Shattered Stars

by Theresa Kay

  Karo turns his attention to Gavin. “Has Dr. Mitchell been stabilized?”

  Stabilized? Oh. His injury. He got shot. He almost died…

  My stomach churns, and I close my eyes. Lir’s hand rubs small circles on my upper back. Whatever happened in the past, he’s still my dad. I’m angry at him—so angry I don’t even want to talk to him—but I don’t want him dead.

  “… lower abdomen. Should be fine, but they’re keeping him a couple days for observation.” Gavin’s words aren’t directed at me, but I’m glad to hear them. “Last I heard he’s awake. Should we go now?”

  “Yes, it is important that we act quickly. Dr. Mitchell has been an advocate for the E’rikon here on the base, and he has important insight into the situation.” Karo looks at Lir expectantly. “You should join us, Steliro.”

  Lir rubs the back of his neck. “Very well. Jax, would you—”

  “No.” My voice is sharp, bringing every eye in the room to me.

  Lir’s hand pauses, and he tilts his head toward me. You’ll have to speak to him eventually. Why don’t we—

  “No.” I say it out loud, emphasizing the word with angry determination. My voice drops. “You go. Without me.”

  His lips thin, and I can tell he disagrees, but he won’t force me to go. Are you sure?

  Yes. I’m not ready.

  “Okay.” He turns back to Karo. “Give me a minute to get dressed, and we will go speak with Dr. Mitchell.”

  Lir rises to his feet, tugs me up beside him, and leads me down the hallway. We take a few steps into our room before he pulls me to a stop and turns my face to him. “When, Jax?” he asks softly, his tone laced with sympathy and understanding.

  I stare at the floor. “I don’t know,” I whisper. Never?

  Lir places a soft kiss on my temple and wraps his arms around me. “Try and get some more rest while I’m gone. I’ll be back soon.”

  GLASS SHATTERS AGAINST THE WALL next to me, followed by the sound of Grandfather berating one of Dane’s… whatever they are. Dane called them scientists. Apparently Grandfather is not convinced.

  “I allowed my fully stocked research facility to be destroyed because Jacobs assured me he had a proper lab. This… this…” Something metal flies toward the wall across the room. He stalks over to the file cabinet in the corner and starts flipping through the files for the third time. “You did not even keep proper records.”

  “Mr… Jastren… Sir… the records—”

  “Are useless!” Grandfather yells, leaning into the man’s face. His hands curl into fists and white-hot rage pours off of him. “How many of the implanted embryos survived? For that matter, how many were implanted, and what lines were they from? What enhancements were introduced? Where is the list?”

  “The records… the majority of them were destroyed on Mr. Jacobs’s orders, sir. He didn’t want them to fall into the wrong hands,” the man stammers. “There were supposed to be backups in his office, but… but… I don’t know what happened to them.”

  A tremor starts in my right hand. I tune out the rest of his words as I close my eyes and concentrate on separating Grandfather’s rage from mine. I don’t get many opportunities to fight his influence and I only dare try when his full attention is somewhere else. That’s happened more often lately, as he tries to pull together whatever it is he’s planning. Or maybe it’s just because he thinks he’s already got me and doesn’t have to put as much effort into maintaining control.

  It’s a tricky thing, weeding through each thought and feeling to figure out if it belongs to me or if it’s been forced upon me. I’m sure I’ve made mistakes and that somewhere deep inside me there’s a festering wound on my psyche from the planted thoughts I haven’t been able to banish. At least there are a few thoughts I can be certain are my own: thoughts of Jax, memories of our shared childhood, the knowledge that she’d never betray me. In fact, she’d come for me now. That is, if she thought there was any of me left to save. And she probably doesn’t.

  To be honest, I’m not sure how much of me is left either. Most times I’m only halfway human, drenched in rage and drowning in confusion. The person I used to be was shattered, and the jagged pieces that are left don’t line up. There’s no glue to hold them together or to fill in the cracks. But sometimes… sometimes there’s enough coherency to pull my mind into a semblance of what it once was. Never for long. Because the memories come, and I’d rather hide from them than try to fight.

