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- Herausgeber: Artistic License Publishing
- Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
- Sprache: Englisch
Two secret societies, fighting for control of a technology that could alter the fate of the world.
An assassin, bound to protect knowledge left long ago by visitors from another galaxy.
And a woman, caught in the crossfire...
For Rachel, being an Order agent is no bed of roses. Instead of excitement, her life consisted of boredom, depression, and unimaginable loss. But then Darius hands her a mission, which will push her boundaries of what is possible. But it raises the question, how can she ever come to grips with her new life and the dangers she faces in the Order with Adam?
For Adam, he never meant to put Rachel in harm's way. Instead of following procedure and protocol, he's managed to land them both in a heap of trouble. But when Antipolemarchos Valis hands him a promotion, his life of danger and intrigue may be drawing to an end. But it raises the question, will he be able to see it through, or will their visit to Istanbul be their downfall?
With the Org. closing in, a possible mole within the Order, and a dangerous new weapon capable of destroying whole cities, will Rachel and Adam's relationship flourish, or will calamity swallow them whole?
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020
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BETRAYAL
SHADOW WAR
BOOK 2
M FINDLEY
By M. Findley
Published by Artistic License Publishing, LLC
Copyright: 2020, 2025 by M. Findley. All rights reserved.
First Edition: April 2020
Second Edition: January 2025
This ebook is licensed for your enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please buy a copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This novel is a work of fiction. The persons, places, things, and otherwise animate or inanimate objects mentioned in this novel are figments of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to anything or anyone living (or dead) is unintentional.
The copyright laws of the United States of America protect this book. Any reproduction or other unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited.
Created with Vellum
CONTENTS
Trigger Warnings / Content Warnings
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Contact Me
Other Works
TRIGGER WARNINGS / CONTENT WARNINGS
Dear reader,
The following themes are present in this novel. If these subjects are difficult for you, or you are unable to read about them at this time, please skip this book and take care of yourself.
I’ll see you in the next one.
PROLOGUE
Abhay glanced at his fellow poker players, catching each man’s gaze, especially the sandy-haired man sitting across from him: Simon Fitzgerald. After tonight, several weeks’ worth of careful posturing and subtle maneuvering would end. He’d set the bait and executed the steps for success. All Abhay had to do now was wait for the Order’s Hashashin to fall for Abhay’s scheme.
The man to Abhay’s left said, “I raise you five.”
“Draw one,” Simon added.
“Fold,” the last man told the table.
Abhay dealt more cards for the round.
While the others checked their hands, Abhay fidgeted with his mobile—time for his last play of the evening. “I’m out of money,” he announced. The three other men grunted, acknowledging his depleted stack of cash. Abhay spun his mobile—one of the decommissioned Progress Communications prototypes—and added, “But, I’m not folding.” He made a face and held up his phone. “Would my mobile suffice?”
Greed colored the expressions of the men on each side of Abhay, but Abhay only had eyes for Simon. Would he accept the bet?
“The mobile’ll do,” Simon acquiesced.
Abhay plunked the prototype down on the pile of money in front of him. “Your cards?” Abhay prompted, needing to finish the hand they played.
“Flush,” Simon announced, laying his cards on the table.
Everyone else groaned, and Abhay hid his smile. Simon had won the hand precisely as Abhay had planned.
“Good game, boys,” Simon said as he stood, pocketing the phone and the cash. “See you next week.”
Abhay sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. “Next week,” he said with a single nod.
CHAPTERONE
Adam shifted into form eight of his twenty-four form Tai Chi routine when Ella entered the training facility from the women’s locker room. She sidled up to him and slipped smoothly into the following Tai Chi stage as he completed it. They ended the twenty-four forms in the first position and immediately restarted. As they completed the second pass, Ella raised an eyebrow. Guessing her question, Adam answered, “One more.”
Ella nodded once.
When they stopped, Ella said, “Cooling down or warming up?”
“Cooling.”
“Too bad.”
“Why?” Adam asked.
