Blaze of Memory

by Singh, Nalini

  “I can’t set her free, Glen, you know that.” Yeah, it made him feel like a bastard, but his ability to be a bastard was why he’d been chosen as director. Metal was his gift, and perhaps his curse, but that growing layer of metallic ice meant he didn’t hesitate to do what needed to be done.

  The doctor pinched his nose. “The Hippocratic oath doesn’t differentiate between friend and enemy.”

  “I know. That’s why you have me.” Squeezing the other man’s shoulder, he turned toward Katya’s room.

  “Dev.” Glen’s expression was troubled when Dev looked back at him. “You can’t keep being responsible for all the tough decisions.”

  “I made that choice when I took the job.” Or perhaps he’d made it decades ago, the day the cops found him lying half-broken in the corner of his parents’ bedroom. That was the day he’d first felt the metal, first begun to sense the cold intelligence of the machines around him.

  Glen shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be you. Shine has a board.”

  Yes, it did. And that board was now made up of men and women who wouldn’t simply look the other away when reality became too harsh, too uncomfortable. But—“A good leader never asks his troops to do anything he can’t.” Shifting on his heel, he said, “Go home, Glen. Get some sleep.”

  “Not until I know what you’re going to do with her.”

  That was when Dev realized Glen didn’t trust him to not hurt the woman who, by her simple existence, her survival, reached parts of him he preferred to leave in darkness. It was a blow ... and it showed just how much he’d changed from the man Glen had first called friend. “I’m not that far gone yet,” he said softly.

  “No ... not yet,” the doctor echoed as Dev crossed the doorway into Katya’s room.

  He found her sitting on the bed dressed in a new pair of blue jeans and a white T-shirt, having thrown on a heavy gray sweatshirt over the top. Her shoulder-length hair had been plaited into a tight French braid, and there were out-of-the-box-white sneakers on her feet. Her lips lifted in a tentative smile when she saw him. “Hi.”

  And that quickly, the metal threatened to retreat, to leave him wide open to the raging protectiveness that slammed into his skin with brutal force. “Where’re your boots, your coat?” he asked, and the words were hard.

  “In here.” Smile fading, she patted a khaki-colored duffel with a quietly possessive hand. “Thank you for the clothes. And the other things.”

  “Maggie bought them.” He jerked his head toward the door as he reached for her bag. “Come on, you’re leaving this place.”

  She tugged the bag away from him. “Where are you going to take me?” The finest thread of steel.

  Not that surprised, he dropped his hand. “For now, to my place in Vermont.”

  “What about your work?”

  He looked into that still-pale face, wondering if the question was simple curiosity or something far more sinister. However, the answer wasn’t exactly a state secret. “I can handle things remotely.” His team was solid, used to working with him regardless of location. “If necessary, I can commute.” Shine had access to several jet-choppers, but Dev preferred to drive most of the time—the trip took less than three hours in a high-speed vehicle, and it gave him time to think free of distractions.

  “Why?” Katya’s eyes were crystal clear as they met his, each shard—brown, green, yellow—perfectly defined. “Why not just dump me on someone else?”

  “Because I don’t know how big a threat you are,” he answered, and it was a truth. She had no need to know about the complex, unwanted emotions she aroused, the buried memories she unearthed. “You’ll be staying with me until I can figure out what to do with you.”

  “You could let me go.” Her fingers curled on top of the duffel.

  “Not possible.”

  “So I’m a prisoner again.”

  The point hit hard, stabbing into the core of honor he’d somehow managed to retain. He wondered if it would still be there after this was all over. “No, you’re the enemy.” This time, he took the duffel without waiting for her agreement.

  Katya watched the broad wall of Dev’s retreating back and forced herself to get off the bed. For the first time since she’d woken in this place, she felt not fear, not terror, not worry. Instead, something else burned in her, a hot and sharp and violent thing.

  “Move it.” It was a command from the doorway.

  That raw new emotion flared so high, she had to fight to find her voice. “Are we going on the train?”

