Consciousness returned to Sylva. She awoke on a very firm, almost rock-hard cot resting on an alcove in a small room. Instinctively, her hands went to her shoulders for her crescent blades, but they were gone. The walls were metal and a toilet and sink combo were affixed to the wall near the alcove. A small divider provided some privacy for the toilet as across from the alcove was a translucent wall. The air distorted just the tiniest fraction as Sylva stared at it.

She climbed off the cot and approached the wall. Sylva slowly brought her hand up to it and she could feel energy in what looked like empty air. As she brought her hand closer, she felt a tingle of electricity.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Sylva looked around the room for the source of the voice. After a moment, she realized it was being broadcast over speakers.

“Show yourselves, cowards,” she said.

“There’ll be time for that later. Until then, why don’t you tell us about yourself? What were you doing in Brazil?”

“I don’t answer to disembodied voices,” said Sylva. “If you want to hear my tale, you’ll look into my eyes as I tell it.”

Sylva returned to the alcove and climbed onto the cot. She sat cross-legged and rested her hands on her knees before closing her eyes in apparent meditation.

----------------------------------------

Marcus stood beside Tom, Ethan, and Alexa in front of a monitor array in the security hub. The other monitors focused on different cells just the same as Sylva’s, albeit they were all empty.

“She seems nice,” he said.

“She’s connected to that crystal, I know it,” said Tom.

“Our scanners back up what you picked up in the field, so I believe it,” said Marcus. “What I want to know is how she’s involved. Breaches are random and uncontrollable. The chances of two unrelated breachers with the same signatures occurring in the same relative area are…” Marcus paused for a moment and then continued, “Well, I don’t know the exact statistic, but I do know it’s pretty damn rare.”

“Has it ever happened before?” asked Alexa.

“Possibly. But if it did, it was definitely before my time. And I’ve never come across anything like that in the records.”

“She called herself the Shadowblade. That mean anything to you?” asked Tom. “She said it was a title of some kind.”

Marcus pursed his lips as he thought. After a moment, he shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

“She mentioned something about Quantum’s crimes. You know anything about that?” asked Ethan.

“What kind of crimes?” asked Marcus.

“She didn’t specify. That’s why I’m asking.”

“I’ve got no idea what crimes she’s referring to,” said Marcus. “We’ll let her stew in her juices for a minute. After about a day or two, I’ll go in and start questioning her.”

“Anyone else think she gave up pretty easily?” asked Alexa.

Tom scoffed. “You weren’t there earlier when she handed both Ethan and me our asses.”

“Maybe not, but you said you set off an explosion at point-blank range and it didn’t even faze her,” said Alexa. “But then, Liv’s able to take her down with one strike of her staff?”

“If her plan was to get her ass stuck in a cell, then mission accomplished.” Marcus glanced around the room and at the three Knights. “Where is Reyes, anyway?”

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“She’s in the infirmary,” said Alexa. “Wanted to check in on Rachel once we got back.”

“Speaking of, what happened to Rachel?” asked Tom. “How did she get incapacitated? Something go wrong during a training session?”

“No.” Marcus drew in a breath, dreading the words about to come from his mouth. “She tried to interface with her Titan to access her memories of the crystal, see if we could find out what symbol she saw on it. But the procedure overwhelmed her and she’s been unconscious ever since.”

“Hold on.” Tom turned his body toward Marcus. “You’re gonna have to explain this to me. What do you mean she was trying to interface with her Titan? She’s done that a thousand times.”

Marcus shook his head. “Not like this. This was on a much deeper level, allowing her and the Titan to access each other’s subconsciousness. It’s a very delicate procedure that’s only been attempted a few times in the past.”

“Why only a few times?” asked Alexa.

Marcus sighed and looked down, his shoulders slacking. “Because it’s very high-risk for the Knight. Potentially even deadly.”

Tom grabbed Marcus’s shoulder and forcibly turned the commander to face him. “Why the hell didn’t you tell us about this? I’m the leader, I should know when one of my teammates is putting themselves at risk!”

