by Jade Kerrion
Reyes pushed slowly to his feet. He stared at Galahad for a long, silent moment and then glanced over at Danyael. "I think he's right. We need to talk."
~*~
Back at the Mutant Assault Group headquarters, Danyael leaned against the wall, listening as the team leaders debriefed the general. Danyael's mind wandered, piecing together fragments of his memories of Zara and comparing them to the woman of flesh and blood who had stood before him hours earlier. His memories, however much they tormented him, failed to do justice to the living, breathing woman. The drugs forced into his veins while he had been at ADX must have dulled the potency of his memories. In hindsight, it was a blessing.
"Danyael, do you have anything else to add?"
General Howard's voice, unusually sharp, tore him away from his abstraction. He looked up and met the general's gaze. "No, sir."
"You saw Thomas. What is your assessment of him?"
"He's dangerous, much more so than you think."
Peter Dieter shook his head. "I spent months with him. He's a coward. He has to be goaded into action, and even then, he's obsessively focused on the human cost."
Danyael's eyes narrowed in irritation. "It's not cowardice to count the human cost. Your general does; it's his primary motivation for the super soldier program." He pushed away from the wall and hobbled forward. "To understand Thomas, you need to look to Reyes. No one else could have built Elysium into a thriving derivative haven the way Reyes did. Thomas's early ineffectiveness was due to lack of resources and opportunity. Now he has resources and motive. If he's as compelling as Reyes is, then he will have no trouble getting Sakti to follow him, even without your team providing structure and leadership."
The general leaned back in his chair. "You think he's going to do something drastic?"
"He's hurt and he's not thinking straight. If I touched him, I could have---"
"Absorbed his emotions? You need to stop doing that, Danyael. It makes no sense for you to wreck yourself emotionally just so that others don't have to work through their own issues."
"Sometimes there isn't time to work through issues. This might be one of those times."
"We'll have to keep an eye on the situation, then. Perhaps Reyes can try to reach out to Thomas in a day or two and reopen the lines of communication."
Danyael shook his head. "I don't understand. Why were your men still with Sakti? You said that your sole purpose of working with them was to get me out of ADX."
"It was, but we turned Sakti from a joke into a meaningful threat. I can't, in good conscience, cut Sakti loose now. As long as my men are the ones really running the show, the threat of Sakti can be managed and mitigated. But now..."
Peter flushed and dropped his gaze to the ground. "I'm sorry, sir."
"We'll deal with Sakti later. Now, what do we do with Galahad and Zara Itani?"
"Release them," Danyael said. "They're no threat to you, and they won't be, unless you make them a threat."
"They know about our relationship with Sakti."
Danyael chuckled without humor. "Zara and Galahad can be bargained with, and they are good at keeping secrets. Both of them know what happened to me during the forty-eight hours ripped out of my memories. Neither has told me anything."
"Danyael, I realize you want to protect them. They are your friends and---"
"They betrayed me, both of them." Danyael gritted his teeth. "I can't easily change how I feel about Zara, but I have no illusions as to what she feels for me."
The general remained briefly silent. "We'll let them cool their heels for a day or two. I want to talk to them, and then I'll decide."
"Fine, but no electric collars."
The general arched a brow. "Danyael, it's a standard form of restraint---"
"Handcuffs are restraints. An electric collar doesn't restrain anything. It's an instrument of torture. I'm removing them."
The general's cool blue eyes narrowed, and then a slow smile, devoid of humor, spread across his face. "Of course, as you see fit. I want your assessment of their threat level within the hour, Danyael."
He nodded. Without another word, Danyael limped out of the general's office and down the brightly lit corridors to the adjacent building. He took the elevator to the highest floor, where the detention cells were located. He stopped briefly at the guard desk to pick up pillows and blankets and then continued down the corridor toward Zara's cell.