  “No. I’ll drive.”

  She walked to him, then with him down the corridor, aware he was keeping his stride short to accommodate hers, his big body moving with a grace that told her she’d never be able to move fast enough to escape him. Still, a pulse of excitement bubbled through her, lighting up her mind—the car, she thought, it had to do with the car. If she had the car, she could find—

  Another black screen, her memory cutting out like a badly tuned comm panel.

  Her nails dug into the soft flesh of her palms so hard she felt skin break. Relaxing her fingers with effort, she lifted her hand to look at one palm. It was hers, she knew that. Those life lines, they were hers. But there were other lines, thin white lines that crisscrossed skin unbroken except for the bloodred crescents she’d just created. How had she gotten those lines? Head beginning to pound in a dull, heavy beat, she stared, determined to divine the truth, no matter how ugly.

  Warm male fingers gripped her hand. Startled, she jerked up her head—to meet Dev’s scowl. “Don’t force it,” he ordered, squeezing her fingers. “Glen said the memories will return when it’s time.”

  She didn’t pull her hand from his, in spite of the violent chaos of her emotions. When he touched her, she felt real, a living being instead of a ghost. “I can’t help it. I hate not knowing who I am.”

  “Hate—strong word.” He led her through a pair of automatic glass doors. “Emotions come easily to you?”

  “Yes.” She swallowed as he paused in front of the elevator. “There’s only so much the mind can take. After that, it splinters.” Taking the lines of conditioning with it.

  The elevator doors opened and Dev tugged her inside. She took one step across the threshold before freezing, her breath stuck in her throat, her spine so rigid she literally couldn’t move.

  Dev’s hand flexed around hers and for an instant she was terrified he’d pull her inside. He was so much bigger, so much stronger, she’d never be able to stop him. Fear was a fist in her throat, blocking her airway.

  Then he dropped her hand to wrap an arm around her waist, carrying her out and back into the corridor. “You don’t have to go in there.” One palm cupped the back of her head as he spoke in a voice as harsh as sandpaper. And yet his hold...

  Her entire body began to shake, terror transmuting into a painful kind of relief. Not stopping to think, she buried her face in his chest, her arms locking around him. A rough word. The thud of the duffel hitting the floor. Then his own arms came around her with bruising strength. She wanted more, wanted to strip him to the skin and touch his heartbeat, convince herself that he existed, that she existed. Deep inside, she was so scared that this was all just another madness-induced fantasy, her mind trying to come up with something to fill the endless void.

  “Shh.” Spoken gently against her ear, the hot brush of his breath another tactile anchor.

  Daring to move her hand, she placed her fingers against the side of his neck, feeling his pulse strong and steady against her fingertips. Real. So real. “I can’t be in a box again.” The last was a whisper as she caught a wisp of memory. “There was no light, no sound, no touch, no Net.” How could there be so much pain in nothingness? But there was, excruciating, agonizing, relentless pain—pain that had turned her from a sentient being to something lower than an animal. “It was like I didn’t exist.”

  Dev stood unmoving under Katya’s hesitant touch. What she was describing was one of the cruelest forms of to
rture known to man, one that left no marks but destroyed the victim from within—sensory deprivation. Leave a thinking, living being without feedback long enough and the mind began to break, to turn inward, going so deep that many never came back out. And for a Psy to be cut off from the Net—

  He blocked the wave of pity before it could rise. Because sensory deprivation wasn’t only about hurting the victim until that person shattered. It could be used for a far more ominous purpose—to break down an individual and then build him or her back up again according to the torturer’s requirements.

  Katya might be precisely what she feared—Ming’s creation.

  The bruises, the scratches, the starvation, it had in all probability been nothing but the most calculated kind of window dressing, meant to make her appear weak, to arouse pity... and protectiveness.