“Oh, fuck off!” Marcus shoved Tom off him.

“Whoa there!” said Alexa. “You really are an ass to everyone, aren’t you?”

Marcus pointed an accusatory finger at Alexa. “Stay out of this!” He faced Tom next. “And you—this wasn’t my call. It came from the Tribunal.”

“I still deserved to know,” said Tom.

Marcus scoffed. “Fuck off, Stone. You’ve been the leader for all of ten minutes. You’re no Scott Taylor, so stop acting like you are.”

That comment pushed Tom to the edge. His instincts had kicked in and all the rage and guilt he’d felt over Scott’s death now bubbled to the surface, bleeding into his rational mind until he could only see red. Tom hadn’t even realized what had happened next—as if he’d blacked out in that brief moment. But the next thing he realized, Marcus was on the ground, blood dribbling from his lip. Tom felt a stinging from his right hand. He looked down, surprised to see his fingers clenched in a tight fist.

“Holy shit…” muttered Alexa. “If I knew we could punch him, I would’ve done that…”

“You fucking little shit!” screamed Marcus, standing again. “You think you’re gonna get away with that? I’m going to see to it that your ass is drummed out of this outfit!”

“I-I didn’t mean—” Tom stuttered, trying to process what had just happened.

Marcus returned the punch, striking Tom’s jaw. Pain radiated from the point of impact, though Marcus didn’t have the Omega Force enhancing his strength in the same way Tom did. It still hurt nonetheless. If a real fight broke out between them, Tom knew he could easily tear Marcus apart. But he hadn’t actually wanted to hit the man, he’d just lost himself momentarily. And he wasn’t about to escalate things any further than he already had. If Marcus wanted to flail around like a child, let him do it. Tom just allowed Marcus’s punch to stand and he pretended it hurt more than it actually did.

“Pack your fucking bags, Stone.” Marcus turned from the monitors and stormed out of the security hub.

Once the door closed, Alexa turned to Tom. “Wow! I guess I misjudged you. I never would’ve thought you had that sort of defiance in you.”

Tom felt a brief surge of pride through him at Alexa’s words. He didn’t expect to be praised for standing up to Marcus like that. But guilt quickly supplanted pride and the gravity of what he’d just done started sinking in.

“Can he actually do that?” asked Alexa. “Kick you out, I mean?”

“No,” said Tom and then he thought, But he can make my life a royal pain—and probably will.

“What are you gonna do then?”

“One crisis at a time, okay? We’ve got enough to deal with between Miss Shadowblade in there and now whatever happened to Rachel,” said Tom.

And whether he liked it or not, he’d have to try to make peace with Marcus. It certainly wasn’t like him to go against authority that way—he’d been a Marine before becoming a Knight and never did anything like that.

Tom then noticed that Ethan had been silent this time. He didn’t even seem to react when the altercation with Marcus had occurred. Instead, Ethan continued to just stare at the monitor array.

Evidently, Alexa had realized it herself, because she voiced Tom’s own thoughts: “Yo, Ethan. You still with us? Blink twice if you need help.”

“Huh?” asked Ethan. He turned from the monitors and blinked a few times before rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, I guess I kind of zoned out for a minute.” He then looked around the room. “Hey, where’d Marcus go?”

Alexa’s jaw went slack and she and Tom exchanged worried glances. “Umm…him and Tom just freaking punched each other, dude.”

“What?” asked Ethan. “How the hell did I miss that?”

“You…sure you’re okay?” asked Tom. “Maybe you should go lie down or something?”

Ethan rubbed his eyes again before looking one last time at the monitor array. “Yeah…maybe you’re right. Probably just exhausted from the fight or something.”

Alexa and Ethan left the room together, but Tom lingered for a few moments. He checked on the monitor for Sylva’s cell one last time and felt disturbed when he saw her staring right into the camera. Her mask was on and her dark eyes felt like black holes. Tom almost had trouble pulling himself away, but he finally managed.