by Carysa Locke
“How did you find me?” she asked, her voice flat and cold.
Niall favored her with a thin smile, giving her one of those patient looks he used whenever he thought she was being particularly obtuse. He was dressed for his new position as a director, in a tailored black suit that cost more money than her entire yearly stipend from Veritas. Black suit and black shirt, with a silver clasp at the collar. He kept his auburn hair cut short. Like hers, if it grew too long, it became wild and unruly. Nothing about Niall was either of those things.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Sanah. You are my family. I will always be able to find you.” He tugged at the cuff of his sleeve, though it was already straight. “Now, I wanted a private word,” he said. “Nayla is too young to know better, perhaps, but I expected better of you.”
She stared at him, saying nothing. Part of her marveled that it seemed her brother actually expected some kind of apology.
After a moment, Niall sighed. “Do mother and father’s memories buy so little loyalty from you? Not only do you take our sister away, but you also run straight to our enemies. How do you think I felt when I found you here?”
Dream or not, she couldn’t let that go.
“I don’t know, Niall,” she said with an edge to her voice. “Betrayed, maybe? That’s how I felt when I found your notes.” She leaned forward, furious. “How could you even think to use Nayla’s gift that way? I trusted you to take care of her. I trusted you to protect her and help her, not turn her Talent into your personal assassin.”
He stared at her for a long moment before shaking his head. “There’s no point in arguing with you when you get like this. You refuse to see reason.”
“I refuse? You think I’m being unreasonable? Niall, you took our sixteen-year-old sister and used her to kill someone. From what I read, that was only going to be the beginning.”
“Biokinesis is a tremendous weapon,” he said. “You’re very shortsighted, Sanah. But then, you always have been.”
Anger swept through Sanah, so hot and fast it left her shaking. “You insufferable ass. You don’t even have the decency to feel regret. To be a little bit sorry. Do you have any idea what you did to her? Nayla has the heart of a healer. What you forced her to do has ripped into her psyche. You’ve damaged her, Niall. Mentally, emotionally. As surely as if you held her down and beat her. More so, even.” She leaned back, waving a disgusted hand at his clothes. “What do you care? You got what you wanted.”
He actually looked taken aback. “You think I did this for selfish gain? That I merely wanted a promotion?” He shook his head. “These pirates you’re with—you actually trust them? You know they want to destroy the Commonwealth, to topple the government, and bring down the monarchy.”
“And I suppose your motives are pure?” she coldly asked.
“Veritas supports the government. We always have. When the populace rose up against the Talented, your pirates were the ones who chose violence and exile. And what are they still doing, centuries later? Taking ships, pillaging colonies, looting, killing. We even have reports that they’re taking people now, Sanah.” He paused, as though waiting for her to digest the horror of that. He was terribly mistaken. “We chose a better way,” he said, his voice soft.
“Better? Explain that to me, Niall, because I am really not seeing how Veritas is any better. The pirates? At least they’re honest about what they do. Have you thought about that? The irony in an organization naming itself for truth, when everything they say and do is a lie?”
“Veritas maintains secrecy because we must, Sanah. You know that. We support the government, we help them, but you know how nulls feel about Talent. We would be persecuted if our gifts were discovered.”
“Yes. They see us all as monsters.”
All it took was one telepath going insane and killing himself. But Mori Shinjo hadn’t just stabbed out his own eyes; his entire ship’s crew, more than three hundred people, had done the same. Simultaneously. Shipboard recordings had preserved the horrific scene for all time, and news waves depicting images from it gave rise to panic and fear. It was a turning point in history for all the Talented.
Sanah folded her arms across her chest. “Unfortunately,” she said, “I’m starting to wonder if they might be right. At least for some.”
Niall stared at her, his eyes cold. “I see the pirates have worked their influence already. Not that it must have been hard for them, when you’ve already betrayed your own family.”
