Page 85 of Fuse

Faline waves a finger.

The torment instantly halts.

“So much better.” She puts her mask back into place and then gently pats the side of my face. “I do regret this crash course in obedience training, little pellet,” she murmurs, rising up. “It was considerably more fun to break in your fiancé, such as it was. Men can be so…stimulating…when they’re pushed to the limit, over and over and over again.” She’s no longer visible to me, but my skin prickles as I gauge her presence around me by the calm taps of her shoes. “But alas, we have such a limited amount of time and so much work to get done.”

Yes.

Shivering.

But not terrified.

What’s the next stage of fear beyond that? The phase where a query has to be stuttered out, no matter how hideous the answer is surely going to be?

“Wh-What k-k-kind of w-w-work?”

The bitch makes me wait for it. Through a bunch of awful minutes, filled with yet more of her tapping those heels, she twists knobs and adjusts a bunch of other equipment—including, I now discern, the tubing connected to at least three IV lines secured to both my arms.

“Upgrading you, of course, chiquita. Expanding you. Empowering you. Improving your pathetic existence.”

I shiver harder.

So hard, my shudders become a wild, jerking fight of their own.

Until I can’t shiver anymore. Because everything in my body is fire.

No.

Not fire.

Heat.

Scorching me. Razing me. Taking over me.

Every shade of blue and then every spectrum of silver.

Then every level of pain.

Until I know. I know.

I’ll never be the same again.

If I survive this hell at all.

REECE

“It’s quiet.”

Though Alex issues the observation in an equally subdued tone, his voice is loud, clear, and completely understandable through the radio comm in my ear—probably because what he’s saying is true.

Freakishly true.

“Yeah,” Foley returns, his hands tense on the Range Rover’s steering wheel as we roll past the Lunada Pointe mansion for the third time. “Too fucking quiet.”

I turn my head toward the mansion, which is just as sprawling as the others on this exclusive strip of oceanfront real estate, with its lush landscaping and Italianate architectural lines. But it’s almost nine o’clock, and the rest of the homes have at least exterior lights on by now. The mansion in front of us is a collection of darkness and shadows, despite the fact that the air around it pulses with the energy one can only experience from another human being. That’s not my magical Bolt-ometer talking, either. That’s common sense, honed after tracking more than my fair share of bad guys in too many “quiet” Los Angeles alleys—and it’s confirmed by Foley’s driving too. He feels it too. He knows it too.

“You picking up anything on the infrared, Trestle?”

“Nada,” Alex answers. “Not even a goddamned lizard in the bushes.”