“I’ve never met the governor,” he lied. He wouldn’t sell out Gregg and Naeemah like that. “If they’re interested in joining your secret club, it’s not because of me. Maybe they want to buy a servant? I hear she’s an awful cook. Burns everything.” Quinn shook his head, thinking of the way Naeemah always burned the bread. Every. Single. Time. He’d give anything to be home now, not complaining about her cooking ever again.
“Your family is hunting for information and it will lead to nothing good. For you. Or them.”
She slid a photo across the table and Quinn’s mouth went dry at the sight of Graham. It wasn’t just seeing his brother that sent Quinn into a panic. It was seeing where his brother was. The time stamp on the photo was just a few days ago. Graham sat on a bench in a park. Piedmont Park, just below Sterling Tower. Graham was in Atlanta. Quinn did his best to seem disinterested in the photo of his brother sitting on a bench, casually texting on his phone—but Quinn knew better. Graham could hack the Pentagon from his phone and make it do a little dance for his entertainment. Graham was trying to get to him and it crushed something inside of him. Forget about me, little man, I’m not worth the risk.
“Your brother?” Livia said. “I can just imagine what he’s up to. He has that techie look about him, doesn’t he? You know we love our techies around here, right? They fetch such a spectacular price at market. We prefer kids like Graham. Kids who don’t have access to the kind of training they need to understand their more modern gifts. He’d be a perfect fit for Soma.”
“Lay a hand on him and I will end you.” Quinn’s eyes blazed in fury. She was right. Graham was a technological genius who had only scratched the surface of what he would one day be capable of. His training was often unproductive and frustrating for him because their parents didn’t know enough about his type of gift. But they were making an effort to get him the help he needed. Quinn would die before Livia ever laid a finger on his brother.
How did he manage to slip away from Mom and Dad? And why? If Quinn knew anything about how his family would react after his capture, it would be to get Graham and the other kids out of the country as fast as possible. Graham should be in the Azores with their parents by now. But Graham was sneaky. He could easily ditch the family and hop a plane to Atlanta to check out Soma and return without their ever noticing his absence. Their mom was probably a mess anyway. And Dad…. Quinn couldn’t fathom what his dad must be thinking. All his years in a Coalition prison only to lose his son to something even worse? They couldn’t know much about Soma yet, but by the looks of it, they were all busy doing their homework, looking for an opportunity to make a move.
“A kid like that could bring a fortune. And this one? She’s beautiful.” Livia slid another photo from the pile.
A girl with sun-kissed caramel skin stared back at him and Quinn’s heart stopped in his chest. His eyes starved for the sight of her.
“She’s not nosing around our front door, but she’s asking too many questions and seems quite determined to find you. But we’re keeping her busy.”
What is Sasha doing in the jungle? It was obvious from the selfie that she was far from home, laying on a mat beside a man teaching her how to use a sniper rifle. The brilliant smile that lit her face told him she was in her element. But there was something wrong. The light in her eyes was different. There was something incredibly sad there. Like she wasn’t the girl he remembered. The man beside her had a faded tattoo on his face and the two looked far too friendly for Quinn’s comfort. They look happy. Jealousy coiled like a snake inside him. Even after that last night together, Quinn and Sasha had no claim on each other. They’d set each other free more than a year ago. He’d done enough to hurt her over the years, but he didn’t want to see her anywhere near this man.
What have they pulled her into? The time stamp was from just a few weeks ago.
“Who are all of these people, Quinn?” Livia gestured at the photos piled on the desk.
“I’m not telling you anything, Livia.” Quinn heaved a deep sigh of despair. The only thing he could do for Sasha and his brother was to keep his mouth shut. Wherever Sasha was now. Whatever they had her doing, there was no way Greggory McBrien didn’t have a tail on her. Livia could threaten all she wanted. He was calling her bluff and praying to God he could count on Gregg to keep Sasha and Graham safe.
