“Because I know how thorough Ming is,” she said, her fingers curling into his T-shirt right over his heart. “He’d never have missed that. I had to make him think I’d pulled off the ultimate double cross, made you believe I cared for you . . . then delivered you up to save my own life.”
“And he’s so sure of his power, he didn’t bother to look beyond the surface.”
“No.” A tight smile. “I’m nothing to him—he can’t comprehend that I might have a mind of my own.”
He locked his arms behind her, his fingers clenched. “Where did you get the gun?”
She’d wondered when he’d ask her that question. “Guess.”
“My grandmother.”
“Yes.” Katya had expected an immediate “no” to her request. Instead Kiran Santos had looked into her eyes for a long moment before reaching into her purse and retrieving the weapon. “At first, I couldn’t believe she trusted me, then I realized it’s you she trusts.” She spread her fingers over his heartbeat. “Will you tell me about why locks open for you?”
“Figured that out, did you?” A lighthearted comment, and yet his soul went cold. Because if she was asking him for secrets . . . “No.”
“Please—I’m so curious.”
And because he could deny her nothing, he told her about his affinity to metal. “At first, it was just metal. I could sense it, feel it, taste it. The chill of it keeps me calm when everyone else is exploding.” Except with her. Never had it worked with her. “As I grew older, I found I could manipulate objects with metallic components, like deadbolts.”
“Did it develop further?”
“This year,” he said, “I’ve begun to ‘connect’ with machines that have very few metallic components—I’m talking a single circuit. I can now command computers on a basic level, such as those in cars. In time, I might literally be able to ‘talk’ to much more sophisticated systems—Glen and Connor think it’s possible I could grow beyond the need for metal altogether.”
“Extraordinary,” she whispered. “You’re developing the ability to interface with machines on the mental level.” For an instant, the pain receded from her voice as the scientist took over. “It’s a skill specific to the technological age.”
“That’s what the docs say.” Releasing the death grip he had on his own hands, he cupped the back of her head, stroked her nape. “Want to see a cool trick?”
A little nod, weak, too weak. Pain shot along his jaw, down his spine, but he didn’t let the emotions out, didn’t break when she needed him to stay strong. “Watch.” Focusing, he drew metal to him.
“Oh!” Katya ducked as a small metal sculpture attached itself to his arm. “You’re magnetic?”
“No.” He pulled the sculpture off, placing it on a nearby table. “Though the effect is the same. You should see me with spoons.”
A smile that tried so hard to hold on. But he knew. “Katya?”
“I’m so sorry, Dev.” She blinked in a rapid burst. “I can’t feel my lower legs anymore.”
His entire body jerked. “No. Not yet.”
“Not yet,” she agreed. She couldn’t let him go. “We don’t have to worry about any other embedded compulsions—I’m not strong enough to be dangerous.”
“Ming?” A single harsh word.
“As long as Ming’s unconscious, his Arrows won’t be able to find me. He did too good a job of hiding me.” She’d been his pet project, his little perversion. “But when he wakes—”
Dev kissed her, halting her words. She surrendered, more than willing to delay the inevitable. Just a few more days, she thought, a few more hours with this man she adored to the deepest core of her soul.
Dev wanted only to hold Katya every second of every minute, but the director of the Shine Foundation didn’t have that luxury. “I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he told her the next morning as she lay curled up on the sofa in the sunroom of his Vermont home.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.” She glanced toward the hallway. “Your friend Connor will be here.”
“I can’t leave you alone when you’re so getting so weak,” he said. “Don’t ask me to.”
“According to your grandmother, I should disagree with you on principle, but you already have bags under your eyes.” Lifting a hand, she placed her fingers on his pulse in that way she had. “I’ll be waiting for you.”
He kept that promise close to his heart as he walked out the door. Cutting the travel time short by using a jet-chopper instead of driving, he arrived in New York twenty minutes later. His first task was to check in with Cruz. He’d talked to the boy on his cell phone a couple of days back, but it was good to see that dimpled smile on-screen.
“He’s even starting to like me,” Tag said when Dev transferred over to Cruz’s current guardian.
“You okay on your own?”
“Cruz is behaving. And Ti’ll be back after the meeting today.” A pause. “Good luck, man.”
Dev knew he’d need that luck as he walked into the meeting. With Jack having withdrawn his appeal for Silence, the fractious situation within the Forgotten had calmed, but it was by no means over.
“I can’t stop any of you who want to practice some kind of conditioning,” he now said to the men and women around the meeting table. “But here’s what I think—we found a way to help William, could be, we find a way to help the others, too.”
“Lot of coulds and maybes, Dev.”
He met Tiara’s distinctive eyes. “Case-by-case situation.” He’d thought this over, would go to the floor to save his people. “And Aubry had a point—can you honestly tell me you’d be happy living a life where you didn’t spend half of it teasing Tag? Jesus Christ, his balls must be fucking purple by now.”
“Way past,” Aubry muttered. “I’m pretty sure the pitiful things are about to fall off.”
Tiara’s cheeks went red as several people around the table snickered. But she wasn’t one to back down. “Since when are you interested in other men’s balls, Aubry? Something we should know, hmm?”