That was a matter of perspective; she saw it the other way around. “Let’s talk about that, Niall. Let’s talk about E-7.”
His eyes narrowed, and she knew she was right.
“It was you,” she said, her voice low and vicious. “You took an agent I developed to try to help Nayla, and you used it to wipe out nearly an entire population of people.”
“Stop being dramatic,” Niall said. “I did no such thing. But you had to know Veritas would never ignore a gift like that.”
“Gift? E-7 was a failure!”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Only in your eyes. It did exactly what it was supposed to. It killed the pirate queen, Lilith.”
“Along with nearly every other female Talented they had!” Sanah’s voice shook.
“An unfortunate bit of collateral damage, but necessary, I’m afraid.”
Sanah stared at him in horror. Pieces clicked together in her head, the timing of events lining up. “You gave it to them. That’s why you were given the promotion.” Not because of Nayla at all. “You gave Veritas E-7. How did you get your hands on it? I never gave you access to my lab. I destroyed the virus.”
Niall shrugged. “Not all of it.”
“Bullshit.” Oh, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been this angry. Her body vibrated with it. “Don’t act like some sliver of it survived because I wasn’t thorough. It was my damn lab and I am extremely thorough.”
“And wasteful. You weren’t going to use it.”
“Of course not! It didn’t suppress Talent; it attacked it. It killed people!”
Niall eyed her with contempt. “What do you think your new friends will do,” he said, “when they find out you helped create the virus that nearly destroyed them?”
Her heart pounded painfully. “You won’t get me to bring her back like this,” she said. “I will never bring her back, not just for you to destroy her.”
Niall stared at her with the same blue eyes she and Nayla had. Their father’s eyes. “Well then,” he said at last. “I’ll just have to come and get you.”
It was the last thing he said to her. Then he was gone, and she was looking around at an empty room.
She woke moments later to the smell of real coffee. It smelled a bit like the synthetic version, but indescribably richer and more tantalizing. It was one of the life’s greatest mysteries, as far as Sanah was concerned: how something could smell so divine, yet taste so awful.
At first, she lay still with her eyes closed. The conversation with Niall replayed in her head, perfectly clear, not vague and dream hazed. How had he found her? Not that it mattered now.
The coffee smell grew stronger, and she pushed thoughts of Niall aside. She didn’t want Nayla picking up on them, not yet.
What were they doing with coffee, anyway? Tea was everywhere, but real coffee was almost as rare as Shivas Red throughout most of the Commonwealth. The few worlds where it flourished exported their stock in carefully regulated amounts, to keep the demand up. She’d only had it once, at the house of Director Singh when she’d interviewed with him after completing her doctorate. She’d pretended to like it, though the bitterness was far too strong for her tastes. It was no better than the synthetic version.
Sanah heard Nayla laugh, and her eyes opened to an empty bed. No Niall, no evidence of his presence, just the wrinkled sheets where her sister had lain. She sat up and slid off the comfortable bed, blinking away sleep, and wondering if the fuzz in her head was left over from the stimulants she’d taken, or the
episode with Niall. She grimaced as she tugged ineffectually at her wrinkled and stained gray suit.
“What I wouldn’t give for some fresh clothes,” she muttered as she came out into the main room.
“You should check the closet,” Nayla said from where she sat at the dining table, a steaming mug in front of her. She was smiling, and her face had some color back. Her blue eyes were bright and no longer circled with shadows.
Sanah’s heart squeezed at the idea of putting fear back in Nayla’s eyes. No, I definitely can’t tell her about—she abruptly cut off the thought. Apparently, she wasn’t as good at not thinking about something as she’d hoped.
Dem was standing at the counter, and although Sanah sensed absolutely nothing from him, she swore he was carefully keeping his back to her.
“Really,” she said to Nayla, only half paying attention as she covertly watched Dem.
