Unless I could figure out how to use my own ability against him.
I reached out, thrusting my mind at the blackness of his barriers, my arms pushing against his chest. The mind shield seemed every bit as strong and unyielding as the hard body on mine, a blackness with only one tiny ray of light. I dove for the light, slithering inside.
All at once, the barrier was gone. My mind flared with need, desire, and frustration. Not my feelings but his, mirroring mine. Together doubled in intensity. He froze, his hands pinning mine, his body holding me down. Our hearts beat out a single rhythm.
In the next instant we were kissing. Urgency filled my mind. Pleasure at his touch. No, his pleasure. Did it make a difference? His lips parted and mine opened to him. The world turned now for quite another reason. He kissed my lips, my face, my neck, and I kissed him back greedily, wanting more.
“I can feel your emotions,” he murmured against my cheek.
He was wrong. He could only feel the surface ones, the ones I sent him—the need, the want, the anger—not the hurt, the part of me that wanted to beg for an explanation.
I could hurt him, I realized, now that his mind was open and unguarded. I could dig in. Twist and damage. Ava had warned me repeatedly to be careful when we practiced, saying I could hurt an unshielded mind, but until this moment, I hadn’t understood the concept fully. No wonder one of the first things taught new Unbounded was to shield their minds. I was a weapon—the trick was getting inside. My determination and proximity to Ritter had aided me, but if I could learn to do it from a distance, I might be of more use to the Renegades.
If I probed a bit, I might also learn where he’d been these past two months. What he valued more than us. Than me.
His mouth lowered again, angling toward mine.
I lashed out, sending a hot sphere of anger into his mind, pushing at him physically as well. He sucked in a breath, and his barrier clamped back into place. “You really have been practicing.”
“Get. Off. Me.” Let him wonder that my body arched toward his even while I was pushing him away.
He rolled off, but his hand grabbed mine. “Why?”
He meant my anger. I shook my hand free. “Look, it’s not going to work. Stay away from me.”
His lips hardened. It was the right thing to say. Or rather the wrong thing if I wanted an explanation. But I was finished wanting anything from him.
At least that’s what I told myself.
I headed for the door, going inside with a sharp sensation of relief. The nausea would take time to abate, I knew from experience, but the pressure and the immediate fear of falling was gone.
Ritter came after me, his face a mask of impassivity. For a moment, I felt a sharp, stabbing disappointment. What did I really know about this man? I knew he’d lost his family and his dark-haired fiancée two hundred and forty years ago. I knew that he wore her engagement band on a necklace, along with his mother’s and one that had belonged to his little sister. I knew he still had vivid nightmares about that night, that he’d dedicated his life to revenge, and that his loyalty to the Renegades was unquestionable. I knew he liked plants and dogs. I knew that I was more attracted to him than I’d ever been to Tom, a man I’d almost married. I knew he’d broken his own rule of getting involved when he’d met me. Loving anyone meant losing, in his book.
In all, it wasn’t much. I’d only caught a few glimpses of the real man. We couldn’t possibly know each other well enough to handle the attraction between us. Maybe Stella was right that he was too filled with anger to make any sort of relationship work. I’d be better off with Cort, or a mortal like Keene.
Then again, maybe if Ritter finally had a real focus for his anger, he’d be able to work out his pain and plan for a future that didn’t involve maiming or death. I could give him that release. I’d learned two months ago who’d been directly responsible for the death of his family and the attempt on his life. There had been time to tell him before he’d taken off, but I hadn’t told him or anyone. I was still protecting her, my once best friend, Justine.
Or maybe I was worried that taking ultimate revenge would sever him from any connection with humanity—and with me.
Maybe I’d chosen wrong.
Sometimes life really sucked. Because if I had told him, Justine might not be in Mexico now causing us trouble. That meant it was my fault. Whatever happened, I couldn’t let myself forget that she was the reason my niece and nephew were motherless.
Maybe I was the one who wanted to keep the revenge for myself.
