by Jade Kerrion
The double doors at the end of the corridor burst open, and the corridor flooded with a panicked mass of humanity. Screams and shouts muffled the thud of racing feet. Danyael's empathic powers swept over the crowd, easing back its shroud of terror before infusing calm. The stampede faltered. The crowd folded in upon itself briefly before surging forward again, its pace measured, its hysterical edge blunted, as people poured through the door leading to the tunnels.
Danyael nodded tightly. "All right. Lead the way, Dee." He and Dum followed her toward a different stairwell, supporting Reyes in between them. He reached the stairwell and froze. His empathic senses caught a flash of emotion, as intimate as a heartbeat. He glanced sharply over his shoulder, searching for its source, but it eluded him, like tendrils of mist wafting beyond his fingertips.
Dee's shrill voice cut through the fog that consumed his mind and heart. "Danyael?"
He looked back at Dee.
"Are you coming?" she asked.
Danyael spared a final glance over his shoulder and then squeezed his eyes shut against the unexpected heartache. He had to have imagined the emotional imprint. It could not possibly have come from Zara Itani.
~*~
Damn it!
Zara fought against the flow of the crowd, trying to reach the doorway where she had last seen Danyael. She kept her weapons concealed so as not to alarm people, but by the time she reached the doorway and raced down the stairs, a large black SUV equipped with snow tires roared up the ramp of the garage and out of the complex.
She bit back a curse. She almost had him.
No, Zara corrected silently. She had seen him. Having him was another matter entirely. If he had resisted, she would not have been able to bring him in. Somehow he had known she was there. He had stopped and looked around, as if searching for a single face in a sea of faces.
Danyael had looked good, or at least as good as she could have expected anyone to look after a year of torture in a maximum-security prison. He had lost weight while in prison, and his hair was much shorter than she had ever seen it, cut military style. The combination made the slash of his high cheekbones prominent and his dark eyes compelling, when set against the light blond of his hair and the paleness of his skin.
He was still too beautiful.
The complex shook with a thunderous boom, vibrating like a loose tooth. Instinct and reflex took over. Zara threw herself to the ground when a fireball exploded through the door of the stairwell and fanned across the garage. The shockwave flipped cars and sent them careening into concrete walls.
When the sound of crumbling walls and screeching metal faded into silence, the devastated complex was bereft of human sounds save for the occasional whimper of the wounded and the dying.
CHAPTER FIVE
At the sound of the explosion, Danyael twisted around in the back seat of the SUV and stared in disbelief. Flames billowed from the four wings of Elysium. Tongues of orange and red shot up from the building complex and streaked across the dark sky. Black smoke wafted across the moon's pale glow.
"Oh, God, oh, God," Dee gasped from the driver's seat. The car swerved.
"Focus on driving," Danyael ordered, more sharply than he had intended.
"Do we go back?" Dee asked, her voice trembling.
Danyael shook his head. "There's nothing we can do. Find someplace safe."
"What about Reyes? We need to get him to a hospital."
"Just watch the road, Dee," Danyael said when the car swerved again. He cradled the nape of Reyes's neck and placed his other hand against the wound in Reyes's chest.
Panic made her voice shrill. "What are you doing?"
Danyael gritted his teeth. He almost preferred Dum's perpetual silence to Dee's incessant questions. "Trying to save his life. Listen carefully to me. His wounds are serious. I can help him, but...but it's going to be rough."
"What does that mean?" Dee asked. She took a hand off the steering wheel and wiped her sweaty palm on her denim-clad thigh.
"Healing exhausts me. Just stay together and find a safe place to rest."
"But Danyael---"
Danyael tuned her out. He had to; Reyes was running out of time. Danyael closed his eyes. Smooth and precious as liquid gold, his empathic powers surged into Reyes's wounded body, absorbing the injury and repairing the damage from within. The blood flow from the injury slowed and then ceased. Flesh twitched beneath Danyael's touch, tugging together to seal over the bullet wound. Scar tissue formed and then receded, replaced by new, healthy skin.
