Then Caesar brightened, leapt to his feet, and approached Ember with a wicked gleam in his eye. “You know, there’s something I’ve been meaning to try. And you, little rabbit, have just given me the perfect opportunity!”
Ember’s hands shook uncontrollably. The smell of blood was overpowering, sharp and penny bright in the air. Her stomach heaved and she tasted the sour bite of bile in the back of her throat. She stared at the advancing Caesar, so like Christian in his effortless grace and beauty, his perfect skin and teeth and hair, and fought desperately to maintain a semblance of control. She needed to keep her wits about her, because as soon as she could get him away from Marguerite, this bastard was toast.
Trying to rise, she lurched forward in the chair, but hands clamped around her shoulders and roughly shoved her back. She gasped as a bolt of agony seared a path up her left arm and straight down her spine. The room narrowed to a small circle of receding light, as if viewed from the end of a very long tunnel.
Then Caesar slapped her hard across the face.
Her head rocked back; all the bones in her neck popped. Reeling, she cried out and jerked upright in shock.
“That’s better,” said Caesar as she straightened. He sounded satisfied. He leaned down, placed his hands on his thighs and smiled at her. Then he wagged a finger in her face, tutting like a mother scolding an errant child. “No passing out on me. I need you lucid. We haven’t even gotten to the good bit yet.”
He straightened and gestured to his men, and she was suddenly over the table again, her chest and cheek pressed flat against the wood. One hard, large hand held her head immobile when she struggled to free her arms, similarly pinned. Caesar picked up his knife from the corner of the desk, stroked a finger up its edge and said, “Stop struggling or stepmommy loses an ear.”
Panting in panic, Ember fell still. She cut her gaze to Marguerite, who seemed to be praying. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight and her lips were moving rapidly with silent words.
Caesar came and stood over Ember. He gently turned her left palm up, revealing the mangled mess of the inside of her forearm. He put the knife between his teeth, slowly rolled up the sleeve of his white shirt to reveal a tanned, muscular forearm, and held it out directly above Ember’s own arm. Then he took the knife from between his teeth and in one hard, slashing motion, cut deep into his own skin, straight across the vein.
Blood sprayed from the wound. Horror dried her tongue to jerky in her mouth.
No one else in the room seemed particularly surprised by this turn of events, however. Caesar’s men held her down while he calmly held his outstretched arm over hers and let the torrent of blood rain down over her wounds.
“Oh my,” he breathed, his voice trembling with excitement. “Look at all that
blood
.”
With her head on the desk, Ember was eye level with Caesar’s crotch. Beneath his blood-spattered pants, she saw him grow instantly hard. She squeezed her eyes shut in disgust.
But then…burning.
Itching, like a thousand biting fire ants nibbling on her skin. A wave of heat enveloped her body, and she was drenched in sudden sweat. It became very hard to breathe; the earlier nausea returned with a vengeance. She thought she would throw up.
“
Olé
!
” cried Caesar, satisfied. “I had a feeling that would work!”
Ember looked at her arm, and knew her eyes weren’t working properly. She must be hallucinating from the pain.
Because, as she watched, the gaping, serrated cuts that sliced through the skin and muscle of her arm were swiftly, silently knitting together.
The man holding her head murmured an awed, “Whoa.”
Frozen in horrified astonishment, unable to think or move or breathe, Ember glanced at Caesar. He held up his arm, and there was nothing there except a smear of blood. The vicious cut he’d given himself had entirely healed in the space of a few seconds.
When she looked again at his face, he winked.
Then he reached out and gently stroked a finger up and down her arm, smearing his blood into all the healing wounds on her own skin, getting it into every nook and cranny, deep down into the muscle next to the bone where he’d dug out one of the thin metal plates. She watched his progress with disbelieving eyes, watched as the flesh smoothed itself out and grew together.
It hurt but it didn’t, still burning, still itching, and Ember couldn’t look away.
Caesar leaned down near her ear. “Are you religious, September? Myself, I used to think it all a bunch of mumbo-jumbo jabberwocky, but I have to admit my thoughts are now somewhat…in flux about the matter. I mean, immortality has really changed my perception about the state of life on this planet.”
