Shards of Hope

by Nalini Singh

  None of Aden's sources had unearthed anything, either. "I'll speak to Krychek, see if the NetMind or--" He froze, his mind shining a thin beam of light on a near-forgotten piece of data. "Hashri Smith's business associates," he said. "The woman."

  Zaira sat up on her knees, her hair wild around her shoulders. "She was asked to wire a bribe to an official in Denver six months ago in order to expedite certain building permits--but the owners of those buildings are all ordinary people." She shoved back her hair. "Deep background, telepathic scans, none of it points to any kind of involvement in the conspiracy."

  Having already pulled up the report on an organizer, Aden scrolled down. "Secondary report confirms the first. We're keeping an eye on them, but so far, it looks like someone did them a favor for no discernible reason. The e-mails we were able to retrieve show them expressing surprised delight at the swiftness of the permits."

  Zaira blew out a breath and, getting out of bed, began to pace. Since she was dressed in only a pair of black panties, the sight was distracting despite the serious nature of their discussion, but Aden didn't tell her to put on clothes. He was an Arrow, not an idiot.

  "Why offer a bribe to expedite permits that provide you with no advantage?" Zaira frowned, turned on her heel, and continued to pace. "It's not like the contracts with Smith and the others. These people have no idea they were done a favor and no reason to believe anyone who claims to have facilitated it."

  Aden tapped the organizer on his knee, the whole situation niggling at him. "That's exactly it. The people running this op aren't stupid--their every action has been well thought out, planned. I can't believe they'd waste several thousand dollars on creating a pointless dead end."

  Jumping on the bed, Zaira grabbed the organizer, then made a frustrated sound. "I don't know how to find the data I need!"

  Aden gave in to temptation and, wrapping his arms around her, dropped a kiss to the tip of one bare breast. "I'll wake Tamar. Put on some clothes."

  Fingers weaving through his hair, Zaira pressed her lips to his temple. "After we find Persephone," she whispered, "we'll take a whole night just for us."

  "Deal."

  Tamar was rubbing her eyes when she walked into the restricted underground part of the main training complex, the natural tight curls of her hair looking as if she'd stuck a finger into an electrical socket, and her clothing yellow pajamas with white stars on them that had Axl taking a long look as he came in at the same time.

  Then his eyes dipped to the pink sheepskin boots into which Tamar had shoved her feet.

  "Civilian," Tamar said before he could make a comment. "Civilian who has had only four hours of sleep because she's obsessed with ripping apart all these shell companies upon shell companies."

  Axl ran his eyes up and down again. "How exactly did you pass for Silent? Was the examiner blind and psychically deaf?"

  Tamar made a face at him. "Go on and take your vitamins, Battle-Ax. No creaky old men needed here." Stomping into tech central on the insult, the entire room lined with banks of computers, she sat down in front of the central core and proved that her brain was functioning at full capacity. "What do you need?"

  Zaira braced her hand on Tamar's desk while Aden took a minute to touch base with Axl, no doubt checking on his physical and psychic status. "Can you dig up all building permits that bear the signature of the official who received the bribe?" she asked Tamar.

  "Sure." The younger woman began to work. "It'll be hundreds if not thousands. Time frame will narrow it."

  "Month on either side of the bribe," Zaira said after a moment's thought. "We can go wider if this doesn't pan out."

  "Or if it does." Aden's quiet words had her looking up. "If he can be bribed once . . ."

  Zaira nodded, watched Tamar work. Creaky old man? she telepathed when Tamar paused to allow the computer to run the search algorithm she'd just input.

  Heat bloomed under the silken ebony of the other woman's skin. He always makes me feel like a child with dirt on my face. Her fingers raced over the old-fashioned physical keyboard she preferred over a projected one. "Got it. Main screen."

  Setting aside her curiosity about the way Axl, who so rarely spoke to anyone, had spoken to the young civilian analyst, Zaira went toward the main screen, now filled with a comprehensive list of roughly two hundred permits. "Strike out the properties we've already checked, and those linked to anyone in the Ruling Coalition." Not that she trusted them all, but there was no reason for anyone in power to destabilize the Net.

