by Sophie Davis
“Do I look better like this?” Tals teased.
Giggling like he was the funniest child ever, Alex scooped more foam from the bathwater and painted her eyebrows with it.
“Better like this!” he exclaimed.
His milky blue gaze never strayed toward the bathroom door, yet I knew he sensed me there. Talia was also aware of my presence but chose to ignore it.
“I look better with half my face covered in foam?” Tals asked with faux indignation. Her hand flew to her chest. “Little bit of advice, kid. Never tell a girl she looks better when most of her face is hidden.”
Alex wasn’t deterred.
“You’re not a girl,” he laughed, adding more bubbles to Talia’s foam beard. “You’re just Talia.”
“No? How do you know? You don’t even have adult teeth,” she pointed out, fighting a smirk. “If I’m not a girl, am I a boy?”
“No,” Alex replied dramatically, drawing out the single word. “You’re a Talented.”
It sounded so obvious when Alex said it. Of course, like me, the child didn’t know to stop while he was ahead with Tals.
“A Talented pyconnut!” Alex clarified and dissolved into a fit of giggles.
“What’s a pyconnut?” I whispered to Dad.
“It’s this sort of mini coconut that grows on long, curly vines on the northwest corner of Eden,” he explained sheepishly. “The fruit inside is purple. They’ve always sort of reminded him of Talia.”
Using her control over the elements to form two baseball-sized orbs of swirling bathwater, Tals guided one to either side of Alex’s head.
“You have mouse ears,” she declared. “Guess that makes you a mouse. A Talented mouse.”
“I’m not a mouse!” Alex squealed.
“No? What are you then?” Talia challenged.
“A wolf.” To prove his point, Alex curled his fingers into claws and bared his teeth. The watery mouse ears changed from round to triangular to accommodate the switch.
Talia’s sudden emotional shift was swift and not entirely unexpected. The wolf had been Donavon’s favorite morph form. Was Alex aware of that?
“So ferocious,” Tals said. She managed a teasing tone, refusing to show pain in front of Alex.
She studied the little boy with a critical eye. An instant later, there were three thin lines of foam on either side of his mouth in the shape of whiskers. Next, Talia formed a snout over Alex’s real nose with the bubbles, followed by claws made of water over his tiny nails.
“Now you’re a wolf,” Talia corrected when she was finished.
The look she gave Alex, as though he was the sole source of good left in the world, nearly broke me. I started to walk away, but my father’s hand on my shoulder stopped me. When our gazes locked, he didn’t need to say anything, I knew exactly what he was thinking.
There was no time for jealousy, no time for petty bullshit. Dad slung an arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close.
“She needs you more than even she knows,” he whispered. “Talia’s hurting, son. Victoria’s death has brought up a lot of unresolved feelings for her. And, well, I think there might be some other stuff going on that you two should talk about.”
Victoria’s death.
Talia wasn’t the only one suppressing emotions. My father had been close to the councilwoman, too. Closer than I liked to think about.
“She’s known more loss than most, remember that,” Dad continued. Talia rinsed all the soap and foam off Alex.
“Yeah, I know,” I told my father.
Tals wrapped Alex in a towel and scooped him up, contagious laughter echoing throughout the large bathroom. Dad and I moved aside, and she carried the little boy through to the bedroom.
My girlfriend had yet to acknowledge me. Still, I could feel that she was no longer mad. Upset, but not mad. Alex brought her peace. He gave Talia hope for the future. For her, he represented a possibility for life without chaos. A life without anger. A life without death. To Talia, Alex was pure. I knew she wanted me to be a part of that life, but I was tainted.
Darkness lived inside of me. Shadows surrounded me at every turn, not all of them born of my created talents. I’d killed. Many times. Before this was all over with Gretchen, I would take more lives.
Alex was life. I was death.
Dad and I sat in the sitting room while Talia read Alex several books. To his delight, she morphed into the different animal characters of one, his small hands running over her fur and feathers. He giggled uncontrollably.
Once Alex fell asleep, she curled up next to him in the bed but didn’t close her eyes.
