“No,” he says, shaking his head, “we don’t.” Reaching down, he hauls me up with a fistful of my black jacket, popping off a few of the buttons. “We’re getting off this ship if I have to throw you over the side.”
As I look him in the eyes, I kick him as hard as I can in the kneecap. His eyes shutter in pain. I wiggle out of his fist, running full out down the corridor.
I don’t make it halfway before I’m lifted off my feet, and I crash sideways into the wall. With my back to it and my toes nowhere near the floor, I hang on it like a trophy animal. Giffen hobbles over to face me with a seething look.
“Your gift is more useful than mine,” I grunt, trying to pull my arm away from the wall. It won’t budge.
“If you want to call it that. I tend to think of it as a curse, since it puts a price on my head,” he replies. “But in this instance, I don’t mind it so much.”
“Was your mother a priestess too?”
“She is a priestess.”
“She’s alive?”
“Last I knew.”
“You have the freak gene, like me. I heard that most males don’t inherit it.”
“They don’t, and when they do, they’re killed.”
“They didn’t kill you,” I point out.
“You have a gift for the obvious.”
“Are you taking me to them?” I will kill you if you try.
“To whom?” he asks.
“The Alameeda.”
“Why would I? They’re my enemy.”
“Why do you want me then?” I ask in exasperation.
“You can see the future. That makes you valuable to us.” He places his hand on my throat again, but this time he doesn’t squeeze it; he merely strokes it softly. “If you want to save yourself, start being useful. Otherwise, you’re a danger to us. And we eliminate danger.”
“Who are ‘we’? I thought that Wurthem is Alameeda’s ally.” I’m so confused.
“I may be from Wurthem, but that doesn’t mean I subscribe to their politics or their shortsightedness! Whom do you think Alameeda will target once they’ve killed everyone else?” he rails at me.
“Why would they kill their allies?” I ask.
“Citizens of Wurthem aren’t part of their master race.”
“You’re all one race, aren’t you?”
“Not to them.”
“Why would the Brotherhood want to kill you? I would think that you’d be an asset to them as well. You can move things with your mind—you’re telekinetic.”
“That makes me stronger than them, and they fear anything stronger than them.”
“You’re a lost boy,” I murmur. “I’ve seen your type before in foster care. Run off by a father or stepfather or sometimes just an abusive mother’s boyfriend. It’s in your eyes. I know you.”
“You don’t know me and I don’t know you. But I will kill you if you try to run from me again,” he states honestly.
He lets go of my throat. Whatever force he used to hold me up against the wall releases. When my feet touch the ground, he grips my upper arms and yanks me down the hall.
Skittering around the bot approaching us, we have to grip the wall as another flying bot carrying parcels almost brains us. We pass a corridor with signs marking it as the cookery. It’s the advanced automated area where most of the food is prepared and then conveyed throughout the ship to the commissaries located in private quarters. Winding through corridor after corridor, we turn the corner, stumbling upon sliding doors leading to a loading bay. Access to the bay is restricted, monitored by a holographic soldier and a few mounted guns on the walls that are operated remotely.
“This way,” Giffen says, tugging me toward the checkpoint.
I try to tug my arm away from him. “I can’t leave! I have to warn them about the attack!”
“They’ll never believe you,” he snarls at me, “you just poisoned their defense minister. The best you can expect from them is that they’ll kill you quickly if they capture you.”
“If I leave then everyone dies!”
“Everyone dies anyway. You saw it.”
“I can change that! Let me change that!”
He stops. “You can change it?”
“I’ve changed it before.”
“But you can’t stop the attack.”
“Maybe you’re right, but Rafe can be ready for it when it comes.”
He shakes his head. “It’s too great a risk. This house will fall.”
“What do you mean?”
“Rafe falls. It’s prophesied. One house will rise to rule and one will fall. It’s foretold.”
“I thought the house was never named!” An incredible ache squeezes my heart.
“Rafe’s done—Alameeda will begin exterminating them soon. If you want to survive, stop resisting me, because I’m your only chance.”
“You’re lying! You don’t know it’ll be Rafe!” I shout.
He covers my mouth with his massive hand. “It’s obvious it will be them, and I don’t care if Rafe falls,” he whispers with a severe scowl. “They’re not my people! I’m here to make sure the Alameeda don’t rise to power, or we’re all dead! So you’re going to go through those cargo bay doors in front of us. You’re going to follow wherever I lead you. We’re going to find a transport that’s leaving and we’re going to get on it. Any deviation from the instructions I’ve just given you will end with me crushing your skull. Nod your head if you understand me.”
I nod my head.
“Let’s go,” he orders.
He removes his hand from my mouth and moves it to grip my hand, tugging me to the door. With every step we take, my panic grows. If I leave with him, I may survive, but Trey won’t. I can’t live with that. For the first time in my life, my survival is not as important to me as someone else’s.
The holographic soldier that guards the doors doesn’t have a chance to detect our presence, because Giffen raises his hand and the projection apparatus smolders, making short-circuiting noises. Next, he shorts out the cameras and the eyes on the mounted guns; they swivel in several directions, but none of them aim at us. He forces the sliding doors to open telepathically, and then he uses a laser eye on one of his uniform buttons to strobe the security wall. The blue beams that guard the bay disappear.