Gilded Lies

by Lin Lustig

  The door flung open. Licia cringed from the crash, then crouched like a feral animal over Tarrah. The guard had a Taser out and braced it, the nodes pointing at them both.

  “Get up. You're coming with me,” the ponytailed guard said.

  Licia inched her fingers closer to Tarrah's wrist. She couldn't leave her behind after finally finding her. After everything she'd done to get here.

  “No.” If she could inject panic, then the direct rush of adrenaline might wake her. Get her to walk, to move, anything. Did she even have enough left for that? Emerson had drained so much; she was running on fumes.

  More footsteps galloped down the hall, more voices. John yelled her name.

  “In here!” Licia screamed.

  The guard pulled the trigger. She grabbed Tarrah's hand. The electrodes hit.

  Her vision turned white. Lightning coursed over her body. She jerked against the lashing pain slicing her open. Her walls fell, her wards shattered. At first, she felt everything. All of it. All at once. The storm was too much to take. Then Tarrah's hand stirred in hers and something cracked in Licia's mind.

  A shock wave of emotion erupted from her. It tore through the hospital like an atomic bomb incinerating everything in its path. Licia couldn't see, couldn't control her body, and lost all power over her ability.

  She felt madness strip down the guard, taking him to his knees. The electrodes stopped hurting. Putrid contempt hit someone nearby and drove them into a rampage. Ennui slapped another until they dropped to the ground. There was no way to know who she was affecting. Her friends? She had no friends anymore. Her enemies?

  Depression as dark and deep as she'd ever felt swarmed another.

  She didn’t want to kill again. The rage and depression and madness could tip people over the edge. Aubrey needed to die—others didn’t.

  A force yanked her away. It felt like someone ripped out her guts. She hit the floor and huddled in the fetal position, gasping. Her sight returned. Sweat streaked her face and coated her underarms. She felt sick to her stomach and high as a junkie. What the unnatural fuck? Her head spun, but Tarrah lay coiled next to her, looking up and afraid, but awake. Their eyes met.

  “Licia?” Her voice was like a quiet songbird changing her name to something musical. Licia was too shocked to answer. Tarrah's black eyes darted around the room. “Is this real?” Her English accent was soft and elegant.

  Someone groaned. Licia risked the spins to see John half crumpled in the doorway. He'd found her. Each move made her want to puke, but she pressed up to rest her hand on John's wrist. The contact gave her a better taste of his emotions. Ennui, good. At least it wasn't the madness that had taken him.

  “Sorry,” she whispered and tried to push new emotions into him, to counteract what she'd done. It felt like her heart might erupt at the effort, but at least she knew she had one again. Her walls and wards felt fried, burned to the ground, and utterly useless. Complete overload.

  John's breath deepened, like he was gasping for life. His mood stabilized. Licia dropped her contact with him. Her emotions scrambled. She couldn't decipher the blend of flavors from the chaos. Her body felt wrong; all jumbled and mislabeled, like her brain couldn't communicate right. She needed to stand and get moving.

  John recovered. “Licia? Are you okay?”

  “Tarrah. Get Tarrah out.” Nothing else mattered. John stood, then tried to help Licia up. She fought him, shoving him off her and towards Tarrah.

  John obeyed. “Hey, Tarrah? Can you walk. I'm John, by the way. Would you like to leave?”

  “I know. Yes, yes I would.” Tarrah pressed half up, then tried to stand. She was taller than Licia had realized. John caught her as she listed to the side.

  He turned back on Licia, his lips thin and his eyes glassy. “I'm not leaving you. Up,” John ordered.

  She was thankful he didn't offer his hand. She didn't trust herself to touch anyone again, not with so many raw emotional nerves running wild.

  Her wobbling baby-deer legs finally cooperated, but she had to grip John's covered forearm to stay upright.

  The guard that tasered her knelt on the ground, unblinking, rocking to and fro in a steady rhythm. Differentiating his emotions from the others without touch wasn't going to happen. Everything felt and tasted like mud-vomit soup.

  “We need to get Emerson and Azami and get out of here.” John steered them back the way Licia had come.