“You two should eat,” Dad insisted in a low tone.
“I know,” I replied absently.
My mind was on a million different things, and dinner was the least of it.
“Talia’s expending a lot of energy, so are you,” Dad continued, leaning forward in his armchair. “We need you at your best, Erik.”
I exhaled deeply. “You’re right. As soon as she’s done in there, we’ll go eat.”
Dad was quiet for a minute. Had I not been so consumed with my own thoughts, I would’ve seen his question coming.
“Son, what did you find in Danbury’s files?”
I snapped to attention. “So far, just family trees,” I said carefully.
He needed to know I’d seen Mom on one of them. I had to tell him. Soon. I would tell him soon. Once we knew more.
“You saw your mother’s name on one of those trees, didn’t you?” Dad asked.
Shocked, I blurted, “How’d you know that?” I hadn’t meant to sound suspicious, but the question came off like an accusation.
“Your mother liked genealogy,” he replied slowly, gaze narrowing as he gauged my reaction. I had recovered from the initial surprise and gave him a blank stare. “Lillian traced her line back to before the Great Contamination.”
“You knew?” I demanded, the anger from earlier rearing up inside of me like a cobra ready to strike. “You knew, and you never told me?” I hissed.
Dad shook his head, eyes pleading. “It was a fairytale, Erik. A myth. Your mother didn’t believe it and neither do I.”
I glanced toward the bedroom door. It was open just a crack, but I was careful to keep my voice low so as not to wake Alex.
“But it’s true,” I said softly, staring directly into my father’s eyes. “The Director’s files include pretty detailed notes documenting my ancestors using powers before the Great Contamination.” I took a deep breath as a question popped into my head. “Is this really the reason you hid me from TOXIC?”
To my dad’s credit, he didn’t avert his gaze.
“Your mother and I never believed the stories,” he repeated firmly. “But we also knew there were people out there who wanted children like you, descendants of the originals.”
“What about Edmond and Evan?” I asked. “They’re both descendants, too, right?”
Dad looked at me pointedly. “You know the answer to that; you bought their freedom with your own.”
I shrugged. “So? Director McDonough and his nutty ass wife experimented on kids, do you really think they wouldn’t go back on their word if it benefited them?”
“Son,” Dad placed a hand on my knee, “your ability is exceedingly rare. Believe me, Danbury wasn’t interested in common talents. He only wanted the exceptional ones. That retrieval team you were on? Did you ever notice they only wanted to ‘retrieve’ children with extraordinary powers?”
His question caught me off guard. I’d been retrieved, as had Talia and Alex and Beth Larsen. All of us had rare abilities and incredible power. Still, there must have been others with common talents who’d been reported to TOXIC and retrieved.
“Hey.”
Talia’s soft voice infiltrated my thoughts. I turned to find her standing behind the sofa where I sat. How long has she been there? Normally I knew the instant she was in the vicinity.
“Hey,” I replied cautiously.
&
nbsp; “Are you hungry?” she asked. “Kip, Emma, and Alpha are just down the hall. Robo Gentry—not his real name, by the way, it’s just Gentry—made lasagna. Penny, Brand, and Crane were going to come up and eat, too. We all need to talk.”
It’s because of Emma, I thought, realization dawning. Her talent masked other talents, and she wasn’t great at controlling it. Hopefully that’s why it had felt like Talia was hiding from me all afternoon, instead of her purposely dodging me.
“Yeah, sure. I could eat,” I replied evenly. “Have you seen Frederick? Did you know he was awake?”
She nodded, a genuine feeling of warmth washing over her. “I spent some time with him.”
“Did you know Phi healed him?” I wasn’t trying to start another fight, but Tals stiffened. Her expression went blank.
“It’s sort of one of the things we need to talk about,” she said evenly.
“Yeah, definitely,” I agreed. Something told me that the reason I wanted to talk about the healing and the reason she wanted to talk about it were not the same.
“I’m just going to stretch out on this couch,” Dad interjected. He looked at me. “Let me know if you want to talk more.”