  Like now.

  An image of abject horror on Jax’s face slashes through my mind—and then a sharp, stinging pain that doesn’t begin to compare with that of the image that comes next: Flint. Standing in Dane’s office with his arms around me. It was the first peace I’d felt in… I don’t remember.

  But I remember the knife.

  I remember it was me who pushed it into him, me who drenched my hands with his blood. My body, anyway. My mind screamed and screamed and screamed until I let it drift into the waiting darkness. Hiding from that look of betrayal, from my sister’s scream, hiding from the monster I let Grandfather turn me into…

  That’s what I’ll never forgive myself for. I could have fought. I was fighting. But I was too weak, and it wasn’t enough. And as Grandfather’s “demonstration” played out upon the boy I loved… I… I hid the pieces of myself so I didn’t have to watch. Instead of looking into Flint’s eyes as I stabbed him, I cowered behind the empty bliss of the darkness that still festers in my head.

  And then I left him to die on the floor of Dane’s office, with my sister’s sobs falling on deaf ears.

  Jax always thought I was the strong one, the brave one. She’ll never know how wrong she was.

  My eyes are burning, my teeth clenched so hard I fear they might crack. There can be no tears. If I cry, he’ll know. He’ll know I’m still in here somewhere—as lost and scared as I am, I’m still here—and he’ll know I’ve been fighting him.

  He can’t find out his control over me is slipping. Being able to break free of him—even if it’s only long enough to kill myself so he can’t use me against anyone else—is my only hope. The longer his thoughts and hatred live in my head, the harder it is to push back, to find myself in the darkness when I no longer have any lights to guide me.

  Jace. His voice is a hiss in my ear, and I fight back a flinch.

  My heart is pounding, but I keep my response calm and level. Yes, Grandfather?

  Is there anywhere else Jacobs may have kept records besides his office?

  An image of Dane’s office drenched in blood flashes through my mind. I push it away. Not that I’m aware of.

  Grandfather spins on his heel and backhands the simpering man across the face. I turn away, my stomach churning with the possibility that I’ll be called in to finish whatever it is he starts with this man. It’s happened before. But he stops at the one hit, breathing hard, his face dark with rage. “See to it this place is cleaned up.” His voice drops to a menacing tone. “And I want the complete records—whether that means you have to find them, or I have to recreate them by picking the data out of your mind. Word. By. Word.”

  The man nods quickly, his face pale and lined with sweat, and gets to work gathering some of the fallen equipment.

  “Jace. Come.” Grandfather walks out the doorway without looking to see if I’m following. He already knows I will. I don’t have a choice.

  As we exit the small annex attached to the old hospital, four soldiers gather around us in some weird sort of honor guard Grandfather insists on calling “Jas’askari.” It’s based on some E’rikon tradition. For as much as he seems to hate the E’rikon, Grandfather does seem to enjoy replicating their customs and features here, as if by doing so he can… I don’t know. Pretend he’s Linaud? Pretend he’s in charge of the E’rikon?

  The E’rikon version of an honor guard is supposed to contain the most highly trained of their soldiers. I can’t say much to the E’rikon’s training, but our honor guard—his?—is made up of the
four most despicable guards from Dane’s entourage, the ones who aren’t too bothered about who they serve, as long as it gives them power over others.

  Daniel is the leader of the group.

  I stare at the back of his head, where his dark hair curls over the collar of his black jacket, and list off the ways I could kill him. A knife. A gun. My bare hands around his throat. This is one of the few times I welcome the quiet rage that simmers inside me—the killing rage. I hate Daniel for how he treated Jax, but according to Grandfather that’s not a good enough reason to get rid of him.

  Grandfather did let me kill Dane for what he did—sending those men after my sister in a failed attempt to break her to his will—but only because Dane’s actions interfered with Grandfather’s ability to use Jax. She broke, but not into something pliable he could control, like everyone expected.