  That still left around a hundred and fifty permits.

  "How about the ones related to places like restaurants or other public locations?" Tamar suggested.

  "Yes, do it." She could go back to those later, double-check.

  This cut took them under the seventy-five mark.

  "The majority look to be small residential dwellings," Aden said, scanning the list. "We can't disregard them, not with how easy it would be to turn a basement into a dungeon, but let's put those ones in a separate group, see what's left over."

  Fifteen permits.

  Seven had to do with a single comm station. It turned out to belong in part to SnowDancer, the rest owned by another changeling pack. "I think it's fairly safe to disregard that," Zaira said.

  "Agreed." Aden's body brushed hers, the living warmth of him welcome. "There's zero chance Hawke Snow doesn't have trusted people working at that station--nothing this big could go on under their noses."

  The other eight took more time to break down.

  Two were warehouses that appeared likely at first glance, but further digging showed that both had burned down a year ago, the permits for a slightly different rebuild currently in progress. Their locations meant no underground facility was possible.

  The third was related to a lab that processed medical specimens and wanted to extend its fumigation and air-conditioning systems. The fourth and fifth involved adding sanitary facilities to the lowest level of a midrise building in a city fringe location. The sixth had to do with the renovation of a store in the main shopping district. The seventh linked to major repair work in a high-rise that had structural issues, while the eighth was a brand-new apartment building to be constructed on a large lot.

  "The lab and the midrise," Zaira said and Tamar threw up records on both properties. "Because why risk applying for a permit anyway? It has to do with something they couldn't hide or that might attract unwanted attention from the authorities. Plumbing, electrical work, digging for new vents or pipes."

  Aden's features were grim as he went through all the data they had. "The others are also in difficult locations--too many security cameras, too much foot traffic."

  Pulling back her hair, Zaira secured it with a hair tie she'd had around her wrist. "I'm taking a team and checking out the top possibilities now--I'm going to call in two teleport-capable Tks to transport us." Speed was of the essence. Persephone's captors might not kill her, but tonight, Miane had shared something else with Zaira, a secret so big it was tightly, tightly guarded.

  When young, she told Aden, having informed Miane he'd have to know, water-based changelings have been known to die after extended periods of not being permitted to shift, and Olivia has no memory of water during her captivity.

  Though the Halcyon damage means her memory is suspect, she does remember vividly that it hurt to shift once she was in Venice--and Miane says that only happens after a prolonged period of forced abstinence from shifting.

  Every muscle in Aden's body went rigid. The child has likely not been given the chance to shift since her abduction eight months earlier.

  Zaira swallowed the rage in her throat. Miane says children who've died previously--after being caught inland in drought zones in past centuries, their parents unable to get them to other suitable water sources in time--lasted seven months at most. Persephone's living on borrowed time. Her heart will simply give out soon.

  "Go," Aden said, after hauling her close for a hard kiss. "I'll work wi
th Tamar, coordinate other teams to check out the secondary possibilities."

  "Make sure they don't betray their presence," Zaira said, though she knew her squadmates were all trained to be shadows. "And ask Krychek to assist." She didn't trust the cardinal, but she'd noticed one thing during the times he was in the valley--Kaleb wasn't cruel to children.

  The fact that he'd grown up under the aegis of a serial killer--a truth Zaira only knew because Aden had obtained certain highly restricted files--could've pointed in either direction as to his own inclinations if not for his relationship with Sahara. Ivy and the other Es loved Krychek's mate; thus, Zaira surmised that the woman wasn't tainted by evil. Which meant Krychek, deadly though he was, wasn't a murderous psychopath.

  Aden touched his hand to one side of her face. "I'll call in every resource."

