Page 84 of Forged in Deception

Now that her immediate panic had passed, her mind was reeling.

Every answer she knew seemed to lead to several more questions.

She knew that Lily Moonchild was, in fact, a woman she’d met before–a woman named Dana Corbett, who had been part of the same retreat as Amira Gorsky.

She could imagine Dana in her mind now, and she could almost forgive herself for not recognizing her.

Though it had only been a decade, she looked a lot younger than Lily did now.

She had been at least fifty pounds lighter, and she’d worn her hair in a pixie-like brown crop.

The most distinguishing feature that Karlin remembered, however, was Dana’s dress style. She’d usually worn tailored dress pants, crisp white shirts, and simple gold jewelry. Karlin could remember being impressed by the way she managed to look elegant in the middle of the desert. She reminded her of a slightly more androgynous version of Destiny.

Everything about the way Dana had presented herself back then was a complete one-eighty from how she looked now as Lily.

But there was one clue that Karlin could not forgive herself for overlooking.

Dana had frequently thrown up after taking the earlier iteration of DX8.

She had never seen anyone else experience the same side effect, and it should have rang warning bells immediately, but it hadn’t.

Clearly, Axel hadn’t suspected anything about the woman, either–by the sound of it, his twin brother Ben would havebeen able to dig up the dirt on Lily if he’d decided to look.

No, the woman had them both fooled, and now they were paying the price.

Karlin rubbed her hands up and down her arms to warm them, considering whether or not she could focus long enough to start a fire.

The weather seemed to be getting even worse outside, and try as she might, she couldn’t shake her fear that something terrible might have happened to Axel, not to mention Cora or Paul.

Not that she had any idea as to what Lily’s motives were, or what was even going on. Clearly, the woman knew Axel was undercover, and if she knew that, she probably knew that he and Karlin were trying to take down Senera.

But why did Lily care?

Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine any scenario where Lily was working with Senera, and especially not with control-freak Bajwa.

Then again, the woman had managed to come across as harmless. For all Karlin knew, she was actually the evil genius mastermind, and Bajwa was her lackey.

Nothing would surprise her any more.

She pressed her fingertips to her temples, feeling the twinges of a headache coming on. She was missing something.

There was some connection that she wasn’t making, but no matter how many times she turned over the information she had in her mind, she couldn’t seem to find an answer.

ASHER

Asher stared down at the needle.

He expected the world to go black immediately, like it always did in the movies.

Instead, he found himself staring open mouthed up at Cora, who had crossed her arms firmly over her chest.

“You can take that out now,” she said. “Just be careful. It’ll probably bleed a little.”

“What did you do?” he asked, taking hold of the syringe and pulling it carefully out of his thigh. Despite the droplets of blood it left behind on his jeans, he couldn’t feel anything now that the momentary pain had passed.

Which probably wasn’t a good sign.

Cora ignored him.

---