“Yes,” she said quietly, and Perrin tightened his jaw, handing her up to Eddie. The young man helped her climb the short, rusty ladder, holding her against him when her knees gave out. He murmured something that made Jenny smile and laugh weakly. Perrin stifled a rush of jealousy and shifted shape with a bone-cracking jolt. Rik watched him, treading water.
“You’ve got problems,” Rik said, and looked up at Jenny. “Not the ones I thought you did. Hope she was worth it for the hell you’re going to bring down on us.”
Perrin had a long reach. He didn’t punch Rik, but his fingers jabbed into his chest, hard. The shape-shifter grunted, floating backward. Anger flashed in his eyes, making them burn golden.
“Leave her alone,” Perrin told him, and grabbed the ladder. He paused midway up and looked down. “Thank you for coming for us.”
Rik barely acknowledged him. His golden-eyed gaze was distant as he ran his hand through his wet hair.
“I didn’t give you that cut,” Perrin said, still hanging from the ladder.
A grim smile touched Rik’s mouth. “I’m not welcome in these waters any more than you are. I embarrassed too many of my kind. The dolphin pod that found me made that clear. They were the ones who told me where to look for you.”
“Your family?”
“Gone. South, maybe. I don’t know.” A hint of despair filled his voice, but it was replaced by a hard note of bitter resolve. “I’m not going to try to find them.”
Rik glanced at him, expression unpleasant and oddly challenging. Perrin pretended not to know what bait he was supposed to take and kept his mouth shut. Held his gaze with one of his own, opening that small dark place in his heart—letting it show in his eyes. Rik looked away.
Eddie had seated Jenny in one of the lawn chairs, and produced a towel that she was using to dry her face. Her movements were sluggish, her eyes closed. The bruises on her face stood out in sharp relief against her pale skin.
“I hope the other guy looks worse,” Eddie said gently, pushing a bottle of water into her hands.
“He will,” Perrin rasped. Jenny sighed, and the young man gave him a speculative look. He wondered if Eddie thought he’d been the one to hit her, and the idea made him furious and sick. Partially because he had given the young man no reason to think otherwise. He’d gone after Rik with a hair-trigger temper.
And those marks on her arms were from his hands.
Perrin moved with extra care toward Jenny and crouched on her other side. “Jenny, this is Eddie.”
“I know,” she said.
Eddie blinked, settling back on his heels. “Ma’am? We’ve never met. I didn’t tell you my name.”
“Eddie,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Fire-starter. Until recently you lived with your mother and grandmother in San Francisco. Started out as a car thief before Roland recruited you. Good kid, I’m told, though you had an accident that left your powers stronger and your control a bit weak. You have a nice smile. No one told me that.”
Eddie stared. Jenny sipped her water and looked at Rik, who stood watching her, very still, dripping and naked.
“Rik,” she said softly. “If it’s any consolation, the Consortium hurt me, too.”
He paled, swaying. Eddie swallowed hard. “Ma’am?”
“You’re Dirk & Steele,” she whispered, closing her eyes again. Sajeev hovered nearby, watching with sharp, glittering eyes. His hand rubbed the dragon tattoo on his scalp. “I’ve been reading files on all of you for years now. Just in case.”
Eddie stood, slowly. “Who are you?”
“Family,” she whispered. “My grandmother’s maiden name was Dirk. She has a sister named Nancy. I think you know who she is.”
“Shit,” Rik said. Eddie said nothing, but his eyes narrowed, thoughtful. Heat rolled off his body, so much that the air shimmered around his shoulders.
Jenny reached for Perrin. Her eyes were still closed. He took her hand and stood, scooping her up into his arms. She seemed even lighter than he remembered, as though part of her had burned away.
“She needs food,” he said to Eddie.
The young man nodded but didn’t move. “Ma’am?”
Jenny pushed her head against Perrin’s chest and made a muffled sound.
