by Nora Roberts
She saw Travis sitting with a woman. Long gray hair, withered face. Murmuring to her as he draped a blanket over her shoulders. Nearby, Hannah tucked in two children together. They clung to each other.
Travis rose and, clipboard in hand, wound his way through the beds to come to her.
“I’m working on getting names, ages, abilities, whatever I can. Stories. It’s . . . it’s so fucked-up. It’s beyond fucked-up.”
Feeling his fury, she put a hand on his shoulder. “They’re safe now. We’ll take care of them.”
“How do they get through it? The woman I just talked to? Susan Grant. Empath, like me. She was a teacher, lost everyone in the Doom. She got out of Dallas with a small group—a couple of her students with them—and ended up in east Tennessee, where they decided to settle. She started a little school. She said she never explored her other powers because they spooked her. She just wanted to teach, you know?”
“How long has she been in containment?”
“She’s not sure. Five or six years, she thinks. Government forces swept in—night raid. She thinks some got away. They used electric shock therapy on her, Fallon. Put her in isolation—sensory depravation. And she thinks they did some kind of brain surgery. She can’t remember. But after, if she tried to feel, to get a sense of someone, she’d get a blinding headache. They took what she was, and made it pain.”
“They won’t touch her again.”
“How many more?” he demanded. “How many more like her, like the rest we got out today? Jesus, can’t you hear them screaming?”
She did the only thing she could think of. She pulled him into her, pushed calm into him. “You need a break.”
“They didn’t get one. Sorry.” Breathing deep, struggling to settle, he drew back. “It’s getting to me. Some of them can’t even remember their names until I push in deep enough to find them. The bastards did everything they could to erase them. To make them nothing.”
He drew in another breath. “Yeah, you’re right. I need a break or I’m not going to be able to help. I’ll take a walk, get some air.”
“Good.”
“While I’m at it, I’ll pass what I’ve got up the chain for the records. I’ll be back.”
“You could use some sleep.”
With eyes full of feelings, he looked around the room. “None of us are going to get much sleep tonight. I’ll be back.”
When he went out, Hannah came over.
“I didn’t want to interrupt. He’s taking on a lot. These rescues, they’re just so full.” Fatigue leached her face of color, compassion glowed under it as she pressed a hand to her heart. “You know what I mean? And Travis can’t help but take it in. Did you talk him into calling it a night?”
“No, but he’s taking a break. What about you?”
“I’m going to bunk down here. We’re stationing medics in every rescue area tonight.”
“Where are the babies, the rest of the kids?”
Hannah took her arm, drew her a little farther away. “Rachel and your mother took them back to New Hope. Nobody knows who the babies belong to. Some of the women remember being pregnant, but they don’t remember giving birth. They’d take them into the lab, from what we’re piecing together, put them under. We need to go through the medical records.”
“We have them.”
“Not all of the women came back. And not all of them were at term when they were taken away. Fallon, I always knew, but . . . I guess some part of me wouldn’t believe anyone, anyone could do what’s being done. Now I know it’s worse than what I thought I knew.”
“They’ll pay. Those who sanctioned it, those who ordered it, those who carried it out. There’ll be a reckoning.”
“I believe that. And I hope what we did today sends shock waves through every single one who’s had a part in this. For now . . .” Absently, she rubbed at the back of her neck. “I’m going to take the next who wants a shower and a change of clothes. Do you see the woman Lydia’s bringing back? The blonde?”
“Yes.”
“You should talk to her before you go. She was taken in the first sweeps. She’s been in containment for twenty years. She’s Nadia.”
As Lydia settled the woman on a cot, and Hannah helped another to the shower, Fallon made her way through.
Several reached out to touch her hand, her leg. It made her feel humble and strange even as she paused to say a word. Nothing she’d been through touched what every one of these women and children had endured.
The blonde with pale blue eyes stared at her as she approached.
“Nadia. I’m Fallon. Have you eaten?”
“They gave us soup and bread and tea. Thank you.”
Hearing the accent, she sat, spoke in Russian. “I see the light in you. And the tiger.”
“It’s been twenty years since I’ve heard the language of my birth.” Tears swam into her eyes. “I came to America, to D.C., to the embassy to work. I was twenty-six.”
“Your family?”
“My brother also. Our parents and the rest in Moscow. My brother died in that horrible January. Most did. I did not. My friend—we shared an apartment—when she became ill, I took her to the hospital. You still had hope. The city was already in flames, but you still had hope. But she died, too. I tried to call my parents, but nothing went through.”
Nadia’s fingers rubbed at the blanket over her lap, restless, wondering.
“I felt what was in me, saw it in others. But I didn’t understand. See?” She shifted, drew down the shoulder of her shirt to reveal a tattoo of a crouched tiger on her back. “I loved the tiger, always, but I didn’t understand. Such madness, such joy. And all around the dying, the killing, the madness, the flames. Crows circling and smoke rising.”
Because she understood, Fallon took her hand. “My mother lived through the Doom and became. She and my birth father escaped from New York.”
“So you know. You’ve heard stories like mine.”
“Tell me the rest of yours.”