Another round of snickers as heads turned toward Aubry.
“Look at us,” Dev said, rescuing his second-in-command, “we’re on opposite sides and still able to laugh about it. That doesn’t happen with the Psy.”
A few nods, troubled glances. “But Dev,” another woman, a solid member of the board, said, “this is the tip of the ice-berg. What if we can’t find a way forward?”
“The Forgotten have always been known for their courage under fire. We will find a way.” He had to believe that—not only for his people, but for his Katya. “I’d like to read you all something,” he said. “This is a letter that my great-great-grandmother wrote to her son. She was an M-Psy, her husband a foreseer. It’s dated November eighth, 1984.”
He waited to ensure everyone was listening. “‘Dearest Matthew, ’ ” he read, “ ‘We buried your father today. Do you know what his last words were to me? “Damn stubborn woman.” ’ ”
A ripple of restrained laughter.
He continued reading. “ ‘You better believe it. I wasn’t going to leave my husband behind when the Council’s murderers came after us, no way, no bloody how. We only had two more years together, but those two will last me a lifetime.
“ ‘So now you know—you come from the stubbornest stock this side of the equator. No one is going to stop your star from shining.’ ” Putting the page on the table, he met each gaze in turn. “Zarina buried her husband, and still she fought for her children’s right to be free. How can we do any less?”
The meeting disbanded an hour later, with the unanimous agreement that they’d make no move toward any kind of a Silence program. The Forgotten had fought too long, and too hard, to give in this easily.
Dev called Katya on the comm panel as soon as he was able. “How are you?”
“Fine.” Her lips curved. “Connor brought me a smoothie—he said you threatened to cut his legs off at the knees if he forgot.”
“Damn str
aight.” Heart a forever ache in his chest, he simply looked at her for a long moment. “I should be home around eight tonight.”
“How did the meeting go?”
He’d stopped hiding things from her the instant he’d understood the truth, understood how little time he had to share his world with this extraordinary, beautiful woman. “There are going to be no easy answers for the Forgotten. We’ll have to ride the tides and see where they take us.”
“That’s freedom, Dev,” Katya whispered. “Don’t ever give it up.”
CHAPTER 52
Katya had thought hard all night about what she was about to do, knowing that at this moment, she could ask anything of Dev and he’d give it to her. She didn’t want to take advantage of that, and yet, at the same time, she knew she’d never again have the chance to do this.
Crossing over to him, her lower legs encased in computronic black carapaces that gave her the strength to move, she put her hand on his shoulder.
He looked up from his contemplation of the snow-draped woods. “Sit on the steps with me.”
“I want to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“I’d like to meet your father.”
His shoulder turned to rock under her hand. “Why?”
“There are so many things I want to do with you,” she whispered, “things I know I’m never going to get the chance to do, but maybe, there is one thing I can do.”
“I’m not going to forgive him now if I haven’t all these years.” He stared straight ahead.
“I know.” She slid down to sit beside him. “But maybe you can see him through new eyes.”
“It’ll be a waste of time.”
“Please, Dev, do it for me.”
“Below the belt, baby,” he whispered, wrapping one strong arm around her shoulders. “Damn unfair.”
Her eyes burned at the pain she could feel in the big body beside hers. “A woman’s got to use what she has with you.”
The faintest hint of a smile. But it was layered in a heavy wave of darkness, of loss. “Alright. I’ll take you to him.”
Four hours from the time she’d asked him, they walked into the large, sunny visiting room of the place Dev’s father called home. It was, as Dev had said, a lovely place. Cane chairs with soft white cushions lay in easy conversational groupings, while indoor plants soaked up the sunshine coming in through windows that looked out over the sprawling gardens. The plants outside lay in winter sleep, but even so it was a peaceful vista.
But the gardens apparently held no appeal for the lone man who sat by the windows. His attention was locked on the doorway.
Katya’s heart stopped as she met those eyes. “Dev, you look so much alike.” Except for the color of his skin, Massey Petrokov was the mold from which Dev had been cast.
“Yeah.” Dev’s hand clenched around her waist.
She waited for something more, but he went silent. Massey watched them approach with the same silence. But when she reached him, what she saw in his eyes made her own burn—the abject apology as he looked at his son, the complete lack of hope... it broke her heart. “Hello, Mr. Petrokov,” she said, taking a seat opposite him.
The older man—his face aged far beyond his years—finally looked away from Dev. “You belong to my son.”
“Yes.”
“He’ll take care of you,” Massey said, his gaze following Dev as his son walked to stand facing the windows on Katya’s left. “He won’t hurt you.”
“I know.” She waited until the man turned back to her. “Will you tell me about her?”
“Her?”
“Dev’s mother.”
Dev’s entire body froze, but he didn’t say a word.
Massey swallowed. “I don’t have the right to say her name.”
“Please.”
After a long, long moment, Massey began speaking, his eyes locked on his son’s back. “We were teenagers when we met. She was the bright, funny girl. I was the jock. But we always found something to say to each other. She made me feel smart.” A smile as he fell into memory. “She used to say I made her feel strong.”
