Collide (Entangled Teen) (The Taking Book 3) Read Free Page B

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Chapter Four
    I lie awake all night, my mind on repeat, again and again seeking out answers that will never come. Where is he? Is he in pain? Does he know I’m here? Did he ask for me?
    The questions continue until my eyelids are too heavy to remain open and then I sleep, my fears taking new shapes in my dreams. Of fighting. Of war. Of death in numbers too vast to understand. I wonder if the pain I feel in my chest will ever disappear or if it’s a mere scratch compared to the real wound to come.
    A knock on my door shakes me awake and I jolt up, expecting to find Gretchen or Vill outside. But instead, I find they’re all already there with me. Mom. Dad. Gretchen. Vill. All of them in my room. Mom and Gretchen are sprawled out on my bed. Vill and Dad are asleep in chairs. I wonder when they came into my room, or if they were there all along and I was just too gone to notice.
    The knock hits again, and Dad stirs. “Who is it?” he calls.
    I hear someone clear his throat and then, “It’s Lawrence. I’m here for Ari.”
    Dad hits a button beside the door and storms out, narrowly missing Law. “Don’t you think you’ve done enough?”
    Lawrence opens his mouth to reply but closes it, his eyes taking in my room and the people in it. There was once a time when he would have been one of them. I concentrate on him, desperate to feel a change in his mood, see his color move to something darker—sadness, frustration, anything—but beyond a hint of regret in his eyes, his demeanor is as steady as ever, and I know, with certainty, the Lawrence standing before me isn’t the Law I knew. That boy is gone, replaced by nothing more than a pawn in Kelvin’s plan. A plan I’ve yet to uncover.
    I slip out of bed and walk over to Dad. “It’s okay.”
    “There is nothing about this that is okay.” Then he dips his head and walks back into my room. I watch him go, wondering where the strong man who raised me went, but then I see the same brokenness in Mom’s eyes, in Gretchen’s, and I wonder, yet again, what they went through while I was away.
    I swallow hard and focus back on Lawrence and an Op standing a few yards away. “Fine. Here I am. Let’s go.”
    They escort me to the same room I was in the day before—an interrogation room, I realize. I listen to the soft ticking of the desk clock, each second that I sit there across from Lawrence more painful than the last. I want to ask him why he abandoned himself. Why he chose to become the sort of person we always hated. I want to ask about his mom and how Kelvin became so powerful. If there is still a Trinity or if Kelvin now rules by dictatorship alone, much like the Octave did before the fall. But I can’t bring myself to say anything at all. Once I open my mouth, I won’t be able to stop myself from saying every horrible thing I think of him, and I can’t afford to be so rash. Not now. Not until I find Jackson.
    The door to the office opens and Kelvin walks in, his demeanor commanding and full of authority. I try to sense what he’s thinking, try to find a hint of stress, but there’s nothing. Either he has learned to control his feelings or he doesn’t have any. I’m not sure which worries me more.
    “Nice to see you again, Ari,” he says, taking a seat beside Lawrence. “We would like to ask you some specific questions today, and to ensure your cooperation, we have invited a guest.”
    The large two-way glass in the wall across from me lights up, no longer a mirror, but a window, revealing a room directly beside the one I’m in. I sit up taller in my seat to peer inside, and my heart speeds up, beating, beating, beating, unwilling to slow down. The walls are white and there is nothing in the room, only a rectangular table and a chair behind it. Nothing of any importance. I glance at Kelvin, one of my eyebrows raised in question, and then his face breaks into a slow grin—a grin of joy too great for a man so horrible. It can mean only one