Inescapable (Talented Saga #7) (62 page)

“
Are you okay?” she asked
gently. When he didn’t immediately answer, Cressa took a decisive
breath, then plunged in. “What do you know? Is something terrible
about to happen?”

Jerking his head back and forth violently,
Kev moaned. From the front of the room, Madame Brink shushed him
with a single harsh glance. Cressa remained by Kev’s side,
determined to not let this opportunity pass. With everyone’s
attention directed towards the holograms, Kev might answer some of
her questions.

Once Madame Brink looked away from them
again, Kev met Cressa’s gaze.

“
Just watch and listen,”
he muttered. “We’ll talk afterwards.”

It wasn’t exactly an
answer, but she’d take it for the time being.
Cressa shifted her gaze to the front of the room.

“
Wilhelm Studdard, do you
pledge fidelity and allegiance to our cause?” the Dame was saying.
“Do you promise to serve me, the Dame, until your final breath?
With undying loyalty and absolute conviction?”

Sir Tate had removed the first man’s hood to
reveal a pale, swollen face that was barely recognizable as human.
Wilhelm didn’t answer right away. The Dame repeated her list of
demands. When Wilhelm still didn’t respond, Suzu closed her eyes
and scrunched her face in a look of concentration.

Wilhelm began to scream.

Kev Leon began to cry, effectively drawing
Cressa’s attention back to him.

Without thinking, she moved her chair over
again, and then folded Kev into a hug. As he rested his head on her
shoulder, Cressa stroked his silky hair. The boy clung to her as
though his life depended on it.

“
It’s too awful,” Kev
sobbed loudly. She tried to quiet him, but Kev was drawing the
attention of those around them.

Which, Cressa realized belatedly, had been
his goal. Whatever game Kev was playing, he definitely wanted
people to think he was losing his marbles.

To what end?
Cressa wondered.

People with adjustment issues were sent to
therapy and put on medication. Was that Kev’s goal? Why would he
want that?

Yeah, we are definitely
going to chat later,
Cressa thought, still
soothing Kev.

Enthralled with the virtual ceremony, Madame
Brink didn’t avert her eyes to shush Kev. Unfortunate, since Cressa
was fairly certain that his performance was mostly for her
benefit.

At the front of the room, Wilhelm sank to
his knees and doubled over in pain. The Dame’s steadfastly pleasant
voice repeated her questions for a third time, to no avail. Six
times in total, the Dame asked Wilhelm to pledge allegiance to her.
Finally, blood trickling from one ear, Wilhelm relented.

“
Yes. Okay. Yes. I’ll do
it. Just make it stop,” he whimpered.

Mouth agape, Cressa watched as Wilhelm was
hauled to his feet. He repeated the Dame’s words, misery seeping
from him like the blood. Then, two men appeared and led Wilhelm
away.

Kev continued to cry. Absently, Cressa
muttered soothing words that she didn’t believe. They were more for
her benefit than Kev’s, since the celebrity had clearly known from
the beginning what she was just realizing: the Dame wasn’t honoring
the cadets by showing them this barbaric allegiance ceremony. She
was reminding them that their fates were already sealed. There was
no turning back, no option to return to being a norm.

It was the stunt with Lyla and the others
all over again.

Once a person entered the Institute, as a
cadet or otherwise, he or she became a cog in the Dame’s wheel of
domination. Everyone had a part to play. They could either do so
willingly, or by force.

What had she gotten
herself into? The Dame’s allegiance ceremony—really only a
demonstration of Suzu’s ability to create duress—was
crazy
. Crazier than the
frog pond, the source stables, and watching Gracia become a clone
put together.

Unable to look away, despite a deep desire
to do so, Cressa watched as Sir Tate and Suzu moved on to the
second person in the front line. When the bag over his head was
removed, Cressa saw it was another male. He was much older than
Wilhelm, closer to middle-aged. His name was Burt Ryan, and he
didn’t need convincing. The words were barely out of the Dame’s
mouth before Burt repeated them back verbatim.

And on it went. When they’d finished with
the first row of soldiers, the second was shoved forward. Some of
the hooded figures needed more persuasion than others, though none
lasted as long as Wilhelm under Suzu’s mental torture.

And I thought she was one
of the nice ones,
Cressa thought,
disgusted.

Suzu had been so patient with Damon, so
kind. But that soft-spoken girl was gone. Suzu was cold and
unrelenting as she invaded one mind after the next. Somehow,
knowing that Suzu wasn’t a natural sadist made it that much worse
for Cressa. Would she herself eventually commit unspeakable acts,
perform torture, or kill another person, simply because the Dame
commanded it?

No, of course not, Cressa told herself.
Blind obedience only went so far.

Suzu probably thought the
same thing, until she was given a choice between herself and
another,
a voice whispered inside Cressa’s
head.

She shook it off. Even in that situation,
Cressa knew she’d never agree to harm another human being—norm,
Talented, Created, or otherwise.

The third to last person to undergo the
allegiance pledge also happened to be the first woman. She was
younger than most of her male counterparts. Instantly, as soon as
the hood was removed, Cressa somehow knew that the woman’s will was
much, much stronger than the others’.

“
Unbreakable,” Kev
whispered in Cressa’s ear.

Several others in the room started
whispering about the woman on stage. Everyone seemed to understand
that there was something different about her, something both
awe-inspiring and terrifying.

Even Sir Tate was not immune to the vibes
radiating from the woman. When he looked into her beady black eyes,
so full of hatred that Cressa recoiled, Sir Tate flinched and
dropped the hood he’d just removed.

The woman’s short, inky black hair stuck out
in every direction. Her face wasn’t too badly damaged, minus the
split lip. She showed no trace of fear or pain. If anything, she
looked pissed, like being kidnapped, tied up, and forced to swear
fealty to a voice was majorly inconveniencing her busy
schedule.

