Rose Tinted (24 page)

Chapter 29: Alive

Brynn followed the familiar hallway as if she had walked it every day of her life. Her legs were finally functional once more and she no longer dragged her foot across the floor. Instead, she walked quietly through the space, still not sure if it was better to bring in help to find Ty and Jonah or if she should just look for them herself.

The problem with finding them on her own, she realized, was that it would only take one Worker to stop her and the pinch still had a good eight minutes of recharging to do before she could use it again.

She grasped the metal ball tightly in her hand, wishing it were powerful enough to knock out the whole facility. Brynn knew that the Worker she’d frozen would be mobile again by now, probably informing Eris of her escape and bringing down the wrath of A1 on her.

With this comforting thought in mind she cont
inued down the hallway towards the exit she knew she’d be able to locate, still unsure of what to do.

“Brynn
, stop,” Eris said from behind her.

She was a good distance away and didn’t actually look like s
he intended on coming any closer to the girl. Her feet were planted and her arms were crossed. Even her ever present smirk was gone, replaced by a serious look that Brynn had never seen before.

“Stay away from me or I’ll…”

“Use your little device there?” Eris guessed, nodding to the pinch that Brynn grasped for dear life.

This was all too soon. It wouldn’t be ready for another seven minutes and Brynn was pretty sure Eris was well aware of this fact. The woman could come after her right at that moment and Brynn wouldn’t stand a chance.

And yet, she stood her ground a safe distance away from Brynn. Not making any move to attack her.

And that
terrified her more than anything.

“Are you really going to leave your friends in here with me
, sweetheart?” Eris asked, and for the first time, Brynn couldn’t tell if her terms of endearment were sarcastic or sincere.

“I want you to give me back Ty and Jonah,” Brynn finally said, knowing she really didn’t have a bargaining chip. “I’ll tell you anything I remember. Everything I know. Just please let them go,” she pleaded, holding the pinch out in front of her like a weapon, despite the fact that it was useless in her hands.

Six minutes
, she told herself, keeping a mental count of the pinch’s cool down.

“Brynn
, you know I can’t do that,” Eris said evenly, taking one small step towards the girl.

Despite how
nervous it made Brynn to be in the hallway alone with Eris, it was the things Eris wasn’t doing that made her more nervous.

She didn’t have Worker’s coming up the hallway behind Brynn to snatch her. She didn’t run full speed at the frail girl that she could easily break in half. She didn’t force her to do anything. And that made absolutely no sense.

Five minutes,
she told herself.

“The only reason you need them is to get information out of me,” Brynn said reasonably. “So if I’m willing to give you the information freely why do you need them?”

“I need them to force the memories you can’t recall,” Eris answered matter-of-factly.

Four minutes
.

“And besides Brynn, I don’t just need you for your memories,” Eris said.

She took one more almost minute step forward, inching slowly towards Brynn as if she didn’t want to spook her.

“You need information on The Alliance?” she
guessed, wondering if she would really be willing to sell out her friends and their cause to keep Ty and Jonah alive.

She wanted to
keep them alive, that much was certain. But she wanted to believe she could be as brave as Rachel by sacrificing what she loved for the greater good.

Three minutes
.

“I don’t need information on that band of misfits,” Eris said disdainfully. “They don’t pose a threat to me.”

Brynn had known that Eris was an arrogant woman. It was probably the only weakness that would be useful to the group in bringing her down. But she hadn’t realized until that moment just how unaware she was of the threat The Alliance posed to her. She may not have thought they were a contender in her great plan, but that only proved to Brynn just how misguidedly confident in her abilities she was.

Two minutes
.

“If you don’t need information on The Alliance and you don’t need my memories
, then what do you need me for?” Brynn asked, afraid of what the answer might be.

Her palms were beginning to sweat around the pinch, making it slippery and difficult to hold on to.

“I need you to talk to someone for me,” Eris said, her eyes now intense as she watched Brynn. “They won’t respond to me no matter what I do.”

Eris almost sounded like her feelings were genuinely hurt by this fact and Brynn wondered why in the world Eris would think this silent person would speak to Brynn instead of
her.

One minute
.

“She refuses to speak to me. She always has so I’
m not surprised, but now that I have you, I think she’ll be a little more willing to cooperate.”

Brynn could feel the seconds ticking away. It was like an internal clock counting down to the time when she’d be able to use the pinch again. She only had half a minute to go and she was sure she’d be able to keep Eris talking for that short amount of time.

The Angel took another step towards her, coming just within range of the pinch and suddenly Brynn realized why she had kept her distance in the first place. Eris hadn’t known about the cool down time on the pinch. She had just thought she’d distracted Brynn well enough to keep her from pushing the button.

Brynn moved her thumb to the red button, counting the seconds in her head methodically as Eris stared at her.

“Who do you need me to talk to?” Brynn asked, more to keep Eris distracted than out of any actual interest.

There was absolutely no one in the world she’d let distract her from her mission of finding Jonah and Ty.

“I need you to speak to Rachel for me,” Eris said finally, saying the one thing that caused the pinch to drop from Brynn’s now limp hands.

And that was when she smelled the sugar.

Acknowledgments

First off I have to give a huge shout out to my amazing lit family at CHBB for… well… everything really. You guys always have my back and it’s wonderful! Thank you to Heather, Lisa, and Mikki for all of your input and for helping me figure out how in the world to describe that stupid hallway. Ashlee, again, I’m sorry for what happened in this book, but thank you for reminding me that the mafia doesn’t exist in this world and so, in fact, I can’t make a reference to them. That was close! Jackie Hicken, you know who you are and you know what you did… which was everything. You always do everything. And I wouldn’t have finished a single book without you. Amber, Bennett, Hadlock, Royter, Tate, and Devey, thanks for letting me use you guys. If I end up killing any of you, it’s nothing personal. Family, thank you for encouraging me and being the best family I could ever ask for. Husband, thank you for just being the best in general and putting up with me and all of my craziness. And thank you to my Heavenly Father, for the gift of writing that I would be so lost without.

About the Author:

Shannen Crane Camp was born and raised in Southern California, where she developed a love of reading, writing, and anything having to do with film. After high school, she moved to Utah to attend Brigham Young University, where she received a degree in Media Arts and found herself a husband in fellow California native Josh Camp. The two now live in either California or Utah... they still can't decide.
 

Shannen loves to hear from readers,
so feel free to contact her:
[email protected]

Visit her website for more information: 
http://shannencbooks.blogspot.com

Also by Shannen Crane Camp
:

The Breakup Artist

Pwned

Finding June (The June Series #1)

Chasing June (The June Series #2)

Sugar Coated (The Sugar Coated Trilogy #1)

Under Zenith