Shades of Treason (15 page)

The brimfire that would have ensured
they
were dead.

He glanced at the still-useless comm-cuff wrapped around his left wrist. Thirty-four hours until he could contact Bayis and ask him why he’d sent the Predators. The admiral knew Ash had taken Hagan hostage. He knew Rykus was pursuing the CR2. There were witnesses, and Rykus’s transport had broadcasted a Mayday. Bayis should have sent a team of soldiers to recon the area. Sending the Predators didn’t make sense.

But maybe Bayis hadn’t sent the Predators. Maybe they’d come from somewhere else. Maybe from someone who wanted Ash dead and to hell with the collateral damage.

Shaking his head, he caught up with Ash and pushed aside all the conspiracy theories, all the wishful thinking, that kept trying to invade his thoughts. Instead, he made himself focus on the facts: an accused traitor had escaped from the brig of a well-run, fully crewed Coalition warship. How the hell had she done that?

He looked at Ash’s wrists. Underneath the cord he’d tied around them, they were still raw and bruised. They were, however, less swollen than they’d been when Katie had treated her.

“The med-gel,” he said. Even though he’d kept his voice low and quiet, it sounded loud in the darkening forest.

Stepping over a thick, tangled mass of moss and shrubbery, Ash glanced his way. “Med-gel? Whatever do you mean, Commander?”

Cunning, brilliant vixen.

“I thought I’d thwarted your plan when I didn’t remove the restraints.”

She slowed until he reached her side. “If it makes you feel any better, it almost didn’t work.”

He grunted in response, then pushed aside a thorned branch that blocked their path. Ash eyed the skinny limb, then him. When her eyebrows rose, he almost let the branch go. He wasn’t being chivalrous. He was just getting the damn thing out of the way.

Ash’s mouth quirked into a smile and she continued on. He let the thorns scrape across his hand—punishment for speaking to her—before he followed.

The forest was thinning. They should be nearing Shallow Valley soon. They’d reach Ephron City quicker if they stayed to its north, but at their current pace, the blaze that thickened the air with smoke might overtake them. If they headed straight south and kept the rocky valley to their north, it might slow down the fire enough to allow them time to make it to the city walls.

It might give him and Hagan enough time, at least. Ash’s whole body shook as if a blizzard chased her.

“Scyene Desert,” Ash said when the shudder subsided.

Rykus focused on the brush underfoot. He didn’t respond, but the day she referenced leapt into his mind.

“Did I strip and ask you to spread suntan oil on me?”

He made sure his expression didn’t change. Ash had hallucinated during training—all the anomalies did. The last two weeks on Caruth were hell. Rykus and the other instructors kept the cadets up for days without sleep. They ran them through icy water, forced them up snow-sleek mountains, then down into blistering-hot deserts. Toward the end of the training, Ash had fallen behind the men. Rykus went back for her and demanded to know if she was finally quitting. If she wanted to tap out of the program.

“You tried,” he said, no inflection in the words. He’d caught the briefest glimpse of her breasts before he’d yanked her combat fatigues back down. “I wasn’t carrying suntan oil.”

Ash’s gaze flew to his. She looked genuinely shocked. “Was that a joke, Commander?”

“No.”

“I didn’t know Rest in Peace Rykus could joke.”

“It wasn’t a joke.”

“It was funny.”

His glare should have shut her up. Instead, Ash’s grin widened.

“I swear I saw an ocean.” She hopped over a vine-tangled shrub. “Corwin swore he saw whales swimming through the dunes. That’s why he tapped out. A fear of whales.” She snorted, then glanced at him. “Do you know why Dees tapped out?”

Dees had been the top-ranked anomaly in Ash’s class. Fast. Smart. Strong. When he’d punched his ID-sig into the console, Rykus had been surprised. Surprised and pissed. He had a talent for predicting which cadets would give up. He’d thought Dees would make it to the end.

Of course, he hadn’t thought Ash would make it through the first week.

“He couldn’t stand his own stench.” Ash answered her own question. “It was a stupid reason. We all stank like piss and sweat. If he’d lasted three more hours, he would have been in the showers with the rest of us.”

