by Lan Chan
Whisper
Spectre Book Three
Lan Chan
Copyright
Copyright © 2021 by Lan Chan
All rights reserved.
Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, (electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
All names, characters, groups, and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and all opinions expressed by the characters, whose preferences and attitudes are entirely their own. Any similarities to real persons or groups, living or dead are coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cover by Christian Bentulan
Editing by Contagious Edits, Lorie Collins, and Tiffany Purdon
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
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1
My nightmares used to begin with darkness. Now they began with a whisper. At first, a single hushed breath would seep out from the recesses of my subconscious. Then slowly, others joined in the chorus. They weren’t voices so much as urgings, like the physiological commands that make up the sub-layer of all our minds. Those vital instructions telling our organs to function and keep us alive. Except these whispers weren’t telling me to breathe, to blink, or to sweat. They were compelling me to walk, and the compulsion was overwhelming.
My boots crunched on the gravel outside of the ice-creamery on the edge of Silhouette Row. My subconscious brain swept over the multi-coloured flavours offered up in neat containers in the chest freezers by the counter. The memory of caramel and vanilla danced across my taste buds. Even in my dreams, all I wanted to do was eat. Zeke would have gotten a kick out of that.
I stared through the window but made no move to enter. Inside, patrons occupied the scattering of tables, heaped sundae glasses in front of them. My hand reached out to splay longingly on the glass. The warmth of my palm created a border of condensation. The glass was cold beneath my skin but not cold enough to cause the fractures that began at each tip of my fingers. Tiny hairline fissures gained momentum and turned into splinters. They snaked to the metal border of the window as a shadow darkened the reflection. I tried to turn but my feet were planted, my head determined to watch the glass as it snapped in front of me.
A dark-skinned hand reached out past my ear, touched a finger to the window, and it shattered completely. I flung my arms out to shield against being eviscerated, but the first bit of glass that touched me was warm. I held up my palms and the glass had turned to ash.
My head snapped up and the shop was no longer there. Instead, I was standing along the edge of a concrete wall, the toe of my boots hanging just over the ledge. A waft of smoke drifted past, and I involuntarily inhaled. I had expected the scent of sulphur but not the other sweeter smell of black cherries. I only knew one man secure enough in his masculinity to wear perfume.
Even in my dreams, Adam’s footsteps were light. He arrived with an entourage of cigarette smoke.
“Nice night for a bonfire,” he said. Finally able to turn my head, I watched as the cigarette in his mouth fell over the ledge. In the dream state, my reactions were sluggish. It was the only reason why his fingers could clamp around my throat without me kicking out at him. Somewhere in the recesses of my brain, an alarm went off. Then it was overwhelmed by those whispers. Thousands of whispers that suppressed my fight response and willed me to comply. The pressure of Adam’s fingers started out tentative, but I knew that it would turn.
He loomed above me, eyes depthless, and uttered a single word. “Forget.” Then he started to squeeze.
I bolted upright in bed, choking for breath, my left hand clutched around my throat. “Son of a bitch!” My voice was hoarse, as though I’d been inhaling smoke for real. I coughed half a dozen times as my gritty eyes tried to adjust to the dimness. With very deliberate movements, my right hand began to pluck at the fingers of my left hand, releasing its grip from my throat. It was almost as if the hand had a will of its own.
For untold minutes, I sat there afterwards with my sheets bunched up between my legs and the breeze fluttering through the open window, making the thin white curtains dance like ethereal ghosts.
A moth flew into the line of light cast by the spotlight directly outside my bedroom. As the last tinges of the dream receded, I shook myself and took a sip from the glass of water by my bedside.
The clock on the wall said it was just past midnight. My nightmares didn’t even have the decency to wait until the witching hour to strike. At this rate, I wouldn’t be getting back to sleep any time soon. Blowing out a breath, I pushed my legs over the side of the bed and fished around on the floor for my slippers.
Suppressing a shudder, I shuffled to the door. The doorknob groaned treacherously but I ignored it and stepped out into the hallway. In his infinite generosity, Rich had given me a hall pass on curfew, given my sudden insomnia. Save a city from annihilation and the reward was being allowed to walk around the Hyper facility at night. What a rip-off.
My walk took me past Lily’s room, but I didn’t stop. Her routine was concrete, and if I dared enter during designated sleep hours, there would be a lot of screaming. The automatic lights embedded into the knee-high panels on the walls allowed me to stroll leisurely without the need to engage my electrokinesis.