Danyael paused outside the door, schooling his expression into impassiveness, while his heart and mind churned in turmoil. Who was he trying to fool? More importantly, why did he even bother? His jaw tense, he held his key card to the security panel. The red light on the panel flashed to green and the steel door slid open.
The light in the room was dim, a pale orange glow. Zara sat on the edge of the bed, the only piece of furniture in the room. Shadows obscured most of her features, but she looked up when he entered. She said nothing. She watched as he set the pillows and blanket down on the bed before hobbling up to her. Her emotions wavered tantalizingly in and out of focus, as subtle as smoke and as impossible to grasp.
He cut off the sharp ache driven by the need to know if she still cared for him. Her emotions are no longer my problem. Careful not to touch her skin, he brushed her dark hair aside and deactivated the lock on the electric collar. He tugged it away from her neck and tossed it down on the bed. Surprise rippled through her. "I don't like seeing collars on people," he said quietly in response to the question he suspected lay behind her emotion. "Are you all right?"
"No one has turned it on, if that's what you're asking." She glanced at the pillows. "Thanks for the creature comforts. The assault group hasn't been particularly hospitable."
"It was, to me." Danyael turned away and limped back to the door, his single crutch tapping rhythmically on the white tiles.
"Is that it?" Zara pushed to her feet. "We haven't seen each other in a year and a half. You come in here, bring bedding, and then just walk away?"
What did she want from him? Danyael turned to face her. He endured her close scrutiny, but could not bring himself to meet her violet gaze. He did not need eyes to perceive her emotional spectrum. Zara shimmered, iridescent, a complex blend of fire and ice, light and dark, swirling into art, both subtle and bold. He could make little sense of her actual emotions, but nevertheless, he smiled, appreciating beauty when he saw it. She was as breathtaking as he had remembered.
"You look great," she said finally.
Right. His averted gaze fell on his left leg. Beneath the denim, his leg was swathed in bandages and athletic tape, and beneath the layers of bandages and tape, his leg was a mass of scar tissue, torn flesh, and ruined muscles.
"I mean it." Zara caught him by the chin and gently turned his face back to her. "I've never seen you look healthier, never seen you stronger." An appreciative smile toyed on her lips as she glided her hand up his biceps and down his chest. Her touch seemed to burn right through him. "You've gained weight, all of it muscle, since I last saw you at Elysium---"
He looked up, meeting her eyes. "I thought I sensed you. What were you doing there?"
"Looking for you."
"Why?" Bitterness edged Danyael's voice. "Do you still work for the council?"
She shrugged gracefully. "We work together, when it suits me. Occasionally, our goals align."
He took a single step back, breaking the physical contact. "What did the council promise you this time for bringing me in? Galahad's hand in marriage?"
Anger flashed though Zara a split second before she shoved her palms against his chest, sending him stumbling back. "That's insulting and unworthy of you."
The wall behind him broke his fall. Fumbling with his crutch, he straightened slowly. "Was his freedom worth my life sentence in ADX?"
Zara tossed her head, the waves of her long dark hair swaying. She glowered at him. "If you have to ask..."
Anger, fed by the wrenching ache of betrayal, coursed through him. "I am asking."
Danyael swallowed hard, forcing his emotions down until he thought he could keep his voice steady, controlled. "The next time you make a deal with the council that involves me, do me a favor---just agree to kill me."
"Why would I? Dead people can't pay child support."
He had turned away, but her answer froze him in his tracks. His heart stuttered. The chill he felt had nothing to do with the cold air blasting through the vents in the ceiling. Slowly he pivoted to face her. "What did you say?"
"Child support. It's what you pay when you become a father."
He shook his head. "You're mistaken."
"I had the tests done at five different labs. All came back with the same answer. You are her father."
"Zara, we never---"
She pushed him back against the wall. Her eyes narrowed, the glitter predatory. "You seduced me, or did you forget?"
"I didn't---"
"You did. I know I was disoriented from the drugs that the assault group used to knock me out. I even know that I came on to you, but it doesn't make our sex consensual. I thought you were Galahad, and you knew it."
