Gabriel took her hands in his. His hands were warm, his fingers and palm rough against her skin. She didn’t want to notice, but she did.
“You have to trust me, Lana. I know what I’m doing. I wouldn’t put Asia and Jack in danger. I wouldn’t put you in danger. I wouldn’t risk your job. No one but you will ever know the extent to which I was involved here. I’m only here to help you, not to get in your way. You’re in charge, not me.”
“That is such bullshit.” But, God, she wanted to believe him.
“You’ll be watching me every minute.” His thumb stroked the back of her hand. “How the hell will I be able to mount my own rescue?”
He did have a point there. If she cut him loose, there was no telling what he might be up to without her knowledge.
“Have you benefitted from my help so far, or not?”
“You know I have. That’s not the point.”
“But it is the point. The point is we have to find Asia and Jack, and I can help you do that. Take me back to Nashville and you’ll be wasting precious time. They’re heading west, not east.”
“God damn it!” She pulled her hands out of his and put them to her head. “Swear to me you will not take one step without my knowledge or consent, Gabriel. Swear!”
Eyes as dark as midnight met hers. “I swear you won’t regret this, Lana.”
Her heart thumping a warning in her chest, she shifted back behind the wheel and turned out onto the highway, headed west.
CHAPTER NINE
Near Orrin, North Dakota
Kinnian Dar’s temper was growing shorter by the hour. Trevyn could feel the rage building in his older sibling, the hellish heat of it boiling just under the surface of his thoughts, ready to explode outward like the release of superheated gasses from the death of a star. He knew the three others in the team with them could feel it, too. Their uneasiness clung to the back of his mind, though he could do little to soothe it. Kinnian would find what he was looking for, or they would all suffer for it.
“I tire of an endless trekking across a desolate waste in this antiquated hulk, Trevyn.” The farmstead receded in the rearview mirror of their rented SUV, quiet now. “Too much more of it and I won’t care who notices we are here—I’ll use all the resources at my disposal to find the brat. How many more of these households are there?”
Trevyn hesitated. There was danger in the truth. They had already visited eight isolated houses, some of which appeared to be attached to agricultural enterprises. None of them had harbored a six-year-old boy named Ashton Bailey. People seemed to remember a boy and his family had disappeared in the area some time back, but they weren’t related to that side of the Baileys. There were only two addresses left, both within a few miles of each other on the other side of the town they’d just passed through. If Kinnian knew his options were running out, his interrogation methods would become intolerable.
“Well?” His brother turned in the seat to shout at him.
“Two. A short drive from here.”
“One of these had better be the right one.” Kinnian’s right hand—his weapon hand—clenched and unclenched against his thigh. Trevyn knew that sign of agitation well. It would be all he could do to protect these humans they were going to “interview.”
The troop in the car was silent, heavy with foreboding, as they pulled up in the yard of a large, prosperous farmstead. Two healthy canines came from the area of a mechanical shed, barking a warning at them, but stopping well before they were in arm’s reach. Kinnian growled at them, then laughed as they shrank back under a glancing blow from his mind.
A middle-aged man came out onto the porch from the house, a frown on his weathered face. “Can I help you folks?”
“My name is Kinnian Dar. Are you . . . ?” He turned to Trevyn.
“Arnold Bailey.”
Kinnian turned back to the man.
The man’s frown deepened. “Yeah, that’s me. What can I do for you?”
“I’m in need of information concerning a six-year-old boy named Ashton Bailey. Do you know him?”
Bailey paled and his knees wobbled. “Ashton? What do you know about Ashton? Are you the police?”
Kinnian drew closer to the man on the porch, taking one step at a time up onto the wooden planks until he stood toe-to-toe with his victim. Trevyn shuddered as he watched him, praying for restraint, knowing there would be none.
“No, Arnold Bailey, I’m not the police. And I don’t know anything about Ashton. That’s what you’re going to tell me.”
