Inescapable (Talented Saga #7) (27 page)

By the time I received Victoria’s message,
summoning me to her office, I was already pounding on the door.

Hank, Victoria’s current errand boy and
personal assistant, opened the office door just wide enough to peek
his head inside. Taking in the scene, he thrust a med kit through
the opening, waving it like a white flag. Miles took the kit, then
shooed the assistant back with a flick of his hand. The other man
was only too happy to comply, undoubtedly relieved to keep a
barrier between himself and my wrath.

Gonna need more than some
drywall to protect you, you coward,
I
thought angrily.

“
Erik,” Miles began, tone
sharp as an executioner’s blade, “you need to calm down,
kid.”

I spun to face him, ready to unleash my next
round of aggression on him. But one look at his tired, hollow
expression tempered my rage. Miles looked as though he’d aged ten
years in the last ten hours. He didn’t know Talia personally, but
he did know how much she meant to me and how devastating her
disappearance was.

“
Sit down, let me at your
hand.” Miles nodded to the two chairs in front of Victoria’s
desk.

With a grunt, I sat.

“
Come on, kid. Let me
see.” He took the other chair, and then gestured towards my
balled-up fist.

Blood leaked over my white knuckles,
trailing crimson streams down my forearm. I unclenched my hand. The
glass was embedded so deeply, it was a wonder it hadn’t poked out
the other side.

“
You aren’t careful,
you’ll have more stitches than Frankenstein’s monster soon,” Miles
remarked.

I turned away from the gory sight, ashamed
by my own behavior. Though I knew this would not be my last
outburst before Talia was found—my temper was too quick, my
emotions too volatile—I didn’t like feeling out of control.

“
We will find her, Erik,”
Victoria said. She’d taken her seat behind the desk once more, and
was watching me through amber eyes that were more feline than
human. “You may not believe this, but I too care about
Talia.”

I’d only managed a brief glimpse inside
Talia’s head while she tore through the endless maze of corridors
on Vault, just enough to tell me that she was furious. More furious
than I’d ever seen her, in fact. Which was saying something. It
hadn’t taken me long to dig the source of that fury out of her
head.

The thought brought a fresh wave of outrage,
sending my temper to all new heights.

“
Right, of course
you
care
,” I spat
venomously at Victoria. “You care so much that you sanctioned her
execution.”

I met the councilwoman’s intense stare,
hoping she was absorbing every measure of my contempt.

“
What is it, Victoria?” I
demanded. “What is it about Talia that made you think you needed to
kill her? Worried she might go rogue if you grant her freedom? Is
that how UNITED views her—as a weapon? One that might fall into
enemy hands? I know you don’t like her, but seriously? You’d rather
see her dead than find a way to deal with your
differences?”

Victoria’s gaze morphed to pure gold. Anger,
both hers and mine, sizzled and popped in the still air like live
wires. When the councilwoman spoke again, her voice was hoarse and
guttural.

“
The situation is more
complicated than that, Erik.”

“
Complicated?” I
yelled.

The glass on the unbroken paintings
splintered in response to my anger, the power fighting to be
unleashed in a storm of destruction. No one, least of all me,
seemed to care.

“
Just answer one question,
Victoria,” I demanded. “Did you or did you not vote to kill
her?”

The friction in the office was nearly
unbearable as Victoria and I locked gazes, neither of us willing to
blink first.

A part of my brain registered a quiet knock
on the door, followed by the faintest creak of hinges. But I
refused to concede to Victoria in this battle of wills, and I
certainly didn’t care enough to look over my shoulder to see who’d
joined our very tense party. Never taking her eyes off of me,
Victoria gave a small nod of greeting to the newcomer.

This time, when the councilwoman finally
spoke, her words were clipped and measured.

“
I do not wish Talia dead,
Erik. She and I will always have our differences. That much is
true. We will never agree on certain aspects of this profession.
Nonetheless, I do respect her. I do care about her a great deal—as
much, much more than an asset or an agent.” Pausing briefly, a note
of something akin to sadness or regret crept into her eyes. “But I
cannot say the same for the rest of the council.”

