“Allie, what happened! What’s wrong?”
The boy threw himself to his knees beside me. His fingers caressed my face, pushing sweat-damp hair out of my eyes. Even the lightest touch hurt, made me flinch away. The numbness was gone.
He stepped in my blood and whimpered, crying out. His anguish made me clutch at him. Tears came to my eyes.
“It’s all right,” I found myself saying, my lips numb. “It’s all right, baby…”
He stared at me, his irises glowing a pale green.
I realized what I’d said only after I saw tears well in his eyes.
For a moment, a bare second, I had forgotten who I was with.
He was on his feet. He paced in front of me, his eyes never leaving me. He knelt down again, touching my face.
“Allie,” he murmured. He kissed me. His voice remained soft, but I heard the violence underneath. It wasn’t aimed at me. “Allie… darling. Tell me. Who did this to you? You need to tell me. Now.”
I shook my head, not looking at him.
His voice softened more, again sounding too old, too familiar.
“Let me see,” he coaxed. “Let me see, please, love.”
He held my wrist gently in his hand. After peering again at my face, maybe for permission, he pulled my arm gently away from my body so he could look at me. I knew I was naked. Somehow that bothered me more than why he wanted to look. I tried to cover myself with my other arm. I still couldn’t move very well. My arms felt ripped out of their sockets. I remembered ropes, and something else…
Nenzi broke into my thoughts, whimpering again.
When I glanced up, he was looking at my face, his eyes scared. He touched my cheek, peering from one of my eyes to the other. He kissed me, touching my hair so lightly I barely felt it. I found myself remembering the prostitute, the one he’d had before, when he was young like this.
“Allie,” he said. “…gods! Please. Please, tell me what happened!”
I looked around the empty cell.
I could move again. Sort of. Which also meant my body hurt, enough that I closed my eyes, willing myself back into unconsciousness. I opened them then, remembering. I looked around, but Maygar was nowhere to be seen.
Nenzi’s fingers tightened on my skin. The pain made me sweat, but I still couldn’t move. The tension in his hand forced my eyes back to his.
“Allie.” Tears filled the dark eyes. “Who did this to you?”
I fought to think. I remembered Terian’s words, what he said he’d do.
“I don’t know,” I said.
He held my hand, pulling it off my knee again, looking at the rest of my body. I didn’t follow his eyes. I didn’t need to look to know it was bad.
“I’m all right,” I lied.
His jaw hardened. His eyes grew brighter, turning liquid. Tears spilled down his cheeks, making rivulets down his perfect-looking skin.
“Who did it, Allie? Was it one of the humans?” Anger thickened his voice. “Which one of them did it?”
I hesitated, a little disbelieving as I avoided his gaze. Resting my face on my knee, I shook my head.
“Drugged,” I said finally. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t remember anything?”
I gestured negative. “No,” I said.
For a long moment, he sat beside me, an arm around me in a half-hug. He placed a hand on my leg, but I didn’t push it away.
More minutes passed before I realized he was doing something to me. The leg he touched felt different, almost like the skin and muscles were being faintly shocked by a mild but steady pulse of electricity.
I looked up. Nenzi’s eyes were concentrated, his irises glowing like the flickering pulse of a dying flashlight. The intensity of his gaze remained on the spot where his hand touched my skin.
I was still watching the light in his eyes when he moved his hand higher, to my stomach. I gave a low gasp when the tingling started there, but it didn’t hurt, so I didn’t move away. Eventually I realized that whatever he was doing, it gradually lessened the pain where his hand rested.
Slowly, as he kept going, I felt my muscles starting to unclench. I took deeper breaths when he didn’t stop. My head hung between my knees as I fought oxygen into my lungs. The collar kept everything deadened of course, but I no longer felt like I was going to die. He moved his hand to my chest and I flinched a little, then relaxed when the warmth spread out from his fingers, vibrating my skin.
“Thank you,” I managed. “Thanks, Nenzi.”