"We didn't have sex."
"Oh?" She tilted her head, the gesture challenging. "Was it an immaculate conception? If Laura is Jesus take two, someone needs to send her a memo, because the only thing that's holy about her is terror. She looks just like you."
"Galahad looks just like me, and you slept with him."
"You better not have called me a slut. How do you explain the lab results then? Her genetic code comes from two people---you and me."
Danyael shook his head. "I can't explain the lab results. I just know what happened."
"And I know what happened. I didn't imagine the best damned sex of my life."
Danyael expelled his breath in a sigh. "Zara..."
She reached into the back pocket of her denim jeans and pulled out a wallet-sized photograph. "They let me keep this when they took my weapons and the rest of my personal belongings." She pressed it against his chest, against his heart. "Take it; it's yours now."
He did not look at the photograph until he was out of her cell, until the steel door once again separated him from Zara's tumultuous emotions. His hands trembled as he turned the picture over. An infant stared solemnly at him. She was a cherub; her exquisitely featured face, accentuated by violet eyes and pouty lips, was framed by a riot of pale blond curls. Her smile was slight, but knowing. She was as beautiful as her father, as stunning as her mother.
Laura Itani.
~*~
Danyael limped into Galahad's cell even before the steel doors had fully opened. "Why did you drag her into this?" he asked without preamble.
"Zara?"
Danyael nodded, tossing pillows and blanket down on the bed before hobbling over to Galahad to disable and remove the electric collar from around his neck. "How could you put her in danger?"
Galahad chuckled, low and amused. "How could I put her in danger? Are we talking about the Zara who grew up playing with daggers and guns, who broke into Pioneer Labs and freed me on a whim? Zara doesn't listen to me any more than she listens to you. She does listen to Xin, though, and Xin thought it was a good idea."
"Xin?"
"Yes, Xin the omniscient." Galahad looked hard at Danyael. "How are you doing?"
"I'll be all right."
Galahad laughed again. "That's still your standard reply. You haven't changed."
The flippant, even mocking, tone of Galahad's response irked him. "What exactly were you expecting from me?"
"Anything but compassion."
Danyael looked up sharply, wondering if Galahad was deliberately yanking on his chain. "This isn't funny."
"I'm not laughing. How could a year at ADX not change you?"
"I see a very different man when I look in the mirror."
"It would depend, I suppose, on what you're looking for. Tell me, what do you think of Reyes?"
Tension rippled across Danyael's shoulders and leeched down his spine. "Why do you ask?"
"From what I've seen so far, he seems...common."
Danyael's eyes narrowed. "Reyes is a good man."
"There are many good people in the world, Danyael, but why did the professor choose him? What is so special, so extraordinary about him that the professor wanted his genes in me? What is the perfection that Rakehell saw in Reyes Maddox?"
"Isn't that a question for the professor?"
"Perhaps." Galahad smiled thinly. "But we're no longer on talking terms."
"Reyes has...a way about him. He connects with people as individuals, on a level that matters to each of them. He seems to intuitively understand how people tick, what's in their heart and minds."
"Do you think that's what the professor saw in him?"
Danyael shrugged. "I'm just telling you what I see in him." He leaned against the wall and allowed his head to fall back, baring his throat. For a moment, it occurred to him that he appeared vulnerable, but he was too tired to care. Danyael sighed again, more motion than sound.
"What is the assault group going to do to us?" Galahad asked, interrupting Danyael's bleak thoughts.
"I've asked them to release you and Zara. They will eventually, once I convince them that you're not a threat."
"What about you?"
"I belong here now. They saved me from ADX."
Galahad nodded, the gesture slow and thoughtful. "What was it like at ADX?"
Danyael's hands clenched involuntarily, and a muscle twitched in his smooth cheek. "I don't remember much."
"I don't understand how easily you accept not knowing your past. I search for my heritage, trying to understand what makes me unique and special, while you hide, cowering from your memories."
