Ashe dodged the next incoming baseball as his pain-sense spiked in his stomach.

  They had wanted proof of his ability to sense incoming pain, and he had delivered. The training room hummed as the machines wound down and powered off.

  He heard the last clatter of the baseball as it bounced against the wall and fell to the ground. He stood there, waiting for a new test, a new hit of that dull pain. But none came. Instead, he heard footsteps approaching, slow, measured. The Mistress.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow as he turned to face her.

  “Well done. So Amalia wasn’t wrong about you.”

  Her footsteps left him standing alone, as she retreated. Her voice attempted to be hushed, but Ashe still made out the gist.

  “He has to be a herald, right?” It was Amalia speaking, as if confirming her suspicions.

  A herald, one of the powered ones the guild kept on a leash. Kreor and Anabelle were two of them. At that moment he felt like property. A part of something he didn’t quite understand. He stood there frozen, trying to figure out what to do. Should he run? Would the experiments continue if he did? He didn’t know.

  For a second no one spoke, only the sound of uncomfortable shifting. He knew they were looking back at him as if observing an experiment.

  “He’s definitely a candidate. I think we’ll have to send him to the head office.”

  His head sank a little as the words reached him—the thought of leaving everything behind. But then he looked back on the previous days, the darkness within him that had yet to truly settle, the events that still felt like a bad nightmare he hoped to wake from. He didn’t have anything left; maybe this was his chance to get away. His chance to leave his pain, his guilt and his memories in a place that it wouldn’t reach him.

  “Pack your things kid!” It was Amalia.

  Ashe turned and walked out of the room toward his cell. He had barely been here a few days—maybe three, he thought to himself as he reached his room. He didn’t have much, and before he knew it his duffel bag with his things was in one hand, his walking stick in the other.

  He sat on the bed for a second, trying to gather his thoughts, when he realised he should let Rasmus know he wouldn’t be hearing from him. He opened his phone for the first time since the portal. The auto message reader went off, and at least a hundred messages, all from Rasmus, flowed into the air.

  “Where are you?” “I heard what happened.” “Are you ok?” Each message chipped away at his emotionless exterior, and for a second he thought the dam might burst. But he wouldn’t allow it. He stopped the messages from being read and opened Siri. “Message Rasmus. Tell him I’m leaving for a while.”

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  He expected the normal “Message sent,” but instead she said, “Unable to send message, due to network restriction.” He should have seen that coming; they were probably already monitoring his communication. He was no longer free. He had expected that feeling to make him scared, claustrophobic. But instead a weird sense of nothingness rushed over him. He knew it wasn’t a normal reaction; it was the numbness he felt, and for now it protected him. But he also knew he would need to fix it later.

  Then, there was a knock at the door. It slid open before Ashe managed to say anything. The smell of lavender and the pep in her step—Amalia, no doubt. When she spoke, her voice trembled slightly.

  “Be careful. They’re going to be watching you. Just don’t die, ok.”

  For a second Ashe thought she might be on the verge of crying, but he banished the idea as silly; she was too professional for that, and he didn’t matter enough. They had only known each other for a month or so.

  He nodded and stood. “Then let’s get going.”

  The words hung in the air. He expected to hear the sound of her footsteps leaving the room. Instead, her arms flung around him and the smell of her hair brushed against his face. He didn’t quite know how to react, so he just stood there. It was over as quickly as it had started.

  “Sorry.”

  He didn’t reply, too shocked, and left the room before anything else awkward could happen.

  Ashe had expected a sort of peace in the hallway, a moment to himself before the walls began caving in. But the smell of Axe body spray and the faint buzz of a radio shattered that idea. Then, before he could move, he felt hands clamp down on his arms.

  “What’s wrong?”

  The big man he recognised from earlier spoke at his side. “Procedure. We can’t let you get away again.” At that moment he knew he would be treated more like a prisoner than a person, but he had given up that right the moment he had revealed what he could do.

  “So be it,” he said.

  At his back he could hear a slight whimper from Amalia, a reaction to his treatment. After all, she had been the one to put this in motion. He knew she felt responsible, even if Ashe didn’t see it that way.

  Somehow time passed both at a snail’s pace and in a blur at the same time. Before he knew it, he had been moved into a car. They went through each item in his duffel bag, the sound of clothes and electronics being rummaged through filling the car.

  “We will take your phone.”

  Ashe wanted to protest, but he was too far in it now. He tightened his jaw, then let his fists fall to his sides as he shrugged.

  “Don’t ever take the necklace off.” The words were stern—his first order. He expected commands like that to become more common.

  Before he knew it he was pushed onto a plane. The smell of new leather and the cold, thin air filled his nose.

  He sat there when a radio clicked and a new voice rang out. “Is the candidate secure?”

  “Yes sir, we will see you in the head office tomorrow.” said the guard at his side.

  Ashe leaned back. There was no turning back now.

  He never liked flying—the weird sounds, the unnatural feeling. It felt against human nature. But he had gone too long without sleep; his eyelids felt like weights, and before he knew it the darkness crept in and claimed him.