Word and Breath (Wordless Chronicles)

by Susannah Noel

  Taking a step forward, Mikel didn’t have to feign a simmering anger. “And you stood in that very spot the other day and swore to me you didn’t.”

  “I lied,” Largan said with a shrug. He was more confident than normal, and Mikel wondered what had caused it, what this man’s ultimate agenda was.

  Riana should be waking up soon.

  “Don’t give me a dramatic scene,” Largan continued. “You aren’t cleared to know this kind of classified information.”

  “And now I am.” It was a statement more than a question.

  His eyes narrowing with a look of such scrutiny that Mikel felt a twinge of anxiety, Largan said, “I’ve never trusted you.”

  “I know that. Are you saying you do now?”

  “Only because Riana Cole is lying in my office and you brought her in. Being who you are, I can’t think of any underlying agenda you might have here. Unless you’re going to ask me for more money.”

  It was like a blow, like a punch in the gut—the implied insult taking Mikel unaware and hurting him more than he could believe.

  He’d never thought of himself as noble or selfless, but he’d also never considered himself totally heartless. Largan wasn’t stupid. He was decent at reading people and good at putting the pieces of situations together in a logical way. He’d used his knowledge of Mikel to draw that particular conclusion.

  And it hurt. A lot.

  It meant that Mikel had been a man—just a couple of weeks ago—who would deceive, use, and deliver over to her enemies a woman as brave and good as Riana. Without any guilt or hesitation.

  It was also the only reason this plan of theirs might possibly work.

  “Any chance of a raise?” he asked with admirable irony.

  “No. This is still part of your original assignment. Your job was to retrieve information from her, and you haven’t yet done that. We’ll stick with the compensation we agreed on before.”

  Mikel shaped his lips into a half-sneer, although his eyes strayed to Riana. “She should wake up soon.” She should have woken up already, he realized with a slight pang of worry. He’d knocked her unconscious before they arrived at the building but the kind of temporary unconsciousness a Breather could generate never lasted for long. “Shall I take off to save you from the inevitable scene? Or did you want me to get to work right away.”

  “Right away.”

  “Fine. Where’s her sister?”

  “She’s close. You just take care of keeping Riana under control when she wakes up.”

  “I’ve got it covered,” Mikel murmured, wondering if he really did. He knew what was coming when she woke up, but he dreaded it anyway.

  Both men stood watching Riana for a few minutes. Mikel felt dirty, like they were somehow objectifying her. She looked pale and helpless and undignified, sprawled out awkwardly on the loveseat.

  When they were through with this—when Riana and her sister were safe—they could get away from all this. Mikel had to start over anyway. He might as well start over with Riana—live a better life, be a better man.

  It would have been laughable had it not been so real.

  Riana was finally starting to move, twitching slightly as her breathing hitched and she opened her eyes. She smiled—sweet and groggy—when she saw Mikel, and his heart gave the most absurd clench.

  Then her eyes shifted over to Largan. And back. Then she sat up, looking confused and disoriented. “Where am I?”

  “We’re here to help,” Mikel said.

  “Help?” Her expression became almost panicked as she got up and looked around the room. “Where is this? A Union office? You turned me in?”

  Her voice became a screech as she turned on Mikel. Then she flew at him in a fury, pounding him on the chest.

  It was beautifully acted. And, struggling with her, Mikel couldn’t help but wonder how close to real her feelings were. She’d experienced betrayal by him in the past. It might so easily have come to this.

  “Would you get control of her, please?” Largan’s words sounded cool and impatient, but Mikel saw tension in the other man’s eyes.

  Largan wasn’t enjoying this.

  Frankly, neither was Mikel. Riana kept attacking him, and Mikel finally put his hands on her face to draw out the most extreme of her emotions. He opened the connection for real, not wanting Largan to notice any anomalies.

  It was very distracting, though, breathing Riana in like that. A private act in a public place.

  Mikel forced the delicious rush of Riana’s spirit—she was so scared that they would be caught, that they wouldn’t find Jannie—to the back of his mind where it wouldn’t get in the way of what he still needed to do.

  When he dropped his hands, Riana’s hysteria was over and she went slightly limp, bursting into pitiful tears.

  From Largan’s stiff expression, he wasn’t any more comfortable with the tears than he had been with her fit of anger. But he nodded soberly and gestured toward the door of his office.

  They went out into the hall and then down a private elevator to the basement level. After walking past industrial strength shelves filled with office supplies, they reached the storage area in the back corner.

