by Jade Kerrion
The return flight to Washington, D.C., passed uneventfully, but Miriya’s head snapped up sharply when the plane landed in Bolling Air Force Base.
“He’s here,” Miriya breathed. “He’s close.”
Xin turned to study Miriya. The telepath’s green eyes were vacant as if she were listening to a sound only she could hear.
Alex glanced at his waiting enforcers. “David, you come with Miriya and me. The rest of you go home and get some rest. We’ll debrief at five at headquarters. Xin, Zara, you’re with me too.”
The five piled into a waiting SUV. Miriya was sandwiched between Xin and Zara in the back seat. The telepath slumped in her seat, her gaze locked on her hands in her lap as she muttered directions to turn left or right. The path seemed to meander through Washington, D.C., but Xin coached herself to be patient. With her psychic hook firmly embedded in Danyael’s mind, Miriya was the most critical member of the team.
“Turn right,” Miriya said. Instead, David pulled the SUV over to the side of the road.
Xin’s frown furrowed her brow. A right turn would have taken the vehicle directly into the walled compound of the Mutant Assault Group headquarters. “Miriya, are you sure?”
Miriya nodded and looked up. “He’s there. Right in there.”
Fourteen months prior, Xin had culled through the meager evidence and agonized over their implications, but her suspicions, her hunches, held together by little more than thin threads of logic, had been justified. The Mutant Assault Group and General Howard had finally accomplished what they had set out to do. They had Danyael.
Xin, who had never been wrong, for the first time, found little pleasure in being right.
~*~
The headquarters of the Mutant Affairs Council was located in a nondescript three-story office building in Alexandria, Virginia. Nothing about the dull-gray brick structure hinted that it was the powerbase of the only non-military government-sanctioned mutant organization in the United States.
The main conference room on the third floor had floor-to-ceiling windows that provided an expansive view of the Potomac. Xin’s attention, however, was not on the view. She relaxed in her seat, the leather cool and soft beneath her. Her goal for the next hour was to stay out of the line of fire—not Alex Saunders’s, but Zara Itani’s. That task, however, was easier said than done. Zara wasn’t just on a roll; she was on a rampage.
Seated directly across from Xin, Zara tapped her fingers, drumming out an impatient rhythm on the oak table. “Explain this again. Why aren’t we pulling Danyael out?”
Alex sat at the head of the table, his hands pressed together to form a steeple under his chin. He stifled a sigh and replied. “Because he is exactly where we need him to be.”
“In the hands of the Mutant Assault Group?” Zara scowled at Alex, ignoring Miriya, Galahad, and Xin, who were gathered around the table, along with several enforcers, the leaders of the council task forces.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
Zara pushed to her feet and slammed her hands down on the table. “You better start making sense soon. I have had it up to here with you indecisive mutant types.” She made a slashing motion at her neck. “For the past five days, you’ve jabbered on about how important it is to bring Danyael safely home, how committed you are to protecting him. You had a lead on his location, yet managed to blow it twice. He’s on crutches, damn it. How can your able-bodied, telepathic enforcers lose track of someone on crutches?”
“Zara—”
“And now that the Mutant Assault Group has him, you’ve decided to back down and leave Danyael in their hands? Is this how you define commitment and protection?”
“Zara, there are reasons—”
“Are those reasons going to start making sense soon?” Zara demanded.
Alex rubbed his hands over his eyes, the motion weary. “First, Danyael is not at risk. Howard won’t hurt him. The general has searched too long and hard for an alpha empath. He won’t waste this one opportunity to bring Danyael over to his side. And we know Danyael; he doesn’t crack under abuse, only under kindness.”
Zara stiffened.
Xin snorted softly. Zara too had once used kindness as a weapon against Danyael. Who would have imagined that one of the world’s most powerful alpha empaths could possess such a critical weakness—a need to be loved—or that something as simple as friendship, never mind love, would be frustratingly elusive for him?
“The general will face an uphill battle to win him over,” Alex continued.
