She had no intention of crushing his ribs into his internal organs. To do so would equal too quick a death. But he believed she did, terror a slick sheen over his eyes. Giving him just enough time to truly fear her, she took her foot off his sternum and went down on her haunches without removing the boot she had on his mangled wrist.
Then, dropping her voice into a range that would be inaudible to their audience but which this changeling would hear, she said, “You have two choices. To die quickly or to die slowly and in intense agony. If you choose the latter, it doesn’t matter if you later beg me for mercy. I won’t have mercy. I don’t know how. I was trained that way.”
She saw from his expression that he believed her.
Speaking through the blood that had bubbled down to his mouth, he said, “Quick.” His voice was slurred as a result of the damage she’d done to his jaw.
“It doesn’t work that way,” she said, grinding her boot into his broken wrist without doing anything other than slightly shifting her weight.
A scream erupted from his throat, causing their silent audience to flinch. Waiting until he’d settled, she said, “Tell me what you know.” She didn’t elaborate—there was no need for it. And this one had to know something. His hit had been too up close and personal with too high a risk of capture. He was either a leftover Pure Psy fanatic or part of the conspiracy.
Instinct told her it was the latter. He hadn’t intended to become a martyr; his plan was to escape. And there was the fact that the squad had picked up certain scuttlebutt in the dark highways of the world—seemed like the contract killers were turning down major pay packets at any whisper a hit might involve an Arrow. Too many of their fellow killers had been eliminated or taken hostage for the money to be worth it.
And even those who still believed in Pure Psy were looking askance at recent events. The latest whispers tagged by the squad said the fanatics had started to mistrust their new ally when it was only the Pure Psy people who seemed to be dying—without any observable change in the status of Silence in the Net.
The honeymoon was over in those quarters.
As a result, the conspiracy had likely run out of disposable bodies and been forced to use some of its own. “Talk,” she reiterated coldly when he didn’t say anything.
“They’ll kill me.”
“So you choose a slow death.” Retrieving a blade from her boot, she had the point at his eyeball with such speed that he blinked, not realizing the blade was so sharp it would split his eyelid.
When it did, blood dripping into his eye, he said, “No.”
“Then talk.” She bent closer, always keeping an eye on his limbs. His shattered jaw meant he couldn’t bite her, but she didn’t disregard that, either.
As it was, he knew he was beaten, saw living death in her eyes. He spoke in a near-subvocal murmur and though his words were a touch garbled, she understood it all. And she knew he’d given her everything he had on the wider conspiracy, his fear of her too pungent to allow for a bluff. But she had one more question to ask him. “There’s a changeling child. About two years old. Her name is Persephone.”
His throat moved, Adam’s apple prominent. “She’s dead,” he whispered.
The rage in Zaira wanted to stab the blade into his eyeball. “You saw the body?”
A shake of his head. “I helped move her to a new holding area, and after, I was told she died in the night.” A touch of horror in his expression. “I never agreed with keeping the kid.”
But he hadn’t helped the small, vulnerable girl, which made him just as culpable. “Tell me the location of the new holding area, and any other locations you know.”
He gave her three addresses.
“Quick,” he said at the end, his breathing strained and pupils hugely dilated. “You promised quick.”
Zaira let the tip of the blade touch his eyeball. “I lied.” She wanted to torture him until he begged for her to end it. The fact that they were in public didn’t matter. The fact that people would see her as a monster didn’t matter. Icy rage had morphed into a red-hot murderous anger that shoved at her to rip him limb from limb. Smash in his skull as she had her parents’. Erase his face.
Sunlight glinted on the ring on her finger as she went to wrench back her captive’s head with a grip in his hair.
If you didn’t have anger inside you, you’d be inhuman.
I refuse to accept that my Arrows are frozen in amber.
I have faith in your will. Fight for us.
The memory of Aden’s voice, his absolute faith in her, halted her when she would’ve punctured the changeling’s eyeball in the first act of brutalization. The rage monster in her hesitated.
Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone.
I have faith that the girl who chose to stop crying at three years of age has the will to conquer this demon.
I like you. You’re nice.
Aden just needs you.
There is a reason every Arrow in Venice, even the most recalcitrant senior, would die for you.
Blind faith. And love.
Breathe, Zaira. Take a minute and just breathe.
Remembering Ivy’s lesson through her fury, she focused on the ruby on her finger, the ring that Aden had given her because he wanted to keep her, and took a breath. Another.
Aden loved her.
All those other voices were of people who liked her, too, who thought she had value as a person. If she did this, if she surrendered to evil, she’d lose them all. Persephone would die. And if Aden survived, he’d wake to find himself alone because the rage would’ve swallowed Zaira whole: she’d promised him he’d never be alone, that she’d always be with him . . . that she’d be his partner.
You aren’t locked in that cell anymore. You live in the light.
Aden was gone from her mind and it hurt. It hurt. But he’d marked her regardless, and she clung to the echo of him, holding him possessively tight. Don’t you go, she said along the dead telepathic connection she kept trying to force open. Don’t you leave me. I’ll become a monster if you do. It was a threat that held endless need. I can only be human if you’re there to teach me.