Ella grinned instead of answering, and Adam was blocking Ella’s punch before his conscious mind identified Ella’s attack. Adam smiled as he danced backward.
They circled each other slowly. Adam’s thoughts swirled with fond memories as he fought Ella. She rarely caught him off guard with any of her moves in the past, but she’d been younger then, and he wondered how much she’d learned since their last formal sparring session.
Lightning fast, she crouched and swept her leg toward his knee. Adam blithely hopped over it, but Ella was there with a fist to his gut as he landed. He stepped to the side, left hand swinging down, knocking her hand away. Adam followed the block with a punch of his own. He checked the force as he caught Ella in the chin. Her head whipped to the side, and she rubbed her jaw, smiling. “Ow.”
Adam shifted back into his ready stance. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Ella replied, mimicking his pose.
As they eyed each other warily, Adam asked, “Are you here as a friend or on orders?”
“Both,” she said, feigning a punch followed by a roundhouse kick, which caught Adam in the hip before he could prance out of the way. “Lokhagos Parker called.”
Adam sighed. If his acting Lokhagos from St. Louis had spoken with Ella, then that meant Adam’s formal summons and subsequent trial was imminent.
“Darius has been sent for.”
Shifting his weight from side to side, Adam waited for an opening in Ella’s guard. “When is he due in Istanbul?”
“Next week. You received your formal summons yet?”
“No,” Adam replied, shaking his head and blocking Ella’s uppercut. “But Antipolemarchos Valis has reached out to me.” Ella frowned. “Polite as ever,” Adam added. He sent a kick to Ella’s stomach but missed. “He still wants me to take his place, but after what happened...” He trailed off as he dodged a series of punches.
“After Lee’s death, you mean?”
Adam nodded and then ducked. “I didn’t—don’t—want the responsibility,” he said, landing a strike to Ella’s stomach. She absorbed the energy from his arm and spun out of the way. Adam continued, “Learning about some colleagues dying is one thing. I can do something about that—but when you’re in charge, and something goes wrong...” He paused before adding, “I didn’t fail the others,” Adam said, referencing the recently deceased London Hashashin force, “but I failed Lee.”
Ella nodded in understanding. She would know, Adam thought, now that she was the Western Europe Lokhagos and in charge of the Hashashin posted in the region. Adam sent a kick to her knees, which Ella evaded with a hop and a roll. As she came to her feet, she said, “It’s a lot of responsibility. At the same time, you can’t stay a Hashashin your whole life.”
“Why not? It worked for my father.” At least it did until his death, Adam added silently.
“Only because Antipolemarchos Valis accepted the responsibility in his stead. You know your father was a contender for the position.”
And perhaps, if Saif Haddad had accepted the position, he would still be alive. Adam shook his head. Adam would never know.
“Antipolemarchos Valis is going to push hard for you to take on more responsibilities,” Ella continued, her fist connected with Adam’s chin, and his head whipped to the side. “You know he wants to step down within the next five to ten years, and he’ll want you ready to take over. It’s a high honor.” Ella smiled at him impishly, “I’m not sure I could give you the proper respect, though. There is too much history between us. Besides, Antipolemarchos Black sounds,” she paused. “Odd coming out of my mouth.”
When Antipolemarchos Valis handpicked Adam as his successor, it caused more than a few fights between Isaac and himself. Adam had never aspired so high. He was content in his current role, whereas Isaac, his older brother, and Stratigos of Western Europe continued to push himself toward his next promotion with every breath he took. But, now that the Antipolemarchos role was out of his reach, it annoyed Isaac, not that Adam minded too much. He enjoyed tweaking his brother.
“It still has a nicer ring to it than Antipolemarchos Haddad,” Adam added with a smile, remembering his and Isaac’s last fight about the promotion.
Ella chuckled. “I never understood why you go by Black. Haddad’s your true surname, after all.”
Adam shrugged, not answering—some things he preferred to keep even from friends like Ella.
Ella shook her head and sighed. “Do you still feel like the position is wrong for you?”