“She’s your girlfriend, right?” Livia gave a disgusted snort. “She was your date to the little school dance that night, wasn’t she?”
“We’ve hooked up on and off over the years, but she means nothing to me,” Quinn said, the lie tasting like ash on his lips. Sasha meant the world to him. He’d gladly stay here if it meant keeping her safe.
“I’m keeping her close for the moment. Just remember that.” She fanned out the images of his family in different parts of the world. Liam and Darius meeting with a Soma rep in Chicago. Graham, all on his own just across the park, right here in Atlanta. Sasha in some distant corner of the world. The photos of his mother standing watch on the rooftops just a few buildings away—each one was like a knife in the gut. His father, looking older than he remembered, clearly following Ryan along the streets of some foreign city. Gregg. Naeemah. His grandparents. Everyone he loved was looking for him and he wanted nothing more than for them all to give up and let him go. He wasn’t worth the risk.
“I want names, occupations and abilities, right now.” Livia placed a pen and a sheet of paper in front of him. “Who they all are and what they do.”
“So you can go after them? Not a chance.” Quinn folded his arms across his chest and sat back.
“Then your girlfriend will wind up right here with you.” Livia tapped the picture of Sasha. “The Senate has taken an interest in her training and have hired my people to do it. When it’s done, she’s supposed to go home, no damage done. But I’m intrigued by the intel I’ve received about her. I’d love to bring her in, but if you tell me who these people are, she’ll get to go back to her life. Otherwise, you can make room for her between you and Santi.”
“You can’t cheat, Livia. You can’t break me this way and you know it,” Quinn said. “I know how it’s done and this isn’t it. You want to blackmail me by threatening the people who mean the most to me, fine. But we both know I’m never going to submit willingly and you can’t take shortcuts to break me. Breaking an Immortal’s will requires a hell of a lot more than breaking their heart or scaring them into it. You have to damage me beyond repair. You have to earn it, and this is a cheap shot.” Quinn shoved the pile of photos across the table.
This was all a game to her. This whole thing with the photos was just one more ploy to crush him. It might work for some, but he’d spent half his life training for this and he knew not to fall for it.
“You’re an intelligent guy, Quinn.” Livia sat back with a smile and something that almost resembled respect in her eyes. “You’ve been trained well. Not many kids your age are even aware that an Immortal can be broken, much less understand how it’s done. I walked into a goldmine the night I came for the redhead and came away with you instead.”
“Well, you’ll have to do better than ‘good cop, bad cop.’” He cast a glance toward James, who had stood silently beside Livia throughout their exchange.
“But your brother is a problem.” She pulled the photos of Graham from her stack. There were dozens. Graham at the airport, stepping into an Uber cab. Graham at the park. Graham at a coffee shop with his laptop out, talking with another Immortal boy about his age. Whatever he thought he could discover by coming here, it wasn’t worth it.
“He’s an annoying little punk.” Quinn smiled. “But you should know, he’s damaged goods. He has a deformed foot and he walks with a limp. Surely your people followed him long enough to notice that. His deformity limits him in a lot of ways.” It was a lie. Graham was born with a twisted foot, and he did walk with a limp, but it never slowed him down. If anything, it somehow made him faster. Once that kid started running, few could catch him.
“That’s the thing about the techies. They’re the new scholars. They don’t need to be particularly gifted fighters. Your brother shows up again and he’s mine.”
~~~
“You’re daring. I’ll give you that,” James said as he collected the scattered photos from the table after Livia had gone. “Most wouldn’t risk raising her ire like that. Well done.”
“You’re encouraging me to piss off your boss?” Quinn tried not to look at the photos. He didn’t want James to see how much they affected him.
“Livia’s not as bad as she seems. She wants you to believe she’s evil incarnate, but she has a heart buried in there somewhere. It peeks out from time to time. It’s good to see someone stand up to her. And for the record, you were right. This was just a scheme to get you to stumble. It’s hard work breaking an Immortal. It’d be a lot easier for her bottom line if she can get you to sign your life away. Like me. But you don’t want to be me.”