  Chest tight, Zaira hugged him fiercely before walking out on her way to the midrise that struck her as the most likely location. It was isolated, it had a large basement area, and the ownership records were murky at best. Arriving with her team while the area was yet cloaked in the heavy gray of predawn, she spent precious time on reconnaissance. The sheer number of hidden security cameras told her they were on to something.

  "Blind the cameras," she told Mica.

  "I can give you five minutes," he said, already hooked into the system to feed it a loop. "Three, two, one, go."

  Zaira and her team infiltrated the building on silent feet, ghosts in the gray. One half went up, the other down. Zaira was in the latter group, and when she ghosted down the steps into the basement, a single glance was enough to tell her they were too late.

  The building had been in use until recently. Food wrappers lay in the small trash bins in two corners, while the layer of dust on everything was fine. When she pushed open the only door down there, it was to discover a room with the utilitarian and commonplace gray walls she'd seen in the first image of Persephone.

  Below the bed with its dirty brown blanket lay a red-haired rag doll.

  *

  "NONE of the other locations show any signs of involvement in the conspiracy," Aden told Zaira when she returned to the valley after confirming the lab was exactly what it seemed. "They must've cleared the midrise when we brought in Smith and the others."

  The timeline fit with the debris they'd found, the amount of dust on the floor and the shelves. "Damn it!" Infuriated, she went to throw something . . . and realized she was holding the little girl's doll.

  Hand trembling, she placed it gently on the table beside her and Aden's bed. And though the rage threatened to push her to angry blindness, she took a minute to breathe, just breathe, as Ivy was teaching her, and when she opened her eyes, it was to see Aden's beautiful face in her sight. "What do we do now?"

  "We keep going back and forward through the permits," he said. "It's our one solid lead and we will mine it down to the bone if that's what it takes."

  Zaira shuddered, nodded.

  "First, though, you have to eat." Tugging her outside, Aden drew her to one of several outdoor tables set with nutrient drinks as well as other foodstuffs.

  A number of children were already at those tables, smiled when Zaira slipped into a seat. "Here, Zaira," Tavish said from across the table. "This bread is nice."

  Heart aching with too much emotion, she took the offering. "Thank you." Aden, I don't know if I can handle this. Handle their innocence while knowing that somewhere out there, another child as innocent was being slowly suffocated to death.

  Aden's hand closed over her shoulder. Yes, you can. You've always been stronger than you know, with a wild and fiery spirit.

  A small hand curled into Zaira's at that instant, a tiny girl with big green eyes in a face that reminded Zaira of her own, looking up. "Can I sit here?" she whispered.

  "Yes." Her voice came out rough, almost harsh, but the child smiled and scrambled onto the bench seat beside her.

  A single instant of kindness, she thought again, her heart breaking. How do we save them all, Aden?

  One at a time.

  Chapter 75

  WHILE ZAIRA AND a number of other teams continued to mobilize to find Persephone, Aden watched over the children and the Arrows in the valley. Interview requests kept being made on air and on the PsyNet by media sources desperate to talk to him, but Aden had no intention of appearing on any screen or answering any questions.

  The squad had to maintain a fine balance between not being so "other" that they became terrors people wanted to kill and being so visible that the other major powers considered them a threat.

  Better to be the shadow who had a face, but a face you saw rarely and mostly when the shadow saved you from harm. His deliberate lack of public appearances would also ease the minds of those who might've believed the Arrows would make a bid for total power in the Net.

  And his place was here, holding together a family that had as many damaged adults as it had innocent children. There were, however, some hopeful signs. From the start of the relocation of the squad's "heart" to the valley, Aden had made it clear that regardless of their geographical assignments, each member of the squad had a confirmed space in a home here. Aden had been surprised--in a good way--at how many of the long-range scouts had begun to return to the valley in the time between assignments.

  Jaya and Ivy, the two Es most involved with the valley, had begun to drop a quiet word in his ear when they felt a scout wasn't ready to leave:

  "His heart is too hurt."

  "She's tired."

  "They need to heal."