“Ma’am,” Eddie said, even more softly. “I don’t know who you are, but you’re safe. I want you to know that. You’re safe with us.”
Jenny said nothing. Considering what little he knew about her family, Perrin suspected that promises of safety meant very little.
He nodded at Eddie, who gave him a solemn look in return. Rik seemed shook up, and was rubbing his arms. Not like he was cold. Just uneasy.
Perrin paused at the stairs and glanced back. “The old man?”
“Transferred him to the coast guard,” Eddie said. “He’ll be fine.”
Jenny trembled. Perrin began to turn, but the young man reached out, stopping him.
“How much time do we have?” he asked quietly.
“If you have family in San Francisco, or on any coast . . .” Perrin said, but could not bring himself to finish.
He did not need to. Eddie nodded, pale.
Perrin carried Jenny down into the darkness.
Chapter Fifteen
The air was cool where Perrin carried her, and smelled like engine fuel and garlic. Her feet bumped against the wall. She sensed him stooping, walking sideways, but her eyes were too tired to open.
“We’re alone,” he whispered. “You can stop pretending to be asleep.”
“Not pretending,” she murmured. “I hurt.”
He was silent after that.
Silent and careful. He couldn’t squeeze them both through the cabin door. Jenny would have walked, but he set her down for only a moment—her feet barely grazing the floor—before he was through and holding her again.
“The bed’s right there,” she told him, voice muffled against his chest. “I’ll fall backward and be fine.”
He grunted and set her down slow and easy, with such care she wasn’t even certain she was on the bed until he pulled away—and suddenly there was a mattress beneath her and a pillow that smelled like sweat, more garlic, and hot, pickled turnips. Jenny was too exhausted to care. She could barely open her eyes to look at Perrin; but she managed, and found him standing beside the bed, looking huge and awkward, and just as tired as she felt.
Jenny tried to scoot over. “Sit down before you fall down.”
Perrin’s mouth twitched. “I’ll break the frame.”
He sat on the floor beside the cot and leaned up hard against the wall. He was big enough that she still had to look up at him even though she was lying down. A small light burned above the cot. She undid the pack clipped around her waist, and Perrin took it from her to place on the floor beside him.
“Are you okay?” she asked him.
He stared at her. “You almost died.”
“I was talking about you.”
“So was I,” he replied, with heat. Jenny wondered if mermen had nervous breakdowns because he looked a bit like he was on the verge of some kind of break. Of course, so was she.
“I breathed underwater,” she said, and speaking those words seemed to unravel a hard knot in her heart. “There’s a parasite lodged to the base of my skull.”
The words came out so easily. Jenny sagged against the mattress, and with some effort raised her hands and touched her sore face. “I can’t believe I just said that. Every time I tried to tell you before, it wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t say a word. I couldn’t even point.”
Perrin was very quiet, his expression closed, thoughtful. His silence made her even more uneasy. She remembered all too well what had happened on that boat, in the water. She had thought of nothing else for all those hours spent traveling through the se
a, holding her breath, clinging to Perrin.
“I’m a scientist,” she said. “And I’m used to inexplicable things. But not this.”
“Let me see it,” he replied, an odd catch in his voice.
Jenny rolled over on her stomach and reached around to help him. He nudged her hand aside, gently, and set his big warm palm on her shoulder. It felt better than it should have.
“Rest,” he said, his voice low, a rumble in her ear.
Jenny nodded, unable to speak. Perrin pushed aside her hair. He was careful, thorough—her hair thick, tangled, despite her braids. But she felt him still, and take a short deep breath, and a sliver of fear raced into her gut.
“Has it grown?” she murmured.
Perrin’s fingers pressed lightly on either side of the parasite. “It is . . . it is just the size it should be.”
His voice was raw. Jenny tried to look at him, but he held her down, with another hand on her shoulder, this one a little firmer. Her uneasiness grew.
“You going to take it out?” she asked him.
