by Kit Rocha
Ashwin had heard the phrase his blood chilled before, but he’d never felt it so literally. It was the opposite of the time he’d injected himself with the drugs that burned like acid. It was gentler, a chill that seemed to slide through him and leach every bit of warmth from the world.
For all his analytical reasoning, even knowing he’d have to face Deacon and enlist his help, somehow Ashwin had envisioned the two of them working out a solution that left Kora blithely unaware of the danger she was in.
The look in Deacon’s eyes smashed that illusion. And it was nothing compared to the look he’d see in Kora’s eyes when he told her everything she knew about herself was a lie—one he’d allowed to stand for years.
He was going to hurt her. She was going to hate him.
And the worst part was that Deacon was right. Kora would want to know why. And Ashwin didn’t know what to tell her.
»»» § «««
Kora was halfway through a new supply list for her clinic when someone knocked on her bedroom door. It was past lunch, not yet time for dinner, and that couldn’t be it, anyway. Maricela had proven, more than once, that if Kora forgot to eat, she had no compunctions about walking right in with a heated tray from the kitchen.
If she didn’t finish this sentence, she’d forget all about it when she sat back down to complete her order. So she raised her voice enough to carry through the thick paneled door. “Come in.”
The door clicked softly, the only sound until Ashwin’s voice came from just behind her shoulder. “Are you busy?”
Her smile was immediate, automatic, a reflexive response to his presence. “Did you change your mind about staying in bed today?”
Silence answered her, so she turned to face him. He didn’t look happy at all, and he definitely wasn’t busy thinking of all the ways they could while away the next twenty-four hours in her bed.
The muscles in her neck and back tensed. “What’s wrong?”
“Kora—” He shoved his fingers through his hair in a rare nervous gesture. “This won’t be easy to hear. But there are things I need to tell you. That I should have told you a long time ago. About where you come from.”
It took her a moment to process his words, and when she did, they still didn’t make sense. “I don’t understand.”
“Have you ever seen any reference to Project Panacea?”
“On the Base? No. Should I have?”
“It was something of a sister project to the Makhai initiative. One set out to genetically select the perfect soldier, and the other was meant to do the opposite. Produce superior healers.”
It took her a moment to process his words, and her response was anything but articulate. “Um, no.”
He just stared at her.
It stretched out before her, the only logical conclusion to be drawn from his nonsensical statements. Kora rejected it physically, rising to pace past him, to the other side of the room. “I had Special Clearance on the Base, Ashwin. In the medical division. I think I would know if a project like that existed.”
“It was decommissioned. When you were eight months old.”
A step too far, because he wasn’t just saying that a project like this existed without her knowledge, or had existed, or anything else as inconsequential, and that was why she couldn’t stop pacing, couldn’t stand still and listen. His voice betrayed something personal, something vital. He was saying that she—
That she—
A strange calm settled over her, the detachment that allowed her to carry on in the face of emergencies. “The Base has project protocols. If this was true, then I’d be dead.”
“You should be.” Ashwin watched her, the crease between his brows betraying his worry. “I can only hypothesize that the man who raised you rescued you somehow. Or that someone meant to oversee project termination did.”
The idea was more fantastical than the rest of it, that Ethan Middleton—staid, reserved Dr. Middleton, the man she couldn’t even think of as Dad in the silence of her mind—had cared enough to save her, but not enough to love her. That he’d risked imprisonment or worse to spare her life, only to raise her directly beneath the watchful gaze of the Base administration.
It was just impossible enough to be true.
Slowly, Ashwin withdrew a bent manila folder from his jacket and offered it to her. “How it happened, we may never know. But you were tagged with the isotope, too. That’s why you showed up in red on the tracking camera. People who haven’t been tagged don’t show up at all.”
She kept her arms crossed over her chest as the first bit of hot pain lanced through the ice. “You told me everyone who wasn’t tagged showed up red.”
“No,” he countered evenly. “I changed the subject.”
The pain spiked. “I asked, and you let me believe it.”
After a moment, he inclined his head and tossed the folder onto her desk. “I let the lie stand. I shouldn’t have. But I hoped…”
She snatched up the folder and flipped through it. It was a couple of surveillance photographs, standard intelligence for the Base. All it showed her was what Ashwin’s stolen drone already had, though she hadn’t understood it at the time.
Then she froze. Because it was standard intel for the Base—which meant they’d found her.
The ice cracked.
He’d hidden the truth from her, even though it was her truth, not his. More importantly—and maybe the only part that mattered—he had planned to keep hiding it from her. How long could he have done it? Shared her life, slept in her bed, all the while knowing the answers to the only questions that had ever truly haunted her?
Maybe forever.
She spoke past the lump in her throat. “You tracked my activity on the servers. You knew I was looking for answers.”
“I did.”
Perversely, the fact that he didn’t try to deny it only made it hurt more. Tears burned her eyes, and she blinked them away. “How long?”
“I’ve known since your fourth week of service on the Base.”
