He didn’t look at me when he left. I had to move my hand out of the way to protect my fingers when the agents shut the heavy iron door in my face. Three more such slams echoed against the cold hallway. The four of us were in our cages.
Time ticked away. Minutes. Hours. I was alone and shivering in this cold, tiny room, its walls of red clay different from the deep, blinding white cell Brendan had taken me to—the cell Vasily had been tortured in. Though Brendan had called that an interrogation too. Was that what we were in for?
There was no bed, only a dirty toilet I was never going to touch no matter how many days they locked me in here. The walls were soundproof, so I couldn’t know how the other girls were doing, couldn’t even ask them as I curled up against the wall, wrapping my arms around my knees. Vasily had already promised that Saul’s plan would launch soon. We couldn’t be here.
Hours passed. I didn’t know how many. I had just begun to fall asleep when the door creaked open.
“Howard,” I said. Or tried. My voice scratched painfully against the inside of my throat. I had just enough energy to lift my head. Howard kept his eyes concealed behind a pair of shades; maybe it was better. That way I wouldn’t have to see the distrust in them. In his standard agent black suit and tie, he held a tray of food. Beans, corn, and a slab of meat—who knew what kind?
“Howard,” I whispered just as he approached. “There’s something happening inside the Sect. Howard . . .” When I looked past his body, I could see five other agents, fully armed, including his wife, Eveline. She was in Lake’s room, directly opposite mine, giving her a similar tray of food. From what I could see, Lake looked worse for wear, and when she wiped her face and thanked Eveline, I knew she’d been crying.
“Ask Rhys,” I tried again. “Wh-where is he? If you ask him—”
“Agent Rhys is otherwise disposed,” Howard answered coldly. He didn’t get too close, but he was near enough that I could hear him speak even as he lowered his tone. “On a mission.”
“What mission?”
He looked behind him with a slight shift of his head and knelt down a few steps away. “Director Prince Senior sent him to Oslo.” He placed the tray on the floor. “To help stop Saul.”
The tray clattered against the cold floor. The terrible sound battered my shot senses as I stared up at Howard. “Saul attacked.” The words limped off my tongue.
“It’s none of your concern.”
I launched at him, desperately clinging to his jacket, but with a hand he pushed me back against the wall.
“I said it’s none of your concern,” he said. “In four hours, some people from the R & D department will come down to record your vitals and administer another inoculation. Until then, I suggest you eat. Unless you’re planning on starving yourself in here.”
“Saul’s finally attacked, and you’re keeping your best weapons drugged and locked up in a hole underground,” I whispered just as he turned his back. “Or are you another traitor, Howard?”
Howard didn’t answer.
“If Oslo’s APD went down, then there must be a ton of phantoms already.”
“It hasn’t gone down,” Howard said, so suddenly it gave me a start. “Not yet. It’s the most fortified city on Earth. Maybe that’s why Saul chose it. He’s sending a message.”
Through the door, one agent stared at the two of us with narrowed eyes. “Quiet down in there. Agent Day, if you’re done—”
“I’m done.” Howard got up, dusting off his hands. “Like I said, Finley, this is no longer your concern.” He turned his back. “The only thing you can do now is eat. Eat, Maia.”
Only my own reflection stared back at me from his dark lenses as he turned around one last time. Stroking the stubble on his chin, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
The food looked sickly and dehydrated, as if it’d come from cans with expiration dates several years past. But my body was weak and my head was throbbing. I needed something. I pulled the tray toward me with a finger and picked up the disposable spoon, the only utensil they’d given me. Saul attacked. Oslo—that was in Norway, wasn’t it? But before, Saul had only attacked cities after their APD had fallen. How in the world did he manage to subdue the most protected metropolis on his own without the help of phantoms?
The food was ash in my mouth. It went down in lumps like coal. I had to do something. We had to figure something out, not stay locked here like rats, but for some here in the Sect, that was obviously the plan.
I prodded the mysterious slab of meat with my spoon—veal, maybe? I’d staved off eating it all this time because it smelled a bit funky, though maybe it was my imagination. I lifted it up to make sure.
Wait, what?
Furrowing my brows in disbelief, I leaned in for a closer look at the device that had been tucked underneath the meat—an earpiece. Dropping my spoon, I plucked it off the tray quickly and examined it. A little tawny-colored piece of plastic shaped to the curvature of the inner ear—it couldn’t have been anything else but one of the Sect’s communication devices, the same I’d used in so many of the missions they’d given me. Howard did this.
After rubbing the grease off carefully, I stuck the device in my ear.
“Hello? Hello?”
“Finally, you’re on.” It was Chae Rin. “I wondered whether she’d ever figure it out.”
“Well, Eveline could have been clearer about it,” Lake said. “I almost ate mine.”
“Lake, are you okay?” I asked because I could hear the weakness in her voice.
“Thanks for asking, love. I think we’ve all been better,” she answered. “Even still, we need to figure a way out of here.”
“They’re coming in four hours.” Belle kept her voice quiet, controlled. “We’ll need help if we’re going to escape.”
“We know.”
I sucked in a sharp breath. It was Eveline’s voice this time.
“That’s why we took the risk.” Howard.
“Howard,” I said, “you—”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “We’re speaking on a secure line. Though—” He stopped to greet someone. My earpiece caught the sound of his footsteps and those of others. He must have been in transit.
“We’re going to have to be careful,” finished Eveline.
“How many of you are there?” Belle asked.
“This is a delicate operation,” she answered. “We had to keep the circle small. But we need to get you out. Saul attacked Oslo only an hour ago. But we didn’t anticipate how he would infiltrate.”
I was almost afraid to ask, but I did anyway. “How?”
“With an army,” Howard said. “Traffickers, gang members, criminals. People on the outskirts with access to powerful military and Sect-grade weaponry.”
Jin was right. Saul really had been attacking and gathering up all those groups.
“Not just them.” It was almost imperceptible, but I could hear Eveline’s breath coming out of her in a shudder. “There was one . . . with powers. That girl, the one we met in the tunnels. There are dead bodies attacking with Saul’s army, and she is the one controlling them.”
“Jessie Stone.” My fingers naturally curled into fists as I spoke her name. “She’s one of the special soldiers helping Saul. We think she was created as part of the second phase of Project X19.”