  Aden had found ways to delay assignments by juggling squad members. It was easier now that so many of the older or "broken" Arrows had come out of hiding, and because his men and women weren't being wasted on Ming's personal vendettas. As for the training sessions with their young, those continued--sometimes a lesson was tough, but it was never brutal.

  When Aden found Carolina sobbing behind one of the cabins that afternoon, he didn't hesitate to scoop her up in his arms and rock her until she sniffled and told him what was wrong. "I can't make my mind do what the teacher says." Her lower lip shook. "I tried hard, Aden. I really tried."

  "You don't have to do it all at once," Aden told her, making a mental note to have a talk with the teacher involved. Walker was doing an incredible job of educating them in how to handle the increasing emotionality of their charges but not all had adapted well. He knew they, too, were trying and that it would take time. What gave him hope was that not one had asked for a transfer.

  Rubbing away her tears with small fists, Carolina said, "Really?" A quiver of hope. "I won't get in trouble?"

  Aden sat down with her in his arms, his back against the cabin wall. "The reason you need to learn to control your mind is that you're a Gradient 9.3 Tp showing signs of being a natural combat telepath."

  Carolina's family had signed her over to the squad when she was three. She'd hurt herself by stepping onto a piece of broken glass. In her pain and panic, she'd broadcast so loudly that she'd incapacitated every individual within her home. Like a gun going off near a changeling's ears, it had made them psychically deaf. Two younger members had ended up unconscious, one with what they'd initially thought was permanent brain damage. "Your strength means you can do a lot of harm with your mind if you're not careful."

  Big eyes looking into his, solemn and sad. "I could hurt my friends?"

  He didn't want her to feel only those emotions when it came to her ability. "Yes, but if you learn control, you can also do amazing things to help people."

  A thoughtful silence. "Do you think I can learn?"

  "I think you're very smart and might one day be as strong and as disciplined as Zaira." Pressing a kiss to the top of her head when she beamed at him, he set her on her feet again. "Go on and join your friends." Arrow children were allowed to have friends now, but they were also always closely supervised. The fact was that their abilities were lethal, a truth none of them could afford to forget. But where before the protections had s
uffocated, they were now a simple safety net the children appeared to find comforting.

  Taking another minute of quiet, he located Zaira's mind on the PsyNet. She was so contained, her light shielded from prying eyes, but that didn't matter, not so long as she trusted him with it. "Any news?" he asked.

  "We found what might be another bolt-hole, but it doesn't appear to have ever been used. Mica's seeded it with electronic bugs, so we'll hear the instant anyone returns." Her mind reached out to his along their conscious bond. "We're about to investigate the final three locations on our current list--I should be back in the valley by nightfall."

  "Persephone couldn't have a better champion," he said, knowing that if he heard any reports of the child's body being found, he'd make damn sure Zaira never laid eyes on the heartbreaking discovery. It would break her. "I'll see you tonight--I'm heading out soon to pick up a new recruit."

  That recruit was a two-year-old child who'd broken his mother's arm during a telekinetic tantrum that had taken place in a large and busy shopping mall three hours earlier. The woman didn't want to give up her son, but she needed help. Aden intended to offer it; whether or not the mother and child could move into the valley would depend on if the deep background check he'd initiated on the mother and her family showed any traitorous tendencies.

  He was cutting through a sunlit city park on his way back from the assessment, his thoughts on how best to help the traumatized child, when he discovered that their hidden enemy hadn't given up, had simply been waiting for an opportunity.

  His instincts said the loving mother he'd just left hadn't betrayed him, though the squad would no doubt debrief her to make certain. More than likely, the enemy had started to keep track of all rumors or reports of powerful or dangerous children, aware that, sooner or later, the squad would respond. Perhaps they'd intended to hit any Arrow who came to assess the child. It was pure luck that the Arrow in question was Aden.

  And three hours was plenty enough time to get an operative in place.

  This time, there were no theatrics, no complicated setup, nothing to warn him so he could strike out with his abilities. He felt the danger only at the last instant, the bullet whining through the air behind him.