted, making small talk, but Dom closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

The “demonstration” had been followed by an interview, an explanation of training protocol, a psych eval, each procedure executed in a way so grounded, so ordinary, that they’d been clearly designed to make candidates forget the strangeness of EON’s purpose.

But Dominic couldn’t forget. He was still shaken from the sight of the woman on fire, and certain that he’d never get out with his secret intact, so he was surprised—and suspicious—when, at the end of it all, Rios told him to report back the next day for further training.

Dom closed his eyes as the van sped on. One by one it stopped and the others were deposited outside their homes. One by one, until he was the only one left, and as the van doors slammed shut on him, and him alone, Dom was gripped anew by panic. He was sure that he could feel freeway moving beneath the tires, sure that they were taking him back to EON, to his own fiberglass cube.

“Rusher.”

Dominic looked up and realized that the van was idling, the back doors open, his apartment building visible beyond in the dusky light. The soldier handed Dom the ziplock bag containing his phone, and Dom got out, but as he climbed the steps and went inside, he couldn’t shake the feeling he was being watched.

There, on the street, an unfamiliar car. He switched the TV on, returned to the window—it was still there, idling. Dom changed into workout clothes, took a deep breath, and slipped out of time.