Boy, did he ever. “Yes and no,” he replied, falling into a roll to avoid Ella’s high kick. He lunged to the side, barely avoiding her stomp, before standing. “If you had asked me this past spring, I would have declined the position in a heartbeat. But now? Now that Rachel is here, the thought of living in Istanbul? With all the security surrounding the Fortress? Well, it has a certain appeal.” Adam ducked her roundhouse and returned swinging. Ella blocked him, but the force of the blow had to have hurt her. Nope, that wouldn’t do. Adam straightened and pulled a respectful final spar posture.
She raised an eyebrow as she lowered her guard and returned the final gesture. “Did you ask her what she would want?” Ella inquired, panting.
“I’d planned to, but now she’s in isolation, and I can’t even talk to her. And then, I don’t know how she might react. She never...” He trailed off.
“Chose to be recruited?”
“Yes.”
Ella chuckled softly. “I must admit, Adam, I never expected you to fall for anyone, let alone a civilian. If anything, I thought you would end up going for an arranged lineage match once the timing was right.”
Adam had nothing to add, so he shrugged and wandered over to his water bottle, resting on his towel at the wall. He sat. “What can I say? She’s nice, friendly, and stubborn enough to put up with my shit.”
Ella snorted and joined him. “She seemed to be adjusting well to the Order. Well, at least until the isolation part. Now, she’s not eating and is sleeping all day, but I’d expect that for someone in isolation. It’s mind-numbingly boring. I’ve been talking to Isaac about getting her some form of entertainment. As usual, he’s obstinate.”
“You have?” Adam asked, surprised at Ella’s concern for Rachel.
Ella wiped her face as she gave Adam an affirmative grunt.
“It’s good to hear that someone else is on her side,” Adam said, running a towel through his sweaty hair. “I fear he wouldn’t be such a pillock with anyone else in the Order. I’d like to believe he is above doing this to her out of spite for me, but...”
“No,” Ella countered. “Not in spite. Never spite. I think it has more to do with his ‘trusting’ nature than who she’s attracted to.” Ella sipped from her water bottle. “Cheer up,” she continued. “Dr. Campbell and Jack signed off on her ‘programming’ already. So now, we only need to wait for Isaac to relent.” Ella paused and nudged Adam’s shoulder with her own, “Anyway, enough with the friend part.”
Adam watched her out of the corner of his eye. “You going to hit me again?”
Ella snorted. “No. I’m pulling you from the current Prescott operation for a side mission. The official word is you’re to destroy the coffee shop where the Org murdered Grace and remove Kepa Moreno. His current location is in Santander, Spain.”
“On the coast?” Adam clarified, his eyebrows rising in appreciation. “Guess the coffee shop is more profitable than we realized.” Adam’s grin turned feral. “Not for long, though.” It would take Adam two days, three tops, and then he would be back in England.
Ella laughed. “That’s the Adam I remember. You love trouble.” Turning more serious, she added, “Parker also told me there is talk of assigning you to a new Lokhagos.”
Adam glared. Reassignment?
“There is a high probability the Org will be after you again. Prescott may have failed this time, but that doesn’t mean Councilor Ridley or someone else trying to make a name for themselves won’t attempt another strike against you.” When Adam continued to keep silent, Ella added, “All I am saying is, think about where you want to go next. Fast track for Antipolemarchos or something else.”
And with that, Ella stood and left the room.
CHAPTERTWO
Abhay sat on a bench outside the sketchy-looking nursing home with his laptop open. He wanted to check the sound feed from Prototype 5’s amplified signal before visiting Mark. So far, Simon, the proud owner of that mobile phone, hadn’t done anything useful, but Abhay was confident he’d hear something interesting from the surveillance device soon.
It was a guarantee now that it was in the hands of a Hashashin.
Closing his laptop, Abhay stowed it in his bag and stood. Once inside the building, he walked to the nurses’ station and smiled. “I’m here to see Dendric Scott,” Abhay said, using one of Mark’s lesser-known aliases.
“Of course, Mr. Jaya,” the nurse replied with a smile, using the name Abhay had given the nursing home. “Please sign in.”
