The Girl Who Dared to Think 2: The Girl Who Dared to Stand (The Girl Who Dared #2)(5)

My fingers found my neck, skimming over the raw and angry flesh there, and I snatched them back. “Devon,” I said gravely. I immediately began looking around, and saw Eric, Quess, and Maddox. Leo had been shoved in as well, and Eric was helping him out of his ties.

I looked past all of it, intent on studying the room.

It was small—tighter than anything we’d ever been in—with barely enough room for us to sit down and stretch our legs out. Pipes made up the walls, barely an inch of space between them as they snaked in and out of the room. Our prison was well chosen: even the ceiling was a dense network of pipes, impossible to penetrate.

“We’re in a water closet,” Zoe informed me, a tad impatiently. “I’m guessing somewhere in Cogstown.”

It made sense, considering Cogstown was under Lacey’s jurisdiction. But how had the four of them wound up here? And where was Tian? We had left the youngest member of our group alone and undefended in Sanctum; if she wasn’t here, did that mean they hadn’t figured out where we lived?

“Liana, what happened with Devon?” Quess asked, and I looked over at where he was kneeling next to Maddox. The young man’s face was lined with worry as he stood up and looked at Leo and me. “Where’s Leo? Did he manage to find the formula for Paragon?”

I looked over at Leo, and the AI stared back, somehow keeping any expression from reaching Grey’s face. I opened my mouth, prepared to tell them everything that had happened, when Maddox interrupted.

“To hell with all that,” she growled, struggling to get up out of the seated position she was in. Her leg was wrapped in a thick plastic sheet filled with hexagonal shapes that provided supplements meant to accelerate the healing process, meaning it would be fixed in a day or so. Provided we were still alive at that point.

She heaved herself upright after a few seconds and stood, staring at me, one hand on her hip. “Liana, do you know where we are, and what’s going on?”

Everyone looked at me, and my answers to Quess’s questions flew apart under their solemn gazes. I gazed back at the four of them, and then ran a hand over my face.

Lacey had told me not to tell them anything, but if she had wanted me to keep her identity a secret, she should’ve let my friends go without bothering them. She hadn’t, and in my mind, that meant she had forfeited the right to secrecy.

“I do,” I told them. “The people who grabbed you are working for Lacey Green.”

“Engineer Lacey Green?” Quess asked, his eyes rounding in shock. Then his brows drew together, and he frowned. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why did she grab us? We didn’t do anything to Cogstown. The Medica is well outside her jurisdiction.”

“Shut up and let Liana finish,” Eric said sharply. I shot him a concerned look, alarmed by the anger in his voice, and saw that my other best friend was not all right. Sweat dotted his forehead, and he kept looking up and around, as if he expected something to fall on him at any moment.

“Eric?” I asked, taking a step closer to him, one hand outstretched. He took a hurried step back, his eyes huge in alarm, and I froze.

“He’ll be all right,” Zoe said as she slid around me and over to him. He reached for her, like a man terrified that the world was falling out from under his feet, and I realized he was in the grip of a panic attack.

All of us were, in one way or another, but this was worse. Eric was actively beginning to exhibit signs.

“What’s his problem?” Maddox asked as Zoe began to guide him down to the ground, one arm wrapped around his shoulder with the other over his chest. She pressed against one enlarged pectoral muscle and cupped it protectively, as if the action were shielding his very heart from harm.

“He’s a Hand,” Zoe reminded her. She kept her voice soft and gentle as she settled him on the floor, before sitting down next to him. “He was raised in a greenery. Tight spaces are not good for him, especially like this. Liana, explain things and see if that can’t help him calm down.”

“Right,” I said, licking my lips. Zoe was now guiding Eric’s head into her lap, her fingers already sliding through his brown hair and stroking the side of his face. Eric had one arm over Zoe’s legs, hugging her close. His breathing came in sharp, tight gasps.

“I’ll be fine,” he said, nodding his head forcefully, but in a way that was so emphasized that I wondered whether he was trying to reassure himself more than us.

“Shush,” Zoe said gently, her fingers drifting over his lips. “Let Liana talk, and just try to breathe, okay?”

He continued to nod, and a few seconds later, all attention was on me.

I exhaled and began. “Lacey Green and Praetor Strum are part of some sort of shadow group that is… I don’t know… at war with other shadow groups over control of the master Scipio AI. They wanted me to assassinate Devon Alexander, which… I sort of did before we escaped the Medica.”

“You killed the Champion?” Quess exclaimed.

“Bigger picture, Quess,” Maddox said curtly. Her green eyes remained on me as she spoke, and she took a jerky step forward. “Liana, did you agree to this?”

I hesitated. “Not exactly. And I certainly didn’t plan to do it today. They gave me a week to do it, and it was my intention to talk to everyone about it after we rescued you. As you’ll all recall.”