“No.” Perrin’s voice was even quieter, rougher. “No, I won’t do that.”
This time she forced his hand aside and rolled over to look at him. Perrin had pale skin—most anyone would call him albino, she thought—but he seemed even whiter than usual. Or maybe just ashen. His expression was grim and cold, but there was no hiding his eyes, and the pain in them was frightening.
“Perrin,” she whispered.
“It is a kra’a,” he said, practically breathing each word. “It should never have bonded to you.”
Jenny swallowed hard. “Will it kill me?”
His hesitation was not reassuring. “I don’t know.”
She stared at him, helpless, filled with questions she didn’t know how to ask. “What is it?”
Perrin closed his eyes. “It is the . . . larva . . . of a Kraken.”
Jenny burst out laughing, then choked, feeling sick. “No.”
He didn’t seem disturbed by her reaction. “It’s not what you think. Every thousand years, a sleeping Kraken, male or female, produces a clutch of these larvae. They do not mature. They are like . . . antennae. Linked to the Kraken’s mind. A way for the beast to see the world around it and know if it is time to wake.”
Jenny hugged her knees to her chest, suddenly filled with the need to be very small. “Your kind uses these . . . kra’a . . . to keep the Kraken down.”
Perrin nodded, eyes still closed. “We destroy all but one, then bond that surviving larvae to a suitable host, as it would have bonded to any other life-form, if left on its own. When a larva is newborn, it is untrained, unfocused. Only the very strong are given the task of training an unformed kra’a. It requires intense mental stamina. The first three hosts usually do not live longer than a decade during that initial bonding.”
Jenny frowned. Perrin said, “The one in your head is over seven hundred years old. You don’t need to worry.”
Creeped out was a better description for the way she felt. “It seems to have a will of its own.”
“Kraken are intelligent, their larvae no less so. That kra’a shared the minds of twelve others before you. It is a . . . deep relationship. The kra’a becomes part of your soul.”
Perrin looked ill when he said that—a broken quality in his voice, something broken in his eyes. Stirred her instincts in a bad way.
“This was yours,” she said.
Grief twisted his face, but it smoothed into a cool hard mask. “Yes.”
“It was taken from you.”
“Yes.”
“Maurice—the old man I was sailing with—tried to remove this thing from my head. Almost killed me. Or felt like it.”
Perrin shuddered. “I had been its host for almost eight human years when my kind ripped it from me.”
Fuck, she thought. Fuck.
The parasite twitched. Inside her head, a voice whispered, We grieved. We grieved and did not understand. His dreams were good, strong.
“They didn’t think I would survive,” he said, and again, there was a broken quality to his voice that cut her: loneliness, and despair, and a hurt that ran all the way to the soul. She heard herself in his voice. She heard her own voice, six years younger, sitting in a cemetery by a gravestone with no name.
“You did nothing wrong,” she said, and didn’t know if that was the parasite talking or her. Just that she knew it was the truth—deep in the heart of her gut where all her most trusted instincts resided.
“I dreamed,” he whispered. “And they tried to take my dreams.”
Jenny had no idea what that meant, but the parasite twitched again, and a wild roaring heat rushed from the base of her skull down her spine. She reached out, and very gently placed her hand on top of his. Then, just as carefully, she leaned off the bed and kissed his ear, and murmured, “Breathe.”
He drew in a choking laugh that sounded like a sob. And then it was a sob, strangled into a terrible silence that left him shaking so violently, Jenny was afraid for him. She wrapped her arm around his neck and pulled him close until his head rested on the cot, their cheeks pressed together, her mouth against his ear, whispering words that she forgot as soon as she said them, just that her heart was in her throat, she wanted him to feel her heart, and hear it, and know he wasn’t alone.
She sensed movement at the door. Eddie. Pale, with dark hair that curled loosely over his eyes. He must have been in his early twenties, but he had an old-man gaze, something she had not noticed in the surveillance photos. He didn’t look dangerous, except for his eyes. Core of steel.
