Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats) (30 page)

helplessness, the isolation. At one time, those memories would’ve made her freeze, and maybe cower, but

now, they only strengthened her resolve. Kiarra was no longer a prisoner. She had her freedom and her fire.

And she wanted to help her friends.

It would damn well take more than Ty Adams’ presence to stop her.

Kiarra stood taller, careful not to let her anger show through. “Ty.”

Ty dismissed the other woman and gave Kiarra a wry smile. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to see you again, Kiarra.”

She ignored his attempt to distract. “I came here to bargain for Millie’s life.”

Even from halfway across the room, Kiarra could see the surprise in Ty’s eyes. A second later he

replied, “Something is different about you. But even so, you have nothing to bargain with. The only reason I’m here is because I called in a few favors.” He took a step toward her. “You probably won’t believe me, but I wanted to make sure you were brought in unharmed.”

Kiarra raised an eyebrow. “Bullshit, and we both know it. You watched from behind the mirror as they

carted me off for a whipping. A whipping, I might add, for an offense I never committed.” Ty took a step toward her, but Kiarra took a step back and maintained her distance. “You lost the right to care about my welfare the instant you said nothing and let them accuse me of seducing you.”

For years she had been angry and hurt by Ty’s actions, but now all she felt was anger at his selfish

cowardice.

Since her teenage years, Kiarra had assumed no one cared about anything but themselves. From the

perceived abandonment by her parents to Ty’s callous behavior, her whole world had seemed self-serving.

But thanks to the strange man who’d blazed into her cell, Kiarra now knew there was good and bad inside

every person. Just as there were people who only cared about themselves, there were also people who put others first.

Kiarra wanted to be the latter.

Any doubts she’d had about seeing her plan through dissolved.

Ty stopped trying to close the distance between them. “Everything I did was for your welfare. I wish

you could see it.”

Kiarra snorted. “Yeah, right. You tell yourself that.” She made sure to reach her free hand to the south for show and raised a palm. “Meanwhile, you should know something.” Kiarra summoned a flame to her

hand and realized how much easier the process was becoming, even without Jaxton nearby. “Your

experiment was a failure.”

Ty blinked, and Kiarra felt satisfied at his surprise.

“How can you summon fire?” Ty asked. “I nullified the ability.”

Kiarra gave a slow smile. “That’s why I’m safe without your protection.” She flipped her hand, palm

downward, and the flame danced to remain on the top of her hand. “The AMT won’t kill me because they

like to study anomalies.”

Her next move was risky, but Kiarra had gone into this meeting knowing that this was her only chance

to find her friends. If Gio was willing to torture an innocent woman, he wasn’t just going to hand over

Millie without a fight. And she highly doubted Ty would be willing to negotiate Millie’s release.

A first-born who could gather fire despite years of receiving their precious Null Formula, however,

would be carted away to the nearest research facility and studied. Since AMT research facilities were few and far between, Kiarra was betting that they’d bring her to the same one as Jaxton and Millie. The AMT

staff might try to neutralize her abilities, but if she could direct fire without reaching to a particular compass point, then she might be able to use elemental fire in a neutralization chamber.

The plan was full of a lot of “what ifs,” but hopefully her gamble would pay off.

Kiarra gathered energy toward her and created an eight-inch-tall flame before she directed it toward Ty’s head. As expected, he reached for a tranquilizer gun as he rolled out of the way and shot a dart straight at her. Kiarra didn’t try to dodge it, and once it sank into her arm, she instantly felt the effects.

She slumped to the floor and the world went black.

And why do I deserve it?

The words echoed inside Gio’s mind, much like they had all afternoon. Even though Millie Ward was

falsely pronounced dead and being transported to a secure location, her accusations lingered.

Gio shook his head to clear away the thoughts. The woman was gone and now under someone else’s

care. Once his acquaintance informed him that Millie had agreed to live under a false identity, and let her go, Gio would never have to deal with her again.

The panel on his desk buzzed, signaling that someone was outside his door and wanted to talk to him.

