He was giving her time to hide.
• • •
ALL of them had been caught, of course. Zaira didn’t have Aden’s stealth and she didn’t know the facility. Aden and Vasic had been punished far more brutally than Zaira, a fact she didn’t learn until over ten years later, when she’d become skilled enough to hack into secure records databases.
All she knew then was that the boy with the dark eyes and the quiet feet had come back for her. When he unlocked her shackles a second time, she didn’t beat him with her fists . . . and she didn’t run despite the need inside her. Because another need was stronger.
“Why do you do this?” Zaira asked him as she lay curled up on the examination table, under a heat blanket he’d smuggled in for her. He’d told her he couldn’t treat her wounds except in subtle ways no one would notice, but he could make her more comfortable. “Why do you help me?”
“So you’ll be strong enough that they won’t break you when I’m transferred,” he said, continuing to work on a crushed bone so it wouldn’t hurt as much when they came back and forcefully switched off her psychic pain controls. Her parents had taught her those controls so she wouldn’t pass out before they were done with her.
“Where are you going?” she demanded, infuriated. “When?”
“I’m being sent to another facility in ten months,” he told her. “Does the bone hurt less now?”
“Pain doesn’t matter,” she said, trying not to think about the fact that the only person who had ever treated her as something better than garbage would soon be gone, leaving her once more alone in the darkness. “I can think past pain.”
“I know. But the spirit can also be broken.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s . . .” He paused, thought about it. “Have you seen the birds in the sky?”
“Sometimes.” She’d spent most of her life in a cell without light, but there had been times when she’d been let outside, when she’d had to interact with other children. Her parents had called it “socialization” training so she wouldn’t be “an uncivilized monster” as she grew. Zaira didn’t think it had worked, but she was talking to Aden like a real person, so maybe she was wrong and it had.
“I think of the spirit as being a bird with wings that can fly free.”
Zaira tried to imagine that, failed. “My spirit’s already gone. It flew away a long time ago.”
“If it had, you wouldn’t want to run, wouldn’t want to escape.” He lifted away the laser he’d been using on her bones. “Your spirit is strong—it’s a wild, angry fire inside you. I need you to hold on to that fire.”
“Why?” she asked again. “Why do you care?”
“Because you’re mine now.”
• • •
ZAIRA woke to find the boy by her bedside, dream merging with reality. Only he wasn’t a boy any longer. He was a tall, strong, powerful man, but he still moved with silent grace, and he still had the same dark eyes. Eyes that told her she had to be strong, that he needed her to be strong.
Yet if she stumbled, he wouldn’t call her a failure; no, he’d simply break her fall and help her back up. Even after he’d been transferred out of the Turkish facility where she’d spent the rest of her childhood and teenage years, he’d found ways to tell her he hadn’t forgotten her, that she existed to him as a unique individual and not just another trainee.
Once, it had been an e-mail he’d managed to route past the firewalls and the security. Another time, Vasic had broken the leash on his mind and teleported Aden to her. The visit had lasted five minutes before they had to leave or risk being caught, but in those five minutes, Aden had made Zaira remember that she was a sentient being and not the robotic killer her trainers wanted her to believe she was.
He’d made her remember that she was her own person first, and his, second.
No one else had a claim on her.
“Zaira.” His voice was calm now, his expression betraying nothing. “We were rescued by the RainFire leopard pack. We’re safe.”
There were cues in his words her fuzzy, aching brain struggled to comprehend, but then he did something highly unusual. He took his hand and closed it over her own, squeezed. The physical link jerked her to full consciousness, anchoring her in the present even as her brain scrabbled for a psychic connection that would dissipate the silence inside her skull.
A vast aloneness.
No PsyNet.
No telepathic link with Aden.
Not even the vicious backlash of pain she’d felt earlier.
Nothing but crushing isolation.
As in that dark room of her childhood where no one could hear her scream.
Her breathing threatened to turn uneven. Squeezing her fingers around Aden’s, their connection concealed by her body and his, she regulated her respiration by falling back on basic Arrow training. As her brain cleared, she realized he didn’t want her to betray their psychic weakness.
So she didn’t.
Allowing him to help her into a seated position, she took the opportunity to scan the room. They were alone except for a lithely muscled male with light brown hair and eyes so brightly green that she wasn’t certain his irises were real. Identifying himself as Finn, the medic ran her through a barrage of scans and tests after checking to make sure her brain was registering the correct patterns.
Zaira cooperated in the checkup, the loose drawstring pants she wore bagging around her ankles until she bent and folded up the hems. Her white top was also too large and made of a cotton so fine Zaira didn’t know what use it was as clothing—it wouldn’t effectively stop a scratch from a child, much less a bullet.
At least the medic seemed to know what he was doing.
“You had some pretty bad internal injuries, never mind the brain stuff,” he said after he’d completed the tests. “I’ve fixed you up, but you’ll be tender for a few days, possibly up to a week. Take it easy. Not that you’ll have much choice, given the weather.” A grimace. “And ignore any snarly cats you see—we’re not used to being penned in.”