She finally tore her gaze away from her arm to stare into his eyes. Black and wild, they burned with devout fire.
He said, “Imagine a world without suffering. A world without sickness, or poverty, or war. A world without death. It’s possible, you know.
I
am going to make it possible.”
“By murdering the innocent?” Her voice was hoarse, shaking with fury. “Like those people at the Vatican—”
“That was just to get your attention,” he scoffed, straightening to gaze imperiously down at her. “Unfortunately you humans don’t respond to anything but a show of power, so…I gave you one.” He smiled, a chilling, rabid smile that made her skin crawl. “I’m afraid more displays of power will be necessary before your species is brought to heel.”
He motioned to her arm. Ember followed the direction of his hand and gasped when she saw all her wounds were healed. The only thing left were streaks of blood, glistening red in the overhead fluorescents.
Her arm was whole. Unblemished. Perfect.
Tentatively, she flexed her hand open; there was no pain, not even the old stiffness. She stared down at it in total disbelief.
“You’re welcome,” said Caesar, and all his men laughed. He motioned for them to release her and she sagged back into the chair, stunned.
Caesar came and stood over her again, and now all his lightness and teasing were gone, all the chipper, chilling playfulness vanished. He was utterly serious, the light shining blue off his black hair, his face wiped clean of emotion. Even his black eyes had gone flat; this seemed more ominous than any of his other moods.
“It’s been lovely getting to know you, little rabbit,” he said coldly. “But I’m afraid playtime is over. Tell me how to contact your boyfriend or I’ll cut off stepmommy’s head. And I’m pretty sure that’s not something that can be healed with a few drops of my blood.”
From behind him, Marguerite let out a low, anguished moan. Ember hesitated, and Caesar added, “Although I’m willing it try it if you are.”
“No,” Ember whispered. She swallowed and sat up straighter in her chair, a loud buzzing in her ears. “Please, listen. Just let her go and I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I promise you I’ll cooperate. But please—let her go. She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”
One corner of Caesar’s mouth curled, the tiniest smile. “
Au contraire
, little rabbit. She has everything to do with this. She’s what I like to call
motivation
.”
Without taking his gaze from hers, he backed up slowly until he was beside Marguerite’s chair. The whole time he’d been holding the knife, and now he raised it to Marguerite’s face. She stiffened in horror and let out a choked sob.
“Her left eye first,” he said softly, savoring the words. “Then her right. Then her ears. Then her lovely, lovely lips. And then—if she’s still alive at the end of all that—her head.
After
I scalp it.”
Ember felt the room begin to spin. This was not how this was supposed to happen. She had to get him alone, away from Marguerite…she had to think—
She begged, “Please—please Caesar—”
“No negotiating!” He pressed the tip of his knife against Marguerite’s cheek, and she froze, a little mewl of terror escaping her lips. Caesar moved the knife up to a millimeter beneath her eye socket, and his question came deadly quiet.
“How do I contact him, September?”
Trembling in rage, Ember looked him in the eye and said, “All right. I’ll tell you, but there’s something you should know first.”
Caesar’s brows rose, and Ember screeched, “He is going to tear! You!
Apart!
”
An eye roll, then an aggravated sigh. With a glance at one of his men, Caesar directed, “Search her for a cell phone, will you? This is getting tedious.”
Ember’s heart seized. Her mind screamed
No!
It took all of four seconds for her coat to be stripped off, rifled through, and tossed aside. Then she was surrounded, thrown to the desk and pinned once again, her arms yanked roughly back and held aside while a pair of hands shoved up her long, bulky sweater to her waist.
“Here we go,” said a satisfied voice as her cell phone was pulled from the back pocket of her jeans. The man tossed it to Caesar who caught it easily in on hand.
For a breathless, heart-stopping moment, Ember thought she was safe. But then she glanced at Caesar and knew she was oh so wrong.
His eyes, wolf bright, had focused on where her sweater bunched up around her waist. His lips parted; he took a slow step toward her, his expression one of outraged disbelief.