I nodded at my father and stood to join Talia. We waved goodbye to Dad and made our way to the door. Our friends were gathered in a glorified cafeteria, where Robo Gentry and a droid named Arnold were serving dinner buffet-style. Each wall was a giant wallscreen, though all were turned off. As badly as I wanted to know the global news, I also didn’t want to see the bloodshed in such high resolution and larger than life. I didn’t even look for a control panel to turn them on.
Emma, Kip, and Alpha already had plates and were seated on cushy sofas. The room was silent except for Ian speaking to Robo Gentry in a low tone. They all looked over when Talia and I entered.
“Did Alex get to sleep okay?” Ian asked brightly.
Talia smiled. “Yeah. He’s doing better.”
“Good. Ah, there is my beautiful niece.” Ian gestured behind us. Penny and Brand joined the group, holding hands and looking as exhausted as I felt.
“Beautiful is not the word I’d use,” Penny grumbled.
Honestly, it wasn’t the word I would’ve used either. She looked like the living dead. Only her green eyes were alert, if not a little haunted. Brand pulled her closer and led her past Talia and me.
No one said much while we filled our plates with layers of meat, cheese, and saucy vegetables. The atmosphere was tense. With Emma there, I had a hard time gauging the source of all that unease. Finally, once I’d devoured three pieces of lasagna without tasting any of it, Ian stood and cleared his throat.
“Brand, why don’t you start?”
It felt like I was back in school. Ian was our teacher, and the rest of us were pupils tasked with presenting reports on political alliances or something equally boring. Except, nothing any one had to say that night was boring.
“We’ve located Henri,” Brand announced without preamble.
Beside me, Talia perked up. I wasn’t quite as excited. Brand never showed much emotion—unless it was negative and directed toward Talia—but his grim face didn’t inspire confidence.
“Well, where is he?” Talia demanded.
Brand rolled his eyes. “Switzerland. There’s a small town at the base of the Alps, called Interlaken. It’s been deserted for some time, and UNITED has been relocating Talents there.”
He hesitated, and Talia jumped on the opening.
“What’s the problem?” she pressed.
“UNITED lost all communication with our agents in the area,” Ian answered gravely. “It seems they might be under attack.”
“Might be?” I asked.
“Thanks to your interrogation of the clone,” Brand began, looking between Tals and me, “we evacuated UNITED headquarters in Bern and left only the most essential personnel. They reported there was hovercraft activity in the area. Radar indicates the crafts were headed for Interlaken.”
“We issued warnings,” Ian continued. “But we have not received any response from agents stationed in the area.”
“We saved Frederick only to lose Henri?” I snapped. “Unbelievable.”
“Not so fast, Erik.” Ian sighed heavily. “I don’t believe the Privileged have killed any of the Talents in Interlaken, even the UNITED agents. Yet.” He ran a hand through his thick hair, leaving several strands mussed. “As of right now, Interlaken has the largest concentrated population of Talented in the world.”
He didn’t spell it out. He didn’t have to, at least not for me. This was what we’d talked about, the reason Ian said we couldn’t fight amongst ourselves. Gretchen hadn’t sent her minions to Interlaken to kill. She’d sent them to recruit.
“What are you doing about this?” Talia demanded. “I want to—“
“No, Natalia,” Ian said firmly. “I won’t risk you. Not like this.”
“Risk me? Risk me?” Her voice cracked. “Henri is one of my best friends.”
“And if Gretchen McDonough gets you—“
Tals cut Ian off midsentence. “Then at least I would’ve died doing something.”
She meant it. Like me, my girlfriend wasn’t afraid of death. Instead, she feared what would happen to Alex and everyone she loved if she wasn’t left standing at the end of this war.
“Dammit, Talia, you don’t get it!” Brand shouted. “Do you ever think of anyone besides yourself? Ian isn’t afraid she’ll kill you. He’s afraid of your powers in the hands of Gretchen McDonough. Do you understand what she could do if you were under her control?”
“Brand,” Penny said sharply.