  I smile to myself. My sister never does what anyone expects.

  Fifteen minutes later, I follow Grandfather up the steps to what used to be Dane’s house. It’s probably the biggest one in town. Dane was never here much, but I guess power has its perks.

  I hate that he makes me stay here. It’s not the location, or the house itself. It’s the fact that there are memories here for me. Memories of Flint, and what we shared.

  As the guards peel off and head for their rooms, I make a move to go to the upper-level guest room where I’ve been staying, but Grandfather motions for me to continue following him. I do. I have no other choice. The iron grip of his control has tightened again.

  He leads me to the small study attached to the master bedroom on the main floor, and shuts the door behind us.

  Sit.

  I comply with the command and plop down in a chair, back straight, eyes down. Nausea twists my stomach. Grandfather is acting strangely. Did I do something wrong? Is another one of his punishments headed my way?

  “Are you certain you are not aware of what Jacobs might have done with the records?”

  “Yes.” Is this all? A simple interrogation about the records? I can handle that.

  “How much do you know about what he and I were trying to accomplish?” His eyes narrow.

  “Nothing beyond the creation of more hybrids.”

  He runs his tongue over his teeth and watches my face closely. “Jacobs never told you what they were for?”

  “No.” Dane hinted at a few things, like bringing back certain E’rikon abilities or creating new, stronger ones—and, at least on Dane’s end, giving them to humans somehow—but Grandfather doesn’t need to know that.

  “Very well then.”

  At the short, simple words—damn close to a dismissal—the tension drains from my shoulders. It’s going to be okay.

  Grandfather leans back in his chair and steeples his hands in front of his chest. In a voice so flat and nonchalant it takes me a moment to process his question he asks, “What would you say if I told you that your sister was captured this afternoon?”

  I can’t stop the surge of hope rising in me. I try desperately to push it away. He can’t know. Jax is here? She’s alive? That means there’s a chance she could—

  NO.

  The single word brings a now-familiar searing pain. It starts in my head and travels downward, through each limb, through each finger, pulsing on every breath. I double over in the chair, my palms plastered to my temples, a keening noise pushing past my lips.

  A trick all along. Jax isn’t here. She wasn’t captured. The bland interrogation was to get me to let my guard down, and the threat against Jax… just a ploy to get me to reveal the tiny pieces of hope I managed to gather behind his back. So he can drive it out of me all over again.

  This I cannot fight. When his attention is on me, there is no me, only him. His thoughts. His anger. His blind hatred for the E’rikon and anyone else who dares try to take something from him.

  She is dead to you. She betrayed you.

  I… I… I…

  She is dead to you.

  The words echo through my mind, burrowing into crevices and corners, hiding from my efforts to sweep them away. Grandfather slices into my head, opening old wounds and finding new ones to exploit.

  She. Is. Dead. To. You.

  Every word brings a new stab of pain to wrack my body and spin my head. My fingers curl into the skin at my temples, and blood begins to run from my nose.

  She betrayed you.

  Jax… Jax… is dead to me. She betrayed me. Like all the rest.

  Why does my head hurt so badly? I raise my fingers to my face, and they come away wet with blood. A nosebleed? I look to Grandfather in confusion.

  His teeth are clenched, and a line of sweat is dripping down the side of his face.

  “Are you—” My voice cracks as if I’ve been screaming. I clear my throat. “Are you feeling all right, Grandfather?”

  He waves off my question. Leave me. Go clean yourself up.

  I comply. I always comply.

  TWO DAYS LATER AND STILL nothing’s happening. There’s no call to action, no preparation… no anything. The soldiers on this base are going about their everyday business like Jastren isn’t out there waiting. For what, I’m not exactly sure, but nothing Jastren wants is bound to be good for anyone else. His power over me is broken, my connection to him snapped, but I can feel the ghost of him like a breath on the back of my neck. It’s enough to drive me insane.