“And how is my friend today?” Abhay inquired as he scribbled illegibly into the nursing home’s attendance ledger. “Is he awake?”
“Yes. Yes, he is.”
“Excellent. Same room?”
“Yes. We haven’t moved him.”
“Great,” Abhay replied and pushed away from the station counter.
He’d gone no more than two feet from the desk when the nurse added, “He’s lucky to have a friend like you; can you imagine no one else has come to visit him all this time?”
Abhay glanced over his shoulder and replied, “It is a shame,” before continuing down the hall. A shame for no one, he mused. In actuality, it was good news. Abhay had to keep Mark off both the Order and the Organization’s radar, and with Mark’s distinctive injuries, it was a race against time before one of the two warring factions found him.
Arriving at Mark’s door, Abhay heard the deep timbre of Mark’s voice and the higher pitch of a woman responding.
Abhay walked inside the sunlit corner room. His gaze flicked to the TV mounted high on the wall. It was on but muted while the young-looking nurse, Celeste, stood next to Mark. “You are due for more pain medication, Mr. Scott. Do you wish to take it? You should.”
“It’s Prescott, and no, thank you,” Mark said, looking past her toward the door. Surprise appeared to steal his breath when he spied Abhay in the door frame.
“Very well, Mr. Scott. Call us when you change your mind.”
Mark sighed, shook his head, and waved his hand dismissively.
Celeste turned and discovered Abhay waiting in the hall by the door. “Oh! Good afternoon, Mr. Jaya!”
“Celeste,” Abhay replied. “You’re looking as lovely as ever. How are you today?”
Celeste blushed. “Good. You?”
“Couldn’t be better,” Abhay said with a giant smile. “Will you be much longer? Mr. Scott and I have some catching up to do now that he is finally awake.”
She shook her head. Glancing between the two men, Celeste excused herself with a pat on Mark’s knee and another reminder to call the nurses’ station should his pain grow too intense. Abhay nodded to her as she passed him.
Once Celeste had left, Abhay turned to his rival and smiled benignly. “I hope you’re feeling better.” Abhay waited in silence while they sized each other up. Once it became clear Mark wouldn’t speak, Abhay told him, “You’re causing me a heap of trouble. I hope you realize this.”
“What are you doing here?” Mark finally growled at him.
“Saving your life.” Abhay sneered, “You think you magically arrived on their doorstep?” After a pause, he continued, “No, of course, you don’t.” Abhay studied Mark for a moment more, grabbed a chair next to the bed, and sat. In a conspiratorial whisper, he added, “You need to stop correcting the nurses. Until further notice, your name is Dendric Scott, Michael Fendrick, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, or any other name I choose. Understood?”
Mark’s intense glare was his only answer.
“Do you think, for one second, you would be left alive if either the Organization or the Order knew where you were? They’ve been looking for you all over England: morgues, hospitals, old safe houses. They’ve started searching nursing homes—just like this one.” Abhay paused for effect. “Did you know Moreno is dead? A single knife wound, through the ribs, right to the heart. We both know what that means.”
A noise in the hall caught Abhay’s attention, and he glanced at it to confirm that no one was eavesdropping. Satisfied, he said, “I’m using my money to keep you alive. The least you can do is appreciate it and follow my plans.”
Mark was quiet for several breaths before finally asking, “And what are your plans, exactly?”
“To have you healthy and home again, my dear friend,” Abhay replied with a cheeky grin.
“Why do you care?”
Sobering, Abhay replied, “Because one should always help their elders—”
“Cut the crap, Abhay—”
Abhay shook his head and tsked. “It’s Amar Jaya here, Mr. Scott. But I’d prefer Mr. Jaya from you.”
Mark sputtered in anger.
“Careful, Mr. Scott. You wouldn’t want the nurses to check on you, now would you? Put you back into a drugged sleep where you can’t hear someone come into your room at night.” He paused again for emphasis, “Although, it might be better if you went while sleeping. You don’t fear death while dreaming.” Abhay smiled in glee at the concern blossoming in Mark’s expression. “Ah, have no fear, Mr. Scott. I have ears within the compound, and I am listening. I should know of any action taken against you before it happens.”
