Inescapable (Talented Saga #7) (14 page)

Goosebumps peppered my skin as I considered
the other ways Victoria might have finished that sentence. Because
there was no doubt in my mind that “freedom” wasn’t what she’d been
thinking.

A knock on the cell door
abruptly cut off our conversation, just as my mind filled with
questions for Victoria. Something was up. I didn’t know what, but
there was definitely
something
.

The door slid open and a painfully thin
woman, just slightly older than me, entered my cell. Her emerald
eyes had lost some of their luster over the past month, and her
jet-black hair grew duller by the day. Still, Anya Pritcher was
beautiful by anyone’s standards.

“
Councilwoman Walburton, I
apologize—I didn’t know you’d be here. I can come back later, if
you like,” Anya offered.

“
No need, Dr. Pritcher, I
was just leaving,” Victoria replied easily. “It is important for
the prisoners to receive their injections as scheduled.”

Anya nodded, then walked over to the meal
table and placed a compact metal case on the small surface. She
pressed a finger to the keypad, waited a beat for her identity to
be verified, and began removing vials of clear liquid.

UNITED gave all of the prisoners on Vault a
daily dose of the suppression drug—a chemical cocktail meant to
subdue our talents, making us prisoners less dangerous and easier
to control. Along with my lunch each day, I received an injection,
sort of like the worst side dish ever.

In my case, the injection was all for show,
since I still had access to my abilities. But only three people
were aware of this: Victoria, Anya, and Yocum. Despite the fact it
was against every rule UNITED had for Vault, they were all
complacent in allowing me to keep my talents, since none of them
reported the issue.

Victoria was under the impression that I was
somehow immune to the suppression drug. The reason she’d kept mum,
and ordered Yocum’s silence, was because she liked being able to
pass mental messages to me. It was the only way for her to keep me
apprised of what was going on in the outside world, and the only
way for us to communicate without being watched or overheard.

Anya, however, knew for a fact that I was
not immune to the drug.

Like me, Anya was a former TOXIC operative.
She’d worked in their medical research department, and had been the
one to discover that TOXIC’s doctors were injecting me with the
exact same suppression drug used on Vault. Anya had also been the
one to uncover the reason behind those injections—Danbury
McDonough, former TOXIC Director, had not wanted me to know that
I’d been infected with the creation drug through a blood
transfusion. No one even knew about the creation drug at that
point; it was still a clandestine experiment that was being carried
out in top-secret research facilities, using orphans and runaways
as test subjects. Because of this, Mac had ordered my created
abilities suppressed to keep the secret.

Since we were both fully aware that I wasn’t
immune to the suppression drug, it was a safe bet that she’d been
swapping the real deal for sugar water or something equally
benign.

Ever since we’d rescued Anya from the
Poachers, she’d been incredibly nice to me, even requesting
placement on Vault, which was not a place most doctors wanted to
work. All of the prisoners were assigned a doctor, who was in
charge of administering injections and overseeing the health of the
incarcerated. As luck would have it, I’d been assigned to Anya.

This, of course, was not a fact I’d shared
with Victoria. Anya didn’t deserve sanctions on my account,
especially not when she was trying to show me kindness in the only
manner at her disposal.

“
Talia, I will see you
tomorrow morning,” Victoria continued, standing from her seat on my
bed. She stretched her back discreetly, giving my thin mattress an
annoyed look. Then, glancing at the papers I was gathering up, she
added, “I will have the cryptos see about obtaining those police
interviews and reports for you.”

Placing two fingers above my brow, I saluted
the councilwoman. Returning my attention to stacking the scattered
papers of the file, a note I’d made on one of the pages caught my
eye.

“
Oh, Victoria? There is
something I wanted to ask you about,” I called after
her.

Pausing in front of the door, Victoria
glanced over her shoulder. “Yes?”

“
I meant to mention it
earlier, but the stuff about Erik’s attack has me all distracted.
Selby Masterson—does that name mean anything to you?”

Glass vials clattered and broke over in the
corner of the room. My gaze shot towards Anya. Hands trembling, she
fumbled to right the bottles. Several had cracked, and one was
oozing its magenta contents all over my meal table.

“
I am so clumsy,” Anya
mumbled, hurrying to clean the mess with a sterile towel from her
case.

I eyed the doctor sympathetically, not
fooled by her claims of clumsiness; my mention of Erik and the
attack had clearly rattled her.

Before me, Anya had been Erik’s girlfriend.
While their relationship was never all that serious, they had once
cared for each other. They still did, just not in quite the same
way.

“
Erik’s going to be fine,
Anya,” I reassured her kindly.

She turned, the wet towel in one hand.
“Hmmm?”

“
I was just briefing Talia
on Agent Kelley’s condition,” Victoria spoke up. “It appears his
injuries are very minor, and the doctors anticipate a quick
recovery.”

Anya paled, a feat I’d have thought
impossible given her already milky complexion. “I am so glad to
hear it. I saw the urgent update on my comm earlier, and I was so
worried.” She hesitated, casting her uncertain gaze towards the
floor before meeting Victoria’s eyes. “If I may ask, have there
been any new developments on the identity of the attacker? Or
information about the group they work for?”

Victoria’s golden stare raked Anya from head
to toe, slight annoyance showing in her pursed lips. “Not at this
time,” she replied brusquely. The councilwoman turned back to me.
“Selby Masterson, did you say? The name is not familiar. Why do you
ask?”

“
I don’t know,” I replied
honestly. “It’s just, I swear I’ve read the name before. Just
thought you might know who she is, or maybe where I would’ve heard
of her.”