Then faster than her eyes could track, he was beside her. He yanked up the sweater, revealing what lay beneath. Then he looked at her with such violence in his eyes she thought he might kill her with his gaze alone.
In the darkest, most threatening voice she’d ever heard, Caesar whispered, “Oh you silly, silly rabbit. Tricks are for
kids
.”
He flipped her onto her back, slammed a hand around her throat, and tore off the sweater with his other hand, ripping it down the middle as easily as if it were tissue.
And the air in the room went electric.
“Don’t touch it!” Caesar screamed when one of his men reached for the black nylon vest strapped around her body. Front and back, the vest sported pockets filled with thin orange bricks of plastic explosives.
Ember kicked out with both her legs, but the big black-haired males grabbed them before she could make another move, and her arms were similarly subdued. Shaking in fear, anger, and desperation, she was stretched out over the desk, utterly helpless.
Across the room, Marguerite stared at her in white-faced, open-mouthed horror.
“Semtex,” said one of Caesar’s men, looking down at the nylon vest with an expression of grudging admiration. “That’s some serious shit, boss.”
“Serious shit indeed—and enough of it to blow anything to kingdom come,” hissed Caesar. He leaned directly over Ember, staring down at her with hatred and a crazed sort of fury, his teeth peeled back over his lips. “Where’s the detonator?”
Ember spat in his face.
He snarled and squeezed his hand harder around her throat, cutting off her air supply.
The lights began to dim. Her heart pounded so hard against her chest it felt as if it would burst. There was a roaring in her ears and a thrum like a thousand wing beats inside her head. Images flashed before her eyes, color and light and movement, but all she could think was a single word.
Christian
.
It wasn’t over yet. She could still find a way.
Caesar reared back, then slammed his fist into her face.
She heard the crunch of bone as if from very far away, felt the wet warmth spread over her cheek and down her neck. There was still no air, and her lungs burned with the effort to breathe. Caesar screamed his question in her face again, but the room was starting to go black, and everything was fuzzy around the edges.
“This can’t have been her idea—the boyfriend must have planned this—we have to assume he knows where we are!” Caesar was furious, shouting at his men, the vise around her throat tightening with every word. “Call Marcell—evacuate the bunkers—institute emergency protocol! And for fuck’s sake,
make sure they take the serum!
”
Suddenly the vise was gone and Ember was dragged off the desk, landing with a bone-jarring thud on her knees. She coughed and gagged, gulping air and tasting blood. Her arms were held high over her head as Caesar ran his hands carefully over the vest, and around her waist, legs, and shoulders, searching for the detonator.
He found the short metal cylinder, slender as a pen, taped to her right forearm.
He carefully removed it, unstrapped the vest from her body, and set both aside on the desk.
“Take that with us Nico, we might have a use for it—but be fucking careful!” he barked.
The one with the bandaged hand came forward and took the vest, while another picked up the detonator between two fingers, stared at it for a beat, then slowly left the room, holding it at arm’s length in front of him.
The two men holding her released her arms at Caesar’s command, and Ember collapsed to the floor, struggling to remain conscious. Pain flared like fireworks through her nerve endings, and everything was fractured and disjointed, like images in a funhouse mirror. Caesar stared down at her, his chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes silvery-black and glittering like coins at the bottom of a wishing well.
“You’re so lucky you have something I want. If you didn’t, you’d already be gutted like a fish.”
He leaned down, grabbed a fistful of her hair, and dragged her to her feet. He held her up while she swayed and struggled to focus her eyes on him, to breathe through her shattered nose. He pulled her closed and hissed into her face, “What should we name him?”
He saw the confusion in her glassy eyes, and smiled with evil glee. “Oh dear, this just keeps getting better! You don’t know, do you?”
In the frozen, bottomless moment that followed, Ember’s mind struggled to absorb what he was saying while at the same time recognizing the sound of cars pulling into the lot behind the store and braking to a screeching stop. Caesar heard it too, and so did his remaining two men. They all stiffened, on instant high alert.
“Out the front!” he commanded. In one swift movement he lifted Ember off her feet and threw her over his shoulder, headed for the door.