Galahad spoke up for the first time. “To what end?”
“We have reason to believe that Danyael is critical to the success of General Howard’s secret military projects and—”
Zara laughed, a short, humorless sound. “Are you using Danyael as bait?” She shook her head. “He can’t get away from being used, can he?”
“Alpha empaths are rare; you know that. Their powers tend to get them killed long before they learn to control them. Danyael is among the few who survived. He is unique, powerful, and coveted. Nothing can change what he is.”
“Perhaps not,” Zara conceded. “What do you think Danyael is going to do? Win the general’s trust and then come squealing to you? That’s just not his style.”
Alex leaned back in his leather seat, exuding stolid confidence. “I’ll handle Danyael. The only thing you need to do is keep away from him and give the situation time to develop.”
“Into what? Chaos?” Zara shook her long dark hair back from her face. “Nothing involving Danyael is ever as simple as it seems.”
“Nor for that matter is anything involving you,” Alex pointed out smoothly.
“I live to make trouble.” Zara smiled, apparently not in the least bit insulted. “How long do you intend to let your little experiment run?”
“For as long as Danyael is physically safe,” Alex said. “If he’s in imminent danger, we’ll pull him out. I meant what I said. I intend to bring Danyael home.”
“How will you know if he’s in danger?”
“Xin can track and manage the information flowing in and out of the assault group. I want an absolute blackout. No one can know that the assault group is harboring Danyael. I don’t want to get into extended debates with my counterparts at the CIA, FBI, and NSA, at least not right now.” Alex looked at Miriya. “And you will help monitor Danyael’s mental and emotional state, won’t you?”
Miriya sighed and nodded. “I guess you want me to keep a low profile and not tell him I’m attached?”
“For now,” Xin spoke up. “Did Danyael know that you were hooked into his mind while he was at ADX?”
Miriya’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “I don’t know. He wasn’t exactly in top form while at ADX. If he was conscious at all, he was drugged to the hilt. I did talk to him, if that’s what you’re asking. He never acknowledged. I don’t know if he heard me or if he just dismissed me as a figment of his imagination.”
“Will anyone else know that you’re in there?” Xin asked.
“No, the hook is buried too deep. Besides, they’d have to get past Danyael’s psychic shields first, and he really doesn’t like people in his head.”
Zara remarked coolly, “But you are in his head. That adds a whole new dimension to spying.”
Miriya flinched from Zara’s hard stare. “It’s not spying, not really. I don’t see through his eyes or hear what he hears. I’m really just tracking how he’s doing.”
“Which is a function of what he sees and hears. So tell me, how is he doing, right now?” Zara asked.
“He’s fine. Tired, but fine.”
Zara’s violet eyes narrowed into slits. “Considering the gross invasion of privacy, is that really the best you can come up with? ‘Tired, but fine?’”
Miriya straightened in her seat and scowled at Zara. “Would you rather I say that he thinks of you often and damns the day you freed Galahad from Pioneer Labs?”
Zara paled.
Xin felt sorry for Zara, but
she shared Miriya’s opinion that Danyael would have been far better off if Zara had never fallen in love with him. On a normal day, the Lebanese-Venezuelan assassin could wreak more havoc with love than most people could with hate.
Her lovely face an icy mask of composure, Zara glanced at Alex. “I’m not going to gracefully step out of this and let you run the show.”
“I didn’t think so,” Alex murmured. “You better learn patience. It could be months before we have sufficient information to move in on the situation.”
“Months? That’s ridiculous. I am going to get Danyael out now.”
“For his sake, don’t.” Xin’s voice was quiet. “Danyael is still considered a class-five threat and a fugitive. You could free him, but you wouldn’t be able to protect him. His best chance for redemption lies with uncovering the truth of Howard’s treachery.”
“At what cost? His health? His sanity? His life?”
Alex shook his head “This isn’t the same as being at ADX. Trust me, they’re not going to hurt him.”
Zara snorted. “I trusted you. Danyael trusted you, and look where that got us.”
