by Theresa Kay
The soft touch of a hand at the small of my back startles me, but Flint’s loud voice from my side pulls my attention away from my approaching meltdown. “So what now? Seems we’re at an impasse.” He presses his fingertips into my back. It grounds me enough that I’m able to take a few deep breaths unhindered by panic.
“What it seems is that this little reunion might be perfect timing.” Lenny points one finger at my chest and then back to his own. “We got some information you might want. And you’re going to help us. Me and you, girl, we’re going to come to an agreement.”
Flint steps forward. “Why would she agree to anything?”
“She owes me.” Bleary, bloodshot eyes find mine and bore into me. “She. Killed. My. Boy.”
Zach. The thunk of the knife continues its thrumming replay in my head, and it takes everything I have not to flinch. Now is not the time to lose it. I swallow back the memory and force my lips to move. “He tried to kill me first.”
Something between a laugh and a cough bursts from Lenny, and it takes another minute of gasping before he’s breathing normally again. “Stupid, stupid girl. Soft-hearted thing that he was, he decided he was going to let you go. Left a note for his brother and everything. He was there to let you out.” He clears his throat, and more blood bubbles over his lips. “Can’t say I would’ve approved, but it is what it is. Then you killed him. So mebbe it’s not me you owe, but him.”
“What could you possibly have that I want?” His arrogance and easy dismissal of his dead son’s noble intentions is enough to bring the heat of my anger back. I’m still steeped in guilt, but with every frozen synapse reclaimed, my head grows clear and my breath comes more easily. I step closer. “And Flint’s right—why would I agree to anything?”
“Because I know what the erks’ next target is. And it might be one you’re interested in. Ever hear of a place called Bridgelake?”
The only sound I hear is the breath leaving Flint’s chest in a whoosh. I guess that’s to be expected. My own reaction? Not quite what I expect. My stomach twists, and a mixture of anxiety and guilt fills my body. I’ve never cared for Bridgelake and even less so for Dane, but… I made a promise to Emily. Dane is Flint’s father. And there are thousands of innocent people there. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened and I knew I could have warned them.
I narrow my eyes and study Lenny’s face. “What does that have to do with you?”
“Despite what you might think of me, girlie, I’m no fool.” He wipes the corner of his mouth and studies his bloodied finger. “It’s not safe this close to the city anymore, and that means we need to find a new location. I figure if you can make it to the settlement in time, they might have a chance to fight back. I saw the attack. I think I got a handle on one of their weaknesses.” Another cough rolls through his chest.
“What?” The word puffs past my lips. The thought of the E’rikon having an exploitable weakness terrifies and gladdens me at the same time. They aren’t invincible, so the humans have a chance, but I don’t want any innocent aliens harmed either. Handing off information like this to Dane could result in a massacre… and I don’t want to see anything happen to Lir.
Lenny shakes his head slowly. “Stu doesn’t know the area, and as well as he can shoot, he’s not much good in the woods. Plus, I hear they ain’t lettin’ in any young males over there. You take him with you, vouch for him to the compound leader, and I’ll tell you what I know.”
“Why me?”
Lenny shrugs, but there’s a calculated intelligence in his eyes. His speech, his age, and his attitude have made me underestimate him. Lenny might not be very educated, but he’s smart. He hasn’t mentioned us getting him anywhere, so it’s obvious he knows he won’t be leaving here—won’t be surviving whatever injury he’s trying to downplay right now. And he’s read me, or at least he’s seen the weight of guilt in my eyes. He knows that I’ll do what he’s asking even without the promise of the information… because of Zach.
I hold his gaze and give one quick jerk of my chin. We have an agreement.
And then all hell breaks loose as the door opens behind me and Jastren strides into the house.
Lenny’s eyes widen and he shoves himself to his feet only to collapse back onto the couch nearly as fast, his legs unable to hold him. Stu whips around the coffee table and rushes toward Flint and me. Jace grabs my bicep and pulls me to the side and slightly behind him. What I can only call a growl rumbles from my brother’s mouth. Two short words make it through his clenched teeth as his control teeters.
“Get. Back.”
Stu scoffs and takes another step forward. Jace blurs into action, stooping to pull a knife from his boot and flipping it in his hand to prepare it for throwing.
“Jace.” Just his name. That’s all Jastren says, but the stern unspoken command behind it freezes my brother in place.
Of course, that’s when Flint decides to move toward him. Jace spins into action again, reversing his grip on the knife and swinging it out in a wide sweep in front of his body. Stumbling backward, Flint avoids the blade, but he trips over the rug and crashes to the floor… and Jace advances with a feral expression on his face.
Your brother is a thief and a murderer…
Weeks later, and this is the first time Lir’s words really register. This detached killing instinct Jace is displaying—the jerky movements, the one-word sentences, the inferno of rage rolling off of him… I hardly recognize him. But his reactions are eerily similar to how I sometimes behave. Is this what I become when I kill?
And yet I’ve never attacked a friend and Jace isn’t backing down.
