by Lola Dodge
Also by Lola Dodge
The Shadow Ravens Series
Quanta
Quanta Reset
Coming Soon
Quanta Rewind
The Manhattan Ten Series
Temptress
Ivory
Belle Fury
Junglecat Honeymoon
Angel
M10: Unlikely Beginnings
First Published by Ink Monster, LLC in 2016
Ink Monster, LLC
2405 St. George Street
Los Angeles, CA 90027
www.inkmonster.net
ISBN 9781943858194
Copyright © 2016 by Ink Monster LLC
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Chapter One: Quanta
Chapter Two: Altair
Chapter Three: Quanta
Chapter Four: Altair
Chapter Five: Quanta
Chapter Six: Altair
Chapter Seven: Quanta
Chapter Eight: Altair
Chapter Nine: Quanta
Chapter Ten: Altair
Chapter Eleven: Quanta
Chapter Twelve: Altair
Chapter Thirteen: Quanta
Chapter Fourteen: Altair
Chapter Fifteen: Quanta
Chapter Sixteen: Altair
Chapter Seventeen: Quanta
Chapter Eighteen: Altair
Chapter Nineteen: Quanta
Chapter Twenty: Altair
Chapter Twenty-One: Quanta
Chapter Twenty-Two: Altair
Chapter Twenty-Three: Quanta
Chapter Twenty-Four: Altair
Chapter Twenty-Five: Quanta
Chapter Twenty-Six: Altair
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Quanta
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Altair
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Quanta
Chapter Thirty: Altair
Chapter Thirty-One: Quanta
Chapter Thirty-Two: Altair
Chapter Thirty-Three: Quanta
Chapter Thirty-Four: Altair
Chapter Thirty-Five: Quanta
Chapter Thirty-Six: Altair
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Quanta
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Altair
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Quanta
Chapter Forty: Altair
Chapter Forty-One: Quanta
Chapter Forty-Two: Altair
Chapter Forty-Three: Quanta
Chapter Forty-Four: Altair
Chapter Forty-Five: Quanta
For the Readers
Chapter One
QUANTA
Sweat matted my hair to my face.
Sticky, gross, frustrating sweat.
And I wasn’t even running. While the Shadow Raven training posse jogged their morning laps around the edge of the compound, I sat gripping the bottom of a playground slide. I’d passed on the chance to join in because running was awful and just sitting here was hard enough.
The holographic shimmer in the air that hid the trailers from prying satellites did nothing to help my headache. As the Ravens’ footsteps thudded closer and closer to passing me on their latest lap, I tried to brace myself for another round of mental battle.
This time I’d control my powers. This time I’d see what I wanted without getting overwhelmed.
Except it wasn’t even close to that easy.
My brain kicked into overdrive as the first runner passed. The hazy bluish figures that had been fuzzing at the edges of my vision—whispering and whirling just barely under my control—started to multiply.
Timeghosts.
They bled over the grass and trees and buildings like sketches on the tissue-paper pages of time. I could see through them as long as there were only a few. I could even tell the difference between the incomplete lines of the future and the solid but faded ghosts of the past. If there were only a few.
But another runner jogged past. And another.
With each new person, it was like a boulder crashed into the still pool of my thoughts. Between the ripples of the Ravens’ past baggage and all the swirling possibilities of the future…
Before I could focus on what I wanted to see, the real world disappeared in the maelstrom. My grip on the slide was the only thing left to remind me I was still in the present.
Gunfire sprays in percussive bursts; the acrid scent of burning oil twists in my nose; someone drags a girl down an alley, and her screams are muffled before they can echo; a soft kiss brushes hazy lips; Ravens fall to their knees in a cloud of yellow gas; a girl shakes, sobbing into a blanket; the choked-off grunts of close combat—one Raven falls with a knife in his side; bodies and faces that look just like mine, twisting in tanks—
No!
Sweat dripped down my temples.
Control. I had to control the power. To see what I wanted instead of getting sucked into the endless whirlpool of images.
I strained my mental muscles, but all my efforts got me was a glimpse of more runners hurtling past before another wave of ghosts swamped my barriers.
Fingers dance across the keys of a piano, but the notes ring harsh and discordant; an explosion somewhere I can’t make out; choking smoke; the whup whup whup of helicopter blades; a Raven stares into space, shell-shocked as he cradles a hazy body in his arms; evil chemical-green eyes and hot, vile, breath in my ear.
More gunfire.
Screams.
Blood.
“Quanta.”
My sound of my name cut through the sights and sounds and smells, burning them off in an instant. The speaker’s tone was clear and warm. Solid and comforting. Tair gripped my shoulder, his voice steady. “You all right?”
I blinked. The rest of the Ravens had passed, taking their ghosts with them. Thank Ra. I barely knew their names, and I was already watching them die one by one. Watching their dark pasts.
My dark past.
Just watching. Helpless.
My sweat had gone cold. I clutched shaking arms to my chest as I tried to reconnect with reality.