The man backed up, but he made the mistake of showing his anger. “Ashton’s been gone for almost two years, him and his mom and dad. They disappeared on an overnight trip up to Bismarck. His dad was my brother, so if you know anything about that, mister, you better be saying something quick or get the hell off my property.”
Kinnian put out a hand and caught Bailey’s wrist in a grip strong enough to break bones. The man gasped and went to his knees.
“Do not take that tone with me, human. What you would tell me easily, I already know. What I want to know, I will take from you, easily or not.”
And then it began. Trevyn strengthened the shields in his own mind to block his connection with Kinnian, but it did little good. The ice storm of the man’s pain beat at Trevyn’s protections while Kinnian tore at his defenseless mind. Trevyn felt the human’s horror, his helplessness and rage as Kinnian ripped through him, shredding his consciousness, his memories, his emotions. Sickened, Trevyn stood by as his brother took everything from the man that made him a sentient being, until there was nothing about him that Kinnian did not know.
Bailey’s scream brought his wife to the door. Trevyn knew his duty. He directed the others to secure her for Kinnian. Then he went to see if there were children in the house. That was his only salvation when his sibling was in one of his killing rages. Kinnian sometimes ignored the children and left them to Trevyn.
Upstairs in one of the bedrooms, Trevyn found two girls huddled in a closet. They were shaking and crying, hysterical with fear, but they were old enough to understand him and follow his directions. From the porch below, they could all hear the brief silence that followed the end of their father’s torture pierced by the beginning of their mother’s. He took one of their hands in each of his and compelled the girls’ attention.
“You must listen to me now.” He spoke softly, reinforcing what he said through a shallow mindlink. “There is a bad man downstairs who will hurt you if he finds you. You must hide and be very quiet. You will go to sleep now and when you wake up, he’ll be gone. Then you can call the police. Do you understand me?”
The two girls sniffed and nodded. “Did he hurt Mommy and Daddy?” the younger one said.
Trevyn looked at her. “They are sleeping, too. Hush, now.”
He watched as the two drifted off under his compulsion, then he made certain the closet was shut against prying eyes. As he came down the stairs he ordered his troops out of the house.
“The house is empty. Lon and Tyr, call for transport and take the two bodies back to the ship for disposal.”
Gabriel dropped to his knees, felled by a scream of agony that ripped through his mind like a jagged blade. His brother’s face filled his vision, lined with cruelty and unrelenting will, his lips curled with disgust. Kinnian wanted; he demanded; he would take what he needed. Nothing would stand in his way, neither strength of body nor power of mind. Gabriel felt the laser of Kinnian’s will spearing through the layers of his mind, searching, sorting, discarding, burning everything in its path. It was horrifying, excruciating, as if he had no blocks, no protections at all. He groveled on the ground, grasping for the core of his being, desperate to shield himself.
“Gabriel!” He heard the voice from light-years away. “Jesus Christ! Tell me what’s wrong. Look at me! Gabriel!”
Kinnian’s face faded from view, but for some seconds nothing replaced it. There was nothing in his world but the pain.
“Gabriel! Look
at me! Come on!”
With an effort that took everything he had, Gabriel lifted his head. He opened his eyes and blinked until they focused—a woman’s face, eyes the color of emeralds, skin kissed by the sun, lips . . . lips too close to his.
“Lana.”
“Thank God! What the hell happened?” She crouched in front of him on the ground, concern drawing down her features. There was grass under his hands and knees, the smell of diesel fumes in his nostrils, the sound of traffic, lots of it, nearby.
He rocked back to sit, his hands cradling his aching head. “You tell me.”
“You were walking around the rest area—scanning, you said.” She sat next to him. “Then you yelped, grabbed your head and fell on your knees.”
Gabriel looked around, remembered the rest area, tried to bring back what he’d been feeling in the moments before the attack.
“Was it something you picked up? The EM markers?”