His fingers tightened on me briefly.
“Will you tell me, Allie? Please? Who did this to you? Who hurt you?”
I shook my head. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”
“I’ll kill all of them,” he growled.
“No.” I laid a hand on his arm. “Please. Don’t.”
We were still sitting there, his hand resting on my sternum, when the door to the outside cell opened with a hollow clanking sound. I flinched, in spite of myself, cowering behind the boy.
He stopped what he’d been doing, looking up.
I watched his eyes lose their light, melting back to dark irises in a pale white face. His gaze followed mine to the door neither of us could see. The look there made me nervous. It was fury, but restrained into a cold focus that was somehow more frightening than anything I’d seen on him before now.
“Nenzi,” I whispered. I touched his face until he turned. “No,” I said, soft. I shook my head when he looked at me. “No. It wasn’t them.”
I recognized the Scandinavian’s voice, and the Asian woman, Raven, before they rounded the cement wall. Nenzi’s jaw hardened. He looked at the door, then back at me. His voice dropped to a near-whisper.
“You’re sure, Allie? You wouldn’t lie to me?”
I shook my head. “I’m not lying.”
“We have to do something with her…” I heard the woman mutter.
“Really?” Terian murmured in reply. “And just what do you suggest I do, that I haven’t already tried? Nenzi has refused to force her.”
“What a little bastard,” Raven said humorously.
“My point precisely,” the Scandinavian said, his voice a smile.
The boy laid his hand back on my leg, clutching at it.
The gesture felt protective, and I found myself swallowing, relaxing at what I saw in his liquid gaze. He kissed me, looking at me again, his eyes holding a stillness that made me stare. There was a promise there, in his eyes.
He wasn’t going to let it happen again.
Lost there briefly, I found myself thinking that I was seeing yet another side of him, maybe even the adult version of Syrimne. There was something there that made me think of Balidor. The look on his face belonged to someone who was used to being in charge, someone at home with it.
Touching his hand, I smiled at him briefly.
Once I was reasonably sure I had my expression under control, I looked past his shoulder towards the door.
Once I had, I froze.
Maygar stood there, holding the bars. Behind him was Raven, the Asian seer with the black hair and the bright turquoise eyes. Maygar didn’t speak. He didn’t stop looking at me, barely tore his eyes off me when Raven touched his arm.
Noticing his facial expression, she frowned as she glanced at me.
“Our girl’s popular,” I heard her murmur to Terian in Prexci. That time, there wasn’t much humor in her words. “Guess we should try to keep her around. For a little while, at least.”
“She knows Prexci, Raven,” Terian said mildly. “So does the boy.”
The woman shrugged, her bright blue eyes indifferent.
Maygar swore, loudly enough that I flinched. Looking at him, seeing the dark look in his eyes, I receded behind the boy.
“Goddamn it.” His voice was furious. “I told you she needed a doctor!” He gestured towards me. “I thought you were going to handle it, Rook!”
I saw the Scandinavian exchange looks with Elan, and
realized Maygar’s words were aimed at him. I was struggling to track this.
Maygar knew Terian? Well enough to yell at him?
Maygar glared at the Scandinavian. “What are you doing letting that little freak paw at her?” he said. “Take her to a doctor! Now!”
The Scandinavian looked at me.
Instead of grinning, as I’d expected, his brows drew together in a frown. The frown looked so sincere I found myself staring at him.
As I did, it occurred to me that he really might be erasing his own memories, to keep the boy from feeling what he’d done.
“Your boy’s right,” he said to Raven, stepping forward.
“You see?” she said scornfully. “She wants to die.”
“No,” Terian said, clicking at her in worry and irritation. “I don’t think so.” He raised his voice. “Nenzi?” He sounded deeply concerned. “What happened to Alyson? Is she all right? It looks like she’s bleeding.”
Nenzi put up his arm, shielding me from the three of them.
“Did you do this?” Nenzi asked Terian. “Did you?”
“My friend! Of course not! What happened to her?”