  Two staff members were in the hall, one pacing in a tight circle, the other utterly still in a crouch, hiding her face in her knees. Guilt cut through the chaos of Licia's senses. She'd never done anything like this, and nothing should have affected the staff. Just minutes ago, she hadn't been able to get through to any of them on Jammers, but now they were in a state of mania, and even paralyzing rage. What the fuck had she done?

  “Licia, what did you do?” John asked as if he'd read her mind.

  “I—I'm not sure.”

  “Can you undo it?”

  Licia looked at her shaking hands. Her head spun. She didn't want to kill herself saving the people who'd experimented on Tarrah. “No, but what about the others? There are others of us here. We need to free them, too.”

  “Normally I'd agree, but I can barely keep the two of you upright.”

  She missed a step, half collapsing into John and proving his point. “Fuck.”

  “You fixed John.” Tarrah's quiet voice created silence, rather than breaking it.

  Licia had to focus on her steps, but said, “This should all be temporary. I can't permanently change a person's emotions. I'm sure they'll be fine.” Not that she cared much about their well-being, but she didn't realize she believed it until she said it out loud. Even when she'd tried to change Aubrey's emotional capacity years ago, it had only lasted a few hours.

  John got them both back to the stairwell and up to the chapel. There was movement on the floor. White coats, blue scrubs, Emerson's large frame and dark clothes. Her emotional bomb hadn't reached this far. Good.

  Then she saw the body bag.

  CHAPTER 63

  Emerson

  There was blood smeared over his hands again. He'd been here before, staring at life slipping away beneath his touch. But this time it wasn't because of him.

  Licia. Murderous monster—inhuman.

  He'd feared they were alike, but not anymore. This wasn't in self-defense, or in defense of others. This was planned. There was nothing similar between them, and he had nothing to prove to her heartless, corrupt, law-breaking soul.

  The podium door swung open. Thank The Shift, John was okay! Emerson stood, forgetting the blood and Aubrey's body. There were two women leaning on his arms, which at first, he thought was strangely funny, but then he recognized Licia.

  A pendulum swung in his chest, ticking from relief to righteousness. How dare she touch him. She'd manipulated him into caring for her. Probably a tactic to keep her illicit side obscured. Emerson shuffled past the hospital staff and an expressionless Azami, and stood before John, taking up as much space as he could. Because his place was by John’s side. It was what he wanted, and he wasn’t going to sacrifice his needs any longer—especially if it kept her out.

  “Let me help.” He kept his gaze away from Licia, like staring directly at her might put John at risk. No matter what, he had to keep her influence away from him. He'd find a way to remove her, but not right now.

  John nudged a small woman with matted dull hair who glanced at Emerson's height and bulk.

  “Emerson,” she said in a distant voice. “I know you.”

  He made an incoherent sound, taken aback.

  John jumped to his rescue. “This is Tarrah.”

  “Oh. Oh! Let me help you.” They'd found her? She was so frail, like an unfinished sculpture still showing support wires. He knelt and offered his arms, she shifted into his hold, but her knees kept giving out. She had sweat on her lower lip and high color in her ashen cheeks. There was no way she was getting out of here on her own tw
o legs. He scooped her up like a child and she weighed next to nothing.

  “Thank you,” Tarrah said, then she went slack in his arms.

  Licia's attention jerked to her. “Is she okay?”

  Emerson jostled her a little, noticed her breath, then nodded. “Either passed out or asleep, she looks exhausted,” he answered before thinking. He didn't want to acknowledge Licia, but as he held Tarrah in his arms, he knew his tactics weren't going to help. They needed to get out of this mess, then he could hate her without reserve. John adjusted his stance to better steady her. Emerson bit the inside of his cheek, then said, “Police are on their way. We need to go.”

  “Azami?” Licia asked.

  “Here.” She seemed to materialize from the shadows, but there was so much chaos it wasn't hard for someone like her to slip out of the spotlight.

  “What about Glen?” Licia's voice was strained.

  “It's better if he's not connected with us. Em, how do we get out of here?” John rested his hand against Emerson's elbow.