Danyael pushed away from the wall. "There's a difference between cowering from the past and salvaging the little you can from its ruins and moving on. My past does no one, least of all me, any good."
Galahad's emotions shifted subtly beneath psychic shields. Danyael struggled to tease apart the minute differences between hatred and disgust. For me? But why? And why did an undercurrent of bitterness snake through Galahad's psyche like a twisted dark thread through a tapestry of dazzling colors?
Galahad folded his arms across his chest. "Zara would call that 'cowardice,' and she holds it in contempt."
Deliberately Danyael changed the topic. "Have you seen her daughter?"
Galahad's emotions flashed and transformed. That time, Danyael sensed a quiet ache---need and longing that hovered on the edge of love. Galahad's tone, however, was nonchalant. "Laura? I saw her once, shortly after she was born. I think she's nine months old now."
"What is she like?"
"Charming, or so I've heard, without Zara's sharp edge, though I'm certain she'll emulate her mother over time. At least the media spotlight died down; she may have a chance of growing up normal now."
"Media spotlight?"
"When she was born, everyone suspected, naturally, that I was her father. The scientific community was in an uproar over the rise of a new race of genetically superior human beings. I even heard that Purest Humanity would have placed a bounty on her life, if Jason Rakehell, their president, had not vetoed it."
"What happened then?"
"The lab results came back. As it turns out, Laura is the daughter of an alpha empath instead. Considering your innate capabilities, I would have thought that reason enough for concern, but the media scrutiny vanished. I guess they decided the daughter of a mutant wasn't worth the hassle."
Laura Itani was safer as his daughter; he should have expected it. The world was not necessarily tolerant of mutants, but it was far less tolerant of Galahad. Welcome to fatherhood. Bitter irony laced his thoughts. He turned away and limped to the door, each step slow and stiff.
"They love you. Why?"
Danyael threw a startled glance over his shoulder. "What?"
"Zara and Miriya." Galahad paced the length of his cell, tension coiling through his taut frame. "Even Reyes. What did you do to them?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Zara was pregnant when she left me, though she never told me. Nothing I did could make her love me; she withdrew physically and emotionally. One day she walked away. She never looked back. She left me for a man who was in prison for life." Bitterness and irony rattled through Galahad's short, humorless laugh.
The perfect human being continued, his voice quiet. "After Zara left, I turned to Miriya, and the same thing happened. Helpless, I watched her fade. She used drugs to cope with your pain, but she never let you go. She chose to leave me instead. I woke up one morning, and she was gone. At that time, I didn't know, but she went to your home. I surrounded her with every possible comfort, with every luxury I could afford, but she chose instead a filthy studio apartment without heat or running water."
Danyael's brow furrowed. "What---"
"You gave them nothing, but they chose you. Why?"
Danyael's head reeled. He took an unsteady step back. "I...don't know."
Galahad ground his teeth. "You're like a drug. You infuse them with the wonder of you, and then withdraw, leaving them addicted, craving you."
"My psychic shields repel people."
"Then why did they choose you over me? People tell me I'm perfect, but they leave me for you. Why?"
Danyael could not wrap his mind around Galahad's question, and he could not reconcile the confusing swirl of emotions he had sensed in Zara with Galahad's accusations. He had no answers, none that would make sense to Galahad or to himself. Galahad was mistaken; he had to be. Danyael shook his head sharply, as much in denial as disbelief, and then turned and limped out of Galahad's cell.
Amanda Chandler was waiting outside the cell. "The general wants to see you. He's in his office."
Danyael nodded. Amanda accompanied him to the general's office on the third floor of the main building. His progress was slow. Shafts of pain shot along the length of his leg, muscles cramping with each step.
Amanda broke the silence. "Zara's very beautiful." Her cool tone provided sufficient warning of what was to come. She must have witnessed his encounters with Zara and Galahad through the video feed.