Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26999 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26999 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 135(@200wpm)___ 108(@250wpm)___ 90(@300wpm)
My breath hitches. I can barely breathe, barely think. “But you didn’t tell me?” Accusation laces my words, emotions colliding inside me, a desperate part of me wanting to believe his words. Another part, the logical part of me, reminds me not to be naive and not to let down my guard. I reject the very idea of him, of us, ever existing again. If we were ever real, he couldn’t have stayed away this long. “What do you want from me, Creed?”
Chapter Four
I think I’ll have to wait for his excuses, his lies, but Creed is too ready for me for any such delay. His answer is instant, and everything I would want to be and everything I cannot fall for.
“If Julian knew you wore my mark,” he explains, “he’d demand you come with us, and I was not going to let that happen. There was no way I was letting you near Zodius City. I wanted you far away from me and him, and that’s what happened. You did what I knew you’d do. You removed yourself. I needed you to remove yourself, to go far away, which was the only way I could stay away from you.”
“Liar,” I whisper, my stomach in knots and my heart bleeding. “You would have told me.”
“You couldn’t know the truth, Addie. You’re the renegade. You would have exposed yourself and me. It was too dangerous.”
My heart thunders in my chest. “Then why are you telling me now?”
“Project Red Dart,” he says, dropping the term as if he were testing my knowledge.
My heart races at the mention of the top-secret program. Oh God, he was trying to use me. This was all one big trick. “Red Dart?” I ask, feigning ignorance.
“Julian knows about it, Addie.”
Which should be impossible, I think. There are only a handful of people who know about Red Dart for fear of leaks to Julian. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Red Dart is a laser beam created by a crystal that shoots a chemical into the bloodstream of the target. The target is then tracked,” he pauses, “and tortured, sometimes to the point of death.”
My lips part in shock.
Torture?
What is he talking about?
His eyes narrow sharply. “You didn’t know about the torture part, did you.” It’s not a question. He knows I didn’t know. I still don’t know. “I knew you would never support the program if you knew the truth.”
He’s serious. He really thinks… “Of course I wouldn’t,” I agree. “You have no idea what you are talking about.” There isn’t any torture involved with Red Dart. Oh God. Please let there not be any torture involved with Red Dart. The idea that a GTECH could be ordered to do anything—no matter how unethical or wrong—or risk torture is not a possibility I even want to consider. If my father is lying to me again, I will never forgive him.
“Did you know he’s promised the Secretary of State that all GTECHs, Renegade and Zodius alike, will be under his complete control within sixty days?”
“Oh no,” I whisper, shaking my head in instant rejection. “He would never act against the Renegades. And damn it, Creed, there’s no torture involved with Red Dart. We don’t even waterboard our enemies. We sure as heck aren’t going to insert some sort of torture mechanism that would do Lord only knows what to them.”
“Yet that is exactly what your father intends to do. Just like at Groom Lake, he is driven by a personal agenda that endangers innocent lives. There were two men on the military tribunal for your father, both ready to put him away for life. Both died of brain aneurysms. A very unlikely coincidence.”
I hug myself. “What does that have to do with any of this?”
“There’s a drug called ‘Stardust’ that was developed at Groom Lake. It causes brain aneurysms. It’s an alien substance that won’t show up in blood testing. I know this because Julian confiscated a supply when he took over your father’s operation.”
I catch the railing next to me, barely able to process what he’s telling me, except for one part, one brutal piece of the puzzle, but still I cling to his remorse. I fight for him. “He’s trying to defend us against a Zodius takeover. He needs the Renegades to defeat Julian, and he knows that.”
“Why, then, has he told Caleb nothing about Red Dart?” he challenges.
“It’s classified.”
“Right. Classified. Well, here’s something else ‘classified’: both Julian and your father want to use Red Dart to control all the GTECHs. As for Julian, once the GTECHs are under his control, he plans to take it even further. He plans to use it on humans. We have to destroy that crystal so that no one can abuse it—not Julian, not your father. Because it can destroy the world.”