Her hands faltered as she traced a cable. More than incredible. It was impossible…

He’d found his way into the control room in under ten minutes, when he’d already told them he was kilometres away. Then he’d found the permission card almost immediately so that he could let them in. And he’d been awfully quick to volunteer to accompany Mitzi to the maintenance room when he’d heard she would need to step out of her suit…

Your own brother could be a Cymic, and you wouldn’t know until he attacked you.

“Mitz, did you hear me?” Nic broke through the awful fog that was filling Mitzi’s mind. “That’s the right cable. R-two-four-nine is the right cable. Cut it, and you can open the door.”

“Right,” Mitzi said, her voice so thin that she doubted Nic would hear. Her mind was buzzing. The logical side that cared about her self-preservation fought to be heard over the emotional side that was screaming in horror and fear.

All of her weapons were in the ADE, four feet away, and there was no way he would give her the chance to suit up. Her team was waiting at the top of the stairs, and even if she screamed, they wouldn’t get to her in time. They might not even hear her. She glanced left and right out of the corner of her eyes, but the pipes were all tightly attached to the walls, and she couldn’t see anything hefty that she could use as a weapon. All she had was the small pocketknife in her hand, which wouldn’t even slow Cymics.

Crap, crap, crap…

“Is something the matter?” Franc asked, and there was an awful gravelly quality to his voice.

Mitzi turned, dreading what she was about to see.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

Franc smiled at her, his eyes full of gentle optimism and good humour. A crack ran the length of his face, and even as Mitzi tried to back away, it began widening, splitting his head open. His eyes swivelled oddly to continue watching her as each half of his face was pulled to the side to expose the monster inside.

Mitzi ran for her suit, but Franc was too fast. He raised an arm, and a tendril shot out of it, shredding the skin that had covered his hand. Mitzi pulled up to avoid it, and it swung towards her, hitting her in the chest and sending her reeling back against the wall. It hurt an awful lot more without the protection of her suit.

The tiny flashlight fell to the ground as Franc dropped his human disguise. The skin sloughed off, curling around behind him to be stored inside his monstrous form. Mitzi searched desperately for something to fight him with. But she was cornered, and everything that might have been useful was out of reach.

She opened her mouth to scream, hoping that her team would hear her or Nic would figure out what was happening and alert them. They’d be miles too late to save her, but at least they would be warned. A tendril hit her before she could make a noise, though, and forced her into the concrete wall. A cracking noise and searing pain across her chest told her that the impact had broken a few of her ribs.