“Really. Your room is the one we slept in. I’ve already been through the entire closet in mine. See?” She stood up and twirled. Nayla was wearing the sort of dress she’d never had the opportunity for at home, diaphanous layers of pale green silk floating around her as she moved. It was short enough to be fun and soft enough to be feminine. Nayla looked happy and beautiful in it.
She felt happier than she had in a long time. All because of a pretty dress.
“Where did all of these clothes come from?”
“Appropriated from Commonwealth ships. Most of them transport or merchant vessels. A few luxury cruise liners.” Dem smiled faintly. “Don’t worry; we aren’t scavengers to pick the bones of the dead. We kill when we have to, but these are simply stolen merchandise. Consider them gifts.” His voice was a low rumble. “You’ll find you receive many gifts, especially in the beginning. Clothes will be the least of them.”
“The washing tube is pretty basic,” Nayla said, wrinkling her nose. “Sonic. But at least we have one.”
“Sorry,” Dem said, holding a cup out to Sanah. “Baths are impractical aboard ship. Even for us.” He smiled at Nayla as he spoke, and Sanah realized he was teasing her.
Teasing. Yet with such control, she felt no emotion emanating from him.
“Thank you,” she said, taking the cup. Dem gave her the briefest of glances, and the brush of eyes rocked her like a punch of adrenaline. She sucked in a breath, startled. He might not be allowing it to slip past his shields, but Dem definitely felt something when he looked at her.
Without thinking about it, she took a drink from the cup. She was surprised when she tasted a familiar hint of citrus and spice. Pleased, Sanah smiled. “You gave me tea.”
Dem hesitated. “Coffee can be an acquired taste. A lot of people find it bitter at first.”
True. Except Sanah wasn’t buying that for a second. Nayla, she noticed, was drinking coffee just fine. Though she’d probably dumped half a pound of sweetener in it. Sanah knew she’d acquired a taste for the synthetic version at the labs, where interns and assistants drank the stuff like it was their only sustenance.
“Just how much did you learn about me when you touched my mind?” she asked Dem, raising an eyebrow.
He met her eyes. “You let me in,” he said quietly.
“I’m not saying I didn’t.” She waited, sipping at what was admittedly a lovely cup of tea. She let the question of what else he knew hang in the silence between them.
“I didn’t go deep, Sanah,” Dem said. “I just know what you keep close to the surface. Things you wouldn’t want anyone to know about, your subconscious tries to bury when another mind connects with yours. I didn’t dig.”
“Hmm. I didn’t know that.” She thought about it. “The mind protects itself.”
Dem nodded. He looked so serious that Sanah couldn’t resist. “So, you didn’t pick up that I’m a virgin?”
Nayla gasped, and the lines around Dem’s eyes and mouth deepened in his own version of consternation. Sanah laughed.
“Just kidding.” She grinned at him.
“Sanah!” Nayla was clearly caught between surprise and laughter. Sanah was a little surprised herself. That kind of teasing wasn’t something she normally felt comfortable enough to engage in with men she dated, much less with someone she’d only known for a day.
To cover her own confusion, she retreated back to her room, leaving Nayla laughing. In a few moments, her sister was pestering Dem with all sorts of questions about their new home, and the people aboard it. Sanah heard her ask if there were many people aboard her own age as the door closed.
She sipped her tea—prepared with just a touch of sugar, just as she preferred it—while she thoroughly investigated her closet. A dozen or so pieces lay folded neatly in drawers, all of them the sort of thing she would have picked herself. Well, to be perfectly honest, nicer than what she would have picked herself. Everything from soft and comfortable sleepwear, to a beautiful, floor-length gown in vibrant blue, accented with sparkling crystals.
She shook her head. Selecting a pair of black slacks and a button-up blouse in shimmery silver, as well as clean underclothes, she headed to the washing tube. She suddenly felt every speck of the past three days’ worth of grime.
By the time she was clean and dressed, her tea was gone, and so was that residual fuzziness in her head. She felt more herself than she had since discovering Niall planned to use Nayla’s gift as a weapon.
