The woman’s eyes flicked open.
“Do your thing, Mer.” Valkyrie motioned Meredith forward. Meredith came, her Aspect sparking as she took the woman’s hand.
The woman’s eyes went wide as she understood what Meredith was. Then they hardened. “You may be able to tell if I’m lying,” she spat, “but you can’t make me talk. I’m not going to tell you anything.”
“She can’t make you talk,” Valkyrie agreed—although she wasn’t entirely convinced that was the case. “But I can.” She pressed the tip of one scimitar to the woman’s stomach.
Meredith’s lips tightened and she let go of the woman’s hand, breaking the physical contact necessary for a Truthfinder to determine the veracity of a person’s words. “I won’t be a party to torture.”
Valkyrie rolled her eyes. “Fine. Keep your moral high ground, Mer, and we won’t know if what she starts spouting off is the truth, or if she’s just yapping because her guts are spilling out on the ground.”
“Do you even have a heart, Val?”
Yes, she thought, and life would be a great deal easier if I didn’t. “Not that I’m aware of.” She grinned.
Meredith cursed and took the woman’s hand again. It was an old act between them, one started because it had worked so well the first time they’d actually had this argument.
“Would you prefer I start with your guts or your fingers?” Valkyrie asked. “On the one hand, having your guts spill out is terribly painful. On the other hand, modern medicine is probably better at putting your insides back in than they are at reattaching all of your fingers with the dexterity needed for you to hold a blade again.”
The woman blanched. “What do you want to know?”
“What’s your name?”
“Amy.”
“Amy, do you know what’s inside that house?”
“The job,” she spat.
“And the job would be?”
“Keep anyone from getting to the kids.”
“Hmm. But did you know those kids were taken from their parents shortly after they were born? Did you know someone tampered with their Aspect, which is a violation of Council law?”
“No.”
Meredith tsked. “You didn’t even try to mean that lie.”
Valkyrie pressed the tip of the scimitar in, just enough to pierce the skin, until blood blossomed on the woman’s white shirt.
“I didn’t know the particulars,” she said quickly. “Sal books the jobs.”
“Sal?”
The woman nodded at the dead man.
“Ah. So you didn’t know the particulars. But you knew something.”
“Maybe I heard some rumors about Aspect experimentation. Didn’t really believe them. After everything with the Savage woman came to light, everyone was seeing Aspect experimentation everywhere.”
The “Savage” woman was Siren Savage, Valkyrie’s new sister-in-law. Siren had been one of Danvers’ first experiments in Aspect alteration. He had locked her Aspect inside her when she was only one day old. She hadn’t even realized she had power until she was sixteen, hadn’t known there were others like her until she’d stumbled into Seclusion—and Jace’s arms—a year ago.
If the Council had just tried to help Siren, instead of treating her as if she were responsible for what had been done to her, they might have Danvers in custody right now. Instead, the Illusion Aspecter was free in the wind, and no one had a clue what his real face looked like.
Valkyrie wasn’t having any luck finding Danvers—she’d beaten her head against that brick wall until her brains liquefied—but she could find the other victims of his experiments.
“Did you hear any other rumors about children like the ones inside?”
Amy shrugged. “Some. Nothing you’ll find useful.”
Valkyrie asked a dozen questions after that, but the woman was right about one thing: she didn’t have any useful information. Just like all the others.
“Who is inside, other than the children?”
“The adoptive parents.”
“Are they dangerous?”
Amy snorted. “The first has so little power he spent it in the first two minutes after we arrived. The other one’s Broken.” Broken was the word Aspect Society used for a person who had spent their Aspect down to the last spark inside them, spent it so entirely that it never regenerated again. After that they read, to all appearances, as a Null—someone born without Aspect.
Valkyrie narrowed her eyes. It was something about the way the woman said Broken and adoptive that bothered her. “Do the parents know anything about this?”
“No.”
“Thank you,” Valkyrie said, “for your honesty.” Then she knocked her out again.
Inside the house, Valkyrie and Meredith found the parents and the two twin girls in the girls’ bedroom.
One man held the two terrified children to his side and the other stepped in front of them protectively. “Don’t hurt our daughters.”
“I have no intention of hurting anyone,” Valkyrie said. “My name is Valkyrie Winters. You know who I am?”
The man hesitated, then nodded. Most of the time, Valkyrie hated that her name was recognizable to pretty much anyone in the town of Seclusion, Arkansas. It was the peril of having a father on the Council who then mysteriously disappeared without a trace. But sometimes, like now, it had its benefits.
“Good. What’s your name?”
“Shane Anders.”
“All right, Shane. This is Meredith Townsend. She’s a Truthfinder. It is in your best interests, at this moment, to submit to her for our line of questioning.”
“Why? What is going on? Who were the people who attacked us?”
“Mercenaries. Here to ensure they,” she pointed at the girls, “remain unknown to the Council.”
Shane frowned. “Why would the Council care about our daughters?”
“Was your adoption of them typical?” Valkyrie asked, rather than answer.