Danyael shuddered as a chill settled deep in the pit of his stomach and then radiated through him. Nausea churned. He pulled away and buried his face in his hands, but the pressure of his cold fingertips against his forehead did little to assuage the pounding headache. During his year at ADX, he had been subjected to bursts of searing pain and had forgotten the struggle against the dull grind of constant sickness. Nevertheless, he knew which he preferred. The sickness was a choice, the price paid for empathic healing.
Dimly he felt the SUV skid to a stop. With the remnants of his strength, he reinforced his psychic shields to protect Reyes and the twins. Dee called his name, but he no longer had the energy to respond. He drifted between fevered dreams and dazed consciousness, time slipping like silk threads through his nerveless fingers. Letting go was easy; he was too drained to continue aching over his friends' betrayal. It was easier to let go, to roll with the pain instead of fighting it; far easier to watch the memories flow like a stream through a desert.
Zara, all alluring and exotic beauty, dominated his mental landscape. The welcome in her smile contrasted with the mocking gleam in her eyes. Lucien did not feature in the visions dancing before Danyael's closed eyes; he did not need to. His silent and watchful presence was pervasive, as undeniable as the North Star, as unshakable as their friendship had once been.
Danyael lingered in the cooling warmth of the memory, drawing desperately needed strength from the knowledge that Lucien had once watched over him, once protected him, once cared. If Danyael could survive his immediate, screaming, bleeding need for the friendship that had defined him as a person, he was certain he could, in time, find the strength within himself to keep going, one day at a time.
Sensation finally intruded in the form of a cool towel pressed against his forehead. The towel chilled his heated skin and sent a shiver down his spine. When he finally opened his eyes, he found himself still in the back seat of the SUV, which was parked under a canopy of trees. Dee stood by the open car door, and she smiled wanly at him. Her shoulders were hunched, braced against the chill night air as she stepped back, a towel in her hand. "Thank God, you're awake."
"Close the door, Dee," Reyes instructed, his voice weak. "We don't want Danyael to catch a cold now." The old man rubbed his hand across his bloodstained shirt. "Thank you."
Dee slammed the car door shut, taking the bite out of the icy wind, and stomped around the front of the car toward the driver's seat.
Danyael braced his hands against his lower back as his muscles cramped. "How long was I out?"
"Just a half hour. I had Dee pull over when I regained consciousness and realized you were in pain."
"May I?" Danyael asked. Reyes nodded, and Danyael laid a gentle hand against the older man's chest. His empathic powers sifted through Reyes. He shook his head. "You're in no condition to move around. You've lost a great deal of blood. Is there some place safe nearby, where you can get a blood transfusion?"
Reyes shook his head. "Nearby? No."
Danyael looked at Dum, who was seated in the front passenger seat. "Do you have a map?"
Dum pulled one out of the glove compartment. Dee twisted around in her seat as he unfolded the map. "We're right about here." She pointed at the map. "More or less."
Danyael scanned the map. "How far are we from Aspen? Two hours?"
"A bit less, probably," Dee said. "We never go there though. Full of hoity-toity people."
"What's today's date?"
<
br /> "February twenty-second."
Danyael hesitated. Lucien was a creature of habit, and every year in February, he spent several weeks at Aspen. Was he there just then, and more importantly, could Danyael count on Lucien's help?
Danyael looked at Reyes. The old man was ashen, his breathing labored. Danyael gritted his teeth. He would have to take a risk and pray that he was not wrong about Lucien. He looked up at Dee. "Take us to Aspen."
"For real?" she asked. "We don't belong there. They're not going to help us. They think we're freaks."
"I'm looking for a friend. A former friend," he amended carefully.
Reyes's brow furrowed in concern. "Lucien Winter? Danyael, I don't think he's going to help you."
"I'll ask him to help you."
Dee shook her head. "What's the hell's the difference?"
"Profound," Danyael said quietly.
"It's the same damn thing," Dee said. "Help you, help him."
Danyael swallowed hard. "Lucien and I...we're not friends anymore, but he's a good man. He'll understand the difference."