Aden didn’t speak until Finn walked out of the room to retrieve something. Then, placing his lips close to her ear, he said, “Changeling hearing is acute.” When she nodded to show she understood the warning, he spoke again in that near-inaudible whisper. “Do you have access to the PsyNet?”
Fingers clenching on the edge of the bed, she admitted the terrible truth. “It’s silent inside my head.”
In Zaira’s eyes, Aden saw a hollow darkness. “You’re not alone,” he said, aware Zaira’s reaction to extended psychic aloneness could spin in either direction. As a seven-year-old new trainee locked inside a trainer’s shields, she’d gone into a berserker rage in an effort to break out; the trainer had been forced to knock her out lest she claw out his eyes. A week later, in the same situation, she’d gone catatonic for five days.
A permanent note had been made in her file: Zaira Neve is not to be confined on the psychic plane. This flaw does not negate her usefulness as an Arrow—once out of training, she will never be in such a situation.
No one could’ve foreseen their current circumstances. “You’re not alone,” he repeated, though he knew words wouldn’t be enough. The damage done to her as a child had been some of the worst seen by the squad’s mental evaluation panel—according to the records, the debate on whether or not she was even worth the effort had been long and intense.
In the end, it was her intelligence and proven strength that had saved her: Zaira hadn’t broken under the childhood abuse. She’d fought back and she’d done so with a cold intelligence the squad appreciated. “I need you to stay strong,” he said, speaking to the part of her that was the fire. “Zaira.”
She gritted her teeth and gave him a nod, betraying nothing of her psychological state when Finn returned to the room with Remi. The alpha held his silence until
Zaira drank some water and waved off an offer of food.
“So,” he said, “now that you’re both awake, who shot you?”
Chapter 13
ADEN GAVE HIM the facts—there was no reason to hide the truth. Either RainFire was already in on it, and knew, or the pack might be of assistance in unearthing further information. “The men who were holding us were a combined Psy-human team.”
“Human?” A skeptical look. “You sure?”
“Yes.” The surprising development lined up with one other factor in this situation. “The implant Zaira and I had in our heads,” he said, reaching into a pocket to retrieve the small, flat container in which he’d earlier put the surviving implant, “shows signs of being a patch-up job involving human and Psy technology.”
Aden had borrowed Finn’s microscope to have a closer look at it. He was no expert, but he’d previously seen both the Aleine implant and the Human Alliance one, and the one he held clearly showed evidence of both. “A roughly done fusion.”
“Goes with the sketchy nature of the surgery,” Finn said, his tone unforgiving. “They might as well have used a hacksaw, it was so badly done.”
“Yeah, but these ham-handed butchers managed to abduct you two,” Remi pointed out with a directness Aden was coming to expect from the RainFire alpha. “Everything I’ve heard about Arrows tells me you aren’t exactly easy prey, so the abductions were well planned.”
Aden looked at the rough-edged male with new respect. Aden had never disregarded changelings, never underestimated their intelligence as so many Psy did, but he’d come perilously close to downgrading Remi’s threat level because the other man appeared so ruggedly physical. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
“Either the implants weren’t ready when the opportunity arose to abduct us,” he said, “or they were never meant to be long-term.”
“I wouldn’t keep a threat alive, either, not after I had what I wanted.” The alpha’s gaze shifted to Zaira. “You don’t talk?”
“Not when I have nothing to say,” Zaira responded with glacial calm, though Aden knew she was at the edge of her endurance.
He had to get her away from the changelings. “Is there any reason for Zaira to be confined to the infirmary any longer?” he asked Finn.
“No, but I want to do a couple of final scans before I spring her. I also want to check your bullet wound now that you’ve been on that leg for several hours.”
Aden stepped aside so Finn could complete Zaira’s scans, but remained within her direct line of sight. Aloneness was Zaira’s secret horror, the one foe she couldn’t beat.
Being isolated and alone and hurt day after day changes a person, Aden. It turns a child into . . . into a thing that isn’t quite human and not quite animal. Like any trapped creature, that child will gnaw off its own limb to escape—but if that child is a Gradient 9.8 combat-grade telepath named Zaira Neve, it’ll first ask if it can gnaw off its attackers’ limbs instead.
She’d said that to him at fifteen, the self-portrait both icily honest and disturbing.
You aren’t an “it,” Zaira.
You’re right. I’m not an it. I’m a nightmare.
• • •
AS Finn worked on the female Arrow, Remi could feel Aden weighing him up. Fair enough. Remi was weighing up the Arrow—and his silent partner—in turn. Though Remi was predisposed to like him, he wasn’t about to give two lethal strangers free rein of the compound.
“There’s a small aerie just above the infirmary that you’re welcome to use until the weather clears,” he told them. “Or until your transport arrives.”
Finn had suggested the reason a teleporter hadn’t turned up already was because the two Psy had residual bruising from the implants that might be interfering with their psychic abilities. That made sense to Remi and it also made him a fraction more sympathetic to their guarded caution. If someone shoved an implant in his head that stopped him from shifting, he’d be a whole lot pissed and suspicious, too.
“Thank you,” Aden said in that calm, cool voice that nonetheless held the power of a fellow alpha. “Do we reach it via an outer door?”