Down in the lobby, Ritter reached for the door but didn’t step through. He turned his glittering eyes toward me.
“This is not over. You and I both know that. But go ahead and pretend for now.”
Ignoring him, I stalked out into the night.
I EXPECTED TO FIND EVERYONE sleeping when I arrived at Stella’s, but instead there was a bustle of activity. Only the kids, Stella, Mari, and Oliver slept, while everyone else sorted through the equipment that had been salvaged from the palace. Ritter, who’d followed me home, began hauling bags out to the vehicles.
Ava smiled when she handed me a duffel bag of clothing, complete with my favorite jeans and catwoman outfit. “I figured it’d save time grabbing some clothing for everyone since you’re taking off in a few hours.”
The emphasis on “you’re” drew my attention. “You’re not coming?”
“For now I’m staying with Stella and Oliver. And Mari, of course. With Dimitri gone, there’s no one else.”
“How is Stella?”
Ava frowned. “I don’t know how she held off so many, but her body certainly paid the price. If she’d been mortal, she’d have died a dozen times. She will live, of course.”
She didn’t mention the baby, and I didn’t ask. I already knew. I could tell in the sadness emanating from the thoughts she’d let me glimpse. Instead she said, “You’d better clean up. We’ve almost finished packing for the trip.”
Jace came in from outside. “Where’ve you been? I was worried.”
“At Mom and Dad’s.”
“On the roof? Again? ’Cause I know you didn’t wake them up to tell them about our wonderful evening.” He shook his head. “Sometimes I think you have an addiction to fear. That can’t be good for you.”
“Shut up.” He was the only one who knew my secret about the roof. Well, him and now Ritter. I knew it was a little crazy, but in all my research it seemed the only way to permanently cure myself.
Jace grinned. “Did Ritter find you? He was looking for you earlier.”
Without replying, I turned and went to find a shower. The hot water felt good on my skin, and I stood under it taking inventory. My ribs were good, my ankle fine, I still had a bruise the size of a fist between my breasts, but it was fading fast. The only real problem was the headache that always plagued me after I used my ability. Ava told me the pain wouldn’t come as often as time went on, and my head did hurt less now when I was doing ordinary kinds of mental drills. But today had been so far from ordinary that my brain had every right to protest.
The hot water made me sleepy, and it took great effort to turn it off and step out into the comparatively frigid air. I grabbed a blue towel from the rack and began drying myself before dressing in my black stretch uniform. This one had short sleeves, though there was a matching jacket if I needed more coverage. Two pistols, three knives of various sizes, and a two-way radio went into the hidden pockets. Over this I dragged a larger pair of jeans and a camouflage jacket. I was as ready as I’d ever get.
I’d started down the hall when a gravelly voice called out. I hesitated at a partially open door, pushing it open. It was the master bedroom, the one Stella shared with Bronson—or had before his illness made the nurse’s constant presence necessary. Bronson was struggling to sit up in the huge bed. Martha lay on a little cot tucked into a corner of the room, sound asleep.
I approached the bed, and Bronson stopped struggling as he recognized me. “Do
you need something?” I asked, wondering if he’d awakened because of all the commotion.
He nodded and lifted a pale hand in the direction of the nightstand. “Water, please. If you would. Don’t want to wake Martha, but I can’t quite . . .” He trailed off, and it was easy to sense his frustration. Unlike the others, he didn’t try to block his mind. Not anymore.
I helped him drink, one hand on the tall glass, the other behind his head. Bronson was one of those rare men whose aging made him more elegant and, well, beautiful. Once he’d been an electrician, his hands sure and steady, his body unfailing. When I’d first met him, his smile, his bearing, his zest for life, and especially his adoration of Stella had made me aware of how lucky she was to have shared the past twenty-four years of her life with such a partner. That had been on a good day, during the time when he still got around on his own. Now, only months later, the illness had robbed him of his strength, aging him and deepening the divide between them. His skin stretched tight over his skull, his eyes were sunken, and his pain required medication for large parts of the day that dulled his mind and stole his wit. Yet, there was still something shining and refined about him.
