Infinity Bell: A House Immortal Novel Read Online Free PDF Page A

aisle was a wide wooden door. I didn’t see any cameras, but that didn’t mean they weren’t here.
    Quinten tapped on the door, and the door slid into a pocket in the wall.
    Gloria, whom I’d only ever seen on screens, gestured for us all to enter, then closed the heavy door behind us.
    Her face was smooth, dusty olive skin framed by long, straight hair that shone glossy black. Gloria’s eyes were bright, brown, and wide. She was shorter than I expected, a bit curvier at the bust and hip, and even more beautiful in person.
    “Matilda,” she said. “Please put him there for now.” She pointed at a wide table on one side of the room. “Wewill need to be quick.” She crossed to the computers near that table and flicked through screens.
    The room was clean, white, clinical. It didn’t look or feel like a back-alley kind of operation. This was a top-notch medical facility. The machines, equipment, lights, and cabinets with glass doors that revealed carefully labeled containers weren’t homey, but the place was well stocked and capable of handling all sorts of medical disasters.
    “I can scramble your signals out to a five-mile radius,” Gloria said.
    “That’s not far,” Quinten said.
    “It’s the best I can do. You wouldn’t have been tracked over water—the signal is too erratic—but here on land, they will try to lock on to you. The faster we debug you, the better.”
    “Debug?” I asked, easing Abraham, stretcher and all, onto the table. His skin had gone a deeper yellow, with bluish shadows around his eyes and mouth. If we didn’t get that Shelley dust out of his system soon, it was going to do irreversible damage.
    “Every House bugs their people,” Gloria said. “Quinten is carrying four bugs. How many Houses did you get loaned out to?”
    “Several,” he said with a sigh, pulling off the beanie and dragging fingers through his curls.
    “And Mr. . . . ?” she turned away from the screen and gave Neds a questioning look.
    “Harris,” Right Ned supplied.
    “You have one bug.”
    He nodded.
    “But you don’t, Matilda,” she said. “So that’s lucky for you.”
    “What about him?” I asked, pointing toward Abraham.
    “His vitals and systems are under such distress right now that I can’t tell.”
    “Shouldn’t we stabilize him?” I asked.
    “First we have to pull those bugs. Or I won’t have any time to fix anyone, because we’ll have half a dozen Houses knocking down the doors.”
    Quinten stepped forward. “Do me first.”
    Her gaze searched his face and I thought there was a question there, the way her eyes settled unflinchingly on his. I thought there was an answer in the tip of his head, the softening of his mouth, which her gaze slipped down to study.
    I had no idea what they were not talking about.
    If I had to guess? My brother had spent time here for more than just the medical training she offered. He had spent time here for her.
    What else would have brought such sudden calm and focus to him? What else would have shadowed his eyes with old pain?
    “It will hurt,” she said quietly, still not looking away from his mouth.
    “I know.” His lips slipped up into a rueful smile.
    She seemed to remember that they weren’t alone in the room and straightened a bit. “This way, then.” She took him to what appeared to be a lit shower stall at the far side of the room.
    That was my cue to look away. Seriously, if my brother was about to get naked, I didn’t want to see it.
    “You knew about bugs?” I asked Neds.
    He shrugged. “Didn’t think about it, really,” Left Nedsaid. “It’s so commonplace. You get owned by a House, you get bugged. Everyone’s bugged.”
    “I’m not. House Brown doesn’t bug,” I said.
    “Yeah, well, House Brown isn’t so much a House as a handful of people who don’t have the sense to stop fighting a war they lost a long time ago.”
    “Freedom isn’t something you give up on when you’re tired,” I said, as the