Page 54 of Forged in Deception

“My dear child,” Mother began, her voice honey sweet. “Tell me more about her. Tell me about the woman that you have chosen for us.”

“Do you not know everything before I tell you?”

Some questions were too difficult to resist asking.

“Some things are shrouded from me,” Mother said, letting out a soft hiss with her forked pink tongue. “That is why you are precious. You must be my hands and my feet within this world.”

“Amira has visited our compound many times already,” the woman answered. “She’s lonely. Her husband is busy with his career. He’s starting a new company and has little time for his family.”

“Very well,” Mother said.

“But there is a complication,” the woman ventured.

“Tell me.”

“Amira cannot move in like the others have done. She has a daughter at home, and she is not willing to leave her behind.”

Mother was quiet for a long moment. The woman imagined the floor beneath her feet cracking in two, followed by the dirt, the crust of the earth, the whole world.

“Do not worry, my dear one,” she said at last. “None of that matters. Soon, we will all return to my planet. We will all be home, in the glorious dimension of light. Fear not.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

KARLIN

By the time her alarm began to sound, Karlin was already awake.

She allowed her eyes to remain closed for several pleasant seconds before climbing out of bed and silencing the noise. For the first time in what felt like forever, she’d gotten more than enough sleep, and a burst of fresh energy seemed to fill her limbs.

After she and Axel had returned to the retreat site yesterday, they’d been relieved to see that the rest of the guests were doing as well as could be expected.

Bajwa, however, was in a sour mood.

The Senera higher-ups had advised him to postpone their next DX8 dose by a full day, supposedly to allow everyone to rest after the ordeal with Destiny. Of course, this meant twenty-four hours of lost time and data.

For her part, Karlin had taken a long nap and caught up with office work, though she could admit to herself that she’d spent more time than she should have thinking of Axel and what he was doing to pass the day without her.

Every time she’d have to read some boring report, her thoughts would wander back to Bajwa’s Jeep, the sun shining softly at the window, and Axel’s warm chest pressed against her cheek.

There were worse ways to get lost while catching up on emails, and the day had passed relatively quickly.

By now, though, in the bright light of a new morning, she was eager to finally get some answers.

Most of their first week at the retreat had flown by, and in another week, Axel would be gone and she’d be on her own. Aside from the small fact that she needed his help to figure out how to stop Senera, she could no longer deny that she would miss the pleasant distraction of his flirting.

Even if she couldn’t bring herself to believe it would ever be anything more.

She forced thoughts of him from her mind as she left her cabin and headed toward the lab to get a head start before breakfast.

As she made her way down the familiar dirt trail, however, she heard something.

She froze where she was, glancing out into the desert and seeing nothing but a few cacti and a patch of dead grass. But she did hear the noise again, slightly more quietly this time.

“Creepy, aren’t they?” a voice from over her shoulder announced.

She whirled around, her heart leaping into her throat, but it was only Lily and Cora standing in the path behind her.

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