“There was a man I knew. I’d slept with. It was just beginning, not really serious. But I went to him. I was afraid, so I went to him. He worked for the government. He said he would help me. He called the soldiers. They said they would help me, and I believed them. I didn’t resist. There were twelve of us they took from the city that day.”
“They took you out of the city?”
“To safety, they said.”
“All magickals?”
“No, some magickals, some immune. Out of the city, but I don’t know where. Something in the water they gave us, I think. Somewhere, I think, underground. And it started. Just tests at first—taking blood, urine, asking questions. It seemed almost benign, even when they kept us separated and closed in. They gave us food, spoke softly. All for our own good, they said. To find a cure. I believed them, even as the months passed and the doctors changed.”
“Changed?”
“New ones came. Military. And the tests weren’t so benign. They brought the pain, and brought the tiger. I’d try to get away, to strike out, and they’d shock me, or tranquilize me—just enough. They made me sleep, took me to another place with others who could change into spirit animals. Then another place, then another.”
“And here again,” Fallon prompted.
“Yes. I didn’t know I was back in Washington, but others they brought in knew. We couldn’t get out. There were rapes and beatings, drugs and chains. Some they took out and didn’t bring back. They made me pregnant. The child would be eight years if the child lived. I kept track then. Carter, they called him. He did his cruel tests on me and others like me. And one day, they took me. When I woke, there was no child in me.”
She lifted her shirt to show the scar of a cesarean section. “They took the child out of me. Every day for months they strapped me down, pumped my breasts. I told myself the child lived, the child drank my milk. But they wouldn’t tell me. I thought to find a way to end it, end myself, but then I thought, if the child lived
. . .
“I wanted the hope of that. Some among us could speak in the mind. They spoke of you, of The One. The day would come when The One would strike with her sword and the light would burn away the dark.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
By the time Fallon walked into the quarters arranged for her, dawn streaked over the east. Nadia’s hadn’t been the only story she’d heard through the night, and all of them circled in her head. Her heart.
Tales of torture and despair, of families torn apart. But through those tales she thought she might be able to pinpoint other containment centers.
She needed her maps. She needed a clear head. God, she needed a shower. A drink. One night’s sleep.
Even as she reached for the wine some considerate soul had left on a desk under the window, someone knocked on her door.
Her first thought was: Go away. For five minutes just go away. But she walked to the door, opened it.
Duncan stood, as battle-grimed as she.
“Colin said you’d just gotten in.”
She said nothing, just stepped back to let him in.
“I know you sent Mallick back to his cottage for a few days, and that’s a good call. We’re going to need him when he’s had his time. And I know he talked to you about the islands. The fact is we can’t spare the troops to handle the number of POWs we’ve taken, and we damn well can’t keep people locked up for-fucking-ever anyway, or we’re not much better than they are. That’s number one. Then there’s the resources we’d need to house, feed, treat, clothe. We can’t spare them, not indefinitely.”
“Duncan.”
He kept prowling the room, stirring up the air, the energy. Stirring everything.
“We need a solution. One we can live with, and one where those resources are used for the rescues, the troops, the people who’re just trying to live through this fuckfest.”
“Duncan,” she said again.
He spun back to her, fury and fatigue all over him. “What?”
“Shut up.” She grabbed him, locked around him. “Shut up, shut up,” she repeated as she crushed her mouth to his.
His hands gripped the back of her jacket, balled into fists. Then streaked up to take her hair in that same furious hold as he dragged her head back. His eyes, sharp and green, met hers.
“Don’t ask me to stop.”
“Shut up,” she said again.
She grabbed his belt, tugged until his sword and sheath clattered to the floor. His hands got busy as she yanked at his shirt. He threw one out to lock the door before her sword fell with his.
She had a farmer’s knowledge of mating, but already knew this would be more. She wanted more. She wanted all.
“Touch me. God, touch me.”
“Trying.” He fought off her jacket, shoved her onto the bed. Covering her, his mouth feasting on hers, he took her breasts in his hands.
Another rise, sharp and hot, streaming from her center, spreading, spreading everywhere. Oh yes, here was more. Should she have known—how could she have known—the feel of his hands, so hard and rough, would lift her up, so high, so fast?
She pulled at his shirt even as he yanked hers off. Now his hands—those hard palms, those strong fingers—took flesh. Took her breath. Arching up, she pressed her aching center to his.
Like the merging of powers, that joining, humming, humming, humming in the blood.
Her body, taut, lean, quivered under his. Those muscles, well honed, rippled strong. The feel of her—finally, finally, the feel of her—so long, so smooth, so hot, as if flames sparked under her skin.
Her heart galloped under his hands, then his mouth. God, the taste of her—dizzying. It rushed through his system, hot whiskey after a bitter chill. She bore bruises, cuts, burns left untreated from the battle. Half-mad, he healed as he touched, as he tasted, as he roamed the body he’d wanted longer than his own memory.
Her hands, as eager and questing as his, slid down, dug into his ribs. A stabbing shock of pain jolted through him. He hissed it out as he fought open the buttons of her pants.
“You’re hurt.”
“Now you shut up.”