“It was legal, if that’s what you’re asking,” he said hotly.
“It’s not.”
Shane shared a glance with his husband, then turned back to Valkyrie. “We aren’t saying anything until you tell us what’s going on. We have rights. We want a lawyer.”
“You will likely need one,” she answered. “Those children were taken from their biological parents when they were six months old. You are familiar with my sister-in-law, Siren Savage’s story?”
The two men nodded.
“Your girls were taken by the same man, their Aspects altered before he apparently adopted them out to you for safekeeping. No doubt he thought you were a good way station until he decided it was time to retrieve them.”
Shane’s face blanched of color, and he lowered his voice. “Can we talk about this away from Lacey and Taylor?”
Valkyrie’s gaze swept the room. It had only the one exit and a lone window. The latter was small enough for the girls to get out but not the adults, and she’d hear the screen popping out if Lacey and Taylor tried. Not that they looked like they were going anywhere.
“We can move to the end of the hall,” she conceded. “But the door stays open, the kids stay in sight.” She nodded to Shane’s husband. “He can stay with them or join the conversation.”
The two shared a look and Shane’s husband began telling the girls how they were going to play game, or whatever bullshit it was good parents fed to their kids to make them unaware they were in a potentially traumatizing situation.
Valkyrie didn’t get it. Her father would have given her a dagger and told her to guard the exits, and if she’d cried about it she’d have found herself running interval training every morning for the next month.
Bullshit firmly in place for the wellbeing of the children, Shane’s husband joined them and they relocated to the end of the hall.
“I’m Derek,” the other man said. “Are...are their parents alive?” he asked, barely a whisper.
“No.”
He looked
relieved first, then guilty.
“You have two options,” she told them. “One. You refuse to answer my questions and you all return with us to Council headquarters. The girls will be placed in a temporary home until this mess is sorted out.” The Council wouldn’t be happy that Valkyrie had struck out on her own, but they were used to it by now. She’d call them and let them handle matters from here—after she’d gotten what she needed. After she’d learned if these men had any information that could lead her to Danvers and hopefully, by extension, to her father.
“Option two?” Shane asked tersely.
“Option two is that you answer my questions, with Ms. Townsend to verify them. If I determine you had nothing to do with what happened to the girls, and no knowledge of it, I will guarantee you won’t be separated from them while the Council reviews the situation.” She could promise that much. “I cannot guarantee you anything about their longterm placement, as that isn’t up to me.”
Shane and Derek shared a look. It was Shane who held out his arm. “I’ll do it.”
Meredith rested her fingers atop his palm and the deep well of her Aspect spun out.
“How did you adopt the girls?” Valkyrie asked.
“We’d been trying to adopt for years. Somehow, despite five years of a solid marriage, both of us having stable, decent-paying jobs, home ownership, and regular volunteer work in the community, we were just never the right fit.” He ran the hand unattached to Meredith over his short buzz cut. “We were approached by a private adoption agency. We were naturally suspicious. We researched the hell out of it. They are registered with the state. They are registered with the Council.”
“Name of the agency?”
“New Beginnings.”
Valkyrie frowned, but Meredith didn’t halt Shane to indicate that he was lying. Very few parents in the Aspect community died without provisions for their children to be raised by a family member or a friend with Aspect. She only knew of one agency approved by the Council to handle Aspect adoptions, and it wasn’t the one Shane had mentioned.
“They did all of the things they should,” Shane continued. “Pre-placement interviews and home inspections. We had a lawyer look over the contract. The agency checked in after the adoption. Everything was above-board.”
“Do you have the paperwork for the adoption here?”
“We have copies. The originals are in a safe deposit box.”
“I would like the copies, and any other information you can remember on anyone you met from the agency.” It wasn’t likely to lead her directly to Danvers, but this was the first paper trail he’d left that she’d found. “Have the girls manifested?” Most Aspecters would have shown their talent by now, but there was the occasional late-bloomer who didn’t show until eight or nine.
Shane nodded.
“Have you noticed anything unusual about their power?”
Both men shook their heads.
“They’re Empaths,” Derek said. “And though it doesn’t matter to us, their Aspect isn’t particularly strong. Certainly not unusual. Are you sure this isn’t some kind of mistake? A mixup, or—”
“I’m sure.”
He let out a slow breath. “So what happens now?”
“You pack. A security team will come to relocate you to a Council safehouse until a more permanent solution can be arranged. Do you have a pen and paper?”
Derek retrieved both and handed them to her. She wrote down two phone numbers and handed the paper back to him.
“What are these?”
“The first is the number for the best Aspect defense lawyer in the country. His name is Random Tremayne. You want the girls to stay with you? He is your best chance of ensuring that happens. Should you have difficulty covering the legal fees, the second number is for The Savage Foundation. My sister-in-law is extremely invested in helping others like her. Explain about the girls, and she will assist you in any way she can. I’ll stay to ensure your safety until the Council’s security team arrives.”
