He nodded. “Please.”
“I’ve spent the past five years letting strange men do unspeakable things to my body. And the whole time, all I wanted, all I could fantasize about, was having a good man by my side, someone who would love me for the rest of my life. I didn’t think I’d ever have that. But you and Arielle…you know what I see? I see fear and love, and the fear is killing the love instead of the other way around, like it should be.”
“But Arielle? Does she—”
“Yes,” Sally said, nodding firmly. “She understands what she could lose, too.”
Smiling, she took Michael’s face in her hands. Her palms were cold and smooth against his skin.
“Let your heart surprise you. It’s the only way to live.”
She pulled away, hurried into the café. The door opened and shut, and then she was gone.
Michael hesitated. His mind was perfectly clear—a rare occasion except for when he was meditating. Then, out of that pleasant emptiness, came a voice that seemed to materialize inside his skull like a quiet burst of static.
My office.
Michael sighed. “Way to ruin a moment, major.”
Feeling a fresh burst of energy—Arielle dominating his thoughts—Michael jogged the entire way there.
Chapter 12
Blake’s office was unusually cold.
When Michael entered, the old man was sitting with his chair facing the window, staring out at the darkened street. He was wrapped in a tattered, faded quilt. His silver hair fell around his head in greasy clumps. Had he showered at all since leaving the jail? Didn’t look like it. Michael breathed in the sour air—didn’t smell like it, either.
“Dominic told me about the smoke,” Blake said without turning. “You’re adapting and learning at a rate that I…” He shook his head, then reached for the cigarettes on his desk and pulled one out.
“It’s about time you quit that,” Michael said, taking a seat. “It’s not too late.”
“Not that it would matter if it was. I’m too old to make the trip to the NDR. Too old to do any kind of work once I get there. I’m not feeling sorry for myself, boy, so don’t look at me like that.”
Michael hadn’t even considered judging Blake. Instead, he was wondering what the old man seemed so intent on holding back from him.
“I don’t buy it,” Michael said. “What is it about the NDR that scares you?”
“Scares me?” Blake glanced back at him, eyebrows raised. “I’m scared of a lot of things, kid, but the NDR ain’t one of them.”
“Then what is it? I won’t leave or let you change the subject until you tell me.”
Blake’s focus returned to the window, and he was silent for a moment. When he spoke, his voice sounded lost in memories too old for Michael to have been included in.
“The leaders of the NDR consider me a war criminal, and they’re right to do so.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were at war with them once. A real war, not the cold war Harris Kole has been using the past decade and a half to scare his people into blindly trusting him. This war was particularly suited for men like me.”
“Telepaths,” Michael said.
Blake nodded. “Ambitious, telepathic officers who hated raining bullets on their enemies across the battlefield. Who preferred creeping around corners and sticking knives into the throats of unsuspecting sergeants, then eliminating their entire squads with whispered commands and silenced pistols. When Kole sent me and my men east of the wall, we became ghosts. Enemy soldiers told horror stories about me, like I was some sort of boogeyman.
“Then they got smart. They started recruiting telepathic boys around your age, even younger, to sense when we got close. They even trained some of them to fight back, using our own tactics against us. They weren’t very effective soldiers, but when you’re aiming a pistol at a fourteen-year-old boy who only cares about surviving his rotation so he can go home to his mother, it changes things.”
“How many of them did you kill?” Michael asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “These kid soldiers, I mean.”
“Too many to count. It wasn’t until I met Claudia—your mother—that all the shame and guilt building up inside of me finally became too much. She made me see who I was really fighting, and who I was really fighting for. She opened my eyes to the kind of weapon I had become—a mere shadow compared to someone like you. If I was a ghost who brought death to innocent young boys, then the soldier Harris Kole would someday succeed in creating would be infinitely worse. A demon who would wipe out entire populations of innocent people, if that’s what its master demanded.”
“A demon, huh?” Michael said, tightly clenching his hands into fists. He got up, then began to pace around the room. “So, the NDR sees you as a war criminal because you killed children, and because you had a part in creating me. Now, you can’t go back there because they’ll probably kill you. But you want me to continue where you left off. You want me to go there and change their minds, even though they probably want to kill me, too…because I’m like a demon to them.”
“That’s up to you,” Blake said. “Are you going to change their minds? Or prove to them that Kole and his scientists succeeded in creating said demon?”
Michael sat again, shaking his head. “What did you ask me here for? I’m sure it wasn’t to convince me that killing Harris Kole and avenging my mother—Claudia, the woman you loved, by the way—is in any way a bad thing.”
“You can kill Harris Kole if you want, but that won’t change anything. Someone else will take his place, and the people will be slaves like they’ve been since the war that launched his father into power. They’ll brand you an assassin, a terrorist, a coward who uses his ability to kill from the shadows, said ability being the one Harris Kole gave you the day you were born. You won’t be a hero to those people. You’ll be a monster.”
Blake got up from his seat, his frail body seemingly rising along with the ominous, dark current of his words. He appeared more like a phantom in that moment than any man made of flesh and bone.