No answer, but the rage creature inside her was leashed. Looking down, she found herself facing a gaze full of terror, one eye red with blood that had dripped from his split eyelid. She’d broken him, obtained the data the squad needed. There was no need to kill him. Flipping the blade, she tapped his temple with the back end, putting him under.
Did you get what we need?
Looking up at the sound of Vasic’s telepathic voice, having ignored him during the fight, she gave him an affirmative. “Get him to a hospital and contact the authorities,” she said aloud for the benefit of their audience. “The threat has been neutralized.” I have Persephone’s last known location. We’ll go as soon as you ’port back.
While Vasic took care of the body, she slipped the knife back into place and picked up the scanner she’d dropped. Then she walked deliberately toward the crowd. The onlookers parted in front of her, mingled fear and awe in their expressions. “Where’s the gun?” she asked the human couple.
The man held it out to her, hand trembling. “I picked it up when you made him drop it.”
Zaira knew that, had seen him do it and never forgotten the gun that could be turned against her. “Thank you. You minimized the risk to others.”
A shaky smile. “You’re an extraordinary young woman. Isn’t she, dear?”
“Oh, yes,” his mate replied with a beaming smile. “Why, that horrible man might have hurt us if she hadn’t been there.”
Not sure how to respond to that unexpected statement, Zaira turned to Vasic as the teleporter returned. The valley first. We need more weapons and people.
Chapter 77
THE LOCATION THE shooter had given her for Persephone turned out to be a shipping yard owned by
a human magnate. Locked and gated, barbed-wire fence above the chain-link, the premises also had electronic surveillance, guards, and dogs. None of those were enough to stop a team of Arrows determined to get in, especially under cover of the night that had fallen in this part of the world.
While Mica took care of the electronics and Vasic silently stunned the guards into unconsciousness, another member of Zaira’s team made sure the dogs were asleep. The sedative-laced meat they’d brought in after an initial reconnaissance had worked exactly as planned—the animals would be fine when they woke. No need to penalize them for the crimes of their master.
Going in ahead of the others while they cleaned up all suspicious signs, including hiding the unconscious guards, Zaira found a good position on the hulk of a ship being built and, putting the laser binoculars to her eyes, looked into the central building that functioned as the headquarters of the company.
It had six levels, was mostly glass and lit up like the Christmas tree she’d seen once in Times Square. That made it ridiculously simple to work out how many people were still inside. “Five,” she murmured to Vasic and Mica when they appeared by her side. “Three on level two, one on level five, the last on level six.” She increased the magnification on the binoculars. “I think level six is the CEO.”
Mica took the binoculars. “Confirmed. I double-checked his image before we left.” He glanced at Zaira. “We need him alive, yes?”
“Yes.” She broke down and put away the binoculars into a pocket of her combat pants. “Persephone was taken to a basement level.” And left there to die, according to the shooter. “Mica, you take the others and clear the building above. Vasic and I will head below.”
It was stupidly simple to get in, the CEO apparently smug in his belief that his guards and dogs and fences would keep people out. The actual locks on the main doors were pathetic. But the ones on the doors going down to the basement? Those were significant.
They were also electronic, so she and Vasic couldn’t simply break them.
“I can pull the door off its hinges,” Vasic said to her. “It may be noisy.”
“Wait.” Touching base with Mica, she checked his progress. “Don’t worry about noise. Mica has the CEO, and the other workers are corralled.”
A shuddering groan as the metal door bent and bent before being torn away from the hinges. Placing it carefully against the wall, Vasic didn’t attempt to take the lead position down the stairs. He knew as well as Zaira that this was her mission. If she’d failed Persephone, then she wouldn’t hide from it.
Heart tight and head still an echoing aloneness, she spoke to Aden anyway. We’re heading into the basement. There’s some lighting, but it’s very dim. And the smell—bad. Bad enough that it might come from a body that had just begun to decompose. It’s cold, too, but that’s okay. That’s actually good. Miane told me Persephone came from colder waters, that it’s heat that’s her enemy.
No response, but it made her feel better regardless. Because as long as she talked to him, he wasn’t dead, couldn’t be gone.
We’ve reached the bottom. The space is sprawling. Pockets of shadow pooled in the corners, but it was obvious the large open space filled with weapons and other supplies was empty of living beings. She and Vasic swept it anyway. There are rooms at the end. Cells.
Her anger burning ice in her blood, she stepped toward the first cage, looked inside. It’s too dark, she telepathed to Vasic. I’m going to shine in my flashlight. Shield your eyes. Careful to angle her own eyes in a way that meant it wouldn’t blind her, she shone the light within.
A startled hand went up, the thin man on the cot beyond looking at her with drug-hazed eyes, his skin yellow. Zaira switched off the light, her heart thudding. That’s one of the missing BlackSea people, she told Vasic. His facial features are distinctive even under the new scarring.
We can’t release him yet, the teleporter said. We need more people if we’re going to be freeing drugged hostages.
