Eli hesitated. That wasn’t protocol. Cautiously, he did as he was told, expecting a dark hood to come down over his head. Instead, cold metal slid around his throat. Eli tensed, resisted the urge to pull away as the steel closed around his throat.

“The hunting dog gets a collar,” said Blue Eyes.

Eli stood, running his fingers along the band of metal. “What is this?”

Brown Eyes held up a slim remote. “Didn’t think we’d let you out without a leash . . .”

She pressed a button, and a single high note, like a warning tone, sounded in Eli’s ears before pain pierced the back of his neck. Eli’s vision went white, his body folding beneath him.

“And down he goes,” said Blue Eyes as he hit the cell floor.

Eli couldn’t move, couldn’t feel anything below the shard of metal driven between his vertebrae.

“Come on, Samson,” said Green Eyes, “we’re on a schedule.”

The tone sounded again, and the steel spike withdrew. Eli gasped, chest lurching as his spine healed and sensation flooded back into his limbs. He pushed himself to his hands and knees, and then up to his feet. A small pool of blood on the cell floor was the only sign of what they’d done.

Brown Eyes waved the remote. “You try to escape, you try to attack us—hell, you piss us off—I’ll put you down.”

Eli studied the slim remote in the soldier’s hand, and wondered if it was the only one.

“Why would I do that?” he said. “We’re on the same side.”

“Yeah, sure,” said Green Eyes, thrusting a hood through the slot.

“Put it on.”

Eli was led, blind and bound, through doorways and down halls, a soldier gripping each arm. He felt the ground shift beneath him from concrete to linoleum, and then to asphalt. The air changed, a breeze grazing his skin, and he wished the hood were off, wished he could see the sky, breathe in fresh air. But there would be time for that. A few feet more, and then their progress halted. Eli was turned around, maneuvered until his back came up against the metal side of a van.

Doors swung open, and he was half dragged into the back of the van, forced a little too roughly onto a steel bench against one wall. A strap went around his legs, another around his chest. His handcuffs were locked to the bench seat between his knees. The soldiers climbed in, and the doors were thrown shut, and the van’s engine revved as it pulled away from EON.

Eli smiled beneath the hood.

He was cuffed and collared—but he was one step closer to free.

XI

THE LAST AFTERNOON

XII

THE FALCON PRICE

A couple years ago, Mitch had taught Sydney about magnets.