Gio pressed a button and said, “Yes?”

“
Sir, it’s Ramirez, with a progress report.
”

His retrieval team had captured Jaxton Ward earlier this morning, and Ramirez was in charge of getting

information out of him. Sources said that Ward was a first-born activist, suspected of working with

DEFEND.

Gio pressed a button to unlock his door and said, “Enter.”

Ramirez walked in and quickly closed the door. “The prisoner is still being uncooperative, but now that

the escaped first-born has been secured, I have a new strategy I wanted to run by you.”

Kiarra’s successful capture was news to him, but Gio was careful not to betray that fact. He’d deal with the information lapse later. “What do you have in mind?”

“The prisoner is protecting the woman. From all accounts, he drew the retrieval team away from her so that they would follow him. I think he cares for her.” Gio waved for the man to continue. “If I can show she’s being abused, her life on the line, he will probably do anything to guarantee her safety.”

“Even though the first-born’s life is protected by the AMT Oversight Committee, but he won’t know

that.”

“Exactly.”

While Kiarra had broken the law and first-borns could be sentenced without trial, there were limits to

what he’d allow. “Tell me what you have in mind.”

“A few bruises and maybe some ripped clothing, but nothing more.”

Millie’s voice filled his mind:
Why does she deserve it
?

No, this was different. He could justify Ramirez’s request because Kiarra had broken the law. “Fine, but have someone else rough her up so you can establish a ‘good cop, bad cop’ scenario. That way she might

be more cooperative with you later on.”

Ramirez nodded and left to carry out his plan.

Gio was not going to feel guilty for following the law. Kiarra had escaped and resisted capture. Without making an example out of her, others would try to follow suit. The AMT Oversight Committee and, most

importantly, his father would make Gio the scapegoat if he didn’t follow through. And any opportunity to learn more about the pediatrics facilities and the AMT-conducted experiments would disappear.

He stilled. When had learning more about the inner workings of the AMT become more important than

repealing Article I?

Keep lying to yourself.

The woman. She was partly to blame for this. Without her mistreatment, he probably never would’ve

gone sniffing around the AMT records, nor discovered information about the breeding program. Still, he

couldn’t be too angry at her; her pain had opened his eyes. He still struggled with the newfound image he was starting to get of his father, but Gio hesitated to deem him guilty without all the facts.

All he knew was that in order to continue to have access to privileged information, he needed to find

out about Kiarra’s capture and analyze the report. He needed something to tell his father.

He checked his email and scanned the report on Kiarra’s capture. The basics were there, but at the end,

the man who’d taken point hinted at something important, something too risky to be shared over email. Gio sent a text message to arrange a meeting; the man replied right away to confirm the time and place.

With any luck, he could ship Kiarra back to the Cascade F-block within the next few days and have a

new assignment from his father soon after that. The longer it took to get Kiarra out of the same facility Gio stood in right now, the greater the chance of Gio meeting Kiarra. As he’d learned with Millie, reading or hearing about a beating was one thing, but confronting it face to face was another. He couldn’t afford to think of Kiarra as anything more than an escaped first-born.

Chapter Thirty-One

Jaxton grunted as a fist connected with his stomach, and then again, before the interrogator backed off

and waited. But despite the pinpricks of light hovering at the edges of his vision, Jaxton forced himself to appear nonchalant, as if he hadn’t been beaten to a bloody pulp the day before. He’d learned quickly that the AMT interrogators took advantage of the slightest sign of weakness.

And he needed to stay strong if he wanted to help either Kiarra or his sister.

Kiarra.
Hopefully she’d arrived at the safe house without incident. No doubt the AMT interrogators would’ve used Kiarra against him by now if they’d caught her. But since their questions had mainly focused on first-born activist groups, and not her whereabouts, he was going to assume she was safe until he found out otherwise. Kiarra was resourceful; no doubt she’d contacted Aislinn and was already planning a rescue mission.

Or so he hoped.

