Defective (The Institute Series Book 3) by Kayla Howarth

Author:Kayla Howarth [Howarth, Kayla]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Published: 2015-08-31T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

My hand reflexively goes for the gun on my hip as we turn to face Cyrus. He isn’t alone, he’s got a man on either side of him, all three are armed.

“Nah-uh. Hands up,” Cyrus instructs. We do as he says.

I hear Jayce’s voice in my ear, “Allira? Who’s that? What’s happening?”

I ignore him.

“Why are you here?” Cyrus asks.

“I missed you, Cyrus,” I say sarcastically. Drew nudges me with his elbow, making me sigh. “We need to talk,” I say, more conciliatory.

Cyrus lowers his gun. “Okay.” His two henchmen lower their guns, too.

“Okay?” I ask, surprised.

“Anything for the director. We’ll go up to the town hall, and don’t worry, someone’s already picking up your friends.”

Jenna’s voice comes through the earpiece. “Yeah. There’s a car approaching, what do we do?”

“Just go along with it,” I try to say quietly.

“What was that?” Cyrus asks.

“I was just wondering how you knew we were here?” I say, trying to cover.

“New security system installed by one of the newbies. Thanks to you two, we don’t need to recruit any more. We have people coming to us.”

My stomach churns. They’re still growing in numbers, and power.

“You don’t have to look so tense, Allira. You never did believe in what we’re doing here. We’re doing everything we can to stay out of the mess you guys have made, but we also need to be able to defend ourselves if we need to. All we want is to be completely independent from the rest of the country. We’re striving on our own. And with more numbers, the more independent we become.”

“You know, you need to advise the Institute of any sort of security systems,” Drew says, cutting me off from yelling about how power-greedy and arrogant Cyrus is.

“Well here you go, Mr. Director, sir, we have a new security system.”

I’m beginning to wonder if anybody actually takes Drew seriously as the Director of the Institute. I know I tease him a lot about it, but after hearing Cyrus do it, I’m starting to think maybe I shouldn’t. He’s doing an excellent job, better than Brookfield and Paxton combined, probably.

“Just make sure you fill in a form at your next monthly meeting. Unless you want your new security system confiscated.”

“Speaking of confiscating – how about you give us those guns of yours. You have to understand we can’t take the risk. The last time you two were armed among a group of people, we lost some of our best guys. Belle lost her son.”

I wince.

“We’re not going to just hand over our weapons,” Drew states, again stopping me from yelling at Cyrus. “They’re Institute property.”

“Oh calm down, Director Jacobs. You’ll get them back before you leave.”

Drew hands over his two guns, then glares at me, encouraging me to do the same.

“Fine,” I mumble, handing them over.

As we walk past farmers in the fields where Drew used to work, I feel eyes burning into me. They only get worse the farther into the compound we get. We reach the door to the town hall, Cyrus stopping us before we enter.

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