The anomalies had no sense of time at the end of the training. Rykus and the other instructors convinced the cadets they still had days to endure. The men who focused too much on the future never made it to the end. They had to focus on the present, the
now
, and not give one thought to what was coming next. Dees hadn’t done that.

“Speaking of showers.” A sly, teasing tone slipped into Ash’s voice.

He knew where she was going with that subject, knew exactly the day she alluded to, and he wasn’t going to play her game. “You’re suddenly talkative.”

“You both are.” Hagan shouldered his way between them.

Ash’s gaze followed the war chancellor. Rykus’s would have too if Ash hadn’t looked at Hagan with an abundance of hate. Hate and something else he couldn’t identify. This wasn’t the first time she’d looked at him that way. Or the second or third. She’d been throwing those glances over her shoulder during the entire trek.

“Why didn’t you shoot him when you had the chance?” Rykus asked, keeping his voice low.

The emotion vanished from Ash’s eyes. She looked like she was about to say something, but she pressed her lips together instead.

Ahead, Hagan stopped. He didn’t turn, but his voice reached them, hoarse, worn, and holding a fair amount of contempt. “Is that what this is? A conspiracy to execute me?”

“I saved your life, Chancellor,” Ash said.

Hagan looked over his shoulder. “A ransom then. And when Commander Rykus ruined your plan, the Predators were sent to cover the failure.”

Ash laughed. “Wow. You are full of yourself, aren’t you?”

Hagan turned to face her. “The Predators weren’t protocol.”

Apparently Rykus wasn’t the only one who found that suspicious.

“We need to keep moving,” Rykus said. “We can explore your conspiracy theories when we make contact with the Coalition, but the fires are getting closer. Shallow Valley shouldn’t be far. It might give us a reprieve from the smoke.”

He checked the compass on the comm-cuff again—one of the few applications on the device that worked despite the lockout code—then continued southeast.

“You’re responsible for her treason.”

Rykus stopped. Slowly, he turned, squaring his shoulders to Hagan. “What did you say?”

“She shouldn’t be capable of turning against the Coalition. Not unless you made a mistake.”

Fury hammered Rykus’s gut.

“Either you missed the signs that she was already a traitor,” Hagan continued, “or your judgment was impaired and you didn’t notice that the loyalty training never took hold. Maybe you didn’t want it to take hold.”

“I wouldn’t repeat that accusation.” It was one thing for Rykus to worry he’d made a mistake. It was another for this politician to accuse him of it.

“Were you screwing her, Commander?”

Ash let out a laugh. Rykus looked her way. She lifted a shoulder in an innocent shrug, then leaned against a tree.

“Please,” she said. “Continue this testosterone-driven standoff.”

Hagan took a step toward him. “Is that why you transferred out of the anomaly program?”

Rykus unslung the emergency pack from his shoulder and let it drop to the ground beside him. He curled a hand into a fist, but as much as he wanted to slam it into Hagan’s face, he wouldn’t. The war chancellor was the highest-ranked officer in the combined military. Rykus might not respect the man, but he respected the position.

“I transferred out because I don’t believe in stripping people of their free will.”

“She’s betrayed the Coalition. She obviously hasn’t been stripped.”

Ash let out another snort of laughter. Before she interjected with one of her inappropriate comments, Rykus said, “The compulsion works.”

Hagan’s blistered face pulled into a scowl. “Then why don’t we have the Sariceans’ files decrypted?”

“Because she seizes when I use compulsion.” The words were out of his mouth before he realized they weren’t true. She’d only seized once. She’d followed every command he’d given her since he’d learned how she subverted the compulsion.

“You used compulsion to make her give you her weapon,” Hagan said. “You used it to prevent her escape.”

Ash’s smile disappeared. Her gaze darted left to right and back. And even in the growing shadows of the forest, she looked pale. He hadn’t noticed the change in complexion before.

“She only seizes when I ask about her mission,” he said, testing the theory as he voiced it.

Hagan looked at him, his brow furrowed. “You’re certain about that?”