“How?”
“Let’s just say the alloy you helped discover has a few side benefits you didn’t know about.” Mark’s gaze shifted away from his.
“Or, maybe you did know about it,” Abhay said, contemplating this apparent confirmation of events. Sitting back in his chair, legs out and crossed, Abhay rested his elbows on the armrests and steepled his fingers. “Convenient, isn’t it? That alloy. Able to hear the slightest sound from nearly thirty feet away.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Hmm. Don’t you?” Abhay asked, pushing to his feet, knowing his next words would make Mark capitulate. “Then you are of no use to me, and I’ll let the Order know your whereabouts.”
Mark sighed. “What do you want?”
Abhay leaned forward, bracing his hands on the rails of Mark’s hospital bed, and whispered, “I want the schematics and research notes for the FGRT-334.”
“How did you—Jorge! I knew the pillock was selling my research.”
“It’s a shame you didn’t pay him more,” Abhay said. “It was laughably easy to buy his loyalty.”
“He knows less than you think,” Mark replied smugly.
Abhay shrugged. “That may be—” He would need to keep that in mind once he regained control of the flash drive the Order had stolen from the Luminations lab. Per his last conversation with Jorge, it contained every blueprint and peer-review the man could put his hands on, but Abhay ceded that it might be missing some crucial information. As long as the drive contained the schematics of the Frequency Generator Model RT-334, his top bidder would be content. “—but regardless of what he knew—”
“Knew?”
“Yes, knew,” Abhay answered, and Mark frowned. “Didn’t know he was dead, or had you forgotten?” Abhay asked.
“He’s dead?”
“Yes,” Abhay replied, vividly recalling the blood-splattered lab room showcasing Jorge’s unfortunate demise.
“How?” Mark asked, interrupting Abhay’s musing. “Black? That tart, Rachel?”
“Maybe,” Abhay replied, memorizing the woman’s name for future reference. Maybe she was the one who had taken his flash drive. “He’d been shot in the throat and pushed to the corner of the same room where I found you.”
Mark snorted and then immediately rubbed his chest where the bandages covered his wounds. “Why did you rescue me?”
Abhay asked himself that very question daily. Mark was almost more work than benefit. Almost. Technically, his first impulse, upon seeing Mark’s prone, bleeding form on the lab floor, had been to leave him there. Unfortunately, once Abhay had determined that the flash drive Jorge had promised wasn’t on his corpse or anywhere else in the room, keeping Mark alive long enough to extract his research secrets became crucial. Secrets that were critical to Abhay’s future success and rising income. “Your knowledge.”
Mark harrumphed.
Abhay sighed and rubbed his temple. “Look, Mr. Scott, what do you think will happen to you once you get out of here? It’s not like you’ll ever be able to show your face at the Organization again. They issued the order to kill you on sight.” When Mark didn’t reply immediately with his assurance of cooperation, Abhay added, “I’m your only ally, Mr. Scott. The Council most assuredly doesn’t want someone around who continuously draws the Order’s attention. They wouldn’t shed a tear for you if you died tonight or any other night. In fact, I suspect they would cheer.”
Mark sighed. And after several long beats of silence, he finally nodded. “All right. Can you bring me Liz? If you do, then I’ll talk.”
“Consider it done,” Abhay said as he sat back in his chair.
CHAPTERTHREE
Blood swirled in the clear water, turning it into a surreal Rorschach test.
Was it a rabbit? A unicorn? Or maybe it was a butterfly.
“Munro?”
No, it was a sports car, maybe one like Adam’s fancy Audi.
Adam?
“Munro?”
Rachel jerked into awareness and glanced at her door. Simon stood in the threshold—his perpetual glower, firmly in place. “Yes?” she said, acknowledging him.
“Time to go.”
Time to go? Oh! Her daily trial by doctor or inquisitor had arrived. “Which fun torture is it today? The doctor or the ‘chamber’?” she asked.
