by Jade Kerrion
As darkness claimed him, he heard Alex's quiet voice speak directly to his mind. Forgive me, Danyael. I trust you. You must trust yourself. Trust your heart.
* * *
Zara and Miriya both arrived too late to do anything except watch from the sidelines. The outcome, Zara knew, was inevitable. Danyael was too exhausted to win a fight without dropping his internal psychic shields, without killing everyone in sight. The council had bound his hands and limited his choices by surrounding him with people he cared for.
Danyael made his choice; he chose not to kill.
Mutant Assault Group storm troopers locked the collar around Danyael's wet neck, and General Howard activated the collar.
Zara's breath caught in her throat. Her mind blanked. Instinct threw her forward, but Galahad restrained her before she could reach Danyael's side. He wrapped his arms around her and refused to let her go even though she fought him like a wildcat. He held her until they took Danyael away in a containment vehicle flanked by a convoy of military APCs.
It was over. It was done.
The dull ache in her chest defied explanation. Her gaze followed the departing vehicles. Her racing heartbeat gradually slowed, and she released her breath in a soundless sigh. Only then did Galahad release her.
With a shrug of her shoulders, Zara shook him off and strode away, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chill of the overcast day. Silently, she watched as Andrea and John walked toward Alex Saunders. Erin intercepted them. The alpha pre-cognitive shook her head slowly. "Danyael made his choice. We're done here."
"Did he make the right choice?" Andrea asked.
Erin's gaze traveled over the large team of enforcers who accompanied Alex Saunders and flickered over the departing stream of military vehicles. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, perhaps tapping into her pre-cognitive visions. After a moment, surprised pleasure flashed through her smile. "Yes, he did." Her green eyes opened, and she met Andrea's skeptical gaze. Erin sounded confused, but relieved. "The path he chose offers life, still."
"How can that be?"
"He will find a way. He always does."
Andrea's chin tilted up as she studied the director general of the Mutant Affairs Council. "Maybe so, but it should never have come to this. You betrayed Danyael. You changed his threat classification from three to five. Why?"
Alex flinched.
A cold fist closed around Zara's heart. "Class five? They'll put him in a super-max, no trial, for life!" She seized Alex's jacket and held a dagger to his throat. She did not even consciously recall unsheathing her blade. "Why?"
"This is a matter of national security. That's all you need to know."
"Bullshit. You convinced us Danyael would be found innocent in a trial; otherwise we never would have---"
"Never would have what? Sold him out?" Erin completed the sentence. She displayed no anger. Her voice was disturbingly matter of fact as she turned to Miriya. "Danyael will never see you alive again."
Miriya bit down on quivering lips.
Andrea's eyes narrowed. "You didn't just lose Danyael today, Alex. You lost all of us." She did not wait for a reply. She turned and walked away. John and Erin followed her. They too offered no farewell.
Alex sighed, his shoulders drooping like those of a much older man. He looked at Galahad. "Thank you. Your assistance was invaluable today."
Galahad inclined his head. He said nothing.
The human Danyael had healed and saved from the river stood on unsteady legs. "Who...who was that?" he asked, his voice trembling.
Zara glanced toward the road. It was empty. The vehicles had vanished around a corner. "Danyael Sabre."
"He...he...." The man plucked at his shirt, at a loss for words.
She could see the hole where the bullet had exited. "He's an alpha empath and a healer."
The man's reaction was atypical. No fear. No revulsion. Instead, he nodded and smiled. "Danyael..." he said quietly, breathing the name like a prayer.
Zara watched him for a long, silent moment and wondered what inspired the hope in his eyes. She wished she had it, for Danyael, and most of all, for herself.
EPILOGUE
Zara stood by the bay windows in Lucien's study. An early spring thaw had coaxed flowers into bloom, filling Lucien's gardens with a profusion of color. She typically enjoyed spring, but that year, the change of seasons could not soothe the restlessness that had plagued her for months. She turned away from the window to observe Lucien and Galahad. The two men sat across from each other. Galahad had abandoned his disguise and reverted to his original appearance---pale blond hair, dark eyes. He seemed more like Danyael than ever before, especially in light of his growing friendship with Lucien.
Zara's violet eyes narrowed as she listened to their easy conversation. They discussed the yet-unknown identities of Galahad's other templates. Galahad wanted to find them. Why exactly, she did not know. Maybe he wanted to wreck their lives too. The flash of anger she had felt for Galahad at the banks of Mill Run River had since grown into steady resentment. Neither emotion had an easy explanation. True to form, she did not bother justifying either.
If she tried, she might find Danyael at the heart of her discontent, which would never do. Danyael was out of the picture forever. It would be stupid, utterly ridiculous, to wreck her affair with the perfect human being over a flawed alpha empath who was as good as dead.
"He's not dead," Miriya said pensively, in response to Zara's unvoiced thoughts. Next to Zara, the telepath sipped from a mug of hot apple cider. Miriya had lost much of her natural sparkle. "I still have the hook in his mind."
Zara arched an eyebrow. "Really?" She bit back the flurry of questions, but Miriya heard them anyway.
Miriya replied, "He's semi-conscious most of the time, which is a mercy. They keep him in a great deal of pain to prevent him from forming his psychic shields."
"Does he know you're there?"
Miriya shrugged. "I talk to him when he's conscious---tell him to hang in there, that there are people who care for him, but I don't know how much he hears. When he's conscious, he's often delirious. For all I know, he may dismiss my voice as one of many voices in his head."
"Can we get him out of ADX Florence?"