Galahad leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table. He stared intently at Zara. “Why are you acting like you’re the wronged party?”
She spun on him, the motion as graceful and predatory as that of a trapped tiger. “That is my business, isn’t it?”
His melodic tenor was perfectly modulated, the calm tone contrasting with his bitter words. “When I mattered to you, you were willing to betray him to purchase my freedom. Now that he matters to you, who are you planning to betray to purchase his freedom?”
A dagger flashed through the air. Xin had neither seen Zara pull it from its sheath nor seen her fling it.
Galahad did not move. The gleam in his dark eyes was mocking, challenging, as the dagger passed within an inch of his face to sink its blade into the wall behind him.
Zara’s smile was feline, her voice a warm purr. “This is the second time today that you’ve hassled me about Danyael. The next time, I won’t miss.”
Alex shook his head and glanced at Xin. “How did a group this volatile ever manage to pull off Lucien’s spectacular rescue last year?”
Xin shrugged. “Back then, we had an alpha empath with us. Danyael diffused a lot of the tension.”
“That would explain it.” The director general cleared his throat. “Can we get back to the business at hand?” Deliberately Alex turned his attention away from Zara and Galahad and looked at one of his enforcers. “What’s the update on Elysium?”
“Their fuel and gas storage tanks exploded. The inspectors are still digging through the debris, but they suspect the tanks were rigged.”
“Rigged by whom?” Alex demanded. “Elysium?”
The enforcer stared down at the table. “Um, that’s the inspectors’ best guess now, sir.”
“That makes no sense. Why would they kill their own people?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir. Maybe it was meant to destroy the compound after all the people left, but it just went off early.”
Alex buried his face in his hands for a few seconds before looking up again. “No one knows anything?”
The enforcer swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly. “Not really, sir. The death toll is three hundred and seventy-eight people and rising. Everyone in the tunnels died. The ninety-two people we found alive in the buildings have been relocated to area hospitals. We scanned their memories. They don’t know anything.”
“What about the teenagers we picked up in Aspen, the ones who were with Danyael?” Alex asked.
“They’re here, upstairs in the guest suites. We brought them back, as you told us. Flynt is keeping an eye on them.”
“What do they know?”
“The girl doesn’t know anything more than any of the others we found at Elysium. The boy is an empath.”
Alex’s eyes widened. “What? An alpha?”
“Borderline. With training, he could be an alpha. Anyway, he’s blocking us. He’s intuitively shielding. We could break through, but it’d traumatize him, and he’s a wreck as it is.”
Zara chuckled humorlessly. “Are all empaths wrecks?”
Alex released his breath in a heavy sigh. “They wreck more easily than others, because they feel a great deal more, and emotions can be damnably hard to process.” He leaned back in his leather seat. “Don’t push the boy. Put a team together to work with him. I think some of the people who worked with Danyael seventeen years ago are still around. Start with them. They’ve been around this racetrack before. Meanwhile, I want a report on the boy’s background. Let’s hope it wasn’t nearly as rough as Danyael’s, or it’ll be a year before we can get a breakthrough.”
The enforcer nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll get on it right away.”
Zara folded her arms across her chest. “Did it really take a year to get through to Danyael?”
“Yes.” Alex’s expression was distant, reflective. “It took even longer to teach him to control his powers, but Lucien refused to let us give up on Danyael. We helped, certainly, but in the final count, it was Lucien who saved Danyael.”
Zara shook her head. “Well, Lucien’s no longer interested in that role. So who’s going to step up to the challenge? Who’s going to save Danyael from himself this time?”
Zara’s question went unanswered. There were no easy answers where Danyael was concerned; there had never been and never would be.
In Xin’s mind, however, there was only one answer: Danyael would have to learn to save himself.
~*~
Danyael stopped by the infirmary two days later and was pleased to see Reyes awake and eating well. “How are you feeling?” he asked, hobbling into the room.
