by Theresa Kay
A few minutes later, Ethan runs back in and we sit down to eat breakfast. The unease flowing through my body prevents me from eating much and I ignore most of the conversation around me. If I wasn’t “there,” then where the hell was I?
For the rest of the day, Emily drags me around with her as she runs errands. Tending some animals. Checking in with neighbors. Running to the market. They’re things she used to do under Dane’s rule, but now she does them with a smile. The one thing I really want to do—talk to the jackass in charge about Flint—Emily keeps putting off. Apparently his “scheduling me a time” to see my friend is going to take much longer than I expected.
I follow behind her without complaint until she reaches her last stop of the day—the medical center. The place has been fixed up and a few people head in and out, but this visit is not something I care to have on my agenda. Right now, what I want to do is take a nap. The odd… whatever it was last night has left me exhausted, and I’ve about reached the end of my tolerance for being social.
“Come on,” says Emily. She places one hand on her hip and her other hand reaches out to grab mine. “At least come in and see all the improvements Gavin’s made.”
I sigh and roll my eyes, but I walk through the door with her. It looks clean and all, but if it’s gotten better, I wouldn’t know—I’ve never been in here before. So I just smile and nod as Emily points out various improvements that have been made. She greets everyone by name and leads me around to visit what she calls her favorite patients: Bedridden older ladies. Terminal patients. And those injured in skirmishes with Dane’s crew.
The guy whose shoulder I slashed is here too, and if the look on his face is any indication, he’s not very happy to see me.
“Patrick…” Emily takes a step back. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
His arm is in a sling. To take the weight off his shoulder? “They kept me overnight,” he replies in a flat voice. “Thanks to your friend here, they aren’t sure if my shoulder muscle will ever heal correctly.”
I flinch and press my lips together. What am I supposed to say? I guess an apology is a start. I mean to speak loudly, but my voice is barely a whisper. “Sorry.”
“Yeah, whatever.” He shoves past me, bumping me with his good shoulder as he heads out.
Emily puts her hand on my arm. “It’ll be okay. It was an accident.” At my huff, she backtracks. “Well, you didn’t really mean to hurt him. You weren’t yourself.”
“I don’t want to talk about it. I’m going back. I think I need to lie down for a while or something.” I shove my way through the doors and jump down the steps.
With my head down, I walk on the cleared path between the snow piled on either side. The problem is that I was myself when I swung that knife. At least I think I was. It’s not like it was when I killed Zach, or when I placed my fingers on that man’s temples in the ruined town. Those times, I could easily discern that the darkness had taken over. Has it been so ingrained in me that I don’t recognize it anymore? Am I destined to be the weapon everyone seems to want me to be? My eyes burn and I blink back tears.
I flex my hands and study them as I walk. They look normal enough, but… A tremor starts in one hand, and I curl them both into fists and shove them in my pockets. Is this how it all started for Jace? Little actions, little wrongs that added up until he can no longer tell the darkness is there? I saw it in his head: the struggle, how lost he was. But there was still some light to guide him. Where is my light? Why does it feel like I’m fighting this entirely on my own?
I’m on my butt on the ground before my brain processes the collision with the men in front of me. Gavin and Harrison. My day just keeps getting worse. It’s just my luck to run into them right at this moment. I’ve been anxious to confront Gavin all day, but not now—I’m barely holding back a sob. I can’t do this.
Gavin’s dark eyes pass over me in what feels like an assessment, from my boots on up to my face. He tilts his head and furrows his brow, but doesn’t say anything. He puts his hand out to help me up. I ignore it and rise to my feet on my own.
Then I sidestep around them and take off at a jog toward Emily’s house. Turmoil, doubt, and fear are still drowning out everything else around me, and I desperately need some physical walls to hide behind before my mental ones crack any further.
The next three days pass in much the same way. I spend my evenings at Emily’s with her, Stu, and Ethan, then tag along with Emily during the day and put my awful social skills to use. It’s not as if Bridgelake is huge or as if some of the faces here aren’t familiar to me, it’s just that I didn’t talk to them before, so why is it necessary for me to talk to them now?
The one person I actually want to talk to—Gavin—seems to be avoiding me. He’s never in his office when I stop by, and after that first one, there are no more chance encounters. Emily assures me that Flint is safe and unharmed. Still, all I can picture is Lir beaten and left tied up in a squalid basement and my worry morphs into irritation. And I can’t do anything about it until I get a chance to talk Gavin. Jerk.
Something else is bothering me, too. I’m feeling a trickle of unease and agitation that leaves me constantly on edge. Every morning I wake with stiff muscles and a raging headache. And every morning, Stu shakes his head at me over his mug. My nightmares haven’t returned, at least not that I can remember, but something is happening while I’m asleep, and nobody knows what, including me. After the second night, Stu stops asking Ethan to try to draw from me. It was obvious after his first attempt that his ability couldn’t help with whatever was going on, and it upset the kid that I “wasn’t there,” as he put it.
