Chapter 5 5

It's beautiful, but also...evil. My skin crawls as we walk further into the heart of the Compound. So much work and thought was put into this section. It's impressive. But it's exactly what I would have expected from a malevolent, power hungry man like Cyrillius.

There are four doors that break off from the hall, two on each side. And straight ahead, there is a towering set of double doors. They're pitch black, but there are solid gold designs lacing all over the surface.

Cyrillius pushes the doors open, and I'm shoved ahead.

If I thought the hallway was impressive, it is nothing compared to Cyrillius' personal office.

The walls, like everywhere else, are solid black. Except the wall straight ahead. The entire surface glows a nearly blinding bright shade of blue. It sparkles and shimmers.

As my eyes adjust, I realize that it's made of carefully cut and placed shards of Neron. They're cut in precise shapes to capture light and reflect and refract light, sending it dancing.

There's enough Neron on that wall to power a city for a solar. And it's just sitting on Cyrillius' wall, as decoration.

A black desk with gold inlays is off to the right side of the room. Sitting in the center of the room, are four gold chairs, set in a square.

12-3 nods her head for the soldier behind me to put me in one of the uncomfortable-looking chairs. He directs me so hard, I trip into the seat, landing hard on my right hip and nearly falling out when he releases the Neron rod.

"Remove the collar," Cyrillius says as he takes a seat across from me. "She's a human being, not an animal."

Edan steps forward and waves his connect-link over the back of the collar around my neck. It pings and unlatches, clattering to the ground when Edan doesn't reach for it and my hands are not free to try and catch it.

"I thought you were a quick, decisive man, Cyrillius," I say, locking my eyes on him. "What's with the dramatics? I'm not afraid to die, so you can go ahead and get my beheading over with."

"You have fire in you, Nova Ainsley."

Every drop of blood in my body goes cold at hearing my name come across his lips.

"Yes," he says as he crosses his legs. He rests his elbow on the arm of the chair, touching his chin. "We did finally discover your name. There are many people on Korpillion. There are a lot of security cameras. But we found some information about you. That you worked for Horne Energy. That you are the daughter of a maintenance worker for a school. That you used to be romantically involved with a co-worker. That they were both crushed when one of the towers collapsed the day I arrived on your planet."

My skin crawls. At hearing that Cyrillius knows about Zayne, about my father.

But every part of me sings in triumph that from the footage he apparently watched, he thought Zayne and my father were killed.

He has no idea they made it to the other side.

"Don't you dare speak about them," I say, turning my face away from him, letting my eyes fall to the floor. I even manage to make my eyes well a little bit.

I'm learning that I'm a slam good actress.

My eyes slide back to see Cyrillius give that little smile.

Oh how I will claw his lips from his face.

Screams rip through my brain and the room flashes white and black as Cyrillius' mouth gapes open, his eyes turning white, blurring.

I twitch back in my seat, blinking five times, clearing the horror from my eyes.

Slag.

What is happening to me?

"What is the matter, Nova?" Cyrillius asks, and if I didn't know better, I would say that was genuine concern in his voice. "Are you not feeling well?"

I take a slow breath and straighten in my chair. I hold my head high. "I don't know what you're talking about. I feel absolutely fine."

I notice that Edan took exactly one step closer toward me. Just one. Because he's concerned. I know if this goes too far, he'll do his very best to tear apart this entire room and everyone in it.

But he'll also get vaporized in two seconds if he does. If he isn't careful enough.

So he took only one step toward me.

"What is it you need from this woman?" Cyrillius says to Edan, and maybe I'm doing a decent job playing his mind game too, because he doesn't continue trying to worm his way into my head. "Let's clear your business and you can get paid and leave."

"I told you it wasn't easy capturing her," Edan says, taking a swaggering step forward. "Others have tried and failed. I tracked her down by setting a trap. I set up a deal. Credits for a weapon."

"Two-faced lying cack-he," I growl under my breath for effect, glaring death at the man I'm more grateful for than anyone else in the galaxy at the moment.

Edan smiles coldly at me, and I swear he really did betray me, he's so good at this. "I commissioned a weapon from her, paid through the nose for it. She promised me delivery in two days when we last met, and I got the feeling she was getting squirrely on me. And she did try escaping. That's when I caught her."

Edan takes another step toward me, fixing me with his tired, hollow eyes. "I paid for that weapon. I don't intend to leave until she finishes it for me."

He slowly looks back at Cyrillius. "I went to a lot of trouble to bring her to you, Cyrillius. Surely you can show your gratitude and let me crash here until she fulfills the order I paid for?"

My heart is thundering in my chest as the two of them look back and forth at each other.

We have so many holes in our plan. So many what ifs.

We're already going off script.

I was supposed to kill Cyrillius the moment I saw him.

I tried.

I failed.

Now we're onto our back-up plan.