He drank slowly, one determined swallow after the next. At last he began to draw away, and I laid his head back on the pillow, replacing the water on the nightstand. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“You’re welcome.” How did he endure this half life? His mind was still active but his body had completely failed him. No wonder he was frustrated.
I looked up from the glass to find Bronson watching me, more alert than I’d seen him in weeks—which probably meant he was in a lot of pain and needed more medication. “Is she working?” he asked, giving me a little smile. “She works too hard, but I’m glad. It’s difficult having her see me this way. Hard to believe I once carried her over the threshold.”
I laughed because I knew he was trying to be amusing. “You still will.”
He sobered immediately. “I’m not sure about that. Look, I know you two have become close, and I know I don’t have to ask you to take care of her because all you Renegades take care of each other, but my Stella, my star, is made for loving, despite her obsession with her computers. She will love our baby and that’s going to help when I’m gone, but it’s not enough. Or someday if she learns the child isn’t Unbounded . . .” He trailed off.
“I’ll take care of her.”
“I want her to love and be loved. By a man. She deserves that. I wish I could spend the next thousand years with her but I don’t . . .” A tear escaped the corner of his eye. “What a cruel life this is. Sometimes, I’m glad to be leaving.”
He didn’t really mean it, but I understood. I wanted to reach out and touch his hand, but that would bring his emotions even more clearly into focus for me, and I couldn’t risk that. Not now when my own emotions were so volatile.
“I’ll take care of her,” I repeated. “Sleep now. She’ll be in to see you tomorrow.” I hoped.
Meanwhile, I’d go to Mexico and find that cure and give Stella back Bronson, for however many years he’d have left. Maybe they would have a child after all.
I checked on Stella next and found my older brother standing over her. Chris was blond like Jace and me, only darker, and he shared my gray eyes. “Hey,” I said.
“Hey.” He glanced down at the sleeping woman. She looked a lot better now than when I’d put her into bed, though her face still showed several large bruises and quickly sealing cuts. She looked fragile and beautiful.
“She protected my kids.” Chris shook his head. “I should have been there.”
“You probably would have been killed.”
His head jerked toward me. “Why? Because I’m not Unbounded? I’ve been training as hard as the rest of you.”
“If she’d been mortal, she’d be dead,” I retorted, “and so would Oliver and most of the rest of us. Gaven is dead, and you know how good he was. Chris, can’t you see that this is no life for children? They should be as far away from us as you can take them.”
Tears filled his eyes and for a moment he couldn’t speak. I couldn’t tell what he was feeling, though, because I had slammed my own barriers over my mind the minute I’d seen him in the room. I knew how he was beginning to feel about Stella, even if he didn’t admit to it himself.
“No,” he said at last, his voice so soft I had to strain to hear. “No.” His voice grew stronger. “Do we need a better stronghold? Yes. Do we need more protection? Backups? Yes. Yes, to all of it. But the kids need the knowledge and truth. They need to understand what we work for so they can be a part of fixing what’s wrong with the world. But that’s not all, Erin. Renegades need the kids. We need the kids to remind us we aren’t like the Emporium. We don’t abandon our children, taking them back only if it turns out they have the active gene. We don’t treat mortals like second-class citizens when they work with us. We don’t prolong human suffering for profit. We keep the kids with us so we can remember why we fight. We keep them so you Unbounded will remain human.”
I closed my burning eyes for a long minute. Struggling. Struggling because I wanted what he said to be true. “Okay. Okay. But never again like this. They stay with Mom and Dad until we build this place of yours—or ten of them if that’s what it takes to keep them safe. If you don’t want to leave them with Mom and Dad, then you take them somewhere until it’s built. They deserve some kind of childhood. They don’t deserve nightmares like tonight.”