"A jailbreak from a super-max? The two of us? No. Not even with Xin's help. She's still not talking to you, is she?"
"No," Zara said shortly. The loss of her top hacker, her friend, still rankled Zara deeply months later.
"Lucien could have brought enough influence to bear," Miriya said, following Zara's gaze, "But he has Galahad now. Danyael's nothing to him."
Zara frowned. "Sixteen years of friendship wiped out, just like that." The raw injustice gnawed at her, but words alone could not move Lucien. She had tried and gotten nowhere. Idly, Zara reached for a cookie, nibbled around the edges, and set it down, disinterested. It did not taste as good as it usually did. Even wine had lost much of its allure.
"A truly cynical person might say that life has reached equilibrium. Two people are content, even happy." Miriya nodded at Lucien and Galahad. "And two are discontented." She tipped her mug to Zara. "In theory, they balance out and life goes on."
Zara's chuckle carried a distinctly cynical tone. "Not when the discontented ones are female."
Miriya followed her gaze. Galahad. "Perfection not good enough for you?" she asked, her voice carefully lowered.
Zara sighed, the motion scarcely more than a release of breath. Perfection should have been good enough. She and Galahad were natural companions in every sense of the word. Sex was fantastic, and he could keep up with her physically. His mind was incisive, his charm compelling. Most importantly, he wanted her.
Months before, she thought she knew what she wanted; after all, didn't everyone crave perfection? Why, then, wasn't he enough for her? "I think I need something different." Perhaps she had always needed something different, except she had never realized it before.
Miriya's mind brushed against
hers gently. Like an alpha empath?
Perhaps like an alpha empath. Zara smiled faintly. Coming up with an escape plan from ADX Florence would be an interesting project to fill her time in between client assignments. Someday, Danyael, when I break you out of ADX, I might just give us another chance.
The sequel to Perfect Betrayal
November 2012
PERFECT WEAPON
Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven.
Talons of pain tore down Danyael Sabre's spine. The man arched, convulsing, as shards of agony pierced his mind. He had missed the last count by three seconds. His chest heaved in jagged bursts as he inhaled through the aftershocks of pain. He started counting again. One. Two. Three.
Life was measured in sixty-second increments. He spent the hours of every day counting the seconds between each shock that surged from the electric collar around his neck. On a scale of one to ten, the last surge was a six. He needed at least a nine to overwhelm his exhausted body and mind and stun him into unconsciousness for several minutes or hours. The irony did not escape him. He had been reduced to desiring pain if only because it offered blessed oblivion, however brief, from his unending hell.
Seven, eight, nine.
The door of his cell opened. He raised his head from the cold floor, squinting against the glare of spotlights. Two guards, tall and brawny in their olive green uniforms, strode in. One he recognized as a frequent tormentor. The other was a new face.
Danyael clung to the wall for support and dragged himself to his feet. Vertigo spun his world but willpower kept him upright.
"It's time for your shots." The first guard passed a small syringe-filled tray to his companion and rolled up his sleeves. "It looks like I missed the window of opportunity." He looked at the new prison guard; his tone was conversational, a discussion between teacher and student. "If you time it right, he'll still be woozy from the effects of the last dose, and you can shoot him up without worrying about his empathic powers."
The second guard snorted. "Hah. He's just an empath."
"Tell that to Clark. He made the mistake of allowing Danyael to touch him." The guard's upper lip curled into a sneer. His glare raked over Danyael. "You didn't manage to kill him, you bastard. He's alive. He's going to make it."
The new guard stared down at the tray of syringes and frowned. "So how do we get these into him if we can't touch him?"
"You can, just not when he's conscious and aware enough to use his empathic powers. We soak him down." The guard's grin was malicious. "The water, combined with the shock from the electric collar, will knock him out for at least an hour, maybe even longer. The drugs we pump into him keep him docile for four to five hours."
"And then we do this again?"
"And again and again. You don't take any chances with class-five mutants." The guard unwound the hose coiled in a corner of the cell. He placed a hand on the valve. His eyes narrowed on Danyael, and he bared his teeth in a macabre grin.
Twenty-seven, twenty-eight.
The blast of icy water drove Danyael to his knees and tore a scream from him. The sound, emitted by damaged throat muscles, sounded like a guttural croak. He shuddered, shivering as water sloughed dirt from him.
The guard spun the valve. The escalating volume and pressure of the water slammed Danyael to the floor.
Forty-three, forty-four.
The cell shook, walls and floor vibrating. The guards looked around, startled, and then panicked when the door blew inward. Solid steel smashed into the two men, crushing their bodies against the far wall. Danyael looked up, too exhausted to summon bewilderment, as several people swarmed into the cell.
Fifty, fifty-one.
A young man knelt beside him. "Danyael Sabre?"
"Stay away," he whispered. "Electric shock." Fifty-three, fifty-four.
"We're here to get you out. It's going to be all right. You're safe now."
If only he could believe it. Danyael's lips tugged into a bittersweet smile. Fifty-seven, fifty-eight, fifty-nine.
He had been right on the count. Danyael was soaking wet and in contact with the steel floor. When electricity surged from the collar, the current charged through the length of his body. Pain, white and brutal, ripped through him, shredded awareness from his mind, and plunged him into merciful darkness.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jade Kerrion holds B.A. degrees in biology and philosophy from the Johns Hopkins University and an M.B.A. from the University of Virginia. When not writing or working, she ekes out time for dance and computer games. She resides with her husband and two sons in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Find other Double Helix novels:
http://www.amazon.com/author/jadekerrion
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http://www.jadekerrion.com
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