Cressa liked the woman immediately. She
reminded Cressa of Natalia Lyons, or at least the way she perceived
the young assassin. The expression of complete and utter disdain on
the woman’s face was exactly how Cressa pictured Natalia looking in
the same situation.

Licking away a drop of blood with her
tongue, the woman grinned over her shoulder at Sir Tate.

“
Wouldn’t want any to go
to waste, would we?” she asked coldly.

The temperature in the common room dropped
several degrees.

“
Too strong,” Kev
muttered, his head still on Cressa’s shoulder. “It’ll get her
killed.”

Cressa shivered. Strength was usually a
positive attribute, one the Dame praised in her cadets. But she
understood what Kev meant. This woman wasn’t just strong
talent-wise. She had more backbone than a stegosaurus, and less
sense than a coin-to-globe converter on emptying day. It was
obvious she valued her ideals above her own life.

And for that, Cressa admired her more than
she could ever express. The defiant woman had just become one of
Cressa’s greatest idols, possibly tying for the top spot with
Natalia Lyons.

“
Cadence Choi,” the Dame
began. For the first time, her tone was no longer
pleasant.

“
Save it, you psychotic
bitch,” Cadence spat back. “I will never serve you.”

Suzu made her determined face again. Cressa
sucked in a breath, anticipating the howling cries that were
inevitable.

But Cadence Choi didn’t even grimace. In
fact, she laughed. Not just a wry chuckle, but loud, cackling
laughter that rang in Cressa’s ears. There was no mirth in that
laughter, only shards of ice that cut Cressa to the bone.

“
I know who you are!”
Cadence shouted.

Suzu tried again. Still, nothing.

“
You forget—” Cadence
started to say. The reception went fuzzy in that moment, and part
of her sentence was cut off. “—she is the best there is, you should
know that. If I can keep her out, you’d better believe I can keep
this poor imitation out.”

The same two guards who’d taken Wilhelm and
the others appeared. Cressa held her breath, knowing she should
look away but unable to do so. They were going to kill Cadence
Choi. Cressa knew that with absolute certainty.

Kev knew it, too, it seemed. He covered his
ears and sobbed harder.

Eyes glued to the front of the room, Cressa
watched as one of the guards raised a gun and pointed it directly
between Cadence’s eyes. Cadence’s grin stretched from ear to ear.
The guard pulled the trigger.

He was too slow. Or maybe Cadence was just
that fast.

Either way, by the time the bullet left the
gun barrel, Cadence Choi had vanished from sight. The loud,
cackling laughter echoed in her wake.

Talia

London, England

One Day Before the Vote

The wait was agonizing. Watching Erik give
his speech did little to abate my overwhelming desire to see
him—the real flesh and bone him.

“
You’re making me anxious,”
Bryn Wellington grumbled. “Sit. Have a drink. Calm the bloody hell
down.”

I stopped my frantic pacing and glared at
James’s sister.

Like James, Bryn had intense silver eyes
that looked like twin pools of bottomless soul. She was tall with
an athletic build and though her posture was ramrod straight, she
always gave the impression that she carried the weight of the
universe on her shoulders. In a way, she did. Guilt ate at Bryn.
Guilt for not doing more to help James through the years. Guilt
over helping UNITED track down her parents, even though she hated
everything they stood for.

“
Fine. Coffee. Do you guys
make that here?” I flopped down on the sofa in the VIP lounge of
Pure Bliss and crossed my arms over my chest.

“
Careful,” Bryn hissed.
“Those threads cost a fortune.”

“
So does my bounty. If I
ruin the clothes, you can hand me over to whomever you like as
payment.”

Normal club dwellers couldn’t see into the
VIP lounges, but Bryn had insisted that I dress to impress. Since
my stolen clothes weren’t up to her standards, Bryn had leant me an
extremely uncomfortable silver and cerulean dress that barely
covered my butt. When I’d complained about the length, she’d thrown
a pair of black rose-patterned tights infused with swirls of the
same blue as the dress. The boots, well those I actually wanted to
steal. Knee-high and silver, they had Tahitian pearl buttons up the
front and were way more comfortable than they looked.

“
You’re a right smartass,
Natalia,” Bryn informed me, as though this was news. “I’ll ring for
coffee, though caffeine is the last thing you need. Untwist your
knickers and calm down. Erik will be here soon.”

Positioned on one arm of the sofa, Bryn
tapped the table in front of us to display the club’s menu. With
several quick swipes, she ordered me a coffee and a cocktail called
Blissfully Ignorant for herself. The beverages appeared almost
instantly, on a hover tray that dropped down from the ceiling.

I sipped the rich elixir of life and tried
to take Bryn’s advice. Calm wasn’t easy, though. I was about to see
Erik. After thirty-four days apart, I would lay eyes on him for the
first time. Oddly, I was a little nervous—couldn’t say why.

Kenly and Riley entered the lounge through
the back hallway. My mentee was wearing a lacy gold and black veil
that covered the bottom half of her face, leaving only her eyes
visible. She’d applied liberal amounts of gold liner and sparkly
shadow to her lids, and tiny black crystals clung to her lashes. If
I hadn’t helped her get ready, even I wouldn’t have recognized
her.

Riley had opted for a terrifying motif for
the night. His head was bald and inked with too many skull tattoos
to count. Both his eyebrow and lip were pierced, small silver hoops
in each. Then there was the head to toe red leather. Shiny pants
clung to his legs and hips, leaving nothing to the imagination. The
matching vest was open, revealing a sculpted torso with a leafless
tree with flaming branches. Interestingly, he was one of at least
ten people I’d seen so far in Pure Bliss wearing a similar
getup.