21

When we die, are we allowed a do-over?

I’m asking for a friend.

Takeshi glared daggers at Raziel, his whole body tense.

She wrenched herself free from his grasp, staring at him in disbelief. The beat of the music shifted, and the air felt claustrophobic.

She opened her mouth, but no words emerged.

Takeshi didn’t touch or kiss Khalani because he genuinely wanted her. He only did it for the mission. To make the Dealers believe they were truly married and in love.

Takeshi turned to her, the crease in his forehead deepening as he saw nothing but raw heartache and betrayal reflected in her eyes.

He took a step toward her.

She drew back.

“Khalani, it’s not—”

“Mr. and Mrs. Davenhue, you need to come with us.” A deep voice cut through the tension, and several Dealers in sleek black gear formed a tight circle around them, blocking their escape.

Khalani’s eyes met Sylas, the Dealer they met in the casino, but his face was cold and impassive, like they’d never met before. He gripped her arm firmly, while two other guards restrained Takeshi, assuming he was the bigger threat.

Raziel was nowhere to be found, probably preening somewhere that his plan was a terrific success.

“What are you doing?” Takeshi growled. He viciously glared at the Dealer’s tight hold on Khalani, like he was one breath away from ripping it off.

He was a phenomenal actor.

“Let’s go,” Sylas snapped, ignoring Takeshi and pushing Khalani forward. She stumbled on her heels, but he dragged her across the floor.

Once the men and women in the club recognized the Dealers, everyone scrambled out of the way.

Sylas propelled her toward a nondescript backdoor exit. The moment he shoved her outside, the stench of rotting trash and cold metal hit her nose, and her heels slid on the slick alley pavement.

Sylas caught her elbow and abruptly slammed her against the brick wall.

Khalani grunted as Takeshi was shoved against the hard wall beside her. His muscles were clenched tight, his expression a mask of controlled rage. Takeshi turned his head, but Khalani refused to look at him.

All he ever did was make a fool of her. And she was done playing the pawn in his sick games.

In a twisted way, what Takeshi had done was beneficial. The Dealers wouldn’t question their story, and she could concentrate solely on the mission.

And once the week was over, she was severing ties with Takeshi Steele for good.

“We have them,” Sylas said into a small radio. “Bring the rail.”

She frowned as a Dealer approached, pulling something from his back pocket. Before she could react, he jabbed a long needle into her neck.

“Ow!” She flinched, placing a shaky hand to her neck. “What…the…”

She blinked rapidly, but the Dealers seemed to multiply.

Khalani turned to Takeshi, who slumped forward as another guard withdrew a syringe from his neck. Her pulse slowed, and she braced herself against the wall. Her heels melted into the concrete, dragging her down.

Further.

And further.

And further.

She thought she saw Takeshi’s hand reaching toward her, but in the next moment, everything went black.

***

“Hey.”

…

…

…

“Hey!”

Someone kicked her foot, and Khalani jolted awake, gasping. She glanced around, disoriented by the bright white light shining down on her.

A blurry figure stood over her, like a ghost brought back to life.

Khalani wiped her eyes, squinting, assuming she was stuck in a nightmare loop. But the image slowly began to clear, revealing a pale girl dressed in white pants and a long-sleeve white shirt with black buttons down the middle.

The girl staring down had messy blonde hair that reached her waist and sharp facial features that tightened in annoyance. She appeared a few years older than Khalani and had strange metal cuffs wrapped around her wrists.

“You need to get up,” the girl ordered, moving toward an open door. She glanced back once more before adding, “If you’re not outside in two minutes, they’ll shock you.” She gestured to Khalani’s wrists before leaving.

Khalani’s eyes widened as she looked down to see similar metal cuffs around her wrists. She patted her hands down her legs, wearing the same white uniform as the girl.

Her gaze darted around frantically.

The bright room she was in was the size of a large closet. White walls surrounded her with one translucent door that lay partially open.

Thirty-Two.

The blood-red number was plastered above the door.

The cell reminded her of a lab, but much whiter, colder, and reeking of despair.

Khalani turned as an influx of people wearing similar uniforms started walking past her cell, barely glancing her way. Their backs were hunched, eyes gaunt.

A low groaning noise reverberated from her left, and she turned.

Takeshi was in the cell with her.

He lay on his back. The white tunic fit snug around his large frame and the metal cuffs around his wrists were clearly visible. His eyes were firmly closed, still knocked out from whatever the guards had injected into their necks.