“And,” Blake added, “even if you did succeed in toppling his reign, what then? Would you take Harris Kole’s place? Would you rule the People’s Republic? Restore it to a prosperous, peaceful state? Tell me, Michael—if you were in Harris Kole’s shoes, would you be a benevolent ruler? Or would your anger, combined with all that power, turn you into a monster? Would you even have a say in the matter?”
Michael swallowed a pang of nervousness, remembering how all those people on his block had died in New Sancta due to his renegade telepathic attack. “I get it. What do you want me to do?”
Looming over him now, watching him with those eyes still steeped in bloody memories, Blake let a few tense moments pass. Then his entire composure changed. His shoulders slumped, his body deflating beneath the quilt. He dropped into his chair, his forgotten cigarette nothing more than a length of ash. After he stubbed it into the ashtray, he went to light another.
“You used a mental domination technique in Praetoria,” he said, inhaling deeply on the freshly lit cigarette, “and you did it without bleeding.”
Michael nodded, glad to finally change the subject. He absently touched the skin around one of his eyes. “I did, but it… I can’t just do it whenever I want. It comes out only when I really need it. That Type 2 almost shot me.”
“And the headaches are gone?”
“No. I had one on the way back.”
“Then it’s still dangerous. It’ll always be dangerous.”
“I know, but it feels right, almost like—”
“Like you were born to do it,” Blake finished for him. “You’re almost ready.” He put out his cigarette and rose shakily off the chair, the blanket slipping past his knees. He looked ten or fifteen pounds lighter than when Michael had first met him.
“Ready for what?”
Blake gave him a confused look, like he was surprised to find Michael still standing there. “To go to t
he NDR. I may be a war criminal according to their government, but I have contacts there with a lot of influence who would take you in—as long as you stop associating yourself with my group and my cause. You can continue your education and your training there. Maybe someday, you’ll inspire a whole lot of people to make this country a better place—without bloodshed. Without releasing the demon. It’s what your mother wanted, and it’s what I promised I would try to give you, even if it killed me.”
Michael shot up from his seat. “But what about my life right now? What about my friends?”
“You mean Arielle.”
It wasn’t even a question. Blake understood exactly what Michael was thinking.
“Her and everyone else. Peter and Ian and Eli—and you and Dominic and Reggie.”
Blake sighed and approached Michael hesitantly, like he had only bad news to deliver.
“I can’t control who goes with you, Mike. Those who choose to leave Gulch can do so freely, but they can’t ever come back. Security risk.”
“Staying or leaving…” Michael said, crossing his arms. “At the end of the day, it should be my choice.”
Blake gave a subtle nod, tilting his head as if to say, It depends on how you look at it. “You’re right. It should be—but you’re not thinking of the consequences of staying. Gulch is just a bus stop on the way to your final destination. By staying here, you’re putting yourself in danger, as well as the rest of the people here.”
“Then why don’t we all go?”
Blake’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “The entire town? Move to the NDR? And where would they get the passports they’d need to become citizens? Could you afford to buy them citizenship? Do you even know how much that costs?”
Michael looked down at the floor. People could buy entry into the NDR, but it cost more than most laborers out in the Eastlands made in an entire lifetime. Wealthy merchants went bankrupt just getting their families into the NDR in order to start new lives in the prosperous state.
Michael thought it was unfair. Why should he get to just walk in when all of his friends had to stay behind?
“Teach me the mental dominance technique,” Michael said, meeting Blake’s unwavering gaze. “Teach me how to use it whenever I want, even when I’m not in danger. Then I could get everyone in.”
“How?” Blake asked. “By forcing your way past the gates? Manipulating anyone who stands in your way? How long could you keep that up—a life of hiding and constant manipulation, where everyone else is just a puppet to you?”
“Wrath,” Michael said. “No matter what I say…”
“Careful,” Blake warned. “I’m not saying this to piss you off, or because it makes me feel like a bigger man. This is a necessary part of your education. The battle telepath—if that’s what you truly aim to become—always looks at every angle. All the future possible consequences of your actions.”
“I know,” Michael said. “I know. I just don’t know what I need to do—all I know is how I feel.”
Blake sat again, but this time, he leaned forward, fingers twined above his knees. Michael could tell he was listening intently. This particular subject fascinated him.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“Like killing someone,” Michael said in all honesty. “Not anyone here—well, except maybe a couple of idiots I can think of. But Harris Kole, mostly, and anyone who stands with him.”
“That’s normal,” Blake said. “I fantasize about killing him, too. But over time—”
“No. It’s not getting easier. It’s not going away with time. The better I get at this…” He spread his hands, fingers clawed, as if he could picture fireballs erupting from his palms. “…this telepathy thing, the more I want to use it to finish him. It’s why I agreed to come here. Nothing’s changed.”
“Then your goal is to become a murderer. In your case, a better one.”
With a gruff sigh, Michael rubbed his hands over his face and stood.
“You can teach it to me,” he said, pacing again. “Or at some point, I’ll leave here and start learning it on my own. Out there. Where I’ll have plenty of people to practice on.”
“Teach it to you, huh?”