Dee scowled and pulled the seat belt across her body. "I hope you're right, or it'll be a damned long drive for nothing."
"Danyael, are you sure about this?" Reyes persisted. "You're taking a terrible risk here."
Danyael smiled sadly. "As did you when you took me in."
Muscles tightened around Reyes's jaw and neck. "The police have always left us alone. They know we mean no harm, that we're no threat to society. Nothing---not even taking you in---justifies the slaughter of hundreds of innocent people."
"But I saw them escape."
Reyes shook his head. A single tear trickled down his face. "The emergency exits led into underground tunnels and to a bunker about a mile away. The explosion would have driven flames through the tunnels. The escape route turned into a death trap."
Danyael turned his face away. He could hardly breathe over the crushing pressure against his chest
Reyes reached out and grasped Danyael's hand. "It's not your fault, Danyael. The government killed them, not you. The government is responsible."
Was it? None of the events that had transpired over the terror-filled hour would have taken place if the government agents were not hunting him. All those people, those innocent people, are dead, because of me.
His dark eyes cast in shadow, Danyael gazed at Reyes who, for the first time, looked older than his age, his lined face haggard with grief. It's my fault. Guilt warred with the instinctive need to protect Lucien. But what choice do I have, when I have nothing left to lose? "We'll go to Aspen," he said, his voice quiet. "If Lucien's there, he'll help."
~*~
The door of the mobile command center opened. From her seat at the long table that dominated the trailer interior, Xin nodded a silent acknowledgment to Zara and Galahad when they entered.
Alex Saunders glanced up too, but he did not pause in his tirade against his soot-covered task force members as they stood around the table, eyes downcast. "What the bloody hell happened out there? We'll be searching for bodies for days. How many times did I repeat that one point? No casualties! Elysium is a derivative haven, I said, not a terrorist group. No one gets hurt. No one gets killed."
"Sir, we followed your instructions to the letter, sir," one of the task force members stammered. "We cleared out the west and east wings and then proceeded to the south and north wings. No one was hurt, we swear. You can scan our minds, our memories---"
"What set off the explosion?"
"We don't know, sir. We can get fire inspectors on the ground to figure it out---"
"Any sign of Danyael?"
"No, sir. We searched with our minds too, and---"
Zara spoke up quietly. "I saw him."
Alex turned his attention to her. "Where?"
"In the west wing, evacuating with two teenagers and an old man who had been shot."
"Shot?" Alex's accusing gaze darted back to the members of his task force.
The task force leader held up his hands. "Sir, we don't even carry guns."
Alex looked back at Zara. "Did Danyael see you?"
"See me? No, but he may have sensed me."
"How the hell is it that a human manages to find him, but my mutant task force, who is apparently searching with both eyes and mind, can't?" Alex asked. No one dared answer. "How is he?" he asked Zara.
She shrugged. "He looked well, everything considered. Thinner, paler, but his eyes were alert. He's on crutches."
Alex's eyes narrowed briefly. "The injury in his left leg?"
"It's still there. The folks at ADX never got around to fixing it."
Alex shook his head. "They would have had no reason to do so. Injured, Danyael is easier to control, or at least keep up with. He made it out before the explosion, right?"
"Yes. Black SUV, headed south."
Alex turned toward a screened-in corner of the room. "Miriya, can you find him?"
After a noticeable silence, a faint voice replied, "I guess so."
Zara rolled her eyes. "That's a definitive statement of support." As the task force filed out of the trailer, she stalked over to Miriya's little corner.
Xin pushed up from her chair and followed Zara. Galahad, she noticed, lingered close enough to listen in on the conversation.
The telepath was curled in a chair, her legs pulled up beneath her. She was wrapped in a heavy blanket despite the heat pouring out of the vents directly above her seat. Miriya looked up slowly as Zara approached but said nothing.
Zara paused in front of Miriya's chair. "How are you doing?"
"Had better days." Miriya's mouth twisted into a faint smile. "We're close to finding Danyael. I think I'm ready to die." Her voice caught, wavering on the last word.
"You do know that dying's not the point of this exercise, right?"