  Largan scowled when he saw two construction workers pulling up the old vinyl floor. “They’re everywhere,” he muttered, with a roll of his eyes at Mikel. “Can you excuse us for a few minutes?” he said to the workers, who were dirty and sweating from the manual labor. He showed them his ID. “Classified.”

  “Sure thing,” the big man said with an easy grin. “Could use a break anyway.”

  When the workers left, Largan went to the wall and trigged a hidden door behind a wall of shelves. Then he keyed in a code, carefully hiding it from Mikel’s curious gaze.

  After passing a guard stationed just inside the door, the three of them walked down a cool, dim hallway to the bunker Mikel had known would be there.

  The bunker was small, about the size of Largan’s office, and it had a cot in the corner, a small table with a couple of chairs, and some shelves stocked with what looked like medical supplies. There was also another door that led to what must be a bathroom.

  A small girl with fine brown hair and oversized blue eyes set in a delicate face was sitting up on the cot, her legs covered with a knit throw. She was way too thin and too pale, and she looked younger than sixteen, but otherwise she looked unharmed.

  “Jannie!” Riana cried, regaining her energy on entering the bunker. She ran over to the cot to embrace her sister. “Are you all right?”

  “Fine,” Jannie sniffed. “Just tired of being cooped up here, with no better company than these buffoons with no personality.” She gestured dismissively at the second guard who must be constantly stationed in the bunker. “But I was hoping they wouldn’t capture you. They wanted me to try to trick you, but I said absolutely not. And what’s the hot guy doing here?”

  Blinking, Mikel realized that he must be the hot guy.

  Surely it wasn’t Largan.

  Half-laughing, half-sobbing, Riana hugged her sister again. Then, seated on the edge of the cot, she turned on Largan, who’d been standing in the background silently. “So you kidnapped my sister? What kind of monster are you? She’s never hurt anyone. If I find out she’s been...harmed in any way, I’ll—”

  “No one has touched her. I’ve ensured that. I regret the necessity, but this was the only way I could guarantee your cooperation. I need your help.”

  “You could have just asked!”

  Largan gave a helpless little shrug. “I would have preferred that approach. But, with your history, I couldn’t take the risk.”

  “My history?”

  Mikel was getting impatient. He didn’t want to be here any longer than necessary. He could see the value in hearing some of Largan’s answers, though, so he held himself back.

  “Yes, your history. The first time I learned of your existence was through your association with a known spy for the Front. I had no reason to think you’d be l
oyal to the Union or any of its projects. Then there is your grandfather.”

  “My grandfather.”

  Mikel wasn’t sure why she’d repeated the words—perhaps just to prompt Largan to continue.

  “Marshall Cole was a brilliant man. A great Reader and scholar and an asset to the Union’s body of knowledge. But he was also well-known for protesting against Union values and programs. Some people think he went insane near the end of his life.”

  Riana snorted. “Narrow-minded people with too small a view of the world. He wasn’t insane.”

  “I didn’t say I was one of the people who thought so. But his training might have encouraged you to question authority. I couldn’t take the risk of you refusing.”

  Then finally came the key question. The one they needed answered before they left this bunker. “So what did you want me to do?”

  Riana looked so tired as she asked the question, as if she’d given up all resistance and resentment.

  It was convincing. For good reason. Mikel knew how exhausted she must be.

  It would have been so easy for circumstances to end up as they seemed to be now—Riana bullied into a corner, with no energy left to fight.

  Of course, it could have ended up even worse.

  Riana could be dead.

  ***

  Riana could almost believe she was really giving up.

  She watched as Captain Largan walked over to the table and picked up a thick stack of paper. She wasn’t quite sure what to think about the man. She hated him for kidnapping Jannie, but he didn’t appear to be cruel or heartless. For a moment earlier, he’d actually looked regretful.

  Not that it mattered. He’d done what he’d done, and Riana was going to have a hard time forgiving him.

  Largan handed the stack of paper to her. “It’s fairly simple, really. I need you to translate this book.”

  Riana flipped through the pages, unable to suppress the innate stab of interest in at a text that was important enough to merit kidnapping. The language was the same as that in the paragraph Connor had showed her the morning before. Similar to the Old Language but not immediately readable.

  Knowing she couldn’t study the book as much as she’d like, she tossed it aside. “I don’t know this language.”

  “I know your grandfather taught it to you.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “I know more about Marshall Cole’s work than anyone else in Union employment. I’ve made a point of researching his history and interests. There’s nothing about the man I’m not familiar with.”

  This told her something new about Largan, but it was also vaguely offensive. As if a stranger could know more about her grandfather than she did.

  Not that she knew very much.

  “You still haven’t told me why you think he taught me that language. Or why you think he even knew that language.”

  “The book those pages were copied from was his.”

