Sardini skipped down the bright hallway. She had been torn between staying and reading quietly to keep her mom company while she slept and doing what she wanted. In the end, her logic told her to go and do what she wanted because her sleeping mother wouldn't know the difference.

Sardini knew her mother wasn't sick. She also knew it would upset her mother if she knew Sardini knew the truth. Her mother worked hard to protect her from what she felt would hurt Sardini, but if her mother only knew how strong Sardini was, she wouldn't have worried so much.

Passing one of the guards blocking the door to the hallway leading to the elevators that led up to the doctor's quarters, Sardini kept skipping down the hall humming a song she had learned last week.

Sardini smiled as she heard the guard think, "That kid is so weird. "

If the people here only knew half of what Sardini could do, they would probably have locked her up and experimented on her too.

Thankfully she had learned quickly to make sure people didn't see her abilities. She hid them even from her mom now. Her mother's fear was easy to see on her face. If she knew how powerful Sardini had become, the doctors would soon figure it out.

So Sardini went to talk to the only person whom she trusted. At least he didn't lie to her or tell her things to try and hide the truths about this place. Etta was terrific, but like her mom, she treated her too much like a baby.

Sardini stopped in front of the door and debated on knocking when she heard the person on the other side cursing emphatically.

"Fuck no! Oh hell, this isn't happening. Fuck no!"

Sardini's brows furrowed in worry and curiosity. Nick had a bad habit of swearing, but usually, he wasn't this bad.

Instead of knocking, Sardini silently cracked the door open and peeked inside. Her eyes instantly fell on Nick's screen.

The egg pulsed, and she could see faint purple energy pulsing around it in time with the egg's rhythm. Staring at the egg, Sardini couldn't move. The emotions and thoughts passed on to it from its surrogate flowed out of the egg-like poison.

Through the connection provided by the thing in the egg, Sardini instantly knew more than anyone would have thought possible.

The camera was showing her the lab that was only two floors directly below her. Not far enough away to avoid its thoughts. Sardini wished she had better control of her powers. They were strong, and if she let her emotions get out of control, she wasn't sure she could stop her power from going awol.

Now that she knew what she knew, though, what should she do?

These creatures, the monsters everyone talked so much about when they thought she wasn't around, were not natural, not a race born to themselves but abnormal anomalies made for a purpose.

They weren't the real enemy. They were just an army, a disposable army, sent to weaken a race before the true Rakshasa came to conquer.

The plan of the Rakshasa was passed on from the surrogates who carried the eggs to the hatchlings. It was done without art or finesse, and there seemed to be an extraordinary amount of information passed on. Like building blocks, all the memories from the surrogate were added to the memories of the last surrogate and all the ones before that one, too—the information seeming endless.

Sardini had seen millennia of plans, some done and some in progress, pass through her mind in a blink. Part of her mind registered how easily she absorbed the information and wondered if all brains had that power. This thought was fleeting, though, as the horrors revealed to her started to sink in.

Sardini felt her skin prickle with goosebumps, and she shivered. No one had a clue what was coming. How could they? And no one was going to be ready.

She must have hissed a breath or squeaked because Nick suddenly whipped his head around and saw her.

"Shit! Aww, kid. Fuck!"

Nick scrambled and switched the screen to black, but it was too late. Sardini had seen too much.

She felt a tear trickle down her cheek. She needed to tell someone what she had seen. Keeping this inside her wasn't possible. It was too much even for her. She suddenly felt very much like the little girl her mother saw her as.

"So many people are going to die, Nick." The words came out as a whisper. Her voice sounded haunted to even her ears.

----------------------

Nick's brow furrowed in confusion, but he tried to comfort her.

"Sardini, the doctors are probably going to kill it before it hatches. I wouldn't worry."

He knew he was contradicting himself as she had probably just heard him cursing, and he probably wouldn't buy the shit he was shovelling her way if he was in her shoes.

Yet, he had to try something. The kid looked like someone had just told her that her mother was dead.

"Look, kid, these guys have dissected hundreds of these things over the last eight years. I really wouldn't worry."

The girl's platinum hair, styled in a bob just above her shoulder, swung dramatically as she shook her head at him. Her eyes, the colour of amethysts, grew round with dread and sorrow as her lips tightened into a hard line that was far too severe for her round, youthful face.

"Nick, you don't understand."

She stared at the floor for a minute; her brow creased as she thought hard about something.

Nick wasn't sure what was up, but he got a weird feeling it wasn't all about the egg. He was on the fence between telling her he had to go, making an excuse to get her to leave before she said more and his curiosity. Information was one of the most valued things to trade, and this could be the jackpot.

However, it wasn't meant to be. One of the alarms sounded on his controls alerting him someone wanted entry through the gate at ground level. The mountain only had one way up for vehicles, and right before the trail started upwards, there had been a gate installed that required Nick, or whoever was at the controls, to allow entry.

It was a redundancy because the road only went a couple of miles up the mountain before you had to turn to enter the tunnel leading to the facility's underground parking lot. At the tunnel's entrance, a stupid number of guards were stationed and wouldn't let anyone in unless they had security clearance.

Nick looked at the man standing in front of the camera, scowling. Grayson was not amused for some reason. Probably hadn't been laid since the 90's Nick thought. That would place a permanent scowl on his face.

Heaving a sigh, Nick hit the button that would allow Grayson and the small band of mercs behind him through the gate. Nick had to control a smile as he pictured Grayson chewing the guards at the tunnel a new asshole when they tried to stop all the trucks from entering.

When Nick turned back to the door to tell Sadrini to come and tell him what was upsetting her, she was gone.

"Fuck! That was probably my fucking retirement!"

Nick palmed his face and groaned. Maybe it was for the best. Whatever had been on that poor kid's mind had been heavy. Peeking a glance back to the pulsing egg, Nick decided that it was definitely for the best.

He was disappointed to see the guards wave Grayson and his entourage through without even so much as a slowdown. That was it. He was done. This place has lost its goddamn mind.

First, keeping people like test rats, raising a little girl in a place with no other kids or even a resemblance of normalcy that a kid should experience, then harvesting an egg from a monster and now letting in seven armed vehicles with fucking who knew how many armed people inside them. What the hell were the assholes in charge thinking?

If the egg didn't hatch and kill everyone, maybe the mercs would decide that this place was fucked and kill everyone instead. Would serve the morons right.

"Screw this. I need a fucking smoke and a coffee."

Turning to his intercom, Nick hit a few buttons until someone buzzed back at him.

"What is it, Nick? Your break isn't for another hour."

"I need to take a piss, Mitch. Too much fucking coffee and boinking your sister."

"You're a real asshole, man."

"You just want my asshole. Come give me a break, loser, before I piss in this room's only comfortable seat."

"Fine. But this counts as your actual break. I have things to do today besides letting you go smoke cigarettes. You know, if you quit smoking, you'd be set for life. Those things have to cost more than trading for a house carved from a mountain. Be there in 5."

Nick snorted. Mitch was right. Anything that was grown in large fields cost a shit tonne in trade. Tobacco was the worst because it wasn't essential by many people's standards, so not many risked their lives to grow it. Yet that only meant that those who did got to demand almost anything they wanted from those still enjoying their nicotine addiction.