  Emerson shrugged and gave John a reassuring smile. “We walk straight out. If they want a word, they better be able to stay awake long enough to ask it.”

  John bobbed his head side to side, looking impressed. “After you.” He brought Licia into his arms in the same way Emerson carried Tarrah. Licia protested, but then her hands flew to her temples with a whimper. Good, she should suffer, but he hated the look of concern on John's face. If her pain hurt him, then he hoped her agony ended. Temporarily.

  As they walked, Emerson fed his hollow, keeping the security and doctors too fatigued to care as they slinked out of the hospital.

  CHAPTER 64

  John

  John let Emerson help him into the back of the Lyft. The driver, a college-age man with a thin sweater and patchy beard, hovered.

  “Can I help? Are they okay? You know there's a surcharge if anyone pukes, right?”

  Emerson shot him a glare, but John turned on the charm and grinned at the guy. He didn't melt into a shy grin like he'd hoped, but he did lose his nervous edge. Good to know he could influence people even without his vibe. It still hadn't returned.

  He didn't like being stuck in the back, but they were crowding the run-down Camry as it was. Licia sat in the far seat, double buckled with Azami. John sat with Tarrah—still out cold—in the same way, while Emerson took the front seat.

  If he hadn't been so anxious to get the hell out of there it might have been funny. Instead his fingers shook as he untwisted the shoulder strap. They didn't have far to go, but the driver refused to move. He kept insisting he couldn't drive them packed in like this.

  “Licia, we need to move,” he said, but then really looked at her. She was alarmingly weak. He'd never seen her so shaky, but if she didn't get the guy to trust them or not care or whatever hell emotion she went with, then—

  Sirens and lights illuminated the snow laden street, calling up a fresh rush of adrenaline. John grabbed Em's shoulder from habit, but his vibe wasn't about to pop. He withdrew his hand and turned back to Licia.

  “Now!”

  “Fuck.” She leaned in, her body shaking like an addict’s. She reached around the driver's seat and touched the guy's neck. Her eyes went impossibly wide and blank, the pale color of her irises nearly bleached white in the flickering lights. But whatever she was doing worked. The driver started the car and got them out onto the street just as half a dozen police vehicles pulled in.

  But then Licia made a sound between a wounded moan and a gasp. Her arm fell from the driver's neck and she slumped forward, held up only by the strap across her shoulder.

  “Shit.” Azami gathered her back against the seat and felt her pulse.

  The driver seemed to knock out of a fugue state and realized what he was doing, but to his credit he checked the rear-view mirror and noted the two passed out women in the back. “Should I turn around? Do they need medical care?”

  “No, keep going to the address,” Emerson said, pulling the driver's attention front again.

  “Azami?” John caught her eye. She shook her head, her lips tight.

  Licia had to be okay. He needed to tear into her for Aubrey. He needed her to argue back that he could have stopped it if he’d done things her way twelve years ago. Most of all, he needed her to look at him with those cold blue eyes and know that they concealed a warmth that he couldn’t lose. Except, he wasn’t sure that she was still his Licia.

  Why—he wanted so bad to ask her. She'd used a gun for Shift’s sake; she never got her hands dirty and she hated guns. He once watched her emotionally cripple one of her lackeys for carrying a gun. Drugs were one thing, but this pushed too far.

  But first he needed her to recover, or rather, all of them.

  He hadn't seen Licia's new shop so he didn't know how long it would take to get there, but the tension in the car made each moment stretch into impossible lengths. Every police car they passed made his heart catch. Every flash of red made him hear the gunshot again and again.

  He took in her pale freckled skin and strawberry blond hair. Taking in the woman who killed his ex-wife. His stomach hurt as a stab of nausea flashed through him. He knew Aubrey was dangerous to their kind, but she needed to return to prison, not this.

  This was too much. Licia had gone too far.

  They reached the lifeless shop. Emerson led them inside, using a standard key to unlock the glass door. The stark white paint reflected the streetlamps in the dark. There was nothing set up or hanging on the walls. The only signs of life were a pile of construction supplies in one corner and a light left on down the hall.

