Inescapable (Talented Saga #7) (4 page)

“
You are too sentimental,
my dear Ian.” Amberly’s voice was low and throaty. “It all comes
down to one person for you, one
criminal
. You have no care for any
of the other prisoners on Vault. You care only about the fate of
one extremely dangerous little girl.”

The room fell silent on the heels of
Amberly’s accusation. Several of the council members looked at
Crane inquiringly, genuinely curious if he planned to vote against
Proposition 2690 solely to protect a single person.

“
Do you deny it?” Amberly
charged. “Can you honestly say that you care what happens to anyone
else on Vault?”

“
Yes,” Crane replied
evenly, refusing to rise to Amberly’s rage. “I agree with
Councilman Tanaka. There is a wide range of laws in our
society—from insubordination to assault, from simple theft to
murder. Most of the prisoners committed relatively minor
infractions, with very few convicted of violent offenses. All have
been tried and sentenced justly. Now you want to just vacate the
terms of those sentences? In favor of death sentences for
all?”

“
Natalia Lyons is a highly
skilled assassin, capable of manipulating others to suit her own
desires and killing with no remorse. When you combine those
abilities with the crime of insubordination, it adds up to one of
the most dangerous prisoners on Vault. That girl does not deserve
your compassion or this council’s leniency,” Amberly bellowed. She
slammed her palms on the table and leaned forward, whiskers
erupting near the corners of her mouth like a bad case of teenage
acne.

“
Natalia Lyons has no
bearing on this discussion,” Michael interjected. “This is not to
be—”

“
Natalia Lyons has
every
bearing on this
decision if that is the only reason Ian is refusing to see logic,”
Amberly fired back.

“
Perhaps we are considering
this too starkly in shades of black and white,” Charlene pointed
out, striving for diplomacy despite the tigress sitting beside her.
“Perhaps we should review each prisoner’s file, and make our
decisions on a case-by-case basis.”

“
There is not time to
dissect five thousand prisoner files, it’s all or nothing.” Amberly
hissed at Charlene before turning her ire back on Crane. “That girl
has caused us too many problems already. You started a war for her,
Ian. You dragged UNITED into that war. I will not let her influence
another decision we make.”

“
Now, Amberly,” Michael
began pleadingly. “That is not fair. TOXIC needed to be dealt with,
we all knew that. Ian and Agent Lyons merely provided us with cause
to take action. And the means to do so, if you recall.”

“
Enough!” Victoria
declared, as she stood, unable to remain complacent for another
moment. The situation was deteriorating before her eyes. If allowed
to continue, Amberly was going to morph into a very corporeal
lioness and attack Crane’s virtual image. “I had hoped we could all
remain professionals as we face the most real threat to our
existence we have ever known, but I will not sit idly by while you
turn on each other. As Ian said, these are dark times for our kind.
The decision we make here, today,” she punctuated the words with a
finger jab to the table, cracking her last unbroken nail, “will
follow this council for the rest of time. There is no ‘right’
choice. There is no ‘wrong’ choice. But we do have to make a
choice.”

Starting with Amberly, Victoria met and held
each council member’s eyes for several beats. She could not force
them to vote one way or another, but she could make damned sure
that they took pause before casting that vote.

“
Councilwoman Azevedo has
made a motion that we vote on Proposition 2690. Councilman Astakhov
has seconded that motion. Are there any objections? Any
need
for further
discussion of the proposition laid before this council?”

No one spoke, but several people shook their
heads.

“
Very well. In accordance
with UNITED protocols, I, Victoria Walburton, head of the UNITED
council, formally commence voting on Proposition 2690, put forth by
Councilwoman Amberly Azevedo of Portugal. This proposition falls
under our Imminent Threat protocols, therefore no council member
may abstain from voting. Councilwoman Charlene Prinsloo of South
Africa has proposed amending 2690 to provide for the executions of
only Level Four and Level Five prisoners incarcerated on Vault, as
opposed to the totality of the prison population. As head of the
council, I hereby rule to include the amended version of 2690 as an
alternative to a yay or nay vote on the proposition.”

Victoria paused to gauge the council
members’ reactions to her last statement. Including the alternative
option was a spur of the moment decision, but she thought the
addition important, and possibly the best compromise.

“
This will be an open
vote,” Victoria continued calmly. “When I call your name, you will
have three options: ‘yay’, indicating a vote for 2690 in its
original incarnation; ‘nay’, indicating a vote against the entire
proposition; or ‘amended’, indicating a vote in favor of
Councilwoman Prinsloo’s addendums. Once again, abstention is not an
option. Neither is elaboration. The time for discussion has
concluded. Am I clear?” The UNITED council members nodded in
unison. “Good. Councilwoman Amberly Azevedo, your vote, if you
please?”

Unsurprisingly, Amberly voted in the
affirmative.

From there, Victoria posed the same question
to each of the remaining nineteen members of the council.

“
Four votes in favor of
passing the original proposal, eight votes in favor of passing 2690
with the amendments, and eight against the proposition altogether,”
Victoria declared when she finished tabulating the
votes.

“
I suppose that means the
decision is yours, Madame Councilwoman,” Michael Tanaka said
quietly, his tone reverent.

As head of the UNITED council, Victoria only
cast a vote when there was a tie.