The heavy weight compressing her chest broke. She thought she might laugh, but what came out instead was a sharp, ragged sob. All of the disciplinary actions in her personnel file, all the heated arguments with the other doctors about how she knew the Makhai soldiers could feel just like any other human, she knew it—
She’d disproven her own theory. Because no one with a shred of empathy could have done this, even to someone they hated.
“Kora—” He took a step forward.
She held her ground, not out of invitation, but of challenge. “I have to tell Gideon. He’ll have questions, and since you’re the one who knows all about this, you should probably answer them.”
His jaw tightened, and she knew she wouldn’t like what he said next. “Deacon is telling Gideon now. So they can make arrangements to keep you safe.”
“Of course he is.” She couldn’t muster any shock that Ashwin hadn’t told her first. At this point, she was more surprised that she’d ever let herself believe that he honestly, truly cared about her.
Ashwin flexed his fingers. “It’s dangerous information, Kora. I tried to contain it to protect you.”
“From what?” She waved the folder. “From this thing that’s happening anyway, you mean?” One of the photos slipped out, and the red smudge caught her eye. “They don’t shut down successful projects. What happened to them?” To us?
“Kora, you don’t need to know it all now—”
“No, I needed to know it yesterday. Or the day before that, or five years ago.” But she already knew the truth, just not what form it would take. “Something went wrong. What was it?”
“Destabilization,” he said reluctantly. “The main problem was burnout. Project Panacea healers were prone to emotional overstimulation. Many of them developed chemical dependencies as a coping strategy.”
Now she understood all the nights she’d spent with her face trapped against her pillow—crying, screaming. Wondering if she just couldn’t handle the work,
or if she was losing her mind, if that was why it felt like her skin itched and the world was pressing in on her.
It had happened when Jaden died, too, and she’d run straight into Ashwin’s arms. He’d soothed her, told her he knew exactly what she needed—and if she hadn’t been so blinded by her infatuation with him, she might have realized the truth.
How stupid could one person be?
“You have to go now,” she whispered. She didn’t trust her voice anymore. She didn’t trust anything. “Please.”
He started to extend his hand, but froze when she shook her head. “I’m still going to keep you safe. I won’t let the Base take you. I promise.”
She’d dreamt about something that morning after—of wandering the desert and finding a rose, a single bit of life in the midst of the unending blankness. The moment she touched it, unbelievable pain had torn apart the world around her.
She’d dreamt about Ashwin. Somewhere, in the darker recesses of her apparently enhanced brain, she’d already seen the truth, even if her conscious mind couldn’t accept it. He had hurt her, and he would hurt her again. Because it was all he could do.
“I’ll be f—” Even now, she couldn’t bring herself to lie. “It’s not your problem to fix. It never was.”
Plain blazed in his eyes, swiftly swallowed by blankness. He took a step toward her, then another, and she wanted to be scared of him. It would be smarter than the flutter in her belly, or the way her heart twisted with longing as he stared at her.
He stopped a foot away, looming over her for a silent, deadly moment. “I’ll leave,” he rasped finally. “But your safety will always be my concern.”
He left, closing the door with absolute, perfect control behind him. He didn’t even have the decency to slam it, to pretend that he was just as torn apart as she was.
Kora sank to the bed and reached blindly, automatically, for one of the plush pillows. She pressed her face against it, but the wracking sobs wouldn’t come. Neither would the tears. Her eyes burned, but they remained dry as she stared at the far wall of her bedroom.
She didn’t have time to fall apart, because the Base knew where she was. And they would want her back.
Chapter Nineteen
She hadn’t even asked him why.
The thought was immaterial, unimportant, but it nagged at Ashwin as he sat at his desk in the Riders’ barracks. On the papers in front of him, he’d roughed out a schematic of the Base from memory, and he needed all of his attention focused on figuring out a way to protect Kora.
It was good that she hadn’t asked why. He still didn’t have a reason, and if he had fumbled for one, it only would have made things worse. He’d tried to soften the blow, but he hadn’t even understood where the hard edges were, much less how to blunt them. Every word had stabbed into her with such pain that he’d been ready to cut his own tongue from his mouth to stop it.
He wasn’t built for protecting hearts. Just bodies.
The only way to protect Kora’s was with a suicide mission. He’d highlighted his potential targets with little Xs on the map—the servers that housed the surveillance software, the warehouse that held the surveillance equipment, and the most probable location of the generals.
Killing enough of the generals to disrupt Base procedures was a long shot. They purposefully avoided congregating in the same location to avoid just such an eventuality—a habit they’d maintained with feverish dedication since the last coup. And in any case, an attack like that would only draw attention to what Ashwin was trying to hide.
Destroying the surveillance equipment had potential, especially if he could make it look like a negligent accident. It would take time for Sector Eight to replace the precious drones. But no doubt some had been requisitioned for fieldwork and would still be available, and the drones weren’t the problem in any case.
She’d been safe before the software upgrade. Ashwin circled the X in the center of the compound, then frowned and drew new marks where the backup and redundant servers were placed. The Base wasn’t reckless. The backups were hardwired and secure in their own closed network. He’d have to hit all three at once, which meant setting explosives without being detected and carefully coordinating the detonation.