Whatever might’ve happened, Jaxton needed to focus on finding a way to escape; he wasn’t much good

to anyone whilst he was tied to a chair.

His wrists were tied behind his back with a nylon rope that also stretched to his ankles. The position

was not just uncomfortable, it made escape nearly impossible without a weapon. Anytime he’d been left

alone, Jaxton had tested his bonds, but they weren’t loose enough yet to slip his hands out of the rope.

Jaxton needed to think of another way to get free.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much he could use inside this room. Apart from his chair and a few

cabinets, the room was pure steel. The drains in the floor only confirmed his suspicions about the purpose of this room—he reckoned that he wasn’t the first person to be interrogated here.

As he’d done with the man who’d visited him earlier, he eyed his interrogator for anything he could

use. But the man was clever enough to be dressed in simple attire, without weapons.

His current interrogator noticed Jaxton’s scrutiny, walked over, and smashed his fist into Jaxton’s cheek.

Jaxton forced himself not to react to the pain and calmly spat out the blood from his mouth before

testing his newly loose tooth with his tongue. The interrogator watched him, and Jaxton could tell the man was sizing up Jaxton’s current state, to see how much more he could take.

A few seconds later, the interrogator finally spoke up. “Which first-born group do you work for? Or did

the first-born slut simply offer her body in exchange for your protection?”

So this one is going to bring Kiarra into it.
Jaxton knew the man was trying to get a rise out of him, but Jaxton prevented himself from doing something daft, like telling the man to go fuck himself, and decided to shift the focus by using his own game of provocation.

Jaxton lifted the corner of his mouth in a half-smile. “Sorry to disappoint, mate, but women aren’t my

thing.” He gave the interrogator a deliberate look. “But you and I, now there’s something I can see.”

The interrogator’s face crinkled in disdain. “Enough. As much as I enjoy beating the shit out of you, I

have something that’ll break your silence.” The man walked over to one of the cabinets in the room and

pulled out a laptop. After fiddling with some keys, he walked back to Jaxton’s side. “I think you’re

protecting the girl, and I can prove it.”

The interrogator turned the laptop around and showed him a picture of Kiarra lying on top of a table,

unconscious. Her hair was in the new cut, and her cheeks were fuller than when he’d taken her from the

Cascade F-block two weeks ago, meaning that this picture was recent.

Had they really captured her?
The first feelings of unease gripped his belly, but Jaxton kept outwardly calm. He needed to bluff and determine if Kiarra really was in danger. “Are surveillance photos of a

sleeping woman supposed to mean something to me?”

The man said nothing, but clicked to the next photo, which showed Kiarra with a split lip and a dark

bruise across her cheek.

Jaxton bit the inside of his mouth to keep his temper in check. While it was possible they’d captured

Kiarra, he wasn’t about to believe them just yet; these days any bloody idiot with a computer could mess with a picture and make it look realistic.

Even if the image were doctored, just seeing a beat-up version of Kiarra didn’t sit well with him. Only

because of years of training did Jaxton keep his voice calm. “I barely know her. Maybe she had it coming.”

The interrogator continued to watch Jaxton’s face for any signs of emotion, but Jaxton kept his mask in

place.
Think of Kiarra. You can’t help her if you’re dead.
Once he was free, he could teach this bastard a lesson, but not before.

Another click, and this time the photo showed Kiarra unconscious with her top ripped down the front.

The torn material barely concealed her breasts. Jaxton bit the inside of his mouth hard enough to draw

blood, and clenched his fists behind his back. If he found out that these pictures were real, he was going to kill whoever had abused her.

The interrogator gave the picture an appreciative look. “She’s a hot little thing, isn’t she? Once I’m done with you, maybe I’ll tie her up and tease her to frustration.” The interrogator leaned down and looked him dead in the eye. “It won’t be long before I’ll have that bitch begging for my cock.”

Jaxton was perilously close to losing his cool. If anyone had molested her, so help him, everyone in this facility was going to fucking pay—one way or another.