His heart jumped. If Kinnian already had Asia and Jack . . . “No. This was something else. The only markers I felt here were Asia’s and Jack’s.”
Lana’s brows came together. “Were you expecting to pick up someone else’s?”
“What?” He realized his mistake and backpedaled. “No. Though I recognize the three men who have them now, too. I caught the same signs back at the river.” His head was splitting in two, and he needed time to sort through what he’d felt. He tested his shields. They were intact. But he had a connection with his brother, one that ran deeper than blood or bone and easily crossed the light barriers he had in place in his mind. Though it had seemed as if his own mind had been invaded, he had been feeling the impact of Kinnian’s violation of another. Not Asia or Jack, he was certain. The mind he’d felt disintegrating under Kinnian’s ruthless probe had been defenseless. From what he knew of them, the two they all sought so desperately would have offered more resistance. Not that it would have done them any good.
“Gabriel?” Lana was searching his face as if she might find an answer there to the questions in her eyes. “You don’t look so good.”
He rubbed a hand across his forehead. “Just a headache. I’ll be all right.”
She stood and held out a hand to help him up. He swayed as he pulled himself to his feet, and she slipped an arm under his shoulder to support him.
“Come on. Back to the car.”
He didn’t really need her help, but it felt good to feel her arm circling around his back, the warmth of her body along his side. He allowed his arm to drape across her shoulders, and drew her in as close as he dared. Her spicy-sweet scent caught at his senses, distracting him.
But something still tugged at his consciousness, and all at once he perceived a new link to his brother that remained open despite the reinforcement of his shields. The alternate pathway wormed its way through his protections, intricate, secretive and deep—Kinnian’s work. He couldn’t leave it in place, but he couldn’t shut it down without Kinnian knowing it instantly. Perhaps he could use it to his advantage, but adapting it would take time and concentration.
They reached the car, and Gabriel allowed some of the weakness and nausea he was feeling to show. He slumped into the passenger seat as Lana went around to the driver’s side.
She considered him. “You really don’t look good.”
“I just need some sleep.”
“Migraine?”
He looked at her, a slight smile lifting his lips. “Something like that.”
“Look, it’s late and it’s a long way back to Nashville. How about we find a motel?”
“Sounds good to me.”
She nodded and backed out of the parking spot. Then she nosed onto the entry ramp to get back on the interstate headed west.
Gabriel used the time while she drove to the closest exit with a decent motel to examine the telepathic conduits Kinnian had established between his mind and his brother’s. They were built along long-unused neural pathways that had existed between his two half-brothers and himself since before they were born. Those networks had been programmed into their brains by their DNA, part of the patterns that allowed for the development of their psi talents.
Had his father still lived he would have been part of that genetic web. With the talents it was said he wielded, he could have directed communication between the siblings, focused and fused it into a powerful weapon for good or ill. Together, they might have ruled Thrane. From what Gabriel knew of his father, it was well he had died years ago, before his younger sons had come into their full power. Kinnian’s brutality was but a shadow of his father’s.
What is your father’s name, boy? the teacher had asked him. Gabriel had been ten. He’d never met his father, but his mother had told him what to say. The training was necessary, and to get the training, his lineage as a Thrane had to be undisputed.
“Kylan Dar, Captain of the Bloodstalker, Psilord of Thrane.” He was small, but his voice did not waver.
There was a collective gasp among the others seated at the table before him, though the teacher betrayed no emotion. “That is not possible,” one man said. “Captain Dar’s mate is Thrane, not human. His sons are not yet of trainable age.”
Gabriel lifted his chin. “My mother said I should give you this.” He pulled a medical sampler from his pocket and stuck it in his thumb. It didn’t hurt, really. The device drew a droplet of his blood and held it in a sterile capsule for analysis. “She said you would have a reader available.”
The teacher’s eyes narrowed, but Gabriel thought he saw his lips curve upward as he reached down to take the sample. The man turned to give the sample to someone at the table, who placed it under a scanner for the computer to read. When the computer indicated the results, there was another murmur of reaction around the table.