He hugged me tightly. “Okay.”
I felt like a cheat. As if part of me gave in because of my need to be with the children, to drink in their innocence and believe that someday everything would be right with the world. Because maybe if having them with us was right, bringing my own child into existence one day wouldn’t be such a selfish and terrible thing.
Chris left and I was alone with the unconscious Stella. “I’ll bring back what they have for Bronson,” I told her. “I’m so sorry about your baby.”
Was it terrible of me to be the tiniest bit glad that I had to leave so I wouldn’t be around when she learned what had happened? She’d given her baby’s life for Chris’s children and for Oliver. How can you repay something like that?
Out in the living room, the preparations were winding down. Crates, boxes, and mounds of loose items rescued from the palace filled every available spot, but we’d had to leave so much more behind. Tears choked my throat until I spied the small potted plant from the conference room. Really? The plant? Yet I somehow felt much better. I knew who’d rescued it.
I started for the door, but to my surprise, Mari had awakened and arose from the couch to follow me. “No, you stay here,” I told her.
She stopped moving, her small face averted, but when I opened the door, she followed me outside and down the stairs. The others were gathered near the vehicles, talking so quietly I was sure the neighbors hadn’t been disturbed. It was dark enough that it was hard to see, but the sky to the east was marginally lighter, signaling the approach of morning.
Ava turned from the others, meeting me at the bottom of the stairs. “Where’s Chris?”
“Inside. I think he’s saying goodbye to the kids.” From the corner of my eye, I saw Mari sit on the bottom step, still staring into nothingness.
“I’m dropping them at your parents’ tomorrow and sending them all on a trip to Disneyland,” Ava said. “They’ve been studying hard and need a break.”
The children’s home schooling regime was varied and odd, though advanced, with each Unbounded tutoring them in their specialty and Chris taking whatever subjects were left. Since most of us would be gone, a vacation was exactly what they needed. Maybe it would help them forget. And heal.
I took a step in the direction of the vehicles, but my step faltered as I turned back to face Ava. “Before I leave, there’s something I want to know.” My voice was scarcely a whisper.
“Oh?” Ava cocked her head, waiting.
“Who is my father?” A lousy time to
bring it up, but after the night we’d had I didn’t want to wake up and realize one day that I’d waited one day too long. If there was one thing I’d learned about life as Unbounded it was that everything frequently changed in an instant. Stella was a prime example.
A swift intake of air told me my question had taken her by surprise. “I thought you knew.”
I glanced at the cars, making sure the others were still busy and far enough away not to overhear. “You mean Stefan Carrington? I know he’s not my father.” I let anger show in the words. Even after two months, neither she nor Dimitri had hinted at the truth of my own conception. Instead, they’d continued to allow me to believe that I was the biological daughter of an Emporium Triad leader. What I wanted now was the truth. A woman deserved to know who her father was. “When I was held at the Emporium headquarters, Laurence said you didn’t use Stefan’s genetically enhanced sperm that you stole from the Emporium. It arrived too late when my mother was at the fertility clinic. Stefan can’t be my father.”
I also knew the man I grew up believing to be my father no longer had viable sperm, so they hadn’t used his that day as my mother believed. Laurence had lied about a lot of things and had betrayed us all, an act that even his final sacrifice hadn’t erased, but he hadn’t lied about this. I’d seen the truth in his mind. When he’d told me who my real father was, I’d been violently glad I wasn’t the biological daughter of one of the Emporium’s Triad, although lately I’d begun to worry on an entirely new level about what had actually become of Stefan’s genetic material.
Ava sighed, the weight of all her three hundred years in the sound. “Stefan isn’t your father. But if you know that, you must already know who your real father is, and you should be talking to him, not to me.”
“Why hasn’t Dimitri told me himself?”
The fatigue in her face vanished. “Oh, Erin, he’s wanted to. But he’s been concerned with how you’d take it. He worries that you’ll think he considered it a duty.”
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