For a few moments, she thought Simon wouldn’t answer, but he finally replied, “Dr. Campbell.”
“Oh, goodie,” she said under her breath as she stood and strode toward the door. After three weeks in solitary confinement, she knew the drill. Simon would let her lead the way to the sterile room down the hall from her prison in the basement of the London safe house. The room was stark, outfitted with one-way mirrors, and furnished with the stiffest furniture found. Once there, Rachel would sit for hours while being interrogated or psychologically evaluated.
It was the highlight of her day.
Rachel forced her head high as she left her room and stalked past the stairs. She gazed longingly at them. They would take her up to the main floor of the compound, where life was a bit more hospitable. Instead, she turned toward the—Baum. Baum. Baum—Chamber of certain death. Rachel giggled as she imagined Lord Jareth of The Labyrinth and his goblin minions running around her feet as she wasted away in the dark, damp, oubliette.
Upon reaching the interrogation room, she waited for Simon to unlock it. He pulled it open and stood to the side. Rachel peeked in. A cursory glance showed her that no one was waiting for her yet. She tried not to sigh. When she paused for too long in the doorway, Simon pushed her and said, “In. Now.” He shut the door behind her, and, with her backside pressed against the wood, Rachel felt the minute vibrations in the door as he locked it.
She shook her head and entered the room. Scratchy, anti-sanity, white noise already came from the speakers overhead. Sighing, she walked to the table and sat.
God, she was so tired. She didn’t even have the energy to pay attention to their torment today.
Three weeks ago, Inquisitor Jackass and Dr. Campbell would have asked her detailed questions about her ordeal, but most of the time now, all they did was show her random clips of footage from TV or have her listen to music. Occasionally, they played a recorded message. It listed word after word in a painful monotone. Rachel wasn’t sure what the Order was trying to accomplish, but she’d watched enough Sci-Fi movies to assume they were trying to trigger her “hidden weapon”, a la Serenity style.
Miranda!
Rachel snickered.
So far, it hadn’t worked.
Rachel rested her arms on the table and put her head down. After a few minutes, she awoke to elevator music. It had replaced the static, but after a few more semi-silent moments, she promptly fell back to sleep, oblivious to the room around her.
The scrape of metal against bare linoleum woke Rachel. Snapping upright, she blinked to clear her vision. Her gaze settled on the man across from her. For a moment, her heart lurched, believing Adam had come for her, but then it sank into despair when she realized the man sitting across from her was only Dr. Campbell.
Straightening in her seat, Rachel wiped the drool from her lip and yawned while Dr. Campbell wrote a few notes on the page attached to a notebook clipped to his clipboard. When he finished, he lifted his baby-blue eyes from the sheet of paper to gaze at her. “Is there something you want to tell me, Ms. Munro?” he asked.
“Nope.”
Campbell cleared his throat. “Are you getting along with Mr. Fitzgerald?”
“Simon? Yeah, sure,” she replied with a shrug. “He’s fine,” Rachel added, though she wasn’t even remotely okay. Simon couldn’t care less about her and made sure she knew it.
“Fine?”
Rachel nodded and yawned behind her hand. “Hey? You think we can we skip this today? I’d like to go back to my room and take a nap.”
Campbell shook his head. “What exercises does he have you do?”
Not this again! “You know,” she hedged. “Same old. Same old.”
“Are you saying Mr. Black is a better mentor, or Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t challenge you enough?”
Rachel snorted. “Simon doesn’t take me out for training. I'm sure you already knew that. Simon doesn’t talk to me unless it’s to yell at me about Adam. You watch every move I make. Cataloging it against known misbehaviors. Hell, I can’t even take a crap without Agent Petterson asking me about it.”
She wasn’t bitter. Nope. Not bitter at all.
“Ms. Munro,” Dr. Campbell chided, “your surveillance is for both our protection and Mr. Black’s.”