At that moment, there was nothing insane or broken about Massey Petrokov. He was a young man, his whole life ahead of him.
“I asked her to marry me after I finished college—on a football scholarship. I knew even then that she was going places, but that was okay with me.” A small laugh. “I used to say I’d be the househusband while she took over the world.”
“Were you?”
“Yes.” Another smile. “I played for four years, then got injured. But I made good money those few years, and my Sarita was already on the fast track at her investment firm, so we were okay financially. We decided to try for a child. She got pregnant almost immediately.”
Katya didn’t dare glance at Dev, but she could almost feel his concentration. “Did she like being pregnant?”
Massey blinked at the words, as if he’d forgotten her presence. “It surprised her how much she liked it. She’d thought she’d have trouble bonding with her baby—she never really saw herself as maternal. But right from the word go, she adored everything about the child in her womb.” Massey turned to his son again, speaking to the rigid line of his back. “Grape juice and bananas, that’s all she wanted to eat half the time.”
A quiet pause, filled only with the soft shush of a nurse’s footsteps in the corridor on the other side.
“She was meant to go back to work twelve months after Dev was born, but she took another year off. We managed.” His eyes glazed over again. “But after that, it was mostly me and Dev. We were thick as thieves—I used to make him his lunch, take him to kindergarten, then school, help him with his homework. Sarita used to call us her Two Musketeers.”
The depth of Dev’s sense of betrayal made so much more sense now. He’d adored both parents, but he had to have been closer to his father simply because of the amount of time they spent together. “It sounds like a good life.”
“It was.” His shoulders began to shake. “But then...” A jagged sob. “I never meant to hurt her. She was the only woman I ever loved.”
Unable to stand his pain, Katya reached forward to take his hands. “It wasn’t a conscious choice,” she whispered. “Your mind wasn’t your own.” She knew all about that, about being made a puppet.
Massey just shook his head as he cried. “But I killed her. And I’ll carry that guilt for the rest of my life.” Shifts in his eyes, as if something was trying to get out. “I’m not lucid much these days,” he said clearly, even as tears rolled down his cheeks. “I wish I was never lucid.” Another pulse of darkness, fragments of a broken mind trying to retake control.
Katya felt movement, then saw Dev’s hand close over his father’s shoulder. “You weren’t you,” he said, his voice raw with emotion. “Not that day.” He didn’t seem to be able to get out any more words, but they weren’t needed. Massey’s face filled with such joy that it hurt Katya to look at it.
“My boy,” he said. “My Sarita’s precious Devraj.” One of his hands left hers to close over Dev’s.
They sat that way for a while... until Massey Petrokov could no longer hold on to his sanity.
“How did you know to ask about my mother?” Dev asked as they walked back into his home. It was the first time he’d spoken since they left his father.
She dared go to him, slide her arms around his waist. “I thought it was something you’d likely never asked him.”
“I used to copy everything he did.” Arms clenching around her body. “I used to want to be exactly like him when I grew up.”
“He was your hero.”
“Yeah.” A pause. “Afterward, I couldn’t even bear to keep his name. I chose my mother’s instead.”
“Maybe one day, you’ll be ready to reclaim it.”
“Maybe.”
Neither of them said anything else, but Katya knew Dev would return to visit his father again. It didn’t make her want to stop railing at
fate, but it did give her a little peace. “Promise me something, Dev.”
“No.” It was implacable.
She smiled. “Stubborn man.”
“It’s in the blood.”
“I’m selfish,” she admitted. “I want you to promise to love again, but at the same time, I want to scratch out the eyes of any woman who even looks at you.”
His chest rumbled, and then, for the first time in what seemed like forever, he laughed. Delighted, she grinned. And when her spine twisted under a fresh wave of pain, she tried not to let him know. But he did. Of course he did.
“Hold on, baby,” he whispered against her temple. “Hold on.”
She tried . . . but Ming had stolen that from her, too. Her arm muscles spasmed and fell silent. Inside her chest, she could feel her heart laboring to beat another beat. The bastard had won. She was dying. But she’d do it on her own terms.
Reaching up with an effort that had Dev bracing her neck, she brushed her lips against his jaw. “Let me go, Dev.”
“No.”
They both knew he couldn’t stop her. The link to the Net—her lifeline—was inside her mind, a deeply personal thing. And yet they both also knew she wouldn’t take that step until he gave her permission. Because she understood him. If she did this, if she left him without a final good-bye, Dev’s rage would destroy him from within. “I need to know you’ve made your peace with this.”
He squeezed her nape in gentle reproof. “I’ll never make peace with this.”
“Dev.”
“Forget it, Katya.” A stubborn line to his jaw that she knew too well. “It’s never going to happen.”
Dropping her head to his chest, she swallowed the tears in her throat. He was strong. And his heart, it was breaking. She could hear it. “I can’t live this way,” she whispered, knowing she was asking the impossible, knowing, too, that he was strong enough to bear the pain. If he had asked it of her... “Ming’s out right now, but when he wakes, he’ll find me.”
“We’ll get you out.”
Blaze of Memory Page 30