Khalani had a fleeting temptation to leave Takeshi for the electrocution he undeniably deserved. But she was smart enough to know that having the Captain alive was her best shot at escaping.

Her limbs felt like lead, each movement slower than the last as she crawled over to him.

“Wake up.” She nudged his arm.

Silence.

“Takeshi.” She shoved harder. “Wake up!”

No movement. Not even a stir of an eyelid.

She stopped breathing, unable to swallow past the knot in her throat. But then she saw the gradual rise and fall of his chest, and Khalani sighed with relief.

But the instinctive surge of worry only stoked the fire burning in her stomach.

She lifted herself on her knees, leaning over his unconscious frame. It was the first time in a while she’d seen him without a cold scowl. Takeshi’s deathly beautiful face finally looked at peace…

SLAP.

Her hand struck his cheek with much more force than necessary, and Takeshi’s black eyes flew open in shock.

In the next heartbeat, she was flat on her back, and Takeshi was on top of her, his powerful hand clutched around her throat.

Her body locked in panic as he squeezed the life out of her. She stared into his menacing gaze, silently pleading, unable to draw in a single breath.

Finally, Takeshi’s expression shifted, his eyes flooding with horror as he realized what he was doing. He scrambled off her, his face drained of color.

She coughed and sat up, heaving.

“Kanes.” He swallowed, genuinely shaken. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were someone else.”

He reached out, but she slapped his hand away.

“It’s fine. I’ll survive. Unfortunately,” she muttered, brushing herself off with trembling hands.

But the anger refused to settle, flaring every time she met his gaze. Khalani stood, not wanting to be in close quarters with him a second longer.

“We need to go outside. Apparently, they’ll shock us if we don’t.”

She indicated his wrists, but he barely looked at them. His face twisted, like he didn’t care about anything else going on around them.

“Are you okay?” His voice was deep and guttural.

“I told you. I’m fine.”

Khalani turned, shoving the raw pain into the deepest recesses of her heart, and walked through the open doorway of the cell without a backward glance.

The bright, sterile hallway stretched out before her. She followed the few figures hastily walking toward the metal door at the end of the hall, and the hard steps behind let her know that Takeshi was on her heels.

When Khalani exited the building, she emerged into a vast, echoing cavern, her footsteps crunching on gravel. The cavern was so immense it made the pit in Braderhelm seem trivial. Scattered one-story buildings stood in quiet rows, contrasting the cave walls that surrounded them.

On the far side of the cavern stood a discreet black building. It had no windows. No one coming in or out. Something about the structure sent shivers up her spine and made her look away.

A few hundred prisoners lined up in ten straight lines in the center of the cavern. Some had a defiant glint in their eyes, while others stared vacantly at the ground, as if hope had long abandoned them.

“Excuse me?” She walked up to a young man with greasy brown hair. “Why’s everyone standing here?”

He barely glanced at her, grunting dismissively.

Okay then.

A firm grip on her arm suddenly yanked her forward. Her mouth popped open as the girl who’d entered her cell earlier dragged her to a spot at the end of the line.

“Line up here,” the mysterious girl directed, then turned to Takeshi. “You too.”

Takeshi narrowed his gaze, not used to taking orders, but he begrudgingly moved behind Khalani, watching everyone with a distrustful eye.

“What happens now?” Khalani turned to ask the girl, but she’d already disappeared further up the line.

Khalani took a deep breath and shifted back and forth, tingly nerves coursing through her limbs.

After a few minutes, the Dealers started inspecting the prisoners. They used batons to strike anyone not standing straight enough or who were slightly out of position. One of the Dealer’s scrutinized her in a way that made Khalani’s insides crawl, but he slyly smirked before moving on.

A blaring alarm suddenly echoed throughout the cavern. A Dealer with stars on the lapels of his brown uniform barked, “Kneel before Dr. Strauss.”

Like a thunderclap, everyone around her immediately dropped to the ground. Khalani glanced around in confusion but quickly followed suit, grimacing as the gravel dug into her knees.

A man appeared in front of the prisoners.

He was short, pale, had white hair that looked like patches of clouds on his head, and he wore a white medical cloak. He slowly walked down the row of prisoners, flanked by two Dealers.

His expression held an unsettling air of detachment as he shifted his focus between each kneeling inmate, holding a clipboard tight by his side.