Miles chose that precise moment to yank the
shard of glass from my palm. The pain barely registered, though I
flinched when he poured disinfectant over the wound.

“
What the hell does that
even mean?” I demanded through gritted teeth. “Cut the political
speak, and just tell me what the hell is going on.”

Victoria eased back in her chair, her face
carefully wiped of all emotion. More than anything she could have
said or done, that expression infused a healthy dose of fear into
my rage; whatever she had to say, Victoria knew I wasn’t going to
like it.

“
This morning, the UNITED
council passed a highly-unorthodox proposition….” Victoria paused,
as if not wanting to continue, and took a deep breath. “Should the
Joint Nations fail to ratify the treaty, the council has approved
the executions of all prisoners on Levels Four and
Five.”

That was all I heard. My brain shut off,
willing the words away.

The councilwoman continued talking, but I
was no longer listening. Nothing Victoria said mattered. It felt as
though my blood was no longer pumping, my organs no longer
functioning, save one.

Invisible scissors bisected my heart
straight down the middle. Then, for good measure, the shears
continued masticating every shred of Talia’s home within my body.
The pain did not lessen, but rather grew more intense with each new
cut.

This isn’t happening.
This
can’t
be
happening. How the fuck could Victoria have let this
happen?

Without a doubt, Talia genuinely believed
she was scheduled to die. Even my tempestuous, impulsive girlfriend
wouldn’t have risked trying to escape from Vault if she didn’t
truly believe it was the only means of survival.

But a part of me had been hoping this whole
time that Konterra, that spiteful guard, had invented the whole
nightmare to screw with Talia. From the brief interaction I’d
witnessed between the two, the guard hated my girlfriend with a
passion that rivaled the way I felt about the council just
then.

With Victoria’s confirmation of the truth,
that hope died a swift, devastating death.

“
How could you?” I hissed,
interrupting whatever Victoria was saying mid-sentence. “How could
you let them do that to her? She saved your life, Victoria. Doesn’t
that count for anything? Talia trusted you. She might not like you,
but she did trust you. Do you have any clue how difficult it is for
her to trust anybody after the way Mac used her? The way he forced
his own damned son to use her? Why do you think Penny and I killed
him? It wasn’t just because of what he did to
us.
When it came to Danbury
McDonough and all the messed up shit he did, Talia paid the highest
price of all.”

My blood was running so hot. I thought it
might boil me alive. As if Victoria’s betrayal and the council’s
screwed up ruling weren’t bad enough, now I had thoughts of the
greatest traitor of all swimming through my mind.

A whirring noise filled my head,
overwhelming every other sound in the room. Then, just as quickly
as it had come, it was gone, only to return an instant later. A
cacophony of sharp cracks and dull thuds punctuated the brief
respites.

Without conscious thought, my abilities were
manifesting the desperate, chaotic, and destructive thoughts
swimming through my mind. The air around me was no longer still,
instead swirling with the sizzling power emanating from me.
Crashing gusts of wind twisted throughout the room, leaving a trail
of wreckage where Victoria’s random bric-a-brac had been. The few
pictures still hanging on the walls slammed to the floor. Papers
sailed through the air as if lifted by a tornado. A vase, two dove
paperweights, and a candy dish all zoomed past me at top speed.

And I was just getting started.

When I sent the cup of sharpened pencils
whizzing towards Victoria’s head, I suddenly felt a hand on my
shoulder.

“
Erik? Son? Can you hear
me? I’m here. Come back to me, son.”

All twenty of the pencils lodged in the wall
behind Victoria, forming a perfect outline of her skull. To her
credit, the councilwoman remained impossibly composed, as though
irate agents routinely stopped by to angrily redecorate her
office.