“That’s it?” Derek asked. Now that the shock of the situation was wearing off, anger was swiftly taking its place. “Just wait for a security team and hope our children aren’t taken away from us? We were attacked. In our own home. Lacey and Taylor could have been killed and you want us to, what? Pack and make a couple phone calls?”
Valkyrie understood his anger, she really did. But she’d never done well at having anger directed at her. She gave him a hard look and he backed up a step. “I’m not good at the emotional support side of things, Mr. Anders. You want your fears assuaged and your emotions soothed, call Tremayne and Savage. That’s what lawyers and philanthropists are for.”
She walked away and dug her phone out as she stepped onto the Anders’ front porch. Martin DuPont, the head of the Aspect Society Council, answered on the fourth ring.
“Can I assume I know why you’re calling me at this unholy hour, Ms. Winters?”
“I found two more.”
“I believe I was very clear the last time that you were to—”
“These have parents,” she interrupted him. “Adoptive ones. Ms. Townsend confirmed they had no knowledge of what had been done to the children. You will not remove the children from their parents’ care.”
“You are in no position to be issuing orders.”
“It’s funny, DuPont, that every time you say that, nothing ever happens.” It had taken her a long time to discern how a man who as bad at handling conflict as Dupont was had risen to become the head of the Council. Why her father, who believed no one could do anything better than him, had let DuPont become head of the Council. She hadn’t liked the conclusion she’d come to. “Why is that, do you think?”
“I would tread the line you’re walking very carefully.”
“Will you send a security team to escort the children and their parents to a safehouse or not?”
“The team will be there within the hour. And Ms. Winters? I’d start looking for a new job. As of now, your clearance to contract for the Council has been revoked.”
DuPont might not like direct conflict but he could, it seemed, be petty. She wondered if he knew the financial pressure the job loss would put on her, if he knew she had no access to her father’s funds, or if he was simply striking at her with the only weapon he had. Either way, it gave her the opportunity to test a theory, since she no longer had a job to lose.
“My father will be disappointed to hear that.”
DuPont inhaled sharply. “Elijah Winters is gone. He isn’t coming back. No matter how many extensions you bargain for on his Council seat, that is never going to change.” But his tone held an undercurrent of uncertainty, the wavering fear of a man who had just pissed in a wolf’s den before it occurred to him that maybe the wolf wasn’t gone, after all.
It told her everything she needed to know about him. “I’m sure you hope that’s true. Goodnight, Martin.”
Valkyrie hung up and let out a long breath. Losing contracting rights with the Council did hurt. Her father might be worth millions, but they were millions she couldn’t touch. When he’d still been around, he had controlled everything. She’d worked for the Council since she was seventeen and every single dime she’d made had gone into a joint account with his name on it. He’d transferred out everything but a hundred dollars of every paycheck she made into his own accounts. If she tried to let the scraps he left her build up, he simply transferred them out, too. If she withdrew it in cash, he beat the shit out of her and didn’t leave her anything for months.
It wasn’t about the money, for him. It was about making certain she didn’t have options. That he was the only thing she had to rely on. The first thing she’d done when he’d disappeared was open a new checking account and change her direct deposit information. She’d spent the next month in a cold sweat, jumping at every shadow, wondering what he would do when he came back, when he found out.
But he’d never come back. Not yet.
“You all right?” Meredith stepped
onto the porch, looking concerned. It was irritating.
“Shouldn’t you be mothering the children, or something?”
Meredith rolled her eyes. “You know, just because slinging swords around and gutting people isn’t my thing doesn’t mean I’m Suzy Homemaker. I’m not any better with children than you are.”
“Everyone is better with children than me,” Valkyrie answered.
The low rumble of a motorcycle split the night, the sleek black machine pulling up the drive and easing to a stop at the foot of the porch steps.
Damn it. She had hoped the security team would arrive before Random did, so she could leave before she had to see him. Unfortunately, now that she had seen him, she couldn’t take her eyes off him.
He looked, as expected, perfect. Only Random Tremayne could arrive on a motorcycle and look like he’d just stepped out of a business meeting. His Aspect, which always ensured he looked just how he needed to, meant his suit was crisply pressed, his shoes spotless, and not a lock of dark black hair was out of place.
He had no right to look so goddess-damned refreshed at this time of night. His chocolate brown eyes were sharp and alert and his bronze skin practically glowed in the moonlight. He was sex personified, and no straight woman with a functioning libido had a chance in hell of not reacting to him.
He walked up the porch steps, his face all business, and passed her by without so much as flicking a glance in her direction.
“Are my clients inside?” he asked Meredith.
She nodded. He knocked on the door, waited until Shane opened it, and then disappeared inside. Meredith gave Valkyrie a what-the-hell look that Valkyrie ignored.
“What was that all about?” Meredith asked.
“What was what all about?”
“Uh, Random.”
“He’s here to be a lawyer. Did you miss the part where I gave Derek his number?”
“No. I also didn’t miss the part where he acted as if you weren’t in physical existence.”
“Why should he?” Valkyrie tapped her fingers against her thigh. The sooner the damn security team got here, the better.
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