  Emerson held Tarrah, still out cold. John had Licia and he was completely lost. This wasn't his place, it wasn't a situation he'd anticipated, and the only one of them he trusted to guide him had broken something in his heart deeper than the scars left by Em.

  “Back this way.” Azami slipped by and led them down the hall towards the light. She pushed open a door to an office of sorts. Inside was an air mattress and a couple of sleeping bags. They set down their charges on the bed, which flopped awkwardly in its half-inflated state. Tarrah was significantly lighter and seemed to float while Licia sank down. Azami grabbed a nearby bag and tore it open, searching inside frantically.

  “What are you doing?” Emerson asked when Azami pulled out a packaged syringe and a length of rubber tubing.

  “Licia's eyes are dilated and her breathing is shallow. I don't know what's wrong with her, but—” Azami paused as she pushed up her sleeve and wrapped the tubing around her upper arm, then rubbed her elbow crook rapidly. “Whatever it is, I should be able to heal it.”

  “You don't have to do that.” John saw the scars starting at her wrist and reaching up just past her elbow. Track marks, but not from drugs. When he and Licia had freed her, many of the marks had been fresh red splotches, some bruised, some pierced over older marks. They'd drawn so much blood from her and injected her with who knows what to test the limits of her ability.

  “I need to inject them both.” Azami's eyes danced between them, her body doing a nervous side-to-side step like a middle schooler not sure where to rest their hands. The needle was poised in her hand, ready. Then he realized she wanted privacy. That an audience to her sticking herself felt like a freak show.

  John grabbed Em's arm and pulled him, walking out of the room. Emerson didn't fight, but it took longer for him to drag his gaze away from three of the most powerful Ferly John might ever know. Before he shut the door, he said, “Thank you. I'm sorry you have to do this.”

  She shrugged, then flinched as the needle pierced her vein.

  The door clicked and darkness enveloped the hall, but he could still feel Emerson standing just steps away. How could he face him? He'd been right about Licia, and about him. Now there was blood on his hands as surely as hers. Emerson had saved him, but he'd still run off to save her. And for what? He couldn’t save Licia from herself and after this... how could he look at her without seeing her
pull that trigger?

  He set his forehead against the door, knowing that Azami was mutilating herself to save the lives of an unknown teenager and a murderer. What kind of leader created situations like this? Fuck, he was pathetic.

  “It's not your fault.” Emerson's deep voice brushed him like a heavy blanket, both soothing and constricting.

  He didn't turn to face him. “I laid out the dominos.” This wasn't a conversation he wanted to have. Even thinking about it hurt too much to deal with when he already felt so wrong inside. He wandered further down the hall, looking for a place to sit and be quiet. To reflect on his shitty choices and the mistakes he couldn't take back. To not have to miss Emerson like a dehydrated man misses water. He was so close, but John didn't dare turn around and go to him. When Licia had killed the mugger, Emerson had looked at them both like they were plagues on the world, and maybe he was right, but he didn't want to see that look again.

  He'd lost Licia. Lost Emerson. Lost Aubrey. Even his vibe was gone. How the hell did he carry on?

  “John.”

  He didn't notice he'd been pacing but stopped. “I'm—”

  “Let me talk for a second.”

  John clenched his teeth, waiting for the last of his strings to this life to be cut. He tried not to see pieces of a future without any of them but failed.

  Emerson opened another door and used his phone as a flashlight. It was a storage closet, but it had a couple of folding chairs, a few tubs of cleaning supplies, and another crate of nonperishable food. Emerson held open the door and waited for John to step in. He did and immediately sank into a chair, only then realizing how utterly exhausted he felt. Adrenaline had been keeping him going, but it had ebbed.

  Emerson took the other chair and leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. “It wasn't your fault.”

  John raked back his hair, dragging his nails across his scalp with a tight sting. “Yes, it is. All of it. Aubrey, the experiments, the—”

  “You're spiraling. Just shut the fuck up for once.” Em's voice was gruff and his expression grim in the muted light from his phone screen. John hadn't bothered to pick up the smashed pieces of his own, but he wished he had just so he had an excuse to fiddle with something instead of waiting for another judgment. Still, he closed his mouth and didn't bother putting up a front.