“You sure you want to be telling me that?” Quinn watched the stocky man thumb through the pictures of his family. His life. Everything that had ever mattered to him. “Aren’t you on her side?”
“James is on whatever side benefits James.” He sat back down. “But make no mistake, Quinn. I’m a Soma slave just like you. This your brother?” he asked.
Quinn nodded.
“He’s a cutie. It’s reassuring to see a young gay Immortal with such talent. I hear he’s pretty impressive. Let’s hope he stays far away from Soma … and Amrita.”
“My brother’s not….” Quinn paused and took another look at Graham with another boy at a cafe.
“That is most definitely a date,” James said.
Quinn smiled. Graham had changed in the months since Quinn’s capture. He was leaner, taller and looked like the constant worry wasn’t letting him get much sleep. But it was clear there was something Quinn had missed about his little brother. “I’ll be damned.” He leaned over the photos, trying to see what James saw.
“Missed that, did ya?” James chuckled. “Families usually do.”
“How can you tell by looking?”
“You can’t see gay, you idiot. I just have a way of seeing things others can’t. Your brother has accepted who he is but he doesn’t want to come out until you return. He doesn’t want to move on without you. Coming out was easy for me. I didn’t have a family to worry about.”
Quinn ached inside. He wondered how long Graham had known? If he worried about telling their parents. Quinn wanted to be there for his brother. To help him through whatever his future held, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever get that chance.
“Dammit.” Quinn sighed. “I’m going to miss everything.”
His eyes burned and his throat tightened. He missed his brother so much. Quinn hadn’t always been the protective big brother he was now. When he was nearly three and Graham first joined their family, Quinn was insanely jealous of the little blond boy who looked more like their French mother than Quinn ever would. It took Quinn a long time to understand that his parents didn’t see color when they looked at their two sons—one dark and one fair. They simply saw their children. In time, Quinn reciprocated the brother bond Graham offered so freely, and he too stopped seeing color when he looked at his family.
“Yes, food’s here.” James stood to greet the delivery person from the dining hall. “This is getting a little too real for me. Why don’t we dial it back a bit and just eat? I’m starving.” James set the lunch trays on the table.
“There’s a cafeteria here?” Quinn looked down at the tray in front of him. It was very institutional. Like a school. Or a prison.
“The dining hall’s two floors down, near the big gym. You can go any time you want, unless you’re on a particular diet.”
“Like a starvation diet?” Quinn dropped his sandwich, thinking of Santi and that god-awful chain around her ankle.
“Yeah, that would do it. You should know you shouldn’t try to sneak Santi food. You’ll just make it worse.”
Quinn nodded, hating the idea of contributing to her suffering.
“So what were you saying about Amrita before?” Quinn asked, looking for a chance to talk about anything else. He’d heard of the underground Immortal club that traveled all over the world. He and Sasha used to talk about going if it ever came close enough to Cleveland for them to slip away for a night of fun.
“Surely you’ve heard of it?” James said. “Every kid our age is dying for a chance to go to Amrita.”
“Yeah, but you just associated Soma with Amrita.”
“They are one and the same, Quinn. Think about the meaning of the two words. Both are used in the Rigveda. ‘Amrita’ means ‘immorality’ in Sanskrit. But in the Rigveda, Amrita is a drink that was said to bestow immortality. The drink has also been referred to as Soma in other Hindu texts. Indra, the god of heaven, and Agni, the god of fire, drank Amrita to attain their immortality, after which they said:
“We have drunk Soma and become immortal; we have attained the light, the Gods discovered. Now what may foeman’s malice do to harm us? What, O Immortal, mortal man’s deception?” 1
“Clever. It’s an obvious connection in a way most of us would overlook,” Quinn said.