  To add to the nothing that’s happening on the preparation front, zero progress has been made on the whole alliance idea. Dad was too drugged up on painkillers the other day to provide any help or insight when Lir, Karo, and Gavin went to speak with him. General Carter repeatedly dodges any attempts to schedule a meeting with Lir, instead pushing him off on various underlings. And the president Gavin mentioned, who oversees all the human settlements in the immediate area, isn’t expected to come by the base for another week or two.

  There’s still a palpable tension between the E’rikon and the humans—not that I expected any less. At least the men who serve under Gavin have come around. It’s not all jokes and fun, but they acknowledge Lir and Rym and don’t walk the other way when they see them. Gavin’s open acceptance of Lir and Rym went a long way in bringing that about.

  As for the other men… Gavin won’t order them to be all buddy-buddy. He says in a situation like this, the men need to reach their own conclusions. I agree. But at the same time, every day my worry that the rest of the men—those pointedly ignoring Lir, those sneering at Rym behind his back, those looking at me with narrow-eyed suspicion—will reach the wrong conclusions grows. If they continue thinking the E’rikon are the enemy… Jastren will win without a fight.

  This conflict can’t become E’rikon versus human. If it comes down to that, the humans will lose, no matter how big and tough they think they are. The E’rikon might not condone violence, and the majority have no training in physical self-defense, but the Council has absolutely no problem with dropping bombs to take care of their problems—like they did to the town where Ethan was living. And sure, technically, the humans have me on their side, and I’m supposed to be this big bad weapon better than anything the E’rikon have—but my abilities would be no match for the whole might of the E’rikon. I have no real control over the shikiza, and even if I did, I can’t stand up to a bomb. I’m not even strong enough to take out Jastren, much less with Jace protecting him instead of standing by my side.

  And that’s another thing. What nobody understands, including Lir, is I don’t know if I can kill Jastren—not if it means going through my brother. Jace as I know him may be gone, but the thing Jastren controls still wears his face, and no matter how hard I try to quash it, an ever-so-tiny sliver of hope lives in my heart, telling me my brother can be saved. I don’t mention it, because the rest of me hates that hope and wishes it would just die already so I can… move on? Heal? Forget?

  I don’t know anymore.

  Peter once told me that having feelings for Lir even after he broke the bond and appeared to betray me
didn’t make me weak or stupid. But I damn sure feel weak—and a bit stupid—for still loving my brother, and this time there’s no friendly priest, no one at all really, for me to talk to. Not even Lir. My bondmate would try to understand, but his world is very black and white. Shades of gray, especially grays as dark as Jace… I’d rather not burden him with that. Not on top of everything else—his parent’s deaths, his missing sister, the loss of his position among the E’rikon.

  I visited with Emily in the infirmary a couple times, and that helped a little. She knew the Jace before Jastren, but she was also the one who found me cradling Flint’s body and covered in his blood. There’s only so much of a positive spin she’s able to put on things.

  I still haven’t spoken with the only other person who might have some perspective on Jace: my dad. I can’t help but feel like if he’d been there for us, things would have gone differently. Guilt eats away at me for my part in Jace’s downfall, but I’m also beyond angry at Dad’s role in all this. I know I will talk to him—and forgive him—eventually. Peter’s various long-winded speeches on forgiveness back at his cabin did register with me. But I’m not ready yet.

  After another quick visit to Emily this morning to help her get settled into the tiny three-bedroom house on the outskirts of the base, and a longer stop with Gavin to see if there’d been any progress made on the meeting front, Lir and I spent most of the afternoon walking in the woods. Now we’re headed back to the small two-room suite we’re sharing with Rym. Lir and I get the bedroom while Rym sleeps on the couch. The arrangement isn’t exactly conducive to privacy, but at least I no longer have to feel guilty about taking Gavin’s bed.

  When we arrive, Rym’s lying on the couch with one arm over his face. He lifts his arm, blinks up at us, then lowers the arm back over his eyes. “Oh, it’s you.”