The hand on my shoulder squeezed just
slightly, applying gentle pressure, and a calming energy settled
over me. Except, it wasn’t at all like when Talia forced calm
emotions into me; it wasn’t the usage of a talent, no preternatural
ability.

Instead, it was the familiarity of the man’s
touch that allowed me to regain control. It made me feel safe and
sheltered, like nothing bad could happen. At the same time, I also
felt like the same naughty little boy I’d been at ten, when I
shaved our family dog because he kept panting in my face.

His voice—one I hadn’t
realized I needed to hear
so
badly—broke through the opaque red smog that was
clogging my brain.

“
I know this is hard, but
you need to listen to Victoria.”

I looked up and blinked, shocked to find my
father’s face hovering above me. Evidently, he was the person who’d
entered the room during my stare-down with Victoria.

“
Dad? What are you doing
here?” I asked, confused. Then, just to be sure I wasn’t
hallucinating, I squeezed the hand resting on my shoulder, testing
its existence.

My father winced at the tight grip, and I
relaxed. He was definitely real.

“
I wanted to be with you
when you got the news, son. Victoria thought you might need me.” He
smiled sheepishly. “I know, I know. You’re a grown man. You don’t
need your father’s shoulder to cry on. But, well, I’m here anyway.
Just in case.”

His words brought a lump to my throat, and I
took several deep breaths. I actually did want to cry on his
shoulder, to find a brief respite from the overpowering emotions.
And, honestly, I didn’t care if that made me look weak or pathetic.
The thought of Talia, so strong, so stoic in the face of adversity,
even as wave after wave pulled her farther under the turbulent
sea—

Wait, what? Where did that come from?
Tals?

Was Talia swimming in the ocean? Finally, I
seemed to be connecting with her, drawn to her frequency by my
girlfriend’s feelings of desperation.

Experiencing that particular emotion from
Tals was terrifying.

I closed my eyes, blocking out everything
and everyone in Victoria’s office, and concentrated on Talia.
Lightning streaked across the night sky, illuminating the roiling
black seascape. Pain shot up my arm and my muscles tensed. Then,
the image in my head vanished. My girlfriend was simply gone
again.

“
Does Talia
know?”

Blinking my eyes open, I found Victoria’s
golden gaze staring back at me expectantly. In the chair beside
mine, Miles was still tending to my injured hand. Behind me, my
father was still patting my shoulder reassuringly. Not one of the
three had noticed my temporary detour into Talia’s mind.

“
What?” I asked. I kept my
mind wide open, in case I was able to connect with Tals again, but
returned my attention to the conversation happening around
me.

“
Does Talia know about the
outcome of the council’s vote this morning?” Victoria repeated
slowly. “About the possible executions?”

“
Yeah, she obviously knows
about the council’s decision.” I shook my head indignantly,
shooting Victoria an incredulous look. “Why do you think she
decided to escape now? Talia might be impulsive, but she’s not
stupid.”

The needle that Miles was wielding pierced
my palm, and I swore loudly. Miles raised his eyebrows, silently
asking if I was okay.

“
Sorry, kid. Should’ve
given you something to dull the pain,” he apologized.

“
I’ve been through worse.
Just get it over with,” I grumbled.

“
Yes, Talia is impulsive,”
agreed Victoria. “That is precisely why I’d hoped she would never
learn of the proposition or the council’s decision.”

She paused, rubbing her temples. The
always-perfect paint on Victoria’s nails was chipped and peeling,
and several of her cuticles were noticeably torn.

Good,
I thought with some degree of satisfaction.
I hope Talia’s escape is giving you an ulcer,
too.

“
The situation is more
complicated than you know,” Victoria continued. “And I am not
speaking about the council’s plans. I do not know who told Talia
about what transpired in our meeting today, seeing as those
sessions are confidential. However, that is the least of our
present worries.”

“
The hell it is,” I
grumbled. “Whoever told her is solely responsible for Tals feeling
like she had to run, and they need to pay for that. I’m betting it
was that bitch Konterra.”