It isn’t until my fifth night spent back in Bridgelake that the images finally come. Or maybe that’s just when my brain finally processes them. Knives and blood. Stumbling, lost and blind. Then memories of chains, white walls, and bright white pain. The light is bad and it hurts my eyes, so I turn away and return to the refuge of the red-washed darkness. But that’s not any better. It pokes and prods and shoves until my hands are clenched and my head feels like it must explode to relieve the pressure. Strange words I do not know pull and push and tear and—
I wake up screaming. The sound that rips from my throat is so animalistic it’s like claws scraping their way out of my chest. All that time I spent anxious for Flint, and it’s my brother who I should have spent my worries on. I know where I’ve been at night now: I’ve been unconsciously lending what little strength I had to Jace. I knew he was in trouble. I knew what he was fighting. But he’s so much worse than when I was in his head before. How can that be? It hasn’t been that long. How could he deteriorate so quickly? He’s losing the fight against the rage and pain. He’s losing himself.
And I’m not there to stop it.
OUR PLAN IS WHAT Rym calls stupidly simple, so basic that it has to work. But still, we only have two more days to solidify our plan. Two days to locate what we need. Two days to secure at least one more ally.
And I am essentially useless for any of those tasks since I’m sequestered here at Rym’s residence and have been for the past five days. I am uncertain if Vitrad knows I am here and is simply ignoring me, or if Rym is hiding my location from his father, but either way, as far as anyone else knows, I am a traitor—and one they would not take kindly to seeing walking free along the streets of the city. If Rym and I can take back the city from my uncle, perhaps that will be enough to change the peoples’ perception of me. Until then, there is little I can do.
Vitrad has garnered enough support with the remaining Council members to call for a vote on implementing the first stage of the human initiative: thinning and extending the city’s barrier. This test run would only add another few hundred miles to our atmospheric territory, but it would allow them to study the full effect on the humans and determine exactly how much the power grid can handle. Should it be successful, Vitrad could probably push for full implementation in as little as six months, perhaps less if he can man
age to pull the other E’rikon-inhabited city into his war as well. Vitrad’s announcement of the implementation—for I am sure the Council will vote how he wishes—will be made live in the gathering area, using holograms to demonstrate the planned barrier extensions and the projected results, and that is when we plan to act against him.
With Rym’s knowledge of the human video tech and our own variations on that, we intend to make a recording of Vitrad doing something incriminating: revealing the full truth behind the attack, badmouthing my parents, threatening Stella. Blazes, even beating me if that is the only footage we are able to get. Then Rym will hijack the holo feed and project our recording to the entire city in place of his father’s presentation. It is stupidly simple, as I said, and yet it still has so much possibility for failure.
“Explain to me again how you will prevent them from stopping it once it has begun?”
Rym sighs. I’ve been drilling him with questions for the past hour. “I do not think that explaining it again is going to make you feel any more confident. You do not understand the tech speak anyway, so…”
He is right, but sitting here doing nothing is driving me insane. “What if the announcement is delayed? What if the location is moved? Do you—”
“Lir. Stop. If you have another idea, I am willing to listen. If you know a better way to do it, please tell me. But if you are going to worry me half to death, shut up.” He drops down onto the couch beside me. “We have covered everything we can at this point. All we need now is someone to distract the video tech while my father is on stage—and, of course, the incriminating footage.”
I give him a wry smile. “I am positive I can convince him to smack me around a bit. He seems to find me very irritating these days.”
Rym nods but does not return my smile. “My father likes to brag; getting him to incriminate himself in other ways will not be a problem. As much pleasure as it gives me when you are not so pretty, I would prefer to avoid having him batter you again.” He shrugs. “Our main issue right now is finding our distraction. It needs to be someone in his inner circle, someone who may be going up onto that stage with him.”
“A Council member? There must be at least one who still supports my father’s ideology.”
Rym shakes his head and runs one hand over his head. “Nope. At least none who have been willing to speak up about it.” His eyes slide to me. “They all voted in favor of your guilt. As far as I know anyway.” A deep breath. “What about Stella? She will be well positioned, and we do not have to tell her that—”
“Absolutely not.” I spring to my feet. “It is too dangerous. She is too young. In fact, I would much prefer she be nowhere near that stage.” I collapse back onto the couch and lean forward to rest my elbows on my knees. “If this fails, I need to be able to get her out of here. If she is up there…”
“You might not be able to reach her.”
“Exactly.” I place my head in my hands and blow out a loud breath with my eyes closed. There is really only one option. “What about Trel?”
Rym shifts and looks down at his hands. “I do not pick up much from my sister these days, but what I do is… not very open-minded. He has poisoned her mind just as well as he has poisoned everyone else’s.”
“But if she is blocking you, how do you know that for certain?”
He shrugs. “I do not. She is planning to stop by later. Do what you think is best.” This is not the first time we have had this conversation, but now that time is running out, Rym seems slightly more resigned to the idea than he has been.
Or perhaps not. He stands and walks to his bedroom. The door shuts behind him with a bang.
This situation cannot possibly be easy for him. Besides the fact that I have essentially invaded his home, I am no longer the only one scorned around here. Trel’s few visits since I have been here have been short, and they left Rym looking distressed and saddened. He may have given up his desire for his father’s attention, but Trel is his twin, and he clearly mourns the close relationship they should have.