Reyes managed a weak smile as he pressed a button to alter the incline of the bed. “Good, though I didn’t expect the pain medication to knock me out for so long. The nurse said you came by every couple of hours to check on me. Why didn’t you wake me up?”
“You needed your rest. Besides, there’s a difference between being awake and being functional.” Danyael propped his crutch against the wall and adjusted Reyes’s pillows until the older man settled back with a pleased sigh.
Reyes smiled. “Thank you. Have they found the twins yet?”
Danyael shook his head. “They are still looking, but there’s no sign of the twins. I could go back—”
“No, you can’t. You’re safe here, safe in a way you couldn’t be at Elysium. I thought we could protect you, but I was wrong.”
“Safety is an illusion.”
Reyes blinked hard. “You don’t think you’re safe here? Have you spoken to the general about your concerns?”
“I haven’t seen him since the day we arrived. My only interaction has been with Jana, the physical therapist.”
“How are your sessions with her?”
Danyael settled slowly in a chair beside Reyes’s bed. “Painful, but good. She knows what she’s doing.”
Reyes chuckled. “You’re the only person I know who would combine the words ‘painful’ and ‘good’ in the same sentence.”
Danyael looked away. Zara had said the same thing to him once and called him a masochist. The memory of Zara’s scathing observation hurt as badly as Reyes’s appraisal did. “I’m not the masochist you and others think I am. I heal through absorption of sickness and injury, and pain is my body’s way of telling me when to stop. I don’t use pain medication; if I can’t feel pain, I could absorb more than my body can handle, and—”
“I understand.” Reyes reached out and placed a hand gently over Danyael’s. “I’m sorry. That was an insensitive thing to say to an empathic healer.”
Danyael tensed and fought the need to pull away from Reyes’s touch. It was difficult; he habitually shied away from any physical contact he did not initiate, and he rarely initiated contact outside of his professional capacity as a doctor.
Reyes seemed to sense Danyael’s turmoil. “Even
something as simple as a touch is hard for you, isn’t it?”
Danyael clenched his teeth. “I already know how screwed up I am.”
“Quite the contrary. Do you know how few alpha empaths survive childhood? The odds were badly stacked against you, and yet you survived.”
“Not unscathed.”
“Unscathed wasn’t an option,” Reyes said. “Just surviving without turning sociopathic or homicidal in the process was a tremendous win for you. Give yourself some credit for that success.”
Danyael shook his head. “I owe it entirely to Lucien.”
Reyes chuckled, a soft and warm sound, and leaned back, folding his arms across his chest. “Lucien saved your life, but on your own, you salvaged a future out of its ruins. I’ve lived a long time, Danyael, and met many people. Few have had your strength. Whatever it is you’re going through, you’ll get through it, because that’s what you do.”
“What else is there to do?” Danyael asked quietly, the question rhetorical.
“Give up, but that doesn’t appear to be part of your makeup. Tell me, what keeps you going?”
Danyael lowered his gaze and suppressed a bitter chuckle. “Morbid curiosity? The future couldn’t possibly be worse than the past, so why not?”
“You’re optimistic. I like that about you.” Reyes patted Danyael’s hand absent-mindedly. “The only advice I have for you is to be gentle with yourself. Life will seem less of a struggle if you’re as kind to yourself as you are to others.”
“I am.”
Reyes shook his head. “Not by a long shot, but you’re going to have to figure that one out on your own. Do you know how to hope?”
The alpha empath smiled slowly. “I’m relearning. You showed me how when you gave me a fresh start, no questions asked.”
“Thank you. It means a great deal to me to hear that from you.”
A comfortable silence filled the air. Danyael, stricken by the hesitancy of a man betrayed too often and too deeply, did not dare believe that a friendship could be presenting itself. It’s just more evidence of how screwed up I am. Other people go with the natural flow of relationships, instead of analyzing them for ulterior motives. Some of the tension eased out of his shoulders as he released his breath. A wry half smile curved his lips, and he pressed his hand gently against the old man’s. “We survived, Reyes. We’ll get through this together.”