“It’s true. And she needs to realize that. Over and over again, she thinks it’s okay to run headlong into danger. Talia doesn’t seem to understand that she is the real danger.”
The room was quiet enough to hear the wings of a fly. Brand looked to his boss imploringly. “Ian, say something.”
Even with Emma so close, I felt Ian’s confliction. It was true that Talia’s powers were too dangerous for our enemies to possess. Yet that wasn’t the entire reason, or even most of the reason, that Ian didn’t want her to go to Switzerland. He was terrified of losing her. He also wasn’t stupid enough to believe he could keep her locked inside his estate forever. Risks and rewards had to be weighed. In this case, he didn’t feel the potential risks were worth the possible rewards.
“We are sending teams,” Ian said after a long, awkward silence. “I’m sorry, Talia. I won’t authorize you to go on this mission. Brand is right, the risks are too great. Until your name is cleared in Victoria’s murder, even our own people are a danger to you. You’d be more of a distraction than an asset. I am sorry.”
It was possibly the only thing that could have made Talia back off. Then, in a move that reminded me of something Victoria might’ve pulled, Ian continued.
“That’s not to say I don’t have a mission for you.” His gaze transferred to me. “Both of you. And a team of your choosing.”
“New Mexico?” I asked hopefully.
The smile he offered didn’t reach his eyes. “New Mexico.”
“When?” Talia demanded.
Ian actually laughed. “Patience, Natalia. Not today. There’s still intel we need to go over and strategizing to be done. We will get to that after,” he held up a hand to halt her protests, “we discuss Paradis.”
I wasn’t the only person in that room with a blank stare, though I was in the definitive minority. Only Brand seemed as confused as I was.
“That weird little island in the middle of nowhere?” Penny asked uncertainly. “Where the mermaids used to sing songs and lure shipmen to their deaths?”
Obviously, Penny was also confused. Either that, or she needed sleep more any of us realized. To my surprise, my girlfriend didn’t react to Penny’s bizarre statement the way I’d expect.
“You’ve heard of it?” Talia asked her.
“Yeah, my mom used to tell me these bedtime stories about tha
t place,” Penny replied. “I thought it was her way of keeping me out of the ocean when I was little. It worked. I was terrified. It’s not real, though. I mean, mermaids aren’t real. And the island is not on any maps.” She laughed, but no one joined in. Penny glanced around uneasily. “What am I missing?”
Talia surveyed the room, her gaze falling on me last. It was the first time since our fight in the crypto bank that she’d actually looked at me. I sort of wished she hadn’t; the pity in her expression was too much.
“We figured out the common bond between all the families. Well, besides the fact all they all had powers before the contamination,” she told me.
“Excuse me?” Penny interrupted.
Talia ignored the question and pressed on. “They all either lived on Paradis or spent a lot of time there. There’s something about that island, maybe Pelia, too. I don’t really know what, but it seems the lands gave our ancestors their powers.”
With the help of Kip, Alpha, and Emma, Talia wove the tale of the twin islands. At first, the story seemed nothing more than bizarre fiction. It started to make more sense the longer they all talked. From their combined knowledge, and Kenly and Epsilon’s ongoing research, they’d determined that the nine families represented at the top of the trees had all owned homes on Paradis.
Most, like Ferdinand Lyons and Jacques Bordeaux, inherited vacation homes on the island from their parents. Those homes had been passed down through generations. It was most likely how Ferdinand Lyons met Marie Bordeaux, since Kenly and Epsilon had yet to find any other way the two might have crossed paths. Brand pointed out that both lived in France and might have attended the same social functions.
Aside from the Lyons and Bordeaux families, none of the others ever lived remotely near one another in their day-to-day lives. The only connection between them, other than the fact they all seemed to marry one another, was Paradis. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to scrub those links from existence.
“Kenly is good,” Penny mused. She was reviewing the research that Talia’s mentee had done, which Ian had put up on the wallscreens. “This was buried deep. Whoever erased the data was good, too. Mac really didn’t want information about the island getting out. Why, though? And how did he know about it in the first place?”