A suffocating pressure overcame the space. She detected the fresh stench of urine from the girl to her left. Everyone held themselves completely still, breaths shallow, as if even the slightest movement might draw Dr. Strauss’ attention.

Who was this man that commanded such terror?

Dr. Strauss continued down her line, a disturbing, maniacal gleam in his gaze. Without warning, his measured steps came to a halt a few feet away, and she kept her eyes trained on the floor, barely breathing.

“Him,” Dr. Strauss said in a cold voice and pointed to the man kneeling in front of her.

“No! You can’t take me!” The skinny man in front of her lunged to his feet, only to collapse back to his knees, trembling uncontrollably as he clutched the metal bracelets encircling his wrists.

Despite the Dealers’ attempts to subdue him, he writhed and struggled with every ounce of strength left in his body.

“I’m not going into that building!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

One of the guards responded by bashing him across the face with a baton. The prisoner slumped to the ground, unconscious.

Dr. Strauss’ glare narrowed with pulsing fury. He marched right up to the guard with the baton and slapped him across the face, the crack echoing around the cavern.

“I’ve told you not to touch their heads, you imbecile. Do that again and you’ll be taking his place,” he warned, and the Dealer went white as paper.

“Yes, Dr. Strauss.” He lowered his head in submission, his left hand trembling at his side.

“Take him.” The doctor flicked his head, and two Dealers hoisted the unconscious man under his armpits and dragged him away. Every prisoner stayed completely frozen and silent.

Dr. Strauss clenched his fists as he stared at the empty spot the man left in front of her.

Then, his gaze flickered to her.

She tensed on instinct, her heart battering like a drum. The mysterious doctor kept an eye on her, and she held her breath, silently praying to turn invisible, but without another word, Dr. Strauss turned and walked toward the austere black building.

“Stand!” the Dealer with the golden stars on his uniform yelled.

The prisoners scrambled to their feet, and the collective sighs of relief were audible. The young man to her right blinked, tears streaking down his cheeks as he stared at the empty space the prisoner had occupied.

Like he knew he’d never see him again.

Initially, Khalani had thought the camp was for rebellion sympathizers, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something more sinister was at play.

“Report to the tunnels!”

The prisoners started shuffling to the left of the cavern, flanked by a dozen Dealers. Khalani caught Takeshi’s eye. His face was set in ruthless determination, but his body remained rigid, as if he were just realizing how much danger they were truly in.

“Let’s go.” He nudged her forward.

“What do you think’s in there?” she whispered, her gaze fixed on the black building.

“I don’t intend to find out.” Takeshi’s voice took on a hard edge. “We need to focus on locating Jack and getting the fuck out of here.”

They followed the crowd of prisoners into a large tunnel with mining tracks running along the rocky floor.

The ceiling was about ten feet high, illuminated by sparse yellow headlights hung at various points. When they passed a large metal bin, prisoners reached inside and grabbed pickaxes.

Khalani pursed her lips but grabbed one too, noticing that the guards tightened their grips around their guns.

“Get working!”

With a collective groan, the prisoners lined up and swung their pickaxes at the orange rock wall.

No.

She had to be living in a sick cosmic joke.

God hated her. That’s what it was.

She barely escaped Braderhelm Prison only to find herself back in another underground prison, doing hard labor in tunnels.

Why didn’t they believe in tasks like cleaning dishes?

And what was scarier was that the prisoners seemed to prefer the arduous mining to whatever horrors awaited in the black building.

When she didn’t move quick enough, one of the guards ventured closer, pressing a red button on a handheld device.

A sharp, electrifying pain sliced through her wrists, and she collapsed to her knees, twitching uncontrollably. The muscles in her neck held tight and her teeth clamped together, fighting the scream building in her throat.

“When we say go, you do it faster. Understand?” The guard’s face was beat red, and spit flew from his mouth.

Takeshi shouted something, lunging forward, but the guard shocked him too. He hunched over, sweat beading on his forehead, muscles trembling as the other prisoners kept pounding away at the walls.

When the electric pulses finally relented, Khalani sucked in a sharp breath, her limbs still shaking on the ground, tasting metal on her tongue.

“Start working, or I’ll triple the voltage next time,” the guard threatened, glaring at both her and Takeshi with disdain.

She braced herself against the rocky floor, struggling to stand, but she ignored Takeshi’s hand for help.

Khalani could handle this without him. She could.

All she had to do was last one week.