In a way, it seemed as though her years in
politics and her upbringing in an old, aristocratic family had all
been practice for this very moment, for this very critical
decision. Nothing she had done up until this point in her life or
career, and nothing she would do afterwards, would be as heavily
scrutinized and debated. She did not care whether people thought
her weak or cruel. All that mattered in her mind was that she could
live with her choice.

Victoria took a deep breath, filling the
hollow space inside of her with tense air.

“
Amended,” she said
quietly. “We will execute those on Levels Four and
Five.”

The Privileged

Besançon, France

Four Days Before the Vote

“
You are not focusing!
Concentration is key! Again!” the woman’s disembodied voice
snapped, her cold tone echoing in the small, sterile
room.

Cressa Karmine’s hands
trembled and she swayed on her feet. She was so tired. So
painfully
tired. If they
would only let her rest, just lie down for a few minutes, she knew
she could do better. She didn’t know how long she’d been inside the
exam room—hours, if her level of fatigue was any indication. Using
her abilities was exhausting, more strenuous on her muscles than
any rigorous physical activity like running, rock climbing, or
mountain biking.

“
A-gain,” the voice
repeated, carefully enunciating the single word as if Cressa was
hard of hearing, or maybe just too dense to understand the
command.

Cressa fought to keep her expression
neutral, a simple act that was becoming increasingly harder the
more time that passed. But she had to keep it together, had to make
sure that the Dame knew she could handle this.

Though Cressa had yet to see the woman
behind the Privileged, she knew for a fact that Dame de Glace was
all-seeing. The wall panels, the ceiling tiles, even the
floorboards were her eyes and ears; the Dame was always watching,
always spying, always aware of everything that happened inside the
Institut pour les Privilegies.

Sometimes Cressa believed the Dame’s powers
went a step further; the woman knew things that went beyond the
realm of possibility. It was as if she saw into the minds of her
students and knew their innermost thoughts, their deepest desires,
and their greatest fears.

Which was precisely the truth, of course.
The Dame possessed many gifts, even more than those Cressa would
eventually acquire, and telepathy and mind control were a
given.

The thought made Cressa
shiver. How was it possible that someone she’d never even seen had
such power over her? Had such power over
everyone
?

Closing her eyes, Cressa pushed the thoughts
of the Dame from her mind, inhaled deeply, and flexed her long,
slender fingers.

You can do this,
she thought.
You
must
do this.

And that was the truth of
it. To advance to the next phase, 2P, Cressa
had
to complete this one simple
task. Failure was not an option; those who failed to advance were
released.

Her fatigued muscles gave another
involuntary shudder. She fought the wave of terror threatening to
overtake her. She had been chosen for this. She deserved this. She
would prove herself worthy.

“
Envision the switch.
Imagine the switch moving. Flip the switch,”
a voice that was not Cressa’s chanted inside of her head. The
voice that day was male, young, and brimming with uncertainty.
Cressa did not feel the rush of calm reassurance that had
accompanied the mental commands during her previous tests. Nor did
she feel the undercurrent of encouragement that this time,
this time
, she would be
able to perform her simple task. Instead, she found the voice
distracting and more than a little annoying. She wanted him,
whomever
he
was,
to go the hell away and let her concentrate.

“
Envision the switch.
Imagine the switch moving. Flip the switch,”
the boy repeated unsteadily.

Cressa tried to block him out, but the more
resistance she put up, the harder he pushed.

“
Envision the switch.
Imagine the switch moving. Flip the switch.”

Cold sweat beaded along Cressa’s hairline
and trickled down her spine to pool at the small of her back. Her
breaths came in ragged gasps, as though she was running uphill at
high altitude instead of standing perfectly still in a cool, damp
room. The slight tremble in her hands spread like a virus, crawling
up her arms and down her legs until her entire body shook with such
force that she swore she heard her bones rattle.

Knees weak and legs quivering, Cressa groped
blindly for something to lean on. She stumbled several steps to the
right and her outstretched fingers jammed into a hard, smooth
surface.

The wall,
she thought with relief.

But the surface was too smooth, her palms
too sweaty, and her hand slid down the length of it. Unable to
support her weight any longer, Cressa’s knees buckled. She sank to
the damp floor, defeated.

“
Damn it, girl. All you
have to do is turn on the fucking light! How hard is it to turn on
the fucking light?”
The voice inside her
head was frantic, its owner panicked to the point of hysteria. His
emotions leaked into Cressa. She absorbed his fear and dread like a
dry sponge in a rainstorm.

Inexplicably, his fear invigorated Cressa.
She became angry. No, not angry. Furious.

“
Shut up!”
Cressa thundered mentally.

Climbing first to one knee and then the
other, she narrowed her gaze on her target, though the light switch
by the door was invisible in the all-consuming darkness.

“
Envision the switch.
Imagine the switch moving. Flip the switch,”
the boy repeated, every syllable oozing conviction that
neither he nor Cressa truly felt.

“
Screw you,” Cressa hissed.
The words were raspy and pained, like a death rattle, when they
slid past her cracked lips, yet they boomed in her mind as though
spoken through a megaphone.

Fear lanced through
Cressa’s chest, making her gasp audibly. Her legs threatened to
give out again. And then, an epiphany. The fear she was
experiencing was not her own. It belonged to the boy.
He
was the one terrified
by the prospect of Cressa’s failure, because her ineptitude
reflected badly on him.