Playing With Fire (Phoenix Fire #3)
Author: Cynthia Eden

PROLOGUE

“Please stop, Daddy. Please!” The little girl twisted and struggled desperately against the thick straps that held her down on the cold, metal table.

“Now, Cassie, be a good girl and don’t fight.” Her father loomed above her, wearing his white lab coat. He had a mask over his face, and all she could see were his glittering eyes. “This is going to make you stronger. Don’t you want to be stronger?”

He was going to put the medicine in her again. She could see the needle. It glinted under the bright light. So long and sharp.

“I-I don’t want to be stronger,” she whispered. She wanted out of that room. Away from him.

Far, far away.

“There are monsters in the world, Cassie. We have to stop them.” His voice had hardened. His voice was always hard and cold.

He looked like a monster. With the light all around him. With the white mask over his face. White gloves on his hands.

Tears leaked down her cheeks as he pushed the needle into her arm.

She screamed. It felt like fire was pouring into her veins. Her body started to thrash and jerk on the table.

He sighed. “That’s why I had to use the straps. I couldn’t have you hurting yourself.”

Her screams grew louder.

“Don’t worry. We only have a few more weeks of injections to go.”

She kept screaming. She couldn’t stop. She was burning. Her head banged against the table. Over and over. Black dots danced before her eyes.

“Once the transformation is complete, you’ll be our weapon. So perfectly cloaked in a child’s innocence.”

Her screams stopped. She choked, trying to pull in a breath, but she couldn’t get air. Her gaze flew around the small lab. Her daddy’s lab. He usually made her stay out of the lab. But he’d brought her in today—even when she’d begged to go outside.

He was staring down at her. His eyes . . . looked worried. He never looked that way.

“Breathe, Cassie,” his voice snapped.

She couldn’t.

Machines started to beep around her.

“The dose was too high!” her father yelled.

The light seemed to be fading.

“Cassie?”

He’d injected her with something else. She had just made out the glint of a needle before it was shoved into her arm.

“Her heart has stopped beating.” A woman’s voice. A nurse. Mrs. May. She sometimes gave Cassie lollipops when her father wasn’t looking. Mrs. May had always seemed so nice.

But she had strapped her down minutes before. Usually, one of the men would strap her down. Not sweet Mrs. May. Not . . .

“Cassie!” She couldn’t see her father anymore, but at least the fire had stopped burning her body. She didn’t feel the fire anymore. Didn’t feel anything.

“She’s flatlined!”

Cassie heard nothing more.

Cassie sucked in a desperate breath. Then she screamed because she hurt.

“She’s back! Dammit, she’s back!”

That was . . . Daddy’s voice. She tried to see him, but the light above her was too bright. So Cassie looked down . . . and saw the blood that covered her body. “Dad . . . dy?”

Then he was there. Lowering his face toward hers. “It’s going to be all right, sweetheart. I took care of you.”

She’d never seen him smile like that before.

“You’re going to be so strong now. So strong . . .”

She didn’t feel strong.

“You’ll change the world. You’ll change the world . . .”

Cassie could only lay there and feel the wet warmth of her blood. The straps cut her, but they didn’t hurt nearly as bad as . . . as the stitches that her father was putting into her skin.

But Cassie didn’t cry out again. There was no point. Daddy wasn’t going to let her go.

She turned her head. More nurses were around her. Mrs. May even brushed a soft, gloved hand over her cheek.

Cassie held her body as still as she could and wished, so very badly, that her father hadn’t brought her back.

Because in those few moments, she’d enjoyed death.

Cassie crept quietly down the hallway. Someone new had been brought into the facility. She’d heard the raised voices. The thud of footsteps.

Her daddy had said that his program was growing.

Her daddy scared her.

When she saw him leaving the room at the end of the hall, she ducked back into the shadows. He passed her flanked by two big men with guns, and he never looked her way.

Her hands were shaking so she balled them into fists. Then, her bare feet making no sound, Cassie slipped down the hallway.

She opened the door to the last room, but no one was inside. Stairs were in the corner. Stairs leading down below.

Cassie bit her lip. She wasn’t supposed to be there. Her daddy had said . . .

Daddy’s bad. He hurt me.

She went down the stairs. Then she saw him.

Big, dark. In a . . . cage?

His head jerked up, and he spun toward her. “Who are you?” the man in the cage demanded. His voice scared her. It was like an animal’s rumbling growl.

But she crept closer to him.

He stiffened as his dark gaze raked over her. “Why is there blood on you?”

“He killed me.” She understood exactly what had happened. And what would happen. “He’s going to kill you, too.”

The man came toward the heavy bars that separated them. “Do you want to help me, little girl?”

She nodded.

“Go back upstairs. See if you can find a key to open the cage and—”

Her fisted hand opened. She’d already taken the key.

Sometimes, her daddy didn’t realize how smart she really was.

She put the key in the lock. Heard the snick. “I don’t want him to kill anyone else.” Soft, sad.

The man came out of the cage. He bent before her. Stared into her eyes. “Who are you?” he asked again.

His eyes were so dark. Just like the darkness that had claimed her when she died.

“Cassie . . . Cassandra.”

“Come with me, Cassandra. We’re both getting out of here.” His fingers wrapped around hers.

His hand felt too warm.

“I want to get out,” she whispered, nodding quickly. “Please, help me.”

His fingers tightened around hers. “I will.”

She heard the thud of footsteps, coming down the stairs.

“Cassie!” Her father’s shout. “Cassie . . . what have you done?” He was there. He wasn’t alone. More men with guns. Always . . . the guns.