Flint’s eyes grow wider and the color drains from his face.
The air in the room is thick and silent. No one moves to do anything. No one says anything to stop my brother. I glance at Jastren, and I’m surprised to catch a glimpse of smugness on his face before he washes it away. Why is he just standing there? He should be doing something. I can’t let this continue.
Jace! Stop! The mental call does nothing. I desperately grab hold of the connection and pull, drawing the fire of his anger into myself. This is much different from the subtle emotional transfers in the past. The thread between us crackles and ignites. Heat fills my limbs and buzzes in my fingertips. I can tell when I’ve pulled enough from Jace for him to regain control of himself. He pulls away, but now that roiling emotion is locked within me, begging for an outlet.
Peter steps forward.
“No!” I yell. “Don’t touch me!”
Instead it’s Jace who grabs my arm, my brother who that awful darkness plunges into, my twin who collapses to the floor with blood running from his nose while I can only watch.
WHEN I WAKE, THE world is black around me, and for a moment the pounding in my head is drowned out only by the stark rush of terror at the thought that he has locked me up again. But as my brain catches up with the rest of me, I realize the room is simply dim and I am lying in a bed. It is a small room, nothing like the accommodations I resided in with my parents—but also nothing like that horrid cell I spent the last… I do not know how long it was before Rym came to release me earlier today.
“You are safe, Cousin.” Rym’s voice startles me out of the study of my surroundings.
I struggle to sit, sliding up the headboard until my back is straight and then setting my shoulders. I have to clear my dry throat a few times before I am able to speak. “What happened?”
“He…” His eyes shift downward and he shakes his head. “Why must you insist on provoking him?” I snort, and Rym’s mouth quirks up at the corners in a somewhat uncomfortable smile. “The humans have rubbed off on you,” he says. “First you’re instigating fights, and now you’re imitating some of their less attractive… expressions. What’s next? Scratching your—”
I hold up a hand. “I think I understand your point.”
He winks. “Ah, so you have not gone completely native on me then. Mister prim and proper is still in ther
e.”
“I suppose your father has, as yet, been unable to beat that out of me.” The smile drops from Rym’s face and the laugh in his throat chokes off. I sigh and run a hand over my face. “I apologize. That did not come out quite how I meant it to.”
He simply shakes his head again. “No. I am the one making light of the situation. I am the one who should apologize.”
“No…” My voice trails off as I shake my head. “Are we not the pair? Bouncing apologies back and forth when there are so many other things for us to worry over.”
Rym nods and smiles, but when he meets my eyes, his expression is serious. “I am truly sorry for his actions. I do not support what he is doing.”
“I am certainly pleased to hear you feel that way, considering I cannot stop him by myself.”
“No, you cannot.” His shoulders rise with his inhalation, and he blows the breath past his lips slowly. “I will leave you to get some rest.” He glances back at me as he walks through the doorway. “We will figure something out. The city cannot continue like this.” With another sad smile, he shuts the door, and I am left alone with my thoughts.
Alone. As far back as I can remember, there has always been someone in my head besides myself. I was only three Earth years old when I was fitted with my kitu. Four years younger than Stella is now. I shake my head softly. How does she do it? My little sister has never once complained about the lack of the link, never once seemed bothered that she would never be able to fully become a part of our society. I suppose one cannot miss what one does not know.
I, however, miss it. Yearn for it even. If Vitrad’s methods in the newly rebuilt research facility have not already driven me half mad, living much longer with the quiet of my own thoughts might do so. If I had simply left the bond in place… No. I may be suffering, but there is no way to know what he might have done if he had gotten his hands on Jax again.
Obviously, she can still link with me. Even without the bond. Even without the kitu. How does she do it? The image of her eyes, stubbornness practically radiating from them, flashes through my mind. That is how. Anything is possible for her. Even during our first encounter in the forest, I knew something was different about her, but I would never have guessed she was connected to that first ill-fated research team.
My stomach twists. That spark of life, the thing that makes her so special to me, could have been extinguished today. Not that I think my uncle would have killed her—he needs her too badly for that—but he would certainly have locked her up like he did me. And for her, that would have been nearly as bad.
Jax is like a brightly colored bird, flitting from branch to branch. Something to be admired, surely. Maybe even adored. But never caged. Yet, I let it happen once—let them capture her and lock her up while I stood there and did nothing. All because I took my uncle at his word. Worse, I had Rym bring her back here for my own selfish reasons, and she was almost caught again.
I will not ask her to return. At least not before I have found a way to deal with Vitrad. If we can discredit him, turn the tide of public opinion somehow, perhaps things can be different. If I could convince the Council to work with the humans… I can only hope the peace my father always wished for between us and the humans can still be found.
I run one hand over my face and sigh. Though it is the word “we” that circles my thoughts, I have no idea who this mysterious “we” might be. Who can I trust?
Rym is my cousin, and though we are friendly with each other, we have never been particularly close. It was always Trel who tagged along with Kov and I, and therefore her whom I spent much more time with. Rym has always been the joker, the laid back one, the lazy one. He never made much effort, and I know when we were younger he resented the attention his father paid to me.