  The bunker fell into silence for a long moment. Riana didn’t dare look over at Mikel, although she felt drawn to share this news with him in some way.

  Largan continued, “The book was important to him. He wouldn’t have left the world with no way to pass on what it said.”

  “That’s an assumption,” Riana snapped back, trying to sound suitably disagreeable. “I was just a kid when he died.”

  “Kids can learn more than people realize.” Largan looked calm and confident—strangely powerful for a plain, slightly pudgy man. “There’s also a letter I unearthed. It’s not entirely clear, but I believe in it he’s implying he taught someone how to translate the book.”

  No way to argue with that. Riana had no knowledge of that letter, but she was positive Largan was telling the truth.

  He pulled out a gun from his jacket pocket and pointed it at Jannie.

  Terror clawed at Riana’s throat. “Please don’t hurt her.”

  “I don’t want to.” Largan lowered the gun. “But I need a translation of that book.”

  Riana picked up the pages again and stared down at them. “I’ll do what I can.”

  Mikel walked over and rested his fingers on the back of her neck. He didn’t open a connection this time, but she closed her eyes to act like he had. “She can’t read the language right now, but she knows enough to start,” Mikel said.

  “Good.”

  “I’ll do it,” Riana choked out, not having to fake the animosity. “I’ll stay here and work on it. But my sister is ill. Let her go, and I’ll help you.”

  Largan shook his head, looking almost reluctant. “I can’t. Then I’d have no leverage with you. Besides, she’d talk.”

  “So you’re going to kill us anyway, after you get your translation?”

  “No,” Largan said, his expression faintly surprised. “I’ll reward you. And we can come up with some sort of arrangement to keep you both silent about this.”

  Riana wondered if he was telling her the truth. “So why is this book so important anyway? Why go to all this effort to read it? What is it about?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why we need to get it read.”

  “I don’t believe you. Obviously, something about it is important. I was almost killed so it wouldn’t be translated.”

  “So you figured that out, did you?” Largan asked, shaking his head. “We’re working on tracking down that particularly offensive group of Zealots. They won’t succeed at killing you.”

  “There must be a mole in your office,” Mikel put in, “If they knew about the book to begin with.”

  “I know that.” For the first time, Largan looked genuinely annoyed. “Although I reported Riana’s language ability to the capital, so it’s possible the leak came from them.”

  “If it’s so important, why isn’t this book in a research facility?” Riana tried to get them back on topic, since she wasn’t particularly interested in the loyalty of Largan’s employees.

  The response was only silence.

  It told her something.

  Mikel too, evidently. “You’re doing this on your own,” he said, a new note in his low voice. “Union leadership doesn’t even know about this little project of yours.”

  Largan gave a huff of frustration. “And your point is?” When no one answered, he continued, sounding like he was at the end of his rope. “They know about Riana and are interested in what she might know about that language. But they don’t know about the kidnapping, no. I never would have even been aware of the book had I not researched Cole so extensively. They have his book. It’s right there in the Central Archives. A book no one can translate. And no one even cares!”

  They all stared at Largan. Riana was taken aback by his vehemence, even as a tiny part of her responded to the sentiment.

  “The book was the crown of Cole’s collection. And no one has known what it says since the man died. Who knows what kind of truth it could hold?”

  “Truth?” The faint, dry question was Mikel’s.

  “Knowledge. History. Human experience. Answers to questions we have. Call it whatever you want.”

  Riana almost gaped. She never would have expected talk like that from a Union official. It sounded like something Connor would say.

  “I know this book is important,” Largan concluded. “It’s been driving me crazy for years. I tried to get the capital to pursue a translation, but they couldn’t even be bothered. They wouldn’t even let me make this copy. I had to do it on my own. We have this book full of something important—and no one even cares!”

  “That’s the Union,” Riana murmured, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice.

  Her comment seemed to deflate Largan. He looked tired suddenly, rather than vehement. “That’s not all the Union is,” he corrected, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “And I’ll never support rebellion like your friends in the Front. But I know I’m right in this, and I’ve always believed that men who see clearly need to help the government do the right thing. That’s why I’m doing this.
”

  It was strangely moving, shockingly so, but Riana pushed that reaction aside in favor of the one that hit closer to home. “This is the right thing? Forcing me to do this? Kidnapping my sister? Look at her! She’s sick. And you’ve just been using her like...like—.”

  “I had no choice. I’ve been doing this on my own, and it was the only way.”

  Riana knew Largan spoke what he genuinely believed, but it didn’t matter. “And I’m supposed to be okay with that? She’s my sister. Haven’t you ever loved anyone?”