“No, it’s connected through an internal trapdoor at the end of the corridor outside.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The ladder’s shielded from the wind and rain so you won’t need outdoor gear.”
Finn had asked for the modification as that particular aerie was used mostly by patients who’d recovered enough to leave the infirmary but that Finn wanted close by for two or three more days. In this case, it’d keep the Arrows within easy watching distance—there was no way to leave the aerie except through the trapdoor that led down into the infirmary corridor.
Aden and Zaira could attempt to climb down the tree itself, but then they’d be stuck outside in the storm; the weather was an excellent security measure right now. Hell, Remi had pulled back all of his sentries and ordered everyone to stay within a tight circle around the heart of the pack—anyone who went out any farther at the moment had a death wish. If the rain didn’t wash you away, the lightning would fry you where you stood.
“If you have surveillance footage of your neighbors,” Aden said, “we can study it while in the aerie.”
Remi shook his head. “No footage.” It wasn’t a lie—the pack didn’t have the time or the resources for in-depth surveillance of their neighbors, especially since those neighbors had minded their own business and left RainFire to mind theirs. “We can sneak up to investigate once the storm’s died down. I’m betting they’ll have cleared out on the off chance you two made it out.”
The female Arrow, the one who was attempting to appear harmless—Remi’s leopard huffed in laughter—stared impassively at the food Finn had brought in. “You need to eat,” Finn said, his expression stating he’d brook no refusal this time. “Aden told me Psy prefer plain food, so I tried to find the plainest but highest-protein items I could—mixed nuts, a lentil-based spread on high-energy bread, and an energy bar.”
When Zaira still didn’t take the food, Aden spoke. “Eat. If you don’t, you’ll be weak.”
Zaira took the plate from Finn on the word “weak.” “Thank you.”
After she was done, Remi showed them up to the aerie. “Lock the trapdoor,” he said, demonstrating the mechanism, “and you’ll have privacy.” Not bothering with the ladder, he jumped through the trapdoor and straight down to the infirmary level. His cat ensured he landed lightly on his bare feet, his body in a slight crouch.
Walking into the infirmary, he met Finn’s perceptive gaze. “Well?”
“Muscle tone on both is as good as your own,” the other man replied with a grin. “Aden and Zaira are as dangerous as each other, I’d say.”
That’s what Remi had figured. Anyone who discounted the woman because of her size or gender was an idiot who deserved to get his head ripped off. “Anything about their injuries say they’re lying to us?” Finn was a healer to the bone and he’d done his best by the two Arrows but his first loyalty was to RainFire.
“No.” Finn brought up two scans side by side on the screen beside the beds. “Aden and Zaira were shot like they said, and had those barbaric things implanted. I also found signs of multiple stuns to the body.”
Frowning, he tapped a laser pen against his datapad. “I guess it’s the only way to contain an Arrow if you don’t want to use drugs.”
“Wouldn’t drugs be faster, quieter?”
“Tammy told me Psy don’t react well to most drugs,” Finn said, referring to the DarkRiver healer. “You never know when even a specially calibrated drug will have the unintended effect of sending their psychic abilities out of control.” Frown turning into a scowl, he shook his head. “I counted four stuns on her, more on him. Their abductors were playing with fire—their bodies could’ve overloaded at any point past three.”
“That bruise on Aden’s face from
a stun, too?”
“Yes. I cleared it up some, but it’ll take at least forty-eight more hours to fully disappear.”
Remi stared at the scans that provided unmistakable evidence of violence that could’ve easily led to death. His focus was on building his pack, but he wasn’t about to ignore a threat on his border, especially when that threat might ignite an all-out war with the Arrow Squad. Soon as the storm cleared, he’d do everything in his power to find out what the fuck was going on up there.
• • •
THE howling aloneness inside her skull threatening to awaken the bloody rage that had helped her survive and almost led to her execution, Zaira stood in the center of the aerie and watched Aden secure the trapdoor. Task complete, he walked over and did something that made every muscle in her body lock tight.
He put his arms around her.
“What are you doing?” Arrows didn’t make physical contact except in exigent circumstances.
“You’re in distress at being cut off from the PsyNet.” Aden didn’t release her stiff form, his body heat passing easily through the thin material of his T-shirt and her top. “You need contact.”
Zaira didn’t know how to answer that. She wasn’t used to being in distress about anything—if she’d ever had any softness in her, it had calcified long ago. Even as a child, she’d refused to permit herself to be weak. She’d much preferred to be angry. In anger was strength, brutal and deadly.
In rage was power.
Arrow training had taught her to corral that rage, but she knew it lived inside her, as vicious as always and ready to do damage. Even now it twisted in its bonds, eyes red and only two things in mind: escape and retribution. Escape from the nothingness and retribution against those who’d put her in this position.
She had never been this alone.
Even when her parents beat her without mercy while holding her trapped within their telepathic shields, she’d had their minds within touching distance. When her Arrow trainers had locked her in their shields—all of which were constructed to ensure she didn’t break out as she’d done from her parents’ weaker efforts—she’d felt their presence in the shields themselves.
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