“I hate you,” I whisper to the portrait.
The door behind me slides open, and he walks in.
“Miss Woodson.” His voice is just as oily as his hair. I do not give him the satisfaction of turning around. I hear his boots clack-clack on the hard floor, and it takes me back to the day I found myself in the secret Initiative building in the Everglades.
The day I discovered the Murder Complex.
The day I discovered who my mother really was.
The Commander moves past my chair, takes a seat across from me on a pristine white couch. He takes a moment to sit and stare. I feel like his eyes can see through me, see everything I want to hide but no longer can.
Because he holds the key to controlling me now.
Peri.
“How are you feeling?” he asks. He laces his hands together and settles them into his lap. He could be an uncle, asking me about my day.
I want to peel the skin from his face.
“It’s quite rude to ignore your elder, Miss Woodson,” the Commander says. “I’m afraid we’ll have to work on your manners.”
He taps a silver bracelet on his wrist.
The pain comes like lightning in my veins.
No! Please, no! NO! It’s Peri’s voice again, inside of my head. I imagine her face, her wide gray eyes turned red from tears. From terror and torture and everything she never deserved.
Daddy! Daddy!
“Peri!” I scream, but I know she can’t hear me. I slam my hands against my ears, curl into myself. “Make it stop! Make it STOP!”
“Fascinating,” the Commander says. “All right, that’s enough for now.”
Meadow! I hear her scream my name just as her voice cuts off.
The pain fades. But the anger only gets hotter and hotter.
I am left gasping for air. Holding my arms against my chest like it can keep my heart whole, when in reality, it is crumbling to pieces inside of me.
My sister.
My sister.
“How does it feel?” the Commander asks. He kneels right in front of me, and I want to hurt him so badly. I want to destroy him, see him hung from his ankles, see him turn to ashes in the middle of an inferno.
But all I can do is sit silent and still.
If I move, if I do anything at all, Peri will be punished.
“How does it feel to have something you love under attack? It is exactly what you’ve done to the Initiative. Your Resistance came into my home, my world, and tried to destroy it. Do you see what happens, Miss Woodson, when you hurt something I love?”
My breath comes out in a low hiss. I meet his eyes, and in mine, I hope he sees the fire. “You’ll burn for what you’re doing to her. She’s just an innocent child. Take me. Take me and hurt me, but leave her out of this.” I do something my father would never do.
I beg.
“Please. I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Just take me instead of her.”
The Commander throws his head back and laughs.
It echoes off of the round walls, slithers through my ears.
“The fearless Lark Woodson’s daughter, begging for mercy from her enemy.” He paces, back and forth, laughing as he goes. “Your sister is much more than a child, Meadow. She’s an asset. A very valuable one, and the Initiative intend to use this new connection to your sister as a way to get you to do our bidding. Anything we ask, you’ll do. Anything we need, and you’ll fall at our feet, begging to help us.”
I clench my teeth. I grip the chair as hard as I can, force myself not to lunge from my seat and grab his throat. “What do you want from me?”
He sits back down on the white couch, legs crossed, poised and proper. It cannot hide the madness inside of his soul. “Your mother is quite the inventor,” he says. “This Regulator you have, it was one of hers. An original option, before she and her team discovered the connection we could make with the Murder Complex. But we’ve found uses for her old inventions. The Initiative is sentimental, wouldn’t you agree?”
Breathe in. Breathe out. My father’s voice. Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t do anything at all.
“We used to be great friends, your mother and I. But then she turned her back on the Initiative. She decided that she couldn’t handle the pressure of the job. And of course, she lost her mind, the crazy wench.”
Deep breaths, calm and even. My father’s voice guides me. You can control your anger. Reel it in, and save it for later, when you will need it the most.
The Commander continues. “She eventually did give in, you know. Gave us the codes, showed us the workings of her system. But there’s a problem, Miss Woodson. Do you know what that problem is?”
I shake my head. I don’t know, and I don’t care.
All I want to do is kill him, save my sister, and die, so that no one ever again will be affected by the Murder Complex.
“Your mother’s system is rebelling.”
That gets my attention. I look up, and he smiles. “How?” I ask.
“A virus, of sorts, and quite complex in its coding. Naturally, we have plenty of people on the job, working around the clock to repair it.” He sighs, and for a second I catch the dark circles beneath his eyes. “It came from somewhere inside of the Shallows.”
“What do you need me for?”
He licks his lips, then gives me a smile that chills me to my core. “You’re going to find your mother, of course! You’re going to bring her back to us and convince her to retake the system. Repair it, renew it, and run it all over again.”