  Even understanding the bleak truth, he couldn’t let her go, not when tremors still quaked through that unbearably slender frame. If he squeezed her too hard, he thought, he might break her. Psy bones were already more breakable than human, and she’d been starved on top of that—just because it was window dressing didn’t mean she hadn’t felt every blow, every kick, every hour of hunger.

  He made a conscious effort to loosen his hold, but the instant he did, she began trembling so hard he thought she’d shatter from the inside out. Crushing her closer, he moved his hand until it lay underneath her braid, on the soft skin of her nape. That skin felt bruisingly delicate under his much rougher touch, but she calmed at the contact. So he held her that way, murmuring wordless reassurances as her fingers stroked over his pulse, as her body all but melted into his.

  It took ten long minutes for her to stop shivering. The hand on his neck slid down to linger at the knot of his tie. He held his breath as her lashes lifted to reveal eyes filled not with the fear he’d expected, but with an almost impossible calm. “I survived that. I must be stronger than I think.”

  He knew it was a dangerous step into enemy territory, but he couldn’t help the pride he felt in her—it was a swell of emotion, primitive in its ferocity. “Yes.”

  “Yes.” Pushing off his chest, she stepped out of his arms. “Do you know—sometimes I remember being chased by a panther.”

  The change of topic stymied him for a second. Then he understood. “Do you want me to find out if it might have happened?” He could still feel the imprint of her body against his, a quiet brand that disturbed him on the deepest level.

  “If you can. I need to know if I can trust the things in my head.” She rubbed her hands down the front of her jeans. “It’s such a strange thing to remember. Maybe everything I remember is a fantasy.”

  Dev didn’t think so. He knew one changeling panther—but what the hell would Lucas Hunter, alpha of DarkRiver, be doing going after Katya in his aggressive animal form? “Do you think you can handle the stairs?”

  A pause. “I believe so. There’s always a way out with stairs.”

  That told him more about her captivity than anything else. Muscles tense with a rage that had no outlet, he bent to pick up her bag, then, in an act he’d never expected to come so easily, held out a hand. She took it at once, acting nothing like the Psy he knew her to be. The Silent race never touched, not if they could avoid it. Tactile contact was a slippery slope, they said, one that could lead to sensuality in other areas of life. But Katya openly craved contact.

  There was no light, no sound, no touch, no Net.

  Tightening his fingers on the already familiar warmth of hers, he held open the stairway door until she nodded that she’d be alright. And though she gripped his hand so hard he could see her every tendon, she didn’t halt once on the way up—he wasn’t sure she even breathed until they exited into the airy lobby.

  Her gasp as she saw the soaring arches of the atrium made him appreciate the beauty of the building anew. In a clever bit of design, the square footage of the ground floor was wider than that of the solar-paneled office tower that stood atop it. The architect had used the extra real estate to bring light into the lobby—curving glass archways covered both the entrance and the large island manned by the receptionists. As part of the building’s eco-rating, greenery crept over that glass, healthy and lush below a second protective layer of glass.

  The end result was that on a cloudless day like today, walking through the lobby felt like crossing a sun-dappled clearing. But the architect had gone even further, using clever positioning of glass and mirrors to make optimum use of the natural light. That ingenuity not only minimized the use of artificial light during daylight hours, leaving more solar power for Shine to sell to the city grid, it bathed the entire area in a golden glow.

  That glow lit Katya’s face, caressing the translucent beauty of her skin as she stared, enraptured. “There’s so much light”—she reached out as if to touch it—“it’s so bright.”

  As he watched her, his gut went taut with an anger that had nothing to do with her being an enemy, and everything to do with the evil that had trapped her in the dark. No one had the right to savage another living being that way.

  No one.

  Yet . . . he knew that every time he “connected” with metal—and now—with machines, he took another step toward the kind of emotionless mentality that might green-light torture of the worst kind. The last time his great-grandmother Maya had seen him, she’d clasped his hands and begged, pleaded with him, to shield himself, to “stay human.” But, just as an empath couldn’t not sense emotions, Dev couldn’t not feel the metal all around him. Metal was his shield.