Michael stood still. He sensed a shift in Blake’s attitude. Maybe he had finally convinced him.
“Yes,” Michael said. “Mental domination. The death whisper. Teach it to me. I swear, I’ll use it for good. I can’t promise I’ll spare Kole, but after that, I’ll use it to help people, not hurt them.”
The old man’s face hardened. Michael could sense his withdrawal from the idea—not just a mental withdrawal, as his conscious mind considered the consequences, but an emotional one, as a deeper part of him cringed at the idea of such power.
“Come on, Major,” Michael pressed. “That’s how I’m going to change things. By understanding and controlling this thing inside of me.”
“Until the day it starts controlling you.”
Michael made his hands into fists. Blake studied him, eyes narrowing slightly, as if he were just waiting now—waiting for the angry response that would confirm his warning.
“Your anger is like a mirror, my boy,” Blake said finally. “It redirects your power back into you until you shatter. Only one thing can reverse the process so the mirror shatters instead of you. Only then can you be free.”
Michael blinked absently as he absorbed the information. “I have to…shatter the mirror?”
Blake shrugged. “That’s it.”
“What’s it? What does that even mean?”
“Figure it out. Then you’ll understand how to use the mental domination technique.” Blake glanced at his wrist even though he wasn’t wearing a watch. “It’s getting late. You can see yourself out, right?”
Finally letting out the frustrated sigh he’d been holding in, Michael stormed out of the room.
An hour later, he was meditating by the pond when Arielle showed up. He had sensed her approach long before she arrived, but he kept his eyes closed. Listening to her, he could tell she was taking off her sandals, getting ready to sit.
She did, and he could feel the warmth coming off her body, smell the breath of flowers still caught in her hair.
You found me, he sent.
He sensed her bitter amusement. How do you know I was looking for you? Maybe I just wanted to sit here.
Go ahead.
He opened his eyes to drink in the sight of her. She was dressed in an old pair of jeans and a sleeveless white top with dirt smudges all over it. Her hair was down, strands of it floating in the wind, catching the sunlight. Her smile had stopped halfway, like she wasn’t sure what to make of this conversation but was curious nevertheless.
I’m glad you came, he sent.
“We can talk out loud, you know. Like normal people.”
It felt strange to watch her lips move in actual speech.
“I know,” Michael said. “Practicing.”
Her smiled widened, causing her eyes to narrow slightly.
“You have a twig in your hair,” he said, reaching to remove it. Her eyes followed the movement of his hand, and he could sense her wariness. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s nothing,” she said. “Really.”
“Are you afraid of me?”
She said nothing, only averted her gaze.
“Why?” he asked.
“I’ve been hurt before.”
“Tell me.”
He sent his next words directly into her mind. I would never hurt you.
“You don’t need to hear it.” A blush had risen in her cheeks. “We all have dark times in our past. I know yours because you showed me once. But mine…”
After a pause, she finished the thought. “Mine keeps me from being—open the way boys like Peter want me to be.”
“Is that why he broke up with you?”
She nodded. “I don’t blame him. He’s just a boy, like you.”
“No one is like me.” Michael winced a little, as if he had
just admitted something embarrassing. “I like you, you know. Too much to ever hurt you. You have to believe that.”
“I do,” she said. “That’s why I want you to know.”
“Know what?”
She reached out, gripped his arm. As their skin met, a flurry of images and sounds flashed into his mind. Within seconds, the jumble arranged itself into a vision.
Closing his eyes, he let it take over.
Just outside Gulch, on the land sloping up to meet the canyon’s rock walls, someone was whistling an upbeat tune.
It was a man walking up the slope, arms swinging at his sides. He was handsome and strongly built. His well-coordinated movements, the confident steadiness of his shoulders, his rigid spine, all spoke of military training in his past.
A familiar presence, yet Michael was sure he’d never seen the man before.
That was because Michael had borrowed a set of eyes that was not his own.
A set of eyes from the past.
Still whistling that joyful tune, the man stopped and peered over his shoulder. Satisfied, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a metal object that bounced back glimmers of light.
A knife?
No—a flask.
Resuming his walk, he unscrewed the cap and took an eager swallow.
Charlotte was nearby, in the forest. She rose out of a crouch to watch the man approach. In this memory of that day, she was slender, skinny even, wearing a blue sundress that seemed too conservative for the Charlotte he knew. She seemed so young, maybe seventeen or younger still.
She was seventeen. I was thirteen.
Michael was seeing Charlotte from the point of view of someone much smaller. Blonde hair fell around the shoulders of the girl whose mind he had entered.
Arielle…
Shh… Just watch.
“What’s wrong, Charlotte? It’s just Paul.”
Even then, Arielle had been a capable empath, receptive to her sister’s fear. Charlotte never took her eyes off the man. She had stopped moving altogether.
Paul was still whistling as he ducked under a hanging branch, his muscular left arm lifting to push it away, the mat of black hair on his chest visible through his white cotton shirt. He was wearing those army pants with all the pockets that Charlotte complained about because it made respectable men look like raiders. His big leather shoes took clomping steps, crushing leaves and twigs underfoot.
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