“Enough,” Ree snapped. She stepped between Geoffrey and me. “She’s playing you,” she informed him. “And I don’t have the time or stomach to stand here and watch.”
Geoffrey’s eyes narrowed. His hands hung loosely by his sides. One minute, he was just standing there, and the next, his left hand had reached for the torch. “Let me test her,” he said. “Let me purify her, bit by bit.”
The flame flickered. You want to burn me. You want to watch me scream.
“No,” Ree said. “Your time will come—after your ninth kill and not a second before.” She removed something from her pocket—a small, round tub, no larger than a container of lip gloss. “Over time,” she told me, unscrewing the lid, “one builds up immunity to poisons.”
She dipped her finger into a colorless paste.
I thought of Beau, who’d died screaming, and of everything Judd had told me about Nightshade’s poison of choice. Incurable. Painful. Fatal.
Ree’s left hand closed around my chin. She jerked my face to the side, her grip like steel.
Too late, I tried to fight. Too late, my hands tried to block hers.
She smeared the paste down my neck.
Some poisons don’t have to be ingested. My heart thudded in my chest. Some poisons can be absorbed through the skin.
Ree let go of me and stepped back. At first, I felt nothing. And then, the world exploded into pain.
My body was on fire. Every nerve, every inch of skin—even the blood in my veins was boiling.
On the ground. Seizing. God, help me—
Someone, help me—
My fingers scraped against my throat. On some level, I was aware that I was tearing at my own flesh. On some level, I was aware that I was bleeding.
On some level, I heard the screams.
My throat closed around them. I couldn’t breathe. I was suffocating, and I didn’t care, because all there was—all I was—was pain.
On some level, I was aware of the sound of footsteps rushing into the room.
On some level, I was aware of someone saying my name.
On some level, I was aware of arms hoisting me upward.
But all there was…all I was…
Pain.
I dreamt of dancing in the snow. My mother was beside me, her head tilted back, her tongue darting between her lips to catch a snowflake.
The scene jumped. I stood in the wings of the stage as my mother performed. My gaze fell on an old man in the audience.
Malcolm Lowell.
Without warning, my mother and I were back in the snow, dancing.
Dancing.
Dancing.
Forever and ever. No matter what.
I woke to the sound of beeping. I was lying on something soft. Forcing my eyes open, I remembered—
The poison.
The pain.
The sound of footsteps.
“Easy.”
I turned my head toward the voice, unable to sit up. I was in a hospital room. The beeping machine beside me tracked the beating of my heart.
“You’ve been unconscious for two days.” Director Sterling sat next to my bed. “We weren’t sure you were going to make it.”
We. I remembered the sound of footsteps. I remembered someone saying my name.
“Agent Sterling?” I asked. “Judd. Dean and the others—”
“They’re fine,” Director Sterling assured me. “As are you.”
I remembered the poison. I remembered gasping for breath. I remembered the pain.
“How?” I said. Beneath the covers, my body shook.
“There’s an antidote.” Director Sterling kept his answer direct and to the point. “The window during which to administer it is small, but you should be back to your full strength soon.”
I wanted to ask where they’d gotten the antidote. I wanted to ask how they’d found me. But more than anything, I wanted the others. I wanted Dean and Lia and Michael and Sloane.
Beside me, Director Sterling held up a small object for my inspection. I recognized it instantly—the tracking device Agent Sterling had given me. “This time my daughter had the foresight to activate the device.” He paused.
For reasons I couldn’t quite pinpoint, my breath caught in my throat.
“It’s a shame,” the director continued slowly, turning the device over in his hand, “that the tracking software that would have led the FBI here had been tampered with.”
A chill slid down my spine.
“Dean,” I said suddenly. “If he knew where I was, if they’d found me…”
“He’d be here?” Director Sterling suggested. “Given what I know of Redding’s whelp, I tend to agree.”
I surged upward and winced as something bit into my wrists. I looked down.
Handcuffs.
Someone had tampered with the tracking software. Someone had cuffed me to this bed. I looked back up at the director.
“This isn’t a hospital,” I said, my heart beating in my throat.
“No,” he replied. “It’s not.”
“There’s an antidote to the Masters’ poison,” I repeated what Director Sterling had told me earlier, my chest tightening. “But the FBI doesn’t have it.”
“No. They don’t.”
The poison the Masters used to kill was one of a kind. It was, I’d been told over and over again, incurable.
Because the only people who have the cure are the Masters.
I flashed back to the room with the shackles, to the poison, to the pain. I’d heard footsteps. I’d heard someone saying my name.
“For some of us,” the director said, his voice low and smooth, “this has never been about murder. For some of us, it was always power.”
There are seven Masters. And one of them is the director of the FBI.
Agent Sterling’s father stood and stared down at me. “Imagine a group more powerful, more connected than any you could possibly conceive of. Imagine the most extraordinary men on earth, sworn to one another and a common cause. Imagine the kind of loyalty that comes from knowing that if one of you falls, you all fall. Imagine knowing that if you could prove yourself worthy, the world would be yours for the taking.”
“How long?” I asked the director. How long have you been one of them?
“I was young,” the director said. “Ambitious. And look how far I’ve come.” He spread his arms out, as if he could gesture to all of the FBI, all of the power he held as its head.