She faced forward, fitted a gas mask onto her wet face, and walked toward the door she’d been told to come to. Yes, there was an actual front door. She’d missed that when she and Christa tumbled out of a fourth floor window. Though her presence was no doubt already known by whoever was on the other side of that door, Ridley raised her fist and banged on the metal surface anyway.
Surprisingly, it was Alastair Davenport himself who opened the door. Ridley would have assumed he had security people or Mr. Knockoffs or other minions for things like that. No doubt they were lurking nearby, just in case Mr. Davenport needed something urgently. “Well,” he said to Ridley. “I’m mildly disappointed. I thought you would at least attempt to sneak in using magic and try to get your family out of here before I could stop you.”
Ridley glared at him, an expression he probably couldn’t see but which made her feel slightly better. “This is what you asked for. You assured me they’d be dead if I tried something like that.”
“True. But you don’t have a particularly good track record of doing what I or my subordinates ask.”
“I guess if you’d started by threatening my family, things might have worked out well for you sooner.”
Alastair sighed. “Such a cliché. And yet it almost always has the desired effect.” He tilted his head to the side. “I’m not sure why you bothered with the mask. You won’t be leaving here unless you’re happy for me to dispose of your father and grandfather—who, by the way, I was surprised to discover is still alive. I assume the story behind his fake death is an interesting one.”
It was, but if Alastair didn’t know it already, Ridley wasn’t about to enlighten him. “I’m not taking the mask off,” she told him.
“Then you’re not coming inside. If you’re keeping a gas mask on, then you’re clearly not willing to hand yourself over, so there’s no point. Our negotiation ends here.”
“And if you’re lying about having my father and grandfather?”
“You heard their voices when we spoke earlier. I have the commscreen your father was using. And clearly he’s been missing long enough for you to be concerned about him, since you’re here. But you’re right. I could be lying. Your father could be …” Alastair shrugged. “Missing somewhere else.”
Ridley exhaled slowly. She knew this was probably how things were going to go down. But she’d figured she should at least show some resistance before walking straight inside. Grudgingly, she reached up and pulled the mask off her head, then dropped it on the ground at her feet. She hated how weak this simple action made her look.
“Good girl,” Alastair said. He stood back and gestured politely for Ridley to come in. This time, the glare she gave him was entirely visible.
Almost drenched now from the rain, she stepped inside. The door creaked as it eased shut behind her. The entrance to this place was simply a hallway with a solid metal, full height turnstile up ahead. “How welcoming,” Ridley muttered.
“As you’re aware,” Alastair said, placing his forefinger against the fingerprint scanner beside the turnstile, “this place isn’t meant to be welcoming.” He pushed Ridley ahead of him. She stumbled forward, catching hold of one of the metal bars as the turnstile swung forward, then clanged to a halt with her on the other side. A minion stood in front of her. He tapped a code onto the screen beside the fingerprint reader on this side. After a beep, Alastair scanned his fingerprint a second time and walked through. “This way,” he said.
Another three muscular minions materialized from the shadows. Two fell into step ahead of Alastair, while two strode behind Ridley. “I hope we’re on our way to your fabulous new containment chamber,” Ridley said, “since that’s where you’re apparently keeping my father and grandfather.”
“Think I was lying about that too?”
“There’s a good chance you’re lying about everything,” Ridley said as they turned a corner and continued along the next passageway, “so I’d like to see for myself that they’re okay, and then I’d like to see you let them go.”
“It’s touching that you have such strong feelings for people you’re not even related to.”
“Yeah, well, I think it’s been established that I’m capable of far more feelings than you are. Your level of concern when you realized your own daughter had taken that useless serum of yours and was probably going to die wasn’t exactly—”
“Do not talk to me about Lilah!” Alastair shouted, startling Ridley as he whirled around to face her, all composure shattered in a second. His dark eyes bored into hers. No one moved. Ridley held her breath, not daring to ask whether Lilah was dead yet or not. Her galloping heart pumped adrenaline through her body. She was prepared to let go of her magic and change to an elemental form at a second’s notice.
Alastair inhaled, turned around, and continued forward. When he spoke again, it was in a level tone. “You are a menace. You and the rest of your kind. You have the sort of power no mortal should possess and you’re using it to destroy what’s left of our world. That is why people like you should not exist, and that is why I’m going to extraordinary means to rid the world of all of you. I may have had to make sacrifices along the way, but the final outcome will be worth it for everyone left behind.”
“We’re destroying the arxium,” Ridley corrected, “not the world. Destroying the world is what you did.”
Alastair stopped in front of a door and turned to face her. There was something like disbelief on his face and amazement in his voice when he said, “You still think you have the right to life.”
Ridley almost said ‘Of course I have that right,’ but she figured that part was obvious. The part that confused her was that this man seemed to genuinely believe the opposite. It hurt in a way that didn’t make sense, given how little she cared about his opinion. “Why shouldn’t I?” she asked.
“I’ve known for some time that elemental fire burns through arxium, but I had no idea until you destroyed an entire building in the wastelands just how easy it was for you. How effortlessly a single elemental could bring about such destruction. I thought our arxium provided us with a decent level of protection from people like you. But even if we reinforce every wall and floor and ceiling of our homes with arxium, you can still burn your way through and then vanish afterwards. Doesn’t that seem wrong to you?”
“You can kill someone and then pay people to cover it up. Doesn’t that seem wrong to you?” Ridley countered. “We all have a responsibility to be decent human beings, no matter what kind of power we have.”
Alastair shook his head. “There is such a thing as too much power, Ridley, and I’m not the one who has it.” He opened the door to reveal a room full of screens. Images across the wall displayed numerous scenes: the grassy area outside the entrance where Ridley had ben standing minutes ago, the wastelands on the other side of the wall, various laboratories and passageways, several rooms like the one Ridley had been kept in.
Alastair gestured for Ridley to walk in ahead of him. Her feet carried her forward as her eyes scanned every screen until she found the one showing two male figures. She rushed toward it, leaning closer to be sure the two figures were Dad and Grandpa. Relief flooded her body. Grandpa sat on a bench, while Dad paced back and forth in front of him. Even from the limited view the screen provided, Ridley could tell the room they were in was sizable. “So that’s your containment chamber?”