Shades of Treason (34 page)

Her eyes squeezed shut.

“Ramie Ashdyn,” he said again. “You are a soldier of the Coalition’s Fighting Corps. You exist to preserve and protect the Coalition and all its citizens. You will sacrifice your desires, your life, and your freedom to complete the missions given to you. You will not fail. You will not falter. You will not disobey.”

Her body spasmed as if a jolt of electricity had been sent through every one of her muscles.

“Ramie Ashdyn. You are a soldier…” His throat tightened up, cutting off the words.

He squeezed her fist.

“Open your eyes, Ash. Please.”

He brought his mouth down to her fingers, kissed her knuckles.

She didn’t react.

She wasn’t in there any more than she had been when he’d shot her.

He slammed his fist against the metal headboard. “Open your goddamn eyes!”

He stared at the dented metal, was contemplating hitting it again, when he felt a change in the atmosphere.

He looked down. Ash’s green eyes stared up at him.

She’d stared up at him twice before. Both times, fury had eclipsed the confusion and uncertainty in her gaze. He waited for it now, braced for yet another failure.

It didn’t come. She lay there staring.

“Ash?” His voice was soft, his tone cautious.

“Sir.” There was no punctuation to the word, no flippant tone or suggestive smile, but no threat to kill him either.

He wanted to kiss her, to unlock her restraints and pull her into his arms. He wanted to apologize for every time he’d been an ass and for ever questioning her loyalty. He wanted her to know how damn sorry he was for shooting her.

He brushed her hair away from her face.

Her brow furrowed. “Sir?”

Her soft skin was dented where the electrodes had pushed against her. Rykus’s thumb traced a path over them, down the side of her face, along her jaw. He shouldn’t touch her, not like this. Not ever again like this.

She turned into his hand slightly and her eyes hooded.

Behind him, the chamber’s door slid open. Doctors and technicians flooded inside. They came between him and Ash, pushing him toward the back of the room.

She kept her gaze on him, only him, while the doctors checked her vitals. Then someone blocked their view. He tried to move, to see her again, but too many people were in the way. They pelted her with questions she didn’t answer: How do you feel? What do you remember? Do you know where you are?

He couldn’t see her, which meant she couldn’t see him. She’d panic soon. All the anomalies did when their sanity returned. Their fail-safes always stayed close and quiet and in sight, but unless Rykus threw out every one of the assholes in here…

No reason not to.

He grabbed the shoulder of the nearest blue-clad technician. “Get out.”

The tech shook free. “I have readings to take—”

“Everyone out.” Katie’s order came from Rykus’s left. She was standing in the doorway, scowling at the dozen people crammed in the chamber.

The man in front of Rykus looked from Katie to him. Rykus gave him his grimmest expression and the technician fled.

“Out,” Katie said again. “Everyone but Dr. Nedan and Commander Rykus.”

Nedan, a white-haired man with a young face, turned away from the medical tower. “I need my tech—”

“They can come back later, when your patient isn’t on the verge of panic.”

“I don’t panic, Doctor,” Ash said.

Rykus’s gut tightened at her tone. The words were something the real Ash would say, but there was a warning in her voice, a harsh whisper that made him want to reach for a weapon.

Katie must have heard it too. She glanced at him, a sympathetic look in her eyes.

He straightened his shoulders and shoved another technician toward the door. That started the others moving.

Nedan glared as Katie approached Ash’s bed. “We don’t know if the loyalty training reprogrammed her. I need more observation notes than just my own.”

“You’ll have mine,” Katie said, staring down at Ash. “How do you feel, Lieutenant?”

Ash had claimed she didn’t panic, but her eyes darted from person to person, object to object. Her gaze stopped on the docked psyche-mask. She knew where she was—the light blue lab coat Nedan wore gave it away—and her breathing rate went rapid.

Rykus moved closer.

“How do you feel?” Katie asked again.

Ash’s gaze found him.

“Answer the question,” he said, hating the look in her eyes, the request for permission. If the loyalty training took hold of her the same way it had in the past, the need for his approval would fade in time. And if Ash was herself again, she’d start defying him every chance she could.

Seeker’s God, he wanted her defiance.

“I feel like I’ve been strapped to this bed for an eternity, Doc,” Ash said, a clever way to ask to be released. Rykus wanted to fall for the trap, but if she wasn’t fully herself, if Valt’s orders were still controlling her, she was dangerous…

Hell,
he
was dangerous. If she still wanted to kill him, he’d deal with it.

“Leave,” he said to Nedan and Katie. “She needs to sit up and move.”

Nedan looked at him. “Despite what Dr. Monick might want you to believe, I’m the lead doctor here. Lieutenant Ashdyn will remain restrained until I clear her.” He looked down at his data-pad and added, “It’s for your own safety, Commander. If she still wants to kill you—”

“Of course I want to kill him.”