Going after him most likely would not help, so I settle back down on the couch to wait.
I am not waiting long. Ten minutes later, Trel waltzes through the door with her nose in the air.
“Greetings,” I say.
“Is my brother here? I wish to speak with him.”
“Yes. His bedroom. He is—”
She turns on her heel and walks off without another word to me. Perhaps Rym was right. It does not seem that she is willing to speak to me more than necessary, much less do me any favors.
I stand and follow her. “Trel, wait.”
She jolts to a stop and stiffens when my hand lands on her shoulder. “Take your hand off of me, Steliro.”
“I need to speak with you.”
She shakes her head without turning to face me. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Please—”
She spins so quickly, her gown twirls out from her body. “I tolerate your presence here because of our familial relationship. Past that, you are nothing to me.”
I stagger back from the fire in her eyes. A hateful anger brews there, but something else as well, a naked pain she is unable to hide.
“There was a time when we told each other everything,” I say. “Why have you let your father come between us?”
“That time died with Kov. Or have you forgotten? My bondmate is dead. You promised me vengeance, and then you let a little half-breed girl turn your head. It is you who came between us, nothing else.” She turns away from me again and continues down the hallway.
“She was my bondmate.” The words whisper past my lips before I can determine whether they should.
Trel’s shoulders jerk and then slump. She drops her head. “I am sorry,” she says, without turning. “I know how difficult it is to lose one’s bondmate.”
I do not like preying on her empathy, but she has not been around enough to see what her father has done, what he is. “Whether or not you believe me about the true source of the attack, it did not come from her. Has your father not punished me enough? Must I lose you too? And without a fight? Please, at least listen to my proposal. Give me a chance. Let me show you what Vitrad is truly about.” I take one step and then another until I am right behind her. “He has Stella. Why would he have Stella if not to force me into compliance? I simply want my sister to be safe.”
She has not yet moved, not turned, but also not continued to walk away. I grip her shoulder and slowly turn her to face me. Tears have made tracks down her cheeks and she presses her lips tightly together.
“For the friendship we once shared,” I say. “For Kov, who was like a brother to me, will you at least listen?”
She nods.
That is enough for now.
I’VE SPENT THE PAST hour pacing back and forth across Emily’s living room while she’s out doing whatever she does in the morning. I practically pounce on her once she walks in the door.
“I need to see Flint today. It can’t wait any longer. Something’s wrong with Jace and I can’t leave Flint here and I need to see him, well both of them and—I just need to see him today.”
Emily backs up a step and sets her basket down. “What’s going on?” She walks around the table and sits, gesturing for me to do the same.
I’m too agitated to sit; anxiety crawls up and down my spine. Jace is in deep trouble and I’m stuck here. Flint’s stuck here. And Jastren… he might be the cause of it all. At least Peter is there, but the priest never really developed as much of a bond with my brother as he did with me, and Jace probably won’t turn to him. Instead he’ll keep it all inside and try to handle it on his own. Like he did before. Like he’s doing right now.
My mind keeps spinning back to the fact that I should have seen this coming. No—I did see this coming. And I did absolutely nothing. I let him convince me to head off to Bridgelake and…
Black spots take over the edges of my vision. I’m hyperventilating, struggling for breath,
and my lungs refuse to inflate the way they’re supposed to. I slam my palms down on the table and hang my head, fighting against the ice cold panic clawing at my chest, the panic that threatens to wash everything else around me away and leave me defenseless and cowering in the corner.
“Jax.” It’s just my name, soft and hesitant, but Emily’s voice gives me something to focus on besides my closing throat and pounding heart. “Breathe.”
That’s exactly what I need to do. One deep gulp of air steadies me enough that the next one is smoother and the one after that even easier.
Stu edges around the corner, Ethan’s tiny hand clasped in his. A simple raise of the eyebrows and a sideways glance at the small form beside him asks the question. I shake my head. This is something I need to handle on my own. Besides, I don’t think anyone else needs to know about the kid, what he is and what his abilities are. Or maybe it’s more of a selfish thing. For some reason, I don’t want anyone to know exactly what I can do either.
I drop into a chair, place my crossed arms on the table, and rest my forehead on them. I don’t lift my head when I begin speaking. “The odd nightmares I’ve been having. They’re from Jace. He’s in trouble, and I need to go to him. Or send Flint to him. Or something. I can’t just sit around here any longer.”
Emily scoots around the table until she’s sitting beside me and gently places a hand on my arm. “I’ll talk to Gavin right away. I don’t know what this delay has been about, but we’ll figure this out.”
“I know what it’s been about,” I mutter. “He’s been using this time to study me or something. Or maybe he’s been waiting for me to break and give him the info he wants without delivering his end of the bargain.”
“I truly don’t think that’s what it is,” Emily says. “The past couple weeks were already a little strained here with Dane’s attempts to breach the wall and reinstate himself. Gavin’s probably just been focused on other things. I don’t see him as someone who goes against his word. We’re all under a lot of pressure here and—”