  And if that shield was slowly stealing his humanity ... that was a price he was willing to pay to safeguard his people. His eye fell on Katya then, and something in him rebelled against what had always been an absolute acceptance. Her face was still lifted up to the light, her hands hanging loosely by her sides. Simple pleasure suffused every inch of her, until he was tempted to reach out and touch, see if he could absorb that joy into himself.

  Dangerous, he thought, she was dangerous in so many ways.

  CHAPTER 8

  “Dev!”

  Looking away from Katya’s delighted face with reluctance that sparked a blazing red warning light in his brain, he found himself facing one of his vice-directors. “Aubry.”

  “Hi.” Aubry smiled at Katya, his teeth flashing bright white against skin the color of “the most luscious dark chocolate” according to Maggie. Like most of the women in Shine, his secretary had lost her heart to the tall black man the first time he smiled at her.

  Dev waited to see Katya’s reaction, aware he was pulling metal from the building itself. She reached too deep, made him feel too much, slipped under his defenses as if they didn’t exist.

  Katya gave the slightest of nods. “Hello.”

  Aubry appeared a little startled at the formal greeting. But he recovered fast, gentling his smile, tone. “You need to eat more, darlin’.” The slow music of Texas wove through every easy syllable.

  Dev was aware of Katya shifting closer to him, even as she nodded. “Dev keeps putting food in front of me and saying eat.”

  The calm shook, threatened to break. He drew more metal, letting the chill work its way down to his very bones. But then Katya’s fingers brushed his, and the metal boiled, a sudden, violent heat he’d never before experienced. He should’ve moved away. Instead, he allowed her to tangle her fingers with his, closing his hand firmly around hers.

  Aubry chuckled. “Sounds like the boss.” His eyes shifted to Dev.

  Tempering the unfamiliar internal heat with more metal, Dev met the other man’s gaze, knowing he couldn’t give Aubry the answer he wanted—he couldn’t promise to take care of the woman by his side, no matter that she aroused his most primal instincts. “Did you need me for something?”

  “Yeah.” Aubry frowned. “I wanted to go over some new—”

  Dev cut him off before he could reveal anything sensitive in front of Katya. “Later. We’ll set up a comm-conference. I’m heading out of town.” />
  For all his lazy charm, Aubry was nothing if not intelligent. Picking up the subtext, he closed the small electronic organizer he’d flipped open. “I’ll e-mail you the details—we can talk after you’ve had a chance to look things over. See you later, beautiful.”

  As Katya said, “’Bye,” Dev sent a message to his car’s onboard computer, telling the vehicle to meet them in front of the building.

  Katya didn’t speak again until they were almost to the curb. “That man—”

  “Aubry,” he said as the car rolled to a stop in front of him, the computronic system purring smoothly in the back of his mind.

  “Aubry was very handsome.” She sounded almost puzzled.

  Dev used his thumbprint to unlock the car though he could have as easily used his link with the computer. Only a very few trusted individuals knew of his gift with metal, even fewer of his developing affinity to machines. “Hop in.” As she settled in beside him, he answered her earlier comment. “Women like Aubry.” Age, culture, class, none of it mattered. The other man walked into a room and women smiled.

  “I can see why,” Katya murmured, watching him guide the car out into the traffic. After almost a minute of silence, she added, “A true Psy wouldn’t have noticed his looks.”

  “Why not?” Dev suddenly realized he’d stopped drawing metal the instant he had Katya to himself.

  “True Psy are Silent.”

  “Correction,” he said. “Psy in the Net are Silent. Psy outside the Net are not. Both are Psy.” And none of them affected him as viscerally as this woman who’d been dumped outside his home like so much garbage.

  “The Forgotten,” she whispered in a voice so soft he had to strain to hear her through the rush of protective anger. “I remember... the boy, he was one of yours. One of the Forgotten.” Scrunching up her face, she paused for several seconds before uttering a sound of absolute and utter frustration. “I know something, but I can’t reach it yet. Something about the boy.”