A chill swept the room. In unison, everyone turned their heads and looked at Ash. Her green eyes found his, and the most acute anguish he’d ever felt kicked his heart into his gut. She still wanted to kill him. Valt’s programming still controlled her.

“Ash.” His voice broke.

“You shot me,” she said levelly. “In the chest at close range. A bit overkill, don’t you think, Rip?”

Rip
. The nickname she’d given him, a name he’d always hated. But the whole Known Universe could call him Rest in Peace Rykus now. He didn’t care. He grinned like a soldier who’d just survived his first firefight.

“I was trying to teach you that you’re not invincible.”

“I’m still alive, aren’t I?” Ash’s mouth bent just perceptibly at the right corner in one of her subtle, infuriatingly tempting smiles.

Rykus moved to her bedside, grabbed the strap holding her right wrist, and unbuckled it.

Nedan almost dropped his data-pad. “Commander Rykus, I insist—”

“She’s fine.” He reached across her, released her left wrist.

“She wants to kill you,” Nedan spluttered.

Rykus couldn’t stop smiling. “I know.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

THEY KEPT HER in the institute for another day. If Ash hadn’t spent the past month in her own personal hell, she would have said it was the longest day of her life.

But it wasn’t the longest day. The hallucinations the psyche-mask triggered reminded her of that fact. The longest day, the worst day, was the half hour Jevan had been on board her team’s shuttle. She’d failed to save Trevast and the others again and again. Each time, it hurt. Each time, she’d screamed.

Each time, the visions that came afterward screwed with her mind and deepened the nightmare.

Ash stumbled. She almost grabbed the fence to keep her balance but found her footing first. The blue sky was too bright. It spun above her as her heart rate picked up, and despite the chilly air, her skin grew damp. She squeezed her teeth together, forced her feet to move forward, and tried to keep the panic under control. She’d lived her life presenting a strong front. She was determined to do so now. The more she let her panic show, the longer the doctors would keep her here.

And she had to leave. The institute would break her.

She didn’t look up at the tall, gray building. She did her best to pretend it wasn’t there. She was finally outside its walls. Confined to the fenced-in field surrounding the complex, yes, but the doctors were still pissed. They wanted her in shackles. Just in case. Someone had to have broken arms to get her outside.

Ash hadn’t seen that someone since she first woke up. Her fail-safe had freed her from the nightmares, freed her from her restraints, then taken her into his arms. He’d held her tight, kissed the top of her head, and then he’d said nothing.

Nothing.

He’d left without a word.

She tasted blood. Realizing she was biting her cheek, she made herself stop, made herself keep her gaze steady and straight ahead. Even though Rykus had left, she kept looking for him, glancing over her shoulder because she thought she felt his gaze. He was never there. His looming presence was embedded inside her mind, nestled in with her memories of Caruth, the Coalition, the whole KU. Every thought she had, every action she took, reminded her of him. The pull of the loyalty training was stronger than it had ever been. It was strong enough to make her brittle.

The only thing that had kept her sane these past twenty-six hours was that she could answer the doctors’ questions. All of their questions. Once they realized she could talk about Chalos II and Jevan, they sent in an interrogator.

And Ash had promptly sent the interrogator away. She told them she would only talk directly to her fail-safe. She trusted him.

Ash breathed in Caruth’s clean air. The fence surrounding the perimeter was clear except for a faint blue tint. The barrier was sleek and tall, and because the doctors here dealt exclusively with anomalies, it was incredibly secure. Ash hadn’t found a quick way over it. A slow and tedious way, yes, but the guards would kill or capture her before she made it halfway to the top.

They were watching her now. They stood in their guardhouses, armed and ready to shoot. Every time one of them moved, she tensed. Reflex. She knew they wouldn’t do anything unless she gave them a reason, but she feared this place. It toggled a switch in her mind that made her paranoid and panicky.

She continued her walk of the perimeter. She hadn’t been cleared to run yet—Katie had made her promise to take it easy—but Ash wouldn’t get stronger if she didn’t push herself. She needed the mindless exercise.

The fence curved back toward the building, and she fell into a careful, slow jog.

Her injuries hurt and she grew winded quickly, but it felt good to move.

She was on her second circle of the field, just past the door to the institute, when she heard footsteps behind her. The fresh, clean smell of her fail-safe’s aftershave cocooned her. She slowed down, and Rykus fell in step beside her.

They walked half the perimeter without saying a word. Ash kept her gaze forward, afraid that if she looked at him he’d see how much she wanted him there. Showing need wasn’t something she was good at, and she couldn’t come up with a flippant quip to break the silence.