My electrokinesis. Ha!
My lips quirked at the notion. Did it really belong to me if the thing—correction, billions of things—inside me were the ones who really controlled it? According to Lily, the nanobots in my blood were biological and weren’t any different from the millions of other bacteria that lived on the human body. A shiver ran up my spine that had nothing to do with the cold nip in the air.
I came to a stop in front of Zeke’s door. The second rule that had been relaxed for me after Ballarat was that I could now trespass across to the male wing without being hauled up for it. Not that it made much of a difference. Instead of knocking, I leaned my back against the frame and sent a gentle probe along our mental connection. The thread was clear, crisp, and resonated with our combined mental energies. The telepathic link came through to me in colour, Zeke’s a pure grass green and mine a pearlescent cream that sparkled and twinkled in hues of silver and gold. In my mind, it appeared like a thread of
live wire that connected us in ways no Basic could comprehend. I wasn’t even sure how it had been established but knew from the others that it wasn’t normal. Whatever it was, it allowed Zeke and me to reach each other mentally when the others couldn’t. The probe came back in flashes of images and touches of feelings.
He lay asleep on his back, mouth slightly ajar, one arm slung over the side of the bed. His eyelids fluttered as though he were dreaming. Damn. I could wake him, he’d have wanted me to wake him, but insomnia wasn’t an affliction that made you popular. Besides, he’d just come off the evening patrol and had probably only just fallen asleep.
I blew out a breath. What to do now?
Five minutes of nail-biting later, I knew I was stalling. There was only one person who would be active at this time of night. As much as I tried not to put stock in my dreams, I was avoiding going to the rec room because I knew Adam would be there. At least once a week in the month since Ballarat, we’d sat up together, two insomniacs keeping each other company. He’d play the piano and I’d sit at the desk and draw. Once or twice I’d asked him to create an illusion in my mind but he always refused.
I thought it funny that a dozen Psi-Ops agents had turned up to interview me about Ballarat, all of whom would cut off their right arm to get a look inside my head. But when I offered to be Adam’s guinea pig, he flat-out grimaced as though it was the worst thing in the world. Maybe it was. Why else was my brain throwing dreams at me like the one I’d had tonight? Having lived my life in a state of maternally induced paranoia, trusting people didn’t come naturally. It was no wonder I wanted to sabotage the few friendships I’d made.
Wallowing would get me nowhere though, and I didn’t fancy standing outside Zeke’s door all night. I blinked slowly, and in that instant when my eyes were closed, my senses filled with the cracking of glass and the soft heat of the fire burning in the distance. It always began with a whisper. My throat went dry at the thought of the anonymous note that had been left for me at Hyper’s door.
Needing answers, I pushed off Zeke’s door and made my way to the training centre.
2
Being an esper might not be everything, but it sure as heck came in handy when you forgot to wear a coat outside. EK hummed along my arms, helping me maintain core body temperature. On the downside, it also meant that I burned through energy like nobody’s business. My stomach rumbled.
I took the most direct route, navigating a hedge so I could cut through the running track. Trudging through the grassy field, my slippers became dew-soaked. I should have put on proper shoes. Frowning at my unpreparedness, I realised that I was becoming too comfortable in this place. It was beginning to feel too much like home.
Mum’s voice in my head was instinct. “Complacency is a trap that will get you killed.” I’d bet that was what she had told herself when she ran off and never came home. Were Dad and I slowing her down?
My mood was dark when I placed the cerebral monitor over my head and reached into the drawer beside the desk for my stash of energy bars. The monitor beeped as I mentally dialled the number, chewing absently on an apricot energy bar. A flirty, feminine voice answered.
“Hellooooo.”
House music thumped on her end, vying for attention over the voices laughing and glasses clinking. Of course he was at a party.
“Hi. Could I speak to Ry…Hades, please?”
Silence on the other end. “Speak up, sweetie. I can’t hear a damn thing.”
“Could I please speak to Hades? Hades.” I drew his name out in two slow syllables.
There was a pause and I thought for a second she had wandered off. Then she cleared her throat.
“Whom shall I say is calling?” Her words were slurred but I sensed mocking nonetheless. Just as I was wondering if I could send a shock through the phone line, there was a scuffle on the other end. Then I recognized his voice, low and rumbling, in the background. He must have asked who it was because the girl responded. “No idea. Some fangirl.”
