Page 10 of Dark Gambit: The Play

Toven was cold, and he looked the part of a warrior.

Kian had no problem seeing him going into battle with his mind or with his bare hands.

When he got back to his office, he found that Bridget and Onegus had joined Turner.

"How did it go?" Bridget asked.

"Toven is coming, and he's bringing Mia along. His excuse is that he might need her enhancing powers, but I think he just wants her to feel as if she's contributing to the war effort."

Bridget lifted a brow. "Are we at war?"

"Not yet, but we might be." Kian pulled out a chair at the conference table. "Toven and Mia will head out to the airstrip as soon as they are done packing. What's the progress with the MRI machine?"

Bridget grimaced. "The guys thought that they were strong enough to lift it and carry it out, but they realized that they overestimated their muscle power. Turner arranged to have a power lift delivered, and it's going to delay them by forty-five minutes."

Kian shook his head. "Julian can just take Sofia to a human hospital, thrall the staff, do what he needs with her, and be done with it. Why bother with transferring that enormous machine?" He pinned her with a hard look. "Why didn't you tell me that the shipping crate would cost ten grand? I might have scrapped the whole idea."

She snorted. "Do you know how much a new MRI machine costs? We've already decided that we are transferring all the equipment from the keep to Safe Haven and getting new equipment for the keep, sans the MRI machine. We don't need two of them, and the model we have in the village is newer than the one in the keep."

"I know, but that was before we decided to evacuate Safe Haven. If we are not using the facility, why do we need a fully equipped clinic there?"

"You might be able to lease the place for more," Turner said. "We could turn the paranormal area into a medical facility of some sort. A recovery area after plastic surgery or something of that nature."

"It's premature to talk about evacuation," Onegus said. "Let's first hear what Sofia has to say, and what we are dealing with. Maybe the Kra-ell are not a threat after all."

"I wish." Kian crossed his arms over his chest.

Bridget put a hand on his shoulder. "In the same way that we don't want to poke the hornets’ nest, they might want to avoid us as well. Maybe we can just coexist with them."

"Given what they did to their own people, I don't think so. We might be able to keep hiding and avoid discovery by them, but I'm afraid that ship has sailed."

"Not if we erase all traces of our existence from Safe Haven," Turner said. "And if we decide to leave Jade in captivity."

It was tempting, but Kian's gut was not comfortable with that plan, and experience had taught him to trust his intuition.

7

SOFIA

Sofia lay awake in bed, waiting for the headache medicine to start working.

Marcel had told her to get some sleep because a doctor was coming later tonight to check her for implanted trackers, but how was she supposed to fall asleep after he'd told her that?

Was it possible that Igor had done that without her knowledge?

What if he'd compelled her to forget it?

Was it even possible to make someone forget things with compulsion?

Compulsion was like hypnosis on steroids, and if hypnotists could make people forget things, it made sense that Igor could have had a chip implanted in her body and then compelled her to forget it.

What else had been done to her that she couldn't remember?

The problem was that the more she tried to remember the worse the pounding in her head became, and she couldn't think at all past the pain. Perhaps she should turn her thoughts to something else, like how she was going to get out of this mess.

Marcel had left her alone in the bedroom without locking the door, but he was in the living room, so if she tried to leave, he would stop her.

Besides, where would she go?