“
As far as I’m aware, Ms.
Masterson is not currently affiliated with UNITED,” Victoria said,
taking her communicator from her pocket. “I do not have our
employee roster memorized, but I do recognize most of our operative
names.”

Her thumbs tapped rapidly on the screen for
several moments, then Victoria shook her head resolutely.

“
Selby Masterson is not in
our operative database,” she confirmed. A thoughtful expression
overtook her patrician features. “Since she is not UNITED, perhaps
you saw the name, or maybe heard it, during your time with the
Hunters?”

I shrugged. “Not that I can recall.”

“
I will have someone run a
search through TOXIC’s records, or what few of them we have been
able to recover.” Victoria returned her gaze to Anya. “Dr.
Pritcher? Do you recognize the name Selby Masterson?”

Anya was still cleaning the spilled
chemicals and broken glass, but stiffened at Victoria’s question.
With trembling fingers, she folded the last shards of glass in the
towel and smiled nervously over her shoulder at the
councilwoman.

Funny,
I thought,
Anya works with dangerous
prisoners all day, every day, yet little old Victoria makes her
nervous.

“
No, ma’am, I do not,” she
replied. “I am sorry I cannot be of help.”

The words were spoken in a controlled tone I
was familiar with, one that was usually accompanied by an
underlying deception. But a quick scan of Anya’s emotions detected
nothing of the sort. Victoria hesitated, gaze darting between Anya
and me, her expression suggesting that she also thought the doctor
might be lying. Still, the councilwoman didn’t press the issue.

“
Well, no matter,” Victoria
replied simply. “I am sure our people will solve the puzzle in no
time. Talia, please finish going through the file I gave you. I
would like to report your findings to the council
straightaway.”

With those parting words, Victoria slid
through the cell door, the airlock whooshing closed behind her.

Erik

UNITED Medical Facility

New York, New York

Four Days Before the Vote

“
I’m fine, Miles,” I
snapped for the tenth time in as many minutes. “Stop hovering over
my bed, it makes me feel like an invalid.”

Miles was a good guy, but his mother hen
tendencies were super irritating.

“
You’re wounded, Erik,”
Penny reminded me from her perch in the corner of my hospital
room.

“
Ten stitches,
Penny—that’s nothing,” I retorted. “I won’t even have a cool scar
to show Tals when we get back.”

Not that she’d think that morning’s incident
was amusing. Knowing Tals, she’d swear vengeance on the little
girl, along with everyone the girl had ever encountered in her
short lifetime. Not for the first time, I was glad my girlfriend
wouldn’t have heard about the attack and my injuries. I hated when
she worried, which she always did.

My own memories of the attack were a little
hazy. I recalled the little girl with the shifting appearance. I
recalled asking her if she was Talented. Then, I woke up in a
damned hospital bed.

Which I was still in two hours later, with
wireless electrodes attached to my temples and peppered across my
chest. Even though I was anxious to get out of there, I was still
being monitored on two side-by-side wallscreens mounted beside the
uncomfortable hospital bed. One showed images of my brain, with
certain sections lighting up periodically. The other displayed
views of my insides, both the organs and the bones.

Between Penny and Miles, they’d filled in
the missing chunk of time. Apparently, the girl had been a suicide
bomber. She’d waited for me to get within range, and then detonated
the explosive. Thanks to Miles’s quick reflexes, I was yanked far
enough out of harm’s way to avoid the worst of the blast.

Which was ironic, because a buckle on
Miles’s boot, which I’d landed on during his rescue, caused the now
stitched-up gash on my shoulder. Somehow, the fact that my most
serious injury was more the result of bad luck rather than the
attack itself made this stint in the hospital feel even more
ridiculous than it normally would have.

I was totally fine. I just wanted to put my
charred clothes back on, and get the hell out of there. Not one of
my injuries was life-threatening, or even remotely worrisome, a
fact I’d been shouting at every doctor who’d entered my room thus
far.

Unfortunately, the same could not be said of
several others who’d been within the small blast’s range. A member
of my security detail and three innocent bystanders were all
grievously wounded in the explosion. The UNITED guy was currently
in surgery, with a topnotch medical team attempting to repair his
internal damage.

The thought of so much bloodshed on my
account made me sick to my stomach.

“
It’s not your fault,
Erik,” Penny said quietly, reading the thoughts I had yet to voice
aloud.

I glared at her. Penny realized her error,
instantly turning bright red. Which made me feel a little bad,
since I knew she wasn’t being malicious. Just not bad enough to
apologize.

Telepathy was relatively new to both of us,
so controlling the urge to read others’ minds while also actively
blocking their thoughts was not something either of us had
mastered. Still, we’d both spent enough time around Talia to know
just how intrusive it was to have another person experience your
mental ramblings. Penny didn’t like it any more than I did.

I’d give anything to have
her here,
I thought wistfully.

Unlike with Miles, I would have welcomed
Talia’s face hovering over mine. Love and concern swirling in her
eyes, vengeance coursing through her veins.

Unfortunately, Talia wasn’t here, and
wouldn’t be showing up any time soon. At least, I was guessing
Vault didn’t grant Level Five prisoners furloughs to visit their
barely injured boyfriends in the hospital.

Maybe I should check with
Victoria on that
, I thought, adding it to
my mental to-do list.

Of course, thinking about Tals on Vault
instantly wiped the smile from my face. From what I’d been told,
the dangerous prisoners—and Talia was considered one of the most
dangerous of all—were heavily sedated. The thought of my
headstrong, passionate girlfriend reduced to a vacant-eyed zombie
made my blood boil.