He faced Ash. She’d become uncannily quiet. Sweat ran down her face, and her respiration rate was rapid and shallow.

“Why would you seize only when I ask about your mission?” he asked.

Ash wet her lips. She glanced to her right, tense as prey ready to explode into a run. Ash rarely showed indecision or fear, but her green eyes betrayed both right then.

Hagan stepped forward. His eyes narrowed, and he leaned toward Ash, squinting at her face. It was an odd thing to do in the first place, but it became odder still when he tilted his head as if he were seeing through her.

Ash went completely still. Her gaze moved from the forest to Hagan, and Rykus suddenly had the feeling he was missing something, a conversation or a conspiracy or a past that hadn’t been recorded. The hair on his arms prickled.

“Ash,” he said, trying to pull her attention away from the chancellor. “What are you—”

Ash launched herself at Hagan.

Ash’s hands were bound, but Hagan was close, unprepared, and her head collided with his. He staggered backward. She pursued him, rammed her knee into his gut and then into his face when he doubled over.

“Ash,” Rykus yelled.

Fucking bastard!
she roared in her head. Charging Hagan again, she flattened him to the ground.
It was you.

“Shoot her!” Hagan yelled.

Rykus grabbed her bound arms. She tried to wrap her legs around the war chancellor, but Rykus was too strong. He body-slammed her to the ground.

Undo the telepathy
, she snarled in her mind, futilely lunging for Hagan a third time.

“Telepathy,” the bastard choked out. “You’re fucking crazy.”

Her fail-safe held her down. She stopped fighting him. She was too angry, too relieved, too exhausted. The presence she’d felt back on the
Obsidian
had
been Hagan. He’d concealed what he was once she’d taken him hostage, but something had been off about him. She hadn’t been able to ignore him. He was like a frayed edge of underarmor. She’d pictured herself grabbing the threads and she’d yanked.

And he’d responded.

She wasn’t fucking crazy.

Rykus kept her on the ground, but his grip wasn’t bruising, and when she turned her head, he didn’t shove her face into the dirt. He wasn’t even looking at her.

“What did you say?” Rykus asked Hagan. The question came out slow and quiet.

Hagan dragged his hand across his bleeding forehead. “She’s snapped.”

“No,” Rykus said. “Before that. You said telepathy.”

Hagan wiped the blood on his shirt. “Because she said telepathy. She’s lost her mind. I don’t know how she’s functioning like she is. Broken anomalies don’t have moments of sanity, but she does. She’s different. The doctors—”

“She hasn’t said a word about telepathy, Chancellor.”

Hagan rolled his eyes. “She just did.”

“She didn’t.”

Hagan’s blistered face managed to turn an even brighter shade of red. “Maybe you weren’t close enough to hear her, but I was. She attacked me without reason, without provocation.”

Rykus didn’t say anything. Ash couldn’t turn her head enough to clearly see his expression, but he’d heard Hagan. Hagan had said the word telepathy. He’d given Rykus something to think about.

Yes, Rip. Think. Think! Follow that lead.

“What lead?” Hagan demanded.

Ash’s gaze snapped to his. The wind stopped blowing. The smoke that hung in the air grew stale.

Tell him the truth.

Hagan frowned. He squeezed his eyes shut. When he reopened them, he stared at her mouth.

Tell him the truth now
, she thought to him again.

“Chancellor?” Rykus said.

“I…” He didn’t look at Rykus, only at her. “Say that again.”

A tightness formed in the center of her chest. Hagan wasn’t reacting the way she’d expected. She wasn’t wrong about him, but maybe she wasn’t one hundred percent right, either.

Tell Rykus I’m not a traitor. Tell him I didn’t kill my teammates.

She
felt
Hagan bristle. “I don’t believe this.”

“Believe what?” Rykus demanded.

“I—” Hagan flinched. Then, he doubled over.

His hands shot to his head. A sound of agony squeezed out between his gritted teeth. His presence suddenly felt hot in Ash’s mind. It felt busy. It felt as if all his thoughts were flashing through his eyes. The friction and chaos of their rapid passing burned his mind. And Ash’s.