“Breathe.” Tair rubbed my shoulder, and his gentle fingertips anchored me just the way they were supposed to, bringing me totally back to the present and the mountain campground. A chilly morning breeze. Birds chirping. The hum of the hologram. All the things I couldn’t sense when timeghosts sucked me out of actual reality.
Being a spectator wasn’t new, but once upon a time, I used to be able to do something with the information I saw. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Living in the lab and paying for my survival with breadcrumbs from the future.
Now they weren’t breadcrumbs as much. More like rocks to the brainstem.
Tair leaned down to peer into my eyes. My breath caught at his golden-brown gaze. I used to think he looked perfect. Now I knew he did. The square jaw. Skin glowing bronze. Plus smart. Super smart. Caring. Smelled like the best kind of soap.
He’d left his glasses back at the training center, and without the barrier, everything about him was way too intense right now. My heart clenched.
He couldn’t even go for a jog without having to stop and bail me out of my own dark thoughts.
I had to do better. Better adjusting to my new life. Better… Not fitting in, because that wasn’t ever happening, but the least I could do was add something to our cause.
If I couldn’t, then why be here? I may as well have stayed locked up in Doctor Nagi’s lab. “I have to get it together.”
“There’s no hurry.”
No hurry? Right. “You know there is.” In the mess of timeghosts, I’d picked up one insanely irritating image of a spy on the compound, but no
amount of mental gymnastics would let me see who or where he was. All I had was the memory of a hazy figure slinking off to send a message and the firestorm that followed. Every minute I spent fighting myself was another minute closer to one of the worst possible futures.
Danger and death for everyone.
I pulled away from Tair’s touch, but as soon as we broke contact, the timeghosts swarmed again. With the runners on the opposite side of the clearing, I managed to wrangle back my control.
I needed to be able to stay in charge, no matter what. If I couldn’t keep my grip in front of a few dozen Ravens, how could I leave the compound on missions? I couldn’t even sit in the dining hall without losing my grip on reality.
Pushing past Tair, I stomped back to the training center. I wanted the hottest shower the lukewarm heating system could handle, and I needed to be out before anyone else got back, or the next time I started drowning in timeghosts, I might actually drown.
“Quanta.” Tair easily caught up to me. Everything was easy for him. “It’s been a week. Give yourself time.”
“We don’t have time.” The Red Helix tattooed on my hip practically burned. It wasn’t going anywhere, and neither were the powers it represented. Red marked genetic instability, which meant super dangerous to the Seligo and their world order. Even though the Seligo were immortal and ruled the world—or at least, the parts of it they cared about—Red Helixes like me threatened their reign. Seligo were genetically modified past being normal humans, but Reds could still do things they couldn’t. Our DNA had been tinkered with too much, and our powers went way, way beyond normal. The Seligo craved that kind of power as much as they feared it.
Because we were unstable.
We wouldn’t necessarily implode, but if we did… Odds were we’d take a good chunk of the continent with us, so the few Reds who weren’t killed at birth were a threat to public safety.
Just existing put me in enough danger, but after escaping Doctor Nagi’s personal research lab, my odds of being killed on sight shot up to infinity. There was no way Nagi wasn’t hunting for me. He headed the Senate and masterminded all of the Seligo’s genetic research, and with his resources, he could move the world to find me.
And he would. The man had basically created me, and he had to be aching to get me back. If that happened, I doubted I’d get stuck in a swank penthouse this time.
More like sedated and jammed in a tank.
I shivered.
There wasn’t time. I needed time, because I was still wrapping my head around the whirlwind of changes to my life, but with ugly futures pressing in like dark omens, I didn’t have the luxury of adjusting.
The compound was one of the few places I was actually safe, and it needed to stay that way. Worrying about my own life was hard enough. Losing Tair would be worse, let alone the other Ravens. I barely knew them, but even when the future looked like a long series of funerals, I caught flashes of the opposite. Futures full of sweethearts, and dancing, and happy laughter.
I wanted them to have those futures.
I wanted to have that future. Reading a book on a lazy afternoon. Eating chocolate cake with Tair. Sitting in a park somewhere, painting a canvas while people strode by, totally not caring who I was or what I could do.
It felt like all the Ravens’ fates were hanging on me. I could see the potential futures, and I had to do whatever I could to bring the best one into reality.
Pressure thudded behind my eyes. It ran up and down my arms. I could barely breathe with the weight of knowing what would happen if I failed.
All those hopes snuffed out. So many lives in the balance.
And the spy was only the first obstacle on a course so massive I couldn’t see the end. If I didn’t find him soon—
“Quanta.” Tair tugged my arm, his voice soft but insistent.
He stared down at me like he was going to say something profound and mature, and I didn’t want to hear it. “If you tell me ‘we’re all in this together,’ or something, I’m walking off the compound.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Tair swept gentle fingers down my arm. “But I can feel you twisting yourself around over problems that aren’t yours to solve. Eva and I can handle security. You’ve barely recovered from the escape.”
I heard his words, but they didn’t quite register. Eva could handle one spy. It wasn’t her first rodeo after however many centuries. And I hadn’t really recovered. Then again, I didn’t know what healthy felt like anymore. Headachy exhaustion was my baseline. “I just don’t want my being here to get people hurt. I want to help.”
