Drowning In The Dark - Pippa DaCosta Page 0,27
anything without my say-so because, if I was wrong and he was aware he now had free reign, I was in trouble, and so was the entire secret facility that’d just let a class A demon into their midst without knowing she was soul-locked. They didn’t have that check box on their waiver forms.
Adam took over from my armed escorts. He didn’t bother with small talk. We’d moved beyond idle chitchat when he’d first locked me up and drugged me. As we walked, I staved off an itching panic by absorbing all the information I could from my surroundings. I knew the Institute was generously funded, but this place had to be a multi-billion-dollar operation. You don’t get a swanky underground lair from Kickstarter. Only big corporation money could buy all the gleaming tech and qualified staff. As we followed shiny white hallways and my boots tapped out a beat in the sterile quiet, I wondered if Akil had known about the scale of this operation. If he was faking it, as I believed he was, then what possible reason could he have for wanting to get inside? Unless he meant to destroy it? He’d told me his attack on the Boston hub had merely been for their own good, to disturb the nest so they could rally their forces. It didn’t make sense for him to continue his assault, unless he’d lied. He did have a tendency to bend the truth around his whims, but I liked to think I wasn’t as easily fooled as I used to be. When he’d revealed why he’d sent Dawn in, why he’d set the Institute up, it had felt like the truth.
Stefan had said the princes hated Akil. Although, given that the princes seemed to despise one another, their hatred wasn’t a surprise. They distrusted him and knew they’d underestimated him. So whatever Akil was scheming, he was on his own. That wasn’t a particularly comforting thought. Alone, he’d managed to reduce the Institute’s topside operation to rubble, and he’d used a little girl to do it. He’d also told me he’d been manipulating the Court for years. Whatever his reason for getting inside the Institute’s underground base, I had to convince him to drop it. Now was not the time to play demon games.
My boots squeaked on the linoleum. Somewhere, a door hissed shut. Occasionally, I caught snippets of conversations. The white, the quiet, the pine-scented smell of cleaning fluids, Akil being here—it was all just plain wrong. What was I going to find? Considering how I’d last seen him, kneeling in the alley, his eyes scolding me with disgust, I would need to steel myself for what would no doubt be a verbal lashing.
We arrived at an antechamber. No windows. White walls and ceilings. Electronic keypads. Inside, a rotund, cocoa-skinned woman greeted me with a firm handshake. Dressed like a glamorous schoolteacher with complimenting neutral colors and a silk scarf slung loosely around her neck, she exuded a distinctly authoritative vibe, not unlike Adam’s. She was shorter than Adam, more my height in flats. Her dark hair had been curled into a bun. Not a single strand flicked free. She wore a trouser suit and not the cheap sort, if the flattering fall was anything to go by. Behind her, two white-coated lab assistants waited like sentries either side of a steel door, clipboards clasped in front of them instead of the assault rifles favored by their topside counterparts. Welcome to the Institute 2.0.
“Muse, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. My name is Sabine Sturgill. I’m the East Coast VP.” She had a practiced, steely handshake further hardened by her rigid gaze. Here was a woman not to be underestimated. “Adam has kept me well informed of your progress.”
My progress? Oh, how I wanted to leap right on that one, but airing my grievances was not why I was there. I had a job to do, and my own personal baggage could wait—at least for five minutes. “He’s never mentioned you.” I smiled.
“Well, no. We tend to keep the higher echelons out of general conversation.”
Anyone who used the world echelon in conversation had better have the balls to back it up. Considering Adam’s quiet presence behind me, I could assume Sabine did.
“I hear you saved Adam’s life a few weeks ago…”
My sweet little non-assuming smile stayed. I blinked a few times too many. “Yes.” Not by choice, more by accident. “I have my uses.”
Her teal eyes sparkled. “Of course