“Tell me the truth!”
“I did not harm her, Nenz! I promise you!”
Nenzi looked at me. Biting my lip, I nodded.
“He’s telling the truth,” I said. “I don’t think it was him, Nenzi.”
The boy was still looking at me when Terian reached for the cell door. I flinched back, unable to help myself, clutching Nenzi’s arm. Looking at me, then back at Terian, the smaller seer’s voice turned into a snarl.
“Stay out! Don’t come near her!”
Terian hesitated, his hand on the door. He looked at me, then at the boy.
“I swear to you, Nenzi! I did not do this! Did she tell you I did?”
“If she had, you’d already be dead,” Nenzi said.
Raven turned on Terian too, her voice furious. “Well, perhaps if you hadn’t shot him, left him chained in the middle of nowhere to die!” She clicked at Terian sharply. “No food, no water, lying naked in the sun! The bombing in Seertown may have delayed his rescue by days! He’s probably dead, Terry. She’s probably dying because he is already dead. You know that, don’t you?”
Terian sighed, hands on his hips. “Raven, look at her! She’s not starving to death. She’s been beaten! Are you blind?”
But I barely heard his words. I felt my chest clench.
Pain filled me, so physical I was sure I was having a heart attack. I clutched my chest, fighting to breathe, sure I couldn’t breathe.
“Du relante d’gaos… you’ve done it now,” Raven said. “Look at her. She’s going to have a heart attack.”
“I’ve done it?” Terian said, incredulous. “Who was just ranting about the death of her mate?”
“She needs a fucking doctor,” Maygar snarled.
He slammed a hand against the bars of the cage.
That, and the emotion in his voice brought me briefly back.
I looked up, wanting any distraction, anything to keep me from the thought of Revik lying naked on that plateau, crows eating whatever was left after he slowly died of exposure and dehydration.
I couldn’t get my head around it or away from it. It was like a sickness eating at me from the inside out, as soon as the image solidified. I couldn’t get rid of it. I couldn’t get close to it without feeling like I was going to start screaming.
Terian told me Revik and I hadn’t completed the bond.
He said it would hurt like hell if Revik died, but it shouldn’t kill me. He told the boy it would kill me because he had his own reasons for wanting Revik alive, and it was pretty clear Nenzi would kill Revik without a strong incentive.
When Terian told me all this, it felt true.
The idea that I might live through this only made everything that much worse.
I was owned by the United States government. Terian and the boy would wear me down. Nenzi was right, I would eventually bond with him, for lack of anything else.
If I didn’t die, this would never end. Never.
For all I knew, Vash and Balidor were dead, too… and Jon, and Cass.
I started to cry. Everything hurt. Even without my light, I wanted to die.
Maygar was staring at me, disbelief in his eyes, mixed with a fear that threw me, that was hard to look at. I remembered what Revik had told me, his certainty that Maygar had feelings for me, but I still couldn’t quite believe it. How was he even here, with these people? The last I knew, he was in some kind of coma.
Had he worked for Terian all along?
“Traitor,” I muttered, wiping my eyes, staring at him. “Fucking traitor.”
He blinked in surprise, but his predominant expression remained shock.
Terian made a conciliatory gesture towards Maygar with one hand.
“Well? If you insist on being the strapping young buck. Take care of it.” He raised his voice. “Nenzi, this young male is right. We need to take Alyson to the medical facilities. Will you permit him to pass?”
Nenzi looked at me. When I nodded, reluctantly, he frowned.
He looked at Maygar. The look in his eyes was narrow, appraising.
“All right,” he said finally.
Maygar’s jaw clenched. He looked at the boy, hearing the same warning in his words as I had. Nenzi’s arm remained in front of me. His hand still clutched my leg protectively––or maybe possessively. I didn’t know anymore, or care.
He hadn’t hurt me, not directly, and the rest of these people had.
