defeat than the massive powers of The Council, but I knew better. Even if she had betrayed me, it wasn’t her that I had to face. She was just their pawn.
“All right,” I said, straightening up as she approached. Her offer was too tempting. I couldn’t resist knowing the details of the nightmare that had been haunting me.
She pressed her palms against the sides of my head. Much like Kara could access the thoughts and memories of others, anyone could access her mind as well, as long as she let them in. I found my way through her memories much easier than the last time. Unfamiliar images streamed past me, faces I’d never seen, places I’d never been, but Anna and Chloe were somewhere. I just had to find them. That simple thought drew them out.
The memory I was looking for was clear and began with her coming home from a job. It was an easy one, just a lookout gig, but the guy never showed. She was carrying groceries I knew could only be for Anna and Chloe, two new toothbrushes and an assortment of non-perishables. There was a spring in her step, or mine as it seemed. It was a strange perspective living out her memory, seeing what she saw, feeling what she felt. She was happy to be doing what she could to make up for the atrocities The Council forced her to partake in. But as her eyes found the front door of her apartment, I felt her skin prickle with fear. It was open. I picked up on the sick feeling in her stomach as she pushed it in, expecting what I still refused to believe—that Christoph had found them.
The place seemed empty at first, but even if Anna and Chloe were there, she knew they wouldn’t be up and about. They were hidden below the floor in a secret room she had discovered a few months after moving in. It was a good place to keep them safe until Dr. Nickel contacted her about joining Elyse and William.
Suddenly there were voices, and Kara stopped. They were coming from the back patio. Be calm , she thought. It was probably a Hunter sent to validate her story, their casual way of checking up on things. She knew how to deal with Hunters. They were ruthless and intimidating, but they were also stupid and easy to manipulate. How else could The Council use them for clean up jobs? As she peeked around the corner to get a glimpse of the intruders, her heart sank with such a hopeless sense of dread and panic that I couldn’t help but react.
What? I yelled. What is it? But her memory answered for her—Christoph.
She should have known he’d come to question her. Just as she caught sight of him, he turned his watchful eyes, catching her in the doorway.
He reminded me of a sleazy businessman, corrupted by power and greed, as he stood up to straighten his suit jacket and tie. I wondered how many people he had fooled with his sophisticated style and expensive taste. His hair, a gray that was once blond in his prime, was short and nicely styled, but he couldn’t disguise the evil in his face. His features were sharp. The point of his nose, his protruding cheek bones, the tips of his eyebrows, all unnaturally symetrical. He had thin, tight lips and perfectly white porcelain veneers that made his smile deceitfully charming.
The way he carried himself was intimidating. Kara stood her ground, but with every step he took forward, I felt the urge to step back. His eyes were a cold, pale blue. They were empty, like he didn’t have a soul, and they narrowed in on Kara as if his stare alone could strip her of her life. I could only imagine how much death those eyes had seen, how many times they had widened with excitement at the sight of human suffering.
As he opened the sliding glass door, the two individuals that accompanied him came into view, and with a rush of fear, Kara knew it was over. The man with him was Dimitri, and he was only used for one thing—punishment, or at least the threat of punishment. He could make any living thing age until its death, taking years away from a person’s life, or killing
Laurie Maguire, Emma Smith