"Erin said---"
Zara arched a perfectly tweezed eyebrow, her smile mocking. "Are you really going to let an arrogant, know-it-all pre-cog cramp your style?"
"I...uh..."
"Think about that for a bit."
Miriya hesitated. "How...how was he?"
Zara sat across from Miriya. Her voice was quiet, reflective. "He seemed fine. I don't think I was prepared to see him, even though I went in there looking for him."
"Locked away at ADX, he was as good as dead, and now it's hard to think of him as alive again. Live people are a lot harder to control than a memory that you can tuck away at any time," Miriya said.
"Why do you think my feelings for him are coming back?" Zara asked.
Miriya's eyebrows shot up. "You're asking me? I'm a telepath. I don't know the first thing about emotions."
"Who would?"
"Another alpha empath. Good luck finding one." Miriya released her breath in a sigh. "You know, it was cruel to make Danyael remove the love that you felt for him. His psychic shields deflect attention and repel most people. As it is, he gets so little kindness, never mind love, and to take away even the little he had found---"
Zara set her lips in a thin line. "The love was a lie. He evoked those feelings in me. I would never have fallen in love with someone like him."
"So you say."
"I do, and I'm also convinced Danyael did a half-assed job removing my emotions a year ago."
The blankets shifted as Miriya shrugged. "He's an empath, not a telepath. He can absorb emotions, but not change the reason those emotions exist. If the love is coming back, maybe it's meant to be. Maybe you should stop trying to analyze it and just go with it."
"Danyael is the wrong person to fall in love with."
Miriya laughed. "He would say the same of you. He's a doctor and an empathic healer. You're a mercenary and an assassin. Danyael won't make love easy, that's for sure, but if it were easy, what would be the fun in that?"
"Life is complicated enough. Love shouldn't have to be." Zara pushed to her feet and stalked out of the mobile command center.
Miriya watched her leave. "Looks
like I've found her sore point."
Galahad moved to stand beside Miriya. His dark eyes appeared shadowed as his gaze followed Zara. "Danyael? But why?"
Miriya scowled. "Because she's a stubborn bitch. It really wouldn't kill her to admit that she misses him, but I guess she's not taking any chances."
"No, I meant, why does she miss him? Why Danyael? She despises him."
Miriya shook her head. "She wants to despise him. She hasn't succeeded. Probably never will."
"Why not?"
Miriya seemed surprised by Galahad's brusqueness, but she answered anyway. "Because Danyael's not actually despicable."
"But why would she choose Danyael?" Galahad asked.
Xin did not need telepathic abilities to hear the unspoken portion of his question: "Why not me?"
Apparently Miriya heard it too. She swallowed hard, the soft glow of her green eyes sympathetic. "I don't know. I guess you'll have to ask her."
"She doesn't explain herself."
Miriya chuckled without humor. "Yes, Zara is very annoying that way. Why don't you pin her down and make her answer your question?"
Without another word, Galahad turned and walked away.
Xin watched the door close behind him, and she chuckled softly. "I'd forgotten how literal he could be. That was probably not your best idea, Miriya. "
The telepath shrugged. "He loves her. He's not going to hurt her. I can't vouch for what she'd do to him, though. She's confused, and she's angry, with Danyael as much as with herself. She mad at Galahad too."
"Why?"
"For not being good enough to fall in love with." Miriya smiled half-heartedly. "Don't ask me why she's going out of her way to overcomplicate this. I don't get why she can't just fall in love with a normal guy."
"What would be the fun in that?" Xin tossed Miriya's words back at her. "What does Galahad think about Zara's fixation on Danyael?"
"I don't know."
Xin arched an eyebrow. "Really? Have you given up on your bad habit of poking, uninvited, into people's minds?"
Miriya flushed. "A lifetime of largely unobstructed nosiness is a hard habit to give up, but Galahad has solid psychic shields. They're nothing on the par with Danyael's double psychic shields or with an alpha telepath's, but they're certainly strong enough to deter casual curiosity and even deliberate probing. I could push, but what's the point? Friends are supposed to sort of trust each other, right?"