As if he’d been reading my thoughts, Maygar looked from the boy back to me. He stared at the small hand on my thigh, and for an instant, disgust tainted his expression. I felt my jaw harden, but I only looked away, resting my chin on my knee. Nenzi glanced at me, caressing my face with his fingers.
Maygar opened the door, entering the cage.
Nenzi gripped my leg as he approached us.
“Don’t hurt her,” he said. “Please. I’ll kill you if you do… but please, don’t.”
Maygar didn’t bother to answer. He crossed the depth of the cage. Reaching the two of us, he moved the boy out of the way, his hands not particularly gentle. Nenzi took it from him, maybe because he could feel Maygar’s intentions, or maybe for some other reason.
Crouching next to me, Maygar dragged the thin blanket off the cot behind us. Carefully, he wrapped it around my back, covering me.
Somehow, the simple gesture brought tears to my eyes again.
“Allie?” He touched my face, brushing hair out of my eyes. “Allie, I’m going to pick you up, okay?”
I looked at him. For an instant, he was my friend again, the person I’d joked around with and drank with and tried to fix up with Cass on the train to Russia. Behind my eyes, I glimpsed the look on his face the last time I’d seen him, that hard, hunter’s look, the sweat on his upper lip.
I wanted to ask him why he’d done it.
Instead, hearing his question again in my mind, I nodded.
I didn’t move as he slid his arms under my knees and upper back… and lifted. Briefly, I felt something close to relief as he brought me up in a curl against his chest. I felt his heart beating louder under my ear. He felt real though, like a person. Not like one of Terian’s animated corpses, or the woman with those cold, lifeless eyes, or the boy who should have been dead a hundred years ago. His hands were shaking a little, I noticed. Holding me tightly against his chest, he carried me out of the cell.
I caught another glimpse of Terian staring at me, his amber eyes concentrated, as if I were a puzzle he needed to solve.
Then Maygar’s shoulder cut off my view.
When I looked down, I saw Nenzi trailing along beside us.
42
UNWILLING
“LOOK UP.” THE flashlight shone in Revik’s face. “Right.” He turned his head. “Left.” He turned it again.
He felt the scanner with his light, knowing it was tracking the
shape of his bones inside his flesh, tracking his teeth against dental records, both in local law enforcement and SCARB. He knew the organics in the body skin he wore should be able to provide a false map to the machine, based on the young unwilling’s outline, as should the detailed prosthetics he wore, also embedded with organics.
He shouldn’t be worried.
Yet he knew if he hadn’t been in the suit, his jacked-up heart rate likely would have set off the scanner’s warning light already.
He’d done this kind of thing before.
Normally, he could keep all of his basic body functions under control; it was entry-level infiltrator training, not even an advanced skill. But he could feel himself getting closer to her. He could feel it in every part of his body, enough to know he’d broken out in a sweat.
He hadn’t factored that in.
He shoved it from his mind. It was too late now.
His light had been tougher to disguise than his body and face. He had a number of seers holding pieces of it from the Barrier, but to get past security, he was relying on Wreg’s team to generate a temporary field mimicking the light of the unwilling whose identity he borrowed––a superimposition of key markers and structural configurations to fool the seers working the front gate.
It utilized Barrier technology he’d only heard postulated while working for the Seven, but Wreg and his team seemed confident they could pull it off, at least long enough to get him inside. It was akin to creating a mobile construct around Revik’s person.
Revik hadn’t asked too many questions about the mechanics of how such a thing might be done, but he wasn’t stupid.
Normally, in order to function properly, a construct had to be anchored in significant physical mass. A building. A ship, if large enough. A mountain, or any large deposit of dense stone. Even a body of water might work, under certain circumstances.
For a mobile construct to work, it would need to be anchored in the Barrier.
Given that the vast majority of Barrier beings didn’t operate directly on Earth, that left the Dreng, the same beings that once provided stability for the Rooks’ Pyramid.
Revik didn’t ask.
And since no one offered him a different explanation, he left it alone.
Shield (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #2): Bridge & Sword World Page 46