“The spy was here before we were.” Tair’s gaze drifted to the group of other Ravens, who’d stopped running to stretch in a circle on the lawn.
I tried not to scowl. Until I found my focus—or interviewed every single one of Eva’s people—I couldn’t sniff out the rotten egg.
“We’ll find him.” Tair’s voice dropped, deadly ominous, and the not-so-hidden threat made me feel slightly better.
Tair knew the stakes. Eva definitely did, too.
“Soon.” I let myself lean into Tair and bask in the silence from timeghosts for a few seconds. That was all I really needed. A little stolen moment to get my head on straight.
I’d mostly stopped feeling guilty about our genetic pairing. Now I was grateful for it. The connection anchored me to reality whenever my mind started spinning out of control. Even my headache was gone with him here.
But I still needed to be able to function without him.
I sighed. Have to work on that.
“What?” His fingers brushed under my chin, tilting my head up.
I should tell him how much I needed him. How grateful I was. All of it. Instead, I twined my fingers with his. “Walk me to the training center?”
“Of course.” His smile jolted me down to my toes.
I let my senses bleed into Tair’s as we strolled toward the cluster of shipping containers converted into something like a gym. Whatever Eva had done to our wiring let me tap into Tair’s crystal-clear sense of the present. I couldn’t read his thoughts or anything, but somehow he brought me down to Earth. Grass crunched under my shoes. Sunlight poured over the mountains.
It was bliss to enjoy the blue sky and the warmth of Tair’s skin and ignore my worries for ten seconds.
But at eleven seconds, the guilt set in.
Our pairing gave me clarity, and instead of whining about relying on him or staring at clouds, I needed to be working with the resources at hand. Without the chaos of timeghosts roaring around me, I could finally focus. The universe was like a book; I just had to find the right page in the book of the future. I concentrated on the glimpse I’d seen of the spy-guy.
Where was he? Who was he?
Ultra vague timeghosts flickered in answer to my questions. I caught a flash of a comp terminal, a man running, the beat of helicopter blades—
Still not what I wanted, but it felt like I was getting closer, and that definitely made a difference.
I kept trying to dig as we entered the fitness area. All the mats and training stations stood empty, so I’d be okay alone for a while. Not that the room wouldn’t spark its own timeghosts, but it was easier to ignore a building’s few triggers than the million and one I got from a person.
I could at least hold myself together long enough to shampoo. But instead of hurrying, I lingered at the entrance to the locker rooms, hesitant to let Tair go.
Our joined arms swung back and forth, and I wasn’t sure who was making the motion. Maybe me. Maybe him. Little tingles fluttered in my chest.
Tair wouldn’t stand around smiling like that if I were just some chore to him. I wanted to say how much it meant that I didn’t have to go through all of this alone, but my throat closed before I could find the right words. Vulnerable wasn’t a feeling I’d ever get comfortable with, but I trusted Tair. Some day, I’d tell him how huge that was.
For now, I managed to use my psychic voice without sounding too awkw
ard. Thanks. For so many things.
One day at a time. Tair’s words echoed in my head, still full of the confidence I hoped I could catch. One minute at a time.
One second? I found the courage to peek at him.
His soft smile warmed me, melting a few more of my doubts. A millisecond at a time. Whatever it takes. We’ll handle the future as it comes.
It sounded so reasonable. So easy.
Too bad the future was a moving target. I had a feeling that as soon as I let go of him, I’d be treated to another crushing death scene—but Tair’s or mine this time. Maybe both of us.
I forced myself to stand straight, erasing the hunch I’d been schlumping around with all week. I’d never given up yet, and I couldn’t start now. Determined, I broke contact with Tair and tried to ignore the latest headache churning into town. “Meet you at your lab?”
“I’ll be there,” Tair said.
I turned and started battling through more timeghosts. He’d be there.
And I’d get there.
Eventually.
Chapter Two
ALTAIR
Quanta disappeared into the women’s showers. I let out a breath and stood watching the spot she’d vacated.
She was struggling. I’d expected that, but seeing it…
My fists bunched. All I could do was be supportive and help her get through. Adjusting to this new life wouldn’t be an easy task. Not after ten years in Seligo captivity. A decade of torture and near solitude, save for caretakers who’d done the opposite of taking care of her.
We’d come to Eva’s compound for refuge, but it was falling far short of peaceful. Quanta would have trouble with any large number of people, let alone the types who gravitated to the Shadow Ravens. Lady Eva’s followers were rebels with shattered childhoods and broken dreams. I didn’t know exactly what Quanta saw when she looked at them, but I didn’t need to see the timeghosts to see how much they were draining her. Quanta had permanent circles under her eyes, and the way her posture hunched in, it felt like she was using her body to shield her mind.
Or trying to.
Rather than milling helplessly in front of the training center, I headed for my lab. Quanta was chipped with bio sensors to monitor her health. An alarm would ping me if she had serious trouble.