His mouth came back to hers while he worked her pants down. And he felt her warmth slide into his injured ribs, soothe, mend. They healed each other as they pulled clothes away. Frustrated by boots, he slapped power out, sent two pairs tumbling across the room.
He wanted to see her, absorb her, savor her, but need blinded him. And she was already reaching for him, taking him, opening for him.
“Now,” she said, her eyes like smoke. “Anois ag deireadh.”
Now at last.
He plunged into her, deep and desperate, and swore his soul leaped. Light burst, brilliant and bold, through the window, through the air, from her, from him. There came a crack of thunder, a swirl of wind. Flying on it, she found his hands, gripped them in hers.
She gave herself to the light, to the storm, to him. Took him through the whirl of bodies, minds, powers mating. The thrill tore through her, keen as a blade, then rolled and rolled like a swamping wave. Rising on it, soaring, she tasted freedom so heady and sweet she cried out.
And the cry was joy.
Breathless, drunk, drugged, staggered, he lay over her. The light, softer now, spread over them, glowed and flowed between them like liquid. He felt her trembling, not from cold or pain, but from that same overwhelming rush that had stormed through him.
Half dreaming, she sighed. “I was so tired and sad. Now I’m not. You had a cracked rib.”
“Now I don’t.” He wanted to stay as he was, but pushed up to study her face. He felt it, as he’d known he would, simply overwhelm him again. “We’ve seen each other like this before.”
“Yes.”
“Dreams and visions.”
“Reality’s more intense.” Her gaze roamed over his face, and some of the light dimmed in her eyes. “If you’re going to regret it, we’ll just chalk it up to battle fatigue.”
She lifted a hand to shove him aside, and he took it in his, squeezed hard.
“This is it. Goddamn it, this is it for me. You. So give me a minute to deal with that. To deal with the fact it doesn’t matter why. I’ve pushed back on that all my life. We’d end up here, sure. But then . . . I don’t know what the hell. Now I know, this is it for me, and it doesn’t matter why.”
So frustrated, she thought as her heart melted. She lifted her free hand to his face, brushed it back through his hair. “No, it doesn’t matter. Duncan of the MacLeods,” she murmured. “Tha gaol agam ort.”
He dipped his head to brush his lips over hers. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Duncan of the MacLeods should learn a little Scots Gaelic. I love you.”
He rested his brow on hers while emotion swirled through him. “I can probably butcher it in Irish from what I learned back in school. But I’ll stick with English. I love you.”
She drew him down to seal the words, the promise of them with a kiss.
He rolled over, tucked her against his side. “I just wanted to see you. Needed to talk to you about the island, but that was mostly an excuse. I just needed to see you. I didn’t expect you to jump me.”
“I wanted a drink, a shower, sleep. Then I saw you. Bloody, bruised, broody. And I only wanted you. I think if you hadn’t come to me, I’d have taken the sad into sleep instead of remembering the good we did today.”
“I get the drink, shower, sleep. Why were you sad?”
“What they did to those people, Duncan. Listening to what they went through—”
“I know.” He rubbed his hand up and down her arm. “I talked with most of the rescues.”
“One I talked to was taken in the first sweeps, in D.C. Some of the children were born in that place. They’ve never known anything else, only the dark.”
“We’ll show them the light. There must be a way to find out if any of the women have kids we rescued. I don’t know if Rachel knows how to do that medically, but magickally.”
“Others will.” He sat up, and because he saw the sad again, gray clouds in her eyes, he pulled her up with him. “Others will, Fallon. How many times have we seen it? Look at Rachel and Jonah with Gabriel—biology doesn’t mean a damn. That kid’s theirs. Look at Anne and Marla with Elijah. There are hundreds more like that. We all know them.”
“You’re right.” Those clouds whisked away. “You’re absolutely right. I’m so glad you’re here.”
A shoulder, she realized, good sense. And thank all the gods, sensibility.
“Oh, we’ve got so much to do. I think I can work with what I learned from some of the rescues who were moved around to locate other containment centers. And you and Mallick are right, we need to relocate the POWs. We need to talk about how to do all of that. How and when to—”
He pulled her to him, kissed her quiet. “We’ll do all of that, but we’re going to take a couple hours. We’ll take that shower and find out what it’s like to have sex when we’re not bloody and banged up.”
“That’s one plan.”
“It’s a good one. We can grab something to eat.”
“Eat.” She pressed a hand to her belly. “I’m starving.”
“See, good plan.” He pulled her to her feet. “Then I can take you to the islands Mallick and I have in mind. We’ll work out the rest.”
He paused, let himself take her in. Long, lean, naked. “Jesus, I was in kind of a rush. You’ve filled out really well since the last time I saw you naked.”
“You weren’t impressed at the time.”
“I lied.”
She smiled, and with his hand in hers, walked toward the bath. “I know.”
Late morning, energized—again—fed, she met with Colin in his HQ to explain the basics of the plan for POWs.
“Islands.” He pushed away from his computer. For reasons that annoyed her, he had an easy skill with technology she lacked. “Tropical islands with resources, shelters or the means to build them.”
“They’d still be supervised. We wouldn’t put guards on the islands, but there are ways for us to watch them, to maintain control.”