Eddie looked at Perrin, his expression startled, then embarrassed. He carried power bars, and another bottle of water. He did not make a sound, but Perrin suddenly stilled.
The young man backed away, disappearing into the hall. Jenny listened for his footsteps. He was quiet, but she heard the faint scrape of sneakers against wood.
Perrin tried to pull away. She tightened her grip around his neck and slid off the cot, into his lap. He made a muffled sound of protest, but she shook her head, making herself comfortable on the floor, with him. His arms were heavy and warm, his cheeks wet.
Why did this happen? Jenny wanted to ask him. Why me, why you?
More questions. So many questions.
But she didn’t ask them. Not yet. Instead, she listened to his heart beneath her ear and felt the rise and fall of his chest, and it dragged her under into that soft place that felt perilously close to dreams, dreams that had always been safe.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured to Perrin. “I’m so sorry.”
Perrin said nothing, but his fingers slid through her hair and rested warm on the parasite.
We dream again, said that quiet voice. We dream.
The next time she opened her eyes, Perrin was gone. Jenny lay on the floor. A pillow had been pushed under her head, a blanket draped over her hips. She was sweaty, her hair smelled like hot pepper—and her mouth tasted like cotton balls.
Jenny fumbled for the water bottle that had been laid beside her. She saw power bars, too. Her stomach growled, followed by a reeling ache that had her ripping one of them open, pushing it into her mouth before she realized what she was doing. Tasted dry, but good.
She washed it down with half a bottle of water, ignoring the low, throbbing ache in her face. Eating and drinking hurt. So did standing. Her entire body was sore.
The floor vibrated beneath her. She heard an engine running, a dull roar that rose and fell in a slow, chugging rhythm.
Jenny stumbled to the door. A small hand mirror had been nailed to the wall, and she caught her reflection. More like, it caught her.
Half her face was purple, though the bruising was worst around her mouth and cheek. Her eye was a little swollen, but thankfully not enough to li
mit her vision.
Jenny looked like someone had punched her, though. And she hated that. She hated looking like a victim. Again.
Les, how could you?
Les, I’m going to kick your ass.
Les.
Her charming friend. Her good friend. She had traveled with him for years. Laughed and cried her way around the world, with him and Maurice.
“Les,” she murmured, staring into her eyes. Grateful that she still recognized the woman in the mirror. There had been a time, years ago, when she hadn’t.
She remembered. Bad days. She still recalled, with perfect clarity, how she had felt then—and her current emotions were following a similar course. All she had suffered, until now, was shock and anger. Devastating shock and anger.
But until now, she hadn’t let herself feel hurt. Really hurt, in the heart.
And it hurt like hell. It was like being betrayed by family, all over again.
She heard shouts. Perrin’s voice. It didn’t sound like they were under attack, but any anger was enough to make her uneasy. Jenny straightened her shoulders, pushed back her hair, and left the cabin for a narrow, dark hall that reminded her of some passage in a tomb. Too many shadows, and deep alcoves. She could see, though. Her vision had improved considerably over the past few days.
Breathing underwater could probably be considered an improvement, too.
And yet, she was totally unprepared for the hand that reached out from behind one of the side doors and grabbed her.
Jenny stepped back and twisted until she was flat against the wall—forcing her attacker to loosen his grip, or else risk a broken arm. He freed her, but she didn’t have time to slip down the corridor toward light and freedom. A slender, wiry man flowed from the doorway, blocking her. She remembered glimpsing him last night. Fast, all muscle. Black eyes glittered, and a tattoo of a dragon covered his shaved head. He gave her a toothy grin. Jenny wondered if she should start screaming.
“I know about you,” he said. “We all watch each other.”
Jenny set her jaw, then forced it to relax when it ached. “Who are you?”
In the Dark of Dreams Page 27