Rachel rolled her eyes and slumped in her chair. “I’m not a threat to Adam, you, or anyone else in the Order. How many times do I have to repeat it? I didn’t get brainwashed!” She ran a hand through her dirty hair, grimacing at the feel of the oily strands, yet unable to summon the energy needed to care for herself. “Do I really have to spend another five weeks listening to the same questions over and over from you and jackass Petterson?”
Dr. Campbell set his clipboard down and rubbed his face in exasperation. With fingers pressed to his eyes, he said, “Look, Rachel, we have to do this.” Dr. Campbell dropped his hand to his clipboard. “I don’t want to be here either. But unless you want us to sit you down here, by yourself, forever, then you are stuck with these lines of questioning.”
“Can’t you talk to Ella? Isaac? Someone? It’s been three weeks, and I’m going bananas here.”
She even entertained the idea of escaping the Order’s compound for good, but the obstacles were overwhelming. The Order had all her official documents, not to mention when she had initially chosen recruitment, Darius had made a point of stressing she was now irreversibly linked to the Order. The thought of some ruthless Hashashin sent to “take care” of her, of the problem she represented—worse, the idea that it might be Adam himself—was enough to make Rachel abandon her half-formed plans in favor of staying put and staying alive.
“They already know everything that’s going on,” Dr. Campbell assured her. Rachel gave him a baleful look, and he sighed. “Just bear with it for a few more weeks, and then it’ll all be over. Anyway, it’s better to be prudent, right?”
“I guess.”
He nodded and made a note in his file. “Excellent. Let’s continue.” Rachel rolled her eyes. “How do you feel now that you are with Mr. Fitzgerald?”
How did she feel? Her gaze drifted upward until her focus snagged on one of the room’s three fluorescent lights. It flickered. Her attention drifted from Dr. Campbell. When will it go out, she wondered. It clicked on and off so much that it might expire at any moment. Rachel held her breath as she stared at it, hypnotized by the unsteady glow.
Dr. Campbell cleared his throat, making her jump. “Ms. Munro?”
“Yeah?”
“Please answer the question. How does it make you feel?”
“Feel...” she said, then trailed off with a shrug. She felt horrible, claustrophobic, and criminalized. She glanced at the light fixture again. Truthfully, she didn’t want to talk about any of it. Not Simon, Grace, her abduction, Jorge’s death, her family, or Adam. She preferred not to think about any of those things. Not ever again.
“Ms. Munro?”
Rachel focused on Dr. Campbell. “Bored,” she answered, latching on the one emotion that seemed the least threatening.
“Excuse me?”
“I feel bored.”
“Explain,” he prompted, writing a note on his hidden paper.
How? “One newspaper a day isn’t enough to keep me busy,” Rachel tried, still attempting to cooperate. “I’m tired of English crossword puzzles, weeks-old comics, and partially filled-in sudoku. Can I have some books, a Kindle, an iPad, or something?”
“You know we can’t do that.” Dr. Campbell shook his head.
She groaned. “Why? Afraid it might trigger me?”
Dr. Campbell cleared his throat. “No. But, now that you’ve brought up the behavioral conditioning Mr. Prescott subjected you to, I’d like you to tell me more about the machine Mr. Black destroyed.”
Rachel tossed her hands in the air. “Oh, for fuck’s sake! I’ve already told you everything I can about it!”
“Enlighten me,” Dr. Campbell prompted, “Again.”
“Why?” She’d already explained it numerous times, and dread churned in her stomach each time they brought up the NOM. What if she had told Mark something genuinely secret? Or worse, what if Mark had succeeded and the Order found proof? She didn’t believe she was a threat to Adam or the Order. She was positive Mark hadn’t programmed her, but what if she was wrong? What if—
She forced herself to stop thinking about the possibilities.
“Because, Ms. Munro, you shut down your emotions whenever we ask you about these things, and you need to address them at some point.”
“What I need right now is to be let out of that room,” Rachel snapped. “And if you won’t let me out, please let me have something to occupy my time. If you gave me back that loaner PC I once had, I could at least play solitaire.” Or, find out what is on that flash drive from Mark’s lab.
