Omega by Lizzy Ford Page A

once, it was my turn to do the same for him, and nothing
Niko said was going to dissuade me.
    “ Well, come on,” he said
and stood.
    “ Where are we going?” I
asked suspiciously.
    “ Dosy knows some people.
You and I are going to walk into SISA and hope she can get us out.”
He stopped outside the café and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
“I’ve never seen footage of a potential Oracle walking in
voluntarily.” He slid one cold cuff around one wrist then the
other.
    “ You’re really going to
help me?”
    Niko met my gaze. “No one
else I know would consider me walking you into SISA helping ,” he replied.
“When we’re inside, chances are they’re going to separate us. Count
to a hundred and then pull off your red bracelet. If you really are
what Dosy says, it’ll cause some sort of chaos and distract them
long enough for me to slip away and find Herakles.”
    “ This is a great plan,” I
said, my hope building.
    “ It’s a terrible plan. We
have no exit strategy.”
    I didn’t care. All I could think about was
Herakles. “I can take care of myself,” I told him when I saw the
worried look he cast the walls. “I know self-defense and I can
run.”
    “ You have no clue, kid.”
Without another word, he took my arm and marched me across the
street.
    My stomach churned as we approached the
guard post.
    “ I found the real Oracle,”
Niko proclaimed.
    “ Move along,” one of the
guards said, unconcerned.
    “ Look, I’m a merc. I’ve
been tracking her, and I found her,” Niko insisted. “If you check
with your boss, he’s expecting me.”
    Say what now? I eyed him.
    “ Whatever, sport. Keep
walking,” another guard replied.
    Niko glanced at me. “Can you do anything
Oracle-y to prove it?” he asked.
    “ Not that I know
of.”
    He muttered something I couldn’t hear then
reached for the red cord at my wrist. Tugging the knot free, he
pulled it away.
    A wave – invisible yet strong enough to
shatter the glass of car windshields – rippled outward from us. The
gate before us shook, and the plastic chairs outside the café
flipped onto their sides. Everyone within ten feet of us was
flattened. The wave lost power the farther it traveled down the
block.
    Niko and I exchanged a look. We alone were
left standing. The guards were sprawled onto the ground where
they’d fallen. Replacing the red cord, Niko faced the nearest
guard, who appeared too stunned to react.
    “ If you don’t want her, I
can sell her off on the black market for at least –”
    The guards erupted into action and shouting.
Someone screamed for the gate to be opened while two more charged
and grabbed us both.
    “ It’s working,” I mouthed
to Niko, not fighting the men jostling us towards the
gate.
    He rolled his eyes.
    We were escorted past the first gate where
our entourage doubled before we were permitted through the second
gate. The compound inside consisted of at least three buildings
edging a courtyard and entrance to an underground parking
garage.
    We stopped there. One of the guards radioed
into someone. He was too far away for me to hear, and my gaze fell
to the building to the east, where I thought Herakles might be. It
was impossible to tell anything about the buildings and what they
held by their uniform, blank facades. No numbers or identifying
marks were visible. The building on the left was boarded up.
    Someone in a suit emerged from the eastern
building to wave the guard forward. I was corralled in that
direction. Niko remained in the courtyard. I automatically began to
count as he had instructed.
    The interior of the building was as plain as
the exterior. A foyer consisting of an empty space flanked by two
doors held two men in business suits and a doctor or nurse in
scrubs.
    “ Just one guard,” one of
the businessmen waved the others away. He wore spectacles and
carried an iPad. “You won’t be any trouble, right, princess?” He
glanced at me.
    What an ass. But I was polite. “No, sir,”