Probably, she thought darkly, against the very people helping us now. Just like E-7.
She stepped back out into the main room, only to discover that Nayla was gone, leaving her effectively alone with Dem. He answered her question before she could voice it.
“She’s gone to see Doc. Now that she’s not worn down and afraid, she actually seems excited at the prospect of working with him.” He shook his head, apparently amazed.
“Nayla’s always enjoyed helping others. She used to bring home all these strays as a child—cats with ripped ears, or missing tails, birds with broken wings. The infirmary seems a good fit for her.”
“On this ship, no one wants to go to the infirmary, much less work there.” He shrugged at her inquiring look. “Doc’s not easy to deal with. Don’t worry. I sent one of my dogs with her. She’s not walking around the ship alone.”
“Your dogs?”
“Sorry. It’s just slang for a unit of specially trained security. Usually, they work for one particular person, someone in a position of authority. Like me, or Cannon. Although, he’s donated his group to the ship as a whole. Claims he doesn’t need them.” He smiled. “You can recognize those particular men because they wear black and gold. My dogs wear black and red, and they’ll be the ones guarding you most often. That’s one advantage to being head of security. I train all the dogs, which means I get to select the best among them.”
“And you sent one of these highly trained men with Nayla?”
“Yes. She doesn’t know her way around yet, for one. I also knew it would make both of you more comfortable.”
If it were anyone else, Sanah wouldn’t have tried it. But she and Nayla were close, love and a familial bond making it easier to reach one another over all the other minds on this ship. She carefully lowered her shields and reached out for her sister, not telepathically, but emotionally. She wanted to know how Nayla felt walking about the ship, not what she was specifically thinking.
As it turned out, she got both. Some emotions were so obvious that hearing the thoughts that went with them would be utterly superfluous.
Giddy excitement, nerves flavored by sexual attraction, and a powerful sense of playful flirtation filled Nayla. The emotions spiraled through Sanah, making her smile involuntarily, despite an instant sense of personal foreboding. She turned and frowned at Dem.
“Just how young was this man you sent?” He had to think about it, she could tell.
“Twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-eight,” she slowly repeated. Nayla was almost seventeen. “I suppose he’s good looking?”
“I suppose.” Dem shrugged, studying her. �
�Why?”
She shook her head. “Not very familiar with the ways of teenage girls, are you?”
“What does that have to do with anything? Haggerty is nearly twice her age.”
“Not near enough,” she muttered.
“He’s entirely professional. He’ll see she’s safe and protected, and he won’t take advantage, if that’s your worry.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” But she was worried. Nayla’s exposure to men since hitting puberty had consisted of Niall and a much older lab tech who happened to be married with several children.
Suddenly faced with so much freedom all at once, it wouldn’t be surprising if she went a little wild. And Sanah guessed she wouldn’t be short of admirers all too willing to help. Not that she could do anything about that right now, not today. But it was something to think about.
She looked at Dem.
No, she had concerns that were more important on her immediate agenda. She took a deep breath. “I have to talk to you while we’re alone,” she said. “About my brother, Niall.”
Chapter Seven
Dem listened to Sanah’s description with growing anger. He had to turn his back at one point, using the excuse of placing their cups into the kitchenette’s sonic washing tube. He took several deep breaths while he stood there, listening to the faint whirl of the machine and allowing the emotion to fade into the background of his awareness again.
Maybe it was time to revisit focusing and meditation. He hadn’t needed them in years, but he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had this much trouble feeling.
“I don’t know how far away he is, or how he found us out here,” Sanah said behind him, and he could hear the nerves in her voice. He turned around to face her.
“He found you because you’re family. I have a brother far from here. We’ve communicated several times since he left. I can usually get a sense of his direction simply by thinking about him.” His Talent as a Hunter made it easier, but he wasn’t ready to share that with Sanah. “Niall has spent years learning the imprint of your minds.”