“My gut tells me Amrita is going to Cleveland in a few months. You better hope your friends are smart enough to stay away.”
“There’s no way they’d risk it.” Quinn shook his head. “Not after all this. They aren’t that stupid.” I swear, Aidan, I will rip your head off so they’ll have to feed you through a straw if you’re stupid enough to take them to Amrita.
“The redhead will be there,” James said, trying and failing to act casual.
“What? How do you know?”
“I see things.” James shrugged, fiddling with his food. “Most of the time it’s nonsense. My clairvoyance is mild and not remotely dependable. The Soma powers don’t put much stock in what I do. And … I may make it a point to appear as useless as I can possibly be. But I see important events and people. Your redheaded friend is everywhere I turn. I see her, I dream about her. She smells like apples and soot … and rage. That girl’s anger scares the hell out of me. Whatever’s coming for her isn’t good. She’ll be at Amrita. But that’s all I know.”
If Allie was going to be there, the others would be too. They had to know it was dangerous. Why would they risk it for a party? Quinn’s mind whirled with the possibilities of what they could possibly be thinking. Graham was just here snooping around—talking with other young Immortals. Does he know Amrita is connected with Soma? Are they going because they think in some twisted way they can help me?
“You say you only see important events and people?” Quinn asked. There was something James wasn’t telling him. Or maybe he really didn’t know. If he grew up here… if Soma didn’t see his gift as valuable … maybe they neglected something they should have paid much more attention to.
“I see the big things. Events I rarely understand until after they’ve happened, so I’m not much use.” James shrugged uncomfortably.
“What you see … do you happen to feel a compulsion to write it down or draw it after?”
“That’s a very specific question.” James gave him a wary look. “Why would you ask that?”
“I think your gift is much more valuable than you let on, James. And I think you know it. This place. They focus on flashy new gifts that we’ve never seen before. But an ancient gift ... a gift we haven’t seen in centuries, they wouldn’t know what to do with it.”
“What is it you think I can do?” James frowned. “I’ve never been very powerful. Not measured against the likes of you or Santi. What I do….” He shrugged. “It’s just doodles and nonsensical poetry.”
“It’s prophecy.” Quinn leaned toward him, keeping his voice low. “The last known prophet died centuries ago in Europe when she and her Complement were murdered by the Coalition. Burned at the stake for sorcery and witchcraft.”
“How could you possibly have
figured that out in the two minutes we’ve talked when I’ve spent half my life hiding it?” James paled in the bright fluorescent lights of the training room.
“I’ve always been an avid student of Immortal history. I’ve been lucky enough to have access to the kind of history lessons I imagine wouldn’t be important here. And I have a particular interest in ancient powers that don’t exist anymore. Call it a hobby.”
Quinn liked to read about people with useful gifts, but he also like to read about Immortals who struggled with an addiction like his. He was always searching for a precedent. Someone like him who had figured out how to use their gifts for good without succumbing to the addiction. He’d read everything he could get his hands on and never found a single person like him who hadn’t turned into an evil son of a bitch.
“Prophets often spoke of seeing only the most important events and people in their visions or dreams,” Quinn explained. “And it is the nature of prophecy to only be understood after the events have occurred. Interpreting prophecy is an exercise in futility … unless you have access to the prophet delivering the prophecy.” Quinn leaned back in his seat, convinced he was right about James. “If they ever realize what they have in you, say goodbye to your cushy job.”
James swallowed, staring out the window as he considered what Quinn said.
“Whatever you’re seeing about my friend, please don’t tell anyone,” Quinn asked in the silence.
He wasn’t sure how Allie qualified as someone important—other than the fact she was one of the two most powerful Immortals of their generation. He had no doubt that Allie and Aidan would be important someday, but right now they were just kids. What could James possibly see about them that would inspire prophecy? Prophecy concerning an underground Immortal nightclub?
Emerge: The Captive: (Book 3) Page 9