Which wouldn’t handle any additional copies he didn’t know about. The programmers backed things up to data sticks all the time, even though it was technically against security protocol.
But it would slow them down. Give him time to…
What? None of this was worth a damn if he couldn’t convince Kora to leave Sector One, and if he was going to separate her from the place that kept her stable, he shouldn’t be bothering with complicated plans to assault the Base.
A sedative. A dark night. That was all he needed. Getting past the palace guards with an unconscious member of the royal family wouldn’t be easy, but the eventuality had always hovered at the back of his mind. They could be over the mountains by the time she woke up.
She’d hate him forever for it, but at least she’d be alive to hate him.
Unless the hate destabilized her.
Frustration burned through him as he glared down at the impossible schematic, and the niggling thought worked its way back to the forefront of his mind.
Why didn’t you tell her?
Deacon might have scoffed at the reason he’d given, but there was truth in it. Looking into Kora’s eyes as he damned her to an uncertain future had been an agony worse than any recalibration. He’d have to retrieve the files he’d stored all those years ago and leave them with Gideon or Deacon. She would want them, but the bleak glimpse into her past might well turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy for her future.
It was a reason, but not enough of one. As loath as he was to hurt her, practicality should have forced his hand. He’d almost died multiple times during the war, and he could have left her without the tools she needed to diagnose potential problems that arose from her altered genes. It was reckless.
He’d been reckless. Thoughtless. Cruel.
The door swung open. Ashwin flowed to his feet, one hand closing around the back of his chair, his arm tensed and ready to smash it into the intruder’s body.
Reyes stood there, leaning against the frame. “What’s up?”
Ashwin relaxed his hand, but only marginally. “Can I help you?”
“Hilarious. The way I hear it, you can’t even help your own goddamn self right now.” He stepped into the room and peered at the desk. “Making some big plans?”
Ashwin flipped the papers over. “How much did Deacon tell you?”
“Enough to figure out that you’re a much bigger asshole than I thought.” He paused. “I was kind of impressed, actually.”
The words were incomprehensible, but whatever he meant, it didn’t sound serious enough for this moment. “This isn’t a joke. Kora is in danger, and quite frankly, so is everyone who has this information.”
That quickly, something in Reyes’s manner changed. His expression remained the same, but his eyes flashed with an almost predatory gleam. “Do I look like I’m fucking laughing?”
Lack of patience made him curt. “Then tell me what you want so I can get back to work.”
Reyes shrugged. “All right. I came to relay a message, and also to give you something.” Without warning, he hauled back, and Ashwin didn’t have time to dodge the fist that landed hard across his jaw. “That’s the something—”
Instinct kicked in. Intellect caught up only enough for Ashwin to open his hand and release the chair. Instead of breaking it across Reyes’s face, he struck him with a punch of his own, knocking his head to the side and sending him stumbling back. Reyes dragged him along, and they crashed out into the hallway.
His face throbbed. His shoulder hit the wall, and he knew he’d have bruises—big, ugly ones that Kora would never fuss over. He embraced the pain and its stark simplicity. It was the punishment he wanted, the destruction he deserved for making Kora cry.
The pain would stop when th
e fight did, so he hit Reyes again.
Reyes planted a hand on his face and shoved his head back, one thumb perilously close to digging into Ashwin’s eye. A dirty move that deserved a low response, so Ashwin twisted his head and bit the edge of Reyes’s hand.
“Ow, you motherfucker—”
Ashwin shut him up with an elbow across the face. He shoved Reyes back hard enough to slam him into the opposite wall, but movement at the edge of his peripheral vision had him shifting to face a new opponent.
Except his new opponent had no intention of fighting. Zeke was standing at the end of the hallway, watching them with an entertained expression as he took a bite out of a donut. He chewed, swallowed, and waved his free hand. “Don’t mind me. This was just getting good.”
Reyes kicked the back of Ashwin’s knee. Ashwin stumbled, catching himself against the wall and using the momentum to rebound into Reyes. He managed to land another glancing blow to Reyes’s chin before taking a fist in the stomach.
“Poke him in the side,” Zeke called around a mouthful of donut. “He’s really fucking ticklish!”
“He can’t listen to you.” Reyes swiped a hand across his bleeding mouth. “Dumbass here is too busy planning his suicide strike on the Base.”
“Well, that’s disappointing. I thought he was supposed to be smart.” Zeke finished off his pastry and jerked his head toward the stairs. “Lucio and I figured out how to save Kora, if you’re interested. Or you could stay down here and keep punching Reyes. I mean, I get it. He’s fun to punch.”
Reyes tipped an imaginary hat, then winced as he rubbed his jaw.
Ashwin couldn’t even feel the places where Reyes had struck him, because Zeke’s verbal blow had landed so much harder. “You have a plan to protect Kora?”
“Yup.” Zeke grinned as he turned. “Better get your ass up here, though, because it’ll only work if you can pull off your part.”
Zeke vanished. Ashwin licked his lips and tasted his own blood—Reyes’s first punch had landed squarely. “Is that the message you came to relay?”
“Yeah, you’re welcome.”
“You could have told me instead of punching me.”