My cousin may have put on that charming act when he first met Jax, but I knew by the glint in his eyes he was delighted to have the damning evidence of my… mistake?… standing there in my parents’ residence. I am positive he ran to his father to report the infraction as soon as he and his sister stepped outside the door.
Or did he?
His latest actions lead me to think differently. He released Jax from the research facility and managed to convince his father I am of no use locked away. And in my moment of weakness, when I needed to see Jax—to see that she was whole and safe almost more than I needed my next breath—he offered to go for her.
Rym has been there, assisting me in one fashion or another, since Vitrad’s takeover. But how far is he willing to go? Is he really willing to help take down his father? This is clearly one of those times where the link would be invaluable. I would be able to determine his motives, or at least know if he was outright lying to me. The Vestra capability to differentiate lies from truth, the verseta enhancement, is one of the reasons my father was chosen as Chancellor here, but even the benefit of my family line is lost to me without the link.
It is a shame there are not more lines with the same enhancement. Perhaps then the process of relieving my uncle from power would be easier. Though my uncle is skilled at talking in circles, his motives for the significant changes he has made here could not be hidden for long. What Vitrad has done in combining the Council and the military is not entirely unheard of, but it is not how things were supposed to be handled here on Earth.
I sigh. That is not the only thing that did not go as it was supposed to.
I am broken out of my pondering when the door slides open.
“Why are you here?” Trel’s features are twisted into an ugly sneer.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath before responding. “Your brother brought me here. I do not know where here is, so—”
A harsh laugh scrapes past her throat and I sigh. There is not much point in trying to explain things to her.
She is dressed in the flowing white mourning gown of one who has lost her bondmate, and her golden hair is styled atop her head in an intricate braid. I could almost mistake her for the girl I once knew if not for her hard eyes and jagged stare, which are foreign to me. Even after Kov’s death she did not have this hatred in her, at least not that I could see. The emotion does not suit her.
“This is not what he would have wanted for you,” I blurt out. It is my first chance to speak to Trel alone since the events of that disastrous Council meeting, and I do not care to waste it.
She recoils, and the brief flash of pain in her eyes tells me that my words have affected her. Not enough though, or perhaps too much. She presses her lips together and closes her eyes. When they open again, they are blank. “You swore to me you would avenge his death. Yet when you had his killer within your grasp, you let him go. You sided with them. You helped them. The second you took up with a human, you lost any right to tell me what Kov would have wanted.” She stomps across the room and points one finger at my face. “You dishonored Kov’s memory, and you dishonor your parents by continuing to withhold the information my father wants. For what? The life of some silly half-breed girl who could not be bothered to stick around for your trial?”
As my anger rises, my voice does too, injecting my words with bitterness. “Trial? Is that what he is calling it? Do you not mean systematic torture? Your father—”
“My father spared your life,” she hisses. “You let those human spies in here. Did you not see what they did? The Council would have executed you had my father not stood up for you.”
“The attack was not their doing. It was—”
“Stop with your lies!” The reptilian smile that spreads across her face is eerily similar to her father’s. “You knew the half-breeds were to blame. That is why you broke the bond, so your precious human would not have to suffer the consequences.”
At that, I am finally able to swallow back my anger. Trel knows nothing about consequences. The truth sits on the tip of my tongue, waiting to be set free. It was Vitrad who set up that attack, and all I really want to do is scream that at her, make her listen, make her see. But her mind is made up, warped by h
er father’s lies and manipulations. She will not be receptive to anything I say at this point, so it is best that I hold my tongue for now.
I pull my eyes from hers and stare down at my hands. “Trel…”
“No. I will not listen to this any longer.” She turns and walks briskly to the doorway. “I will speak to my father about this. Virym should not be letting traitors sleep in his bed.”
The door closes behind her and my shoulders slump. So Rym brought me to his residence. Does that mean he is on my side? Or is he simply using this as a means to keep an eye on me? If he is not on my side then what the blazes was I thinking telling him where to find Jax? Can I trust him? The possible scenarios run circles in my head.
With two fingers I rub my temples in an attempt to massage away the growing ache forming there. For all its benefits, the link has left us much too dependent. I want to believe Rym has no ulterior motives, but I no longer trust my own instincts after being reliant on the link for nearly my entire life. How do the humans do it—measure someone’s intentions by only their body language and words?
I chuckle softly to myself. Not very effectively, that is how.
Yet, as familiar as the humans are with lying and violence, they somehow still learn to trust. Jax learned to trust me, even after she had so misjudged someone in the past, even after she had been hurt by deception and nearly shattered by violence. And I learned to trust her.
I cannot afford to drown myself in doubt and second guesses every minute of the day. I will have to learn to take Rym’s actions at face value for now, despite who his father is. Until then, I will simply have to remind myself that he has not betrayed me yet—and that if I could trust him enough to send for Jax, I should be able to trust him with helping me fix this situation.