The line went dead.
Balling up the energy bar wrapper, I tossed it roughly into the wastepaper basket under the desk. The second dial seemed almost impatient in my head. They were only two hours behind in New China, but from the sounds of it, they could have been in another world.
My bad luck held because the same girl picked up. “Speak to me.”
“Ryan, please.” I thought perhaps using his real name might sway her a little. Instead, she snorted.
“My, aren’t you a tenacious thing?”
I snapped. “Listen, you have two seconds to pass him the phone or I’m going to—”
“Hello, darling.” His breezy tone made me bite down hard on the apple in my hand. Lily had a coronary when she found out I was keeping fruit in drawers. The spongy texture said she was right, but I’d be damned if I conceded again.
“Hey, asshole,” I spat through a mouthful of apple. “Next time you give me a number, make sure there’s no phone bitch blocking the line.”
“Whoa! Is this how you start all your calls? Or do you just miss me?”
Well, at least I knew his ego hadn’t deflated in the last month. Small comfort, I suppose. The background noise faded as though he’d walked away from the party. Here I was without mobile phone privileges and this idiot was wasting his. Of course, when your number one client was the daughter of a president, I could imagine a mobile phone was one of many perks. I didn’t have the patience to entertain his childishness, so I ignored his last comment and jumped straight to asking him what I needed to know.
“That night you came by Hyper, did you see anyone while you were there?”
If he sensed the sudden flip in my tone, he didn’t mention it. “Nope. Just me.”
“Are you sure? Think really hard. There wasn’t any maintenance happening so it should have just been me and the guys—”
“Willow.” He said my name like it was something amusing. “You’re not the only observant one. I didn’t see anything.”
I let out a breath and then continued to chew. “Okay, thanks.”
“That it?”
“What is?”
“You called me up in the middle of the night and that’s all you wanted?”
“Pretty much.”
He sighed. “At least give me an update on my sister.”
I threw my arms up in the air and then realised he couldn’t see it. I’d made good on my promise to escort his sister to see their mother, but there were so many things that he’d neglected to inform me of before he dropped that bomb in my lap.
My teeth gnashed together. “She’s fine. Something you won’t be when you get back here and I’m done kicking your ass. Your mum’s house needs an elevator, by the way!”
His laughter was rich like honey. It made the apple catch in my throat. “If it helps, I think she’s getting used to you.”
“I should think so considering I’m her favourite punching bag.” I took another bite of apple, chewing it loudly in protest. “You know she runs over people’s feet on purpose with her wheelchair, don’t you?”
He kept quiet but I swear I could feel his amusement through the phone. The EK did funny things like that to me sometimes. Finally, he cleared his throat. “She’s just frustrated.”
“She’s the Devil’s daughter!”
Another laugh. “What does that make me?”
“Do you really want to open that door?” The razors in my tone rendered him quiet. I didn’t even know that was possible.
“Sorry,” he said after a beat. “If I’d had any other choice I wouldn’t have dumped it on you.”
The truth in that statement bugged me for some reason. It didn’t matter that his dad was one of the most powerful men in the country or that his half-brother was the head of an elite esper training unit. He had entrusted the safety of his sister to me. We didn’t even know each other that well. Sometimes he irritated me so much I literally wanted to commit violence. Yet I had accepted his request and carried it out like
she was my own sister. Sometimes my brain hurt thinking about the implications.
“Don’t worry about it.” A wave of tiredness hit me and then my teeth set on edge when I thought about the walls that penned me in.
“Why do you want to know, anyway?” he asked.
It was second nature to be evasive. If I could have handled it myself without telling the others, I would have. But whoever had left the note had gotten past the perimeter wall. When the surveillance hadn’t picked up anything, Rich had ordered additional security for the compound. Aside from the note, there were no other signs of tampering.
The problem now was that if I didn’t tell Ryan, he really would think that I’d called just for an excuse to talk to him. “Somebody left me a note that night.”
“What did it say?”
Again I paused. How much did I really trust him?
“Talking to you is like pulling teeth,” he muttered.
“Maybe you should stop talking to me?”
“Hey, genius. You called me, remember?”
“My mistake. Go back to your victory party.” It must have been my sleep-addled brain that let such a rookie comment slip past my defences. I could feel the rumble of his amusement as though his chest was pressed up against me.
“I thought you said you don’t like shadow boxing?”