Zaira nodded. Much as it infuriated her to see anyone in a cage, Vasic was right. The hostage could hurt himself or others in his current state. Walking on, she shone the light into the next cage.
This one proved empty, the cot neatly made.
Two more were occupied, one by a woman, the second by another man. The woman was another BlackSea changeling and she had the Halcyon pallor, but the older black man asleep in the other cot wasn’t a sea changeling.
I recognize him, Vasic said unexpectedly just as her fully charged flashlight began to flicker. He was a Council scientist. Specialist in explosives, I think.
There was only one more cell left.
Gut churning and nausea shoving at her throat, she took a deep breath and shone the malfunctioning light through the narrow window. A tiny body lay under a thin blanket. Anger and sadness tore through Zaira . . . then just before the flashlight blinked off, the blanket moved. Shallow, so shallow, but it was a breath. “Vasic!”
“Move back. I didn’t see enough to get a teleport lock.” He wrenched the door off its hinges in a heartbeat and Zaira ran in to find the tiny little girl startled awake.
Terror filled her small, thin face.
Zaira didn’t know what to do, so she did what she’d always wanted someone to do for her as a child. She gathered that thin, scared body into her arms and said, “You’re safe. No one will hurt you anymore.” Her eyes met Vasic’s.
There was no need for any further words.
He teleported them directly to the floating city where they’d been guests less than three days prior. Guns clicked around them as slanting rain plastered their hair and clothing to their bodies, but then there was a cry to get Miane and Olivia, running feet on the city that swayed slightly with the motion of the crashing, storm-lashed sea.
Zaira was startled when thin arms locked tight around her neck, Persephone’s heart racing fast. “Shh,” she whispered. “You’re home. Mommy’s coming.”
“Mommy?” the child whispered, and then she said, “Mommy!” in a thin but joyous shout, having glimpsed Olivia racing toward her.
Passing over her precious burden to the crying woman, who covered her child’s face in kisses, she was about to tell Miane about the other hostages when Olivia ran to the edge of the platform on which they stood and jumped straight into the cold, crashing water. Zaira moved instinctively to go after her but Miane got in her way.
“The child needs to shift,” the alpha reminded her. “She needs the sea more than food, more than rest, more than anything aside from her mother.”
Eyes wide, Zaira went to the edge of the platform and looked down. Aden, I can’t describe it, she said in wonder, barely able to glimpse the truth below the crashing foam of the waves. There’s a glow, streamers of the softest, most beautiful light. I don’t know what they shifted into, but they’re extraordinarily beautiful. Like glimpses of a dream.
Stepping away reluctantly when the lights faded, as if going into the deep, she turned to Miane. “We’ve found two more of your people. They’ll need you.”
• • •
ADEN was still in surgery when she and Vasic returned to the now clean infirmary corridor, both of them having taken two minutes to change into dry clothes because Ivy had pointed out that their getting sick right now wouldn’t help Aden. The empath had been at the valley when they returned to give Cristabel and the others a quick update.
By then, Vasic had already teleported Miane’s people to the floating city, trusting her word that she’d share any useful data the captives remembered, while Mica was debriefing the scientist. He was in much better condition than the others they’d rescued—probably because his captors intended to use him long-term—and made it clear he’d be happy to talk once he’d had a chance to shower.
The CEO was in a black cell deep in Central Command.
“Do you need to go and further question the CEO?” she a
sked Vasic. As a human, the CEO had weak shields, though a Psy had clearly bolstered them somewhat. Still, they’d been easy enough to dismantle without causing damage. As a result, Zaira was cataloguing his memories and secrets even as she sat waiting for Aden to wake up.
“No,” Vasic said. “He has no time-sensitive data and the two of us can give orders from here as we come across useful information from our deep scan of his mind.” The teleporter stood with her in silence for over twenty minutes before saying, “Aden was here two months ago with Ivy.”
“Your arm?”
“He stayed with Ivy throughout. She says that without him, she might have gone mad.”
Zaira stared down the corridor. She wasn’t like Ivy, wasn’t comfortable with many people, rarely made connections. But Vasic was Aden’s best friend and even when she’d seen him as a competitor for Aden’s attention, she’d also always seen the loyal friend who’d stood by Aden through everything, and whom Aden would trust with all that mattered most to him.
Including Zaira.
“I can’t lose him.” Her every breath hurt, her chest was so tight. “He’s a better person than anyone I’ve ever met, ever heard about. We need him. I need him.” He made her feel as if she was all right exactly as she was, as if there was nothing wrong with her.
“Aden has a single deep flaw.”
The only reason Zaira didn’t turn on Vasic in violence for daring to say that was that she knew he’d never disparage Aden. “A flaw?”
“He has no capacity to care for himself,” Vasic said. “He believes everyone else is more important and that’s what makes him a great leader. But he needs someone to watch over him, to make sure he doesn’t lose himself in his responsibilities.”
“I know.” Aden was her priority, her everything.
“Zaira.”
She met Vasic’s gaze ten minutes after they’d last spoken. “What?” It was a single angry word. If Aden died, she would find the door to the afterlife and drag him back out. How dare he think to leave her?
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