A woman at the table looked to the others. “The law is clear. The boy is obviously Dar’s, half-human or not. Whether or not he claims him, we are obligated to train him.”
“A law foisted on us by the weaker minds in the galaxy.” An older man stared at Gabriel with distaste.
“A law nonetheless,” another said with a sigh. “What do you say, Rodyn?”
The teacher turned to him, a glint in his gray eyes. “I say we owe the galaxy a civilized Thrane to make up for the butcher that is his father. What is your name, boy?”
“Gabriel Cruz, sir. And I am human, not Thrane.”
Rodyn had beaten him for that impudence, the first of many beatings Gabriel was to suffer at the old Thrane’s hand. He had explained why later, and even at ten Gabriel understood his reasons. In fact, they had understood each other quite well, all in all. Gabriel had been a quick study, and Rodyn had been waiting a lifetime for a student like him. They had loved each other almost from the first.
Rodyn had taught him some of the tricks he was using now to untangle the threads Kinnian had left in his mind. By the time Lana turned off the interstate, Gabriel had teased the knot apart. He rewove the net of Kinnian’s invasion so that it brushed a harmless corner of his mind rather than stretching across the main line of his thoughts. The false signals his brother received would be enough to keep him connected, but not enough to allow him fully into Gabriel’s mind.
As he finished his task and worked to make his way back to the surface of his mind, Gabriel caught the presence of another consciousness. He’d seen the pattern before, always overridden by Kinnian’s. It was distinct, even if it was rarely separate from his brother’s. Trevyn Dar’s signature was there beneath Kinnian’s, and apart from the trap that Kinnian had woven later to maintain the link between them.
“Gabriel?” Alana’s voice was soft. Her hand on his face was warm. “We’re here. I’m just going to go in and register, okay?”
He sat up and rubbed a hand down his face. “Okay. Um, I’ve got cash if you can put your card down for both rooms.”
She just nodded and pushed the car door closed.
He watched her go, then using all his skill to avoid activating the link, Gabriel explored
Trevyn’s shadow in his mind. There was tremendous emotion behind it—horror, revulsion, guilt, anger, self-loathing. It was as if Trevyn had tried so hard to shut himself off from Kinnian and what he was doing that he had punched through to Gabriel without even being aware of it. But as soon as the link was open, Kinnian had felt it and used it—which meant he was watching Trevyn now, monitoring his thoughts, following the link between them.
Gabriel’s forehead wrinkled in a frown. His two half-brothers had always worked together, since the day Trevyn had reached maturity, just two years after Kinnian. Trevyn’s reputation was nearly as bloody as his older sibling’s. What could have caused this change of heart? And how could he find a way to contact Trevyn without putting his younger brother in greater danger?
He saw Lana come out of the motel office and realized he’d have to leave this problem for another time. He was tired; he needed food and sleep before he dared try to work around Kinnian to reach Trevyn. And there was Lana, who would need some kind of explanation for his . . . headache.
Lana drove around the building to their rooms and handed him a key card. “That’s it—yours is 122. I’m going to head out for some food while you finish your nap. When I get back we need to talk. What do you like on your pizza?”
He managed a smile. “Anything but anchovies.” He said it because he’d heard someone say it in the hallway at Ethan’s house the night before. He had no idea what anchovies were, but Earthers apparently either loved them or hated them.
“I’m so glad you said that,” she concurred with a grin and took off as soon as he shut the door.
Trevyn found his brother on the porch of the Bailey farmhouse in a sober, though no longer a murderous, mood. Kinnian pivoted on his heel and regarded him with an air of speculation.
“Ah, there you are, brother! Is all secure?”
“Yes, my lord. There were only the two of them in the dwelling. Did you get the information you needed?”
Trouble In Mind (Interstellar Rescue Series Book 2) Page 11