Another explosion ripped through the air as we began to walk, and the very walls around us seemed to shake. Dust puffed down from the ceiling. Trae had obviously set timers on some of his explosions. I wondered how he’d managed it. And whether we’d actually have an ancestral home to worry about by the time all his diversions had finally gone off.
“What’s that?” Mom whispered.
“A little something to sidetrack the scientists.” I tightened my grip on her and tried to hurry her steps a little. Though the hallway itself was quiet, my skin itched with the need to be gone, to get out of this place. My luck might have held so far, but my luck had never been that good for long.
A point proven when the sound of rapidly approaching steps whispered across the air.
“Oh, no,” my mother said, her voice cracked and unsteady. “Not now. We can’t be caught now.”
“We won’t.”
The footsteps were coming from the corridor in front of the guard’s box—the one that ran at an angle to this one—and were still some distance away. I stopped, hoping they’d take another corridor, hoping they’d go into one of the other rooms.
They didn’t.
I cursed softly, then guided my mother into the nearest open cell—one that was bigger than some of the others I’d seen. The wide pool was deep, and the dark water smelled fresher than the water in my mother’s cell. The ceiling soared above us, the rafters dark with age and decorated with dust and webs. We might be in the basement, but this room rose the full height of the house. Those were roof rafters above us, not the supports of the next floor.
“I know this room,” my mother said, her nose in the air and nostrils flaring. “They do tests here. Air tests. Underwater tests.”
I didn’t need to ask what those tests were, because I’d been put through a few of them in my time in this place. But never here.
I guided her over to the water’s edge, then gently pressed her down. “Hide in the water. If they come in here and discover us, duck under. You may not be able to use the water’s power anymore, but you’re still a dragon.”
“But you can’t—”
“Mom, just trust me.”
“I do trust you. I just don’t want these monsters catching you again.”
I smiled. “I thought we were the only monsters in this world.”
“Monsters come in all shapes and sizes,” she said grimly. “And many of them are human-born.”
Wasn’t that the truth. “Please, Mom, get into the water. I’ll hide over near the door. With any sort of luck, they won’t even come this way.” Even as I said the words, I didn’t believe them. But as long as she did, nothing else mattered.
She hesitated, then slipped into the cold, dark water. As her sigh of pleasure ran across the silence, I walked behind the door. The footsteps drew closer, not stopping at the guard’s box but moving on quickly. I flexed my fingers, trying to ease the tension creeping through my muscles and wishing I still had the wrench. But I’d put it down when I’d dragged the guard inside Mom’s cell, and I hadn’t thought to bring it with me.
The footsteps came closer, then stopped just outside the door. My breath caught somewhere in my throat and refused to budge, and my pulse seemed to beat in my ears, so loud I swear that person outside the door would surely have to hear it.
For several seconds, the stranger didn’t move. He just stood there, breathing steadily. I couldn’t see him through the crack between the door and the jamb, and he didn’t seem to have any particular scent.
Sweat trickled down my spine. I licked my lips, praying he’d move on. But he didn’t, and it was pretty easy to guess why.
He knew we were in here. Knew because he held one of the receivers. It didn’t matter whether it was my signal or Mom’s, because in the end, we were both here and both caught.
“I know you’re in the water, Aila. Come out where I can see you.”
My breath caught at the sound of his voice, and my stomach began twisting itself into knots.
Because it wasn’t just a guard who stood outside our door. It was the man in charge himself.
Marsten.
The one man I’d been hoping to avoid.
The one man I would probably have to kill if I was ever to have any hope of living a peaceful life.
I flexed my fingers, and forced myself to remain still. He obviously wasn’t standing close to the door, otherwise I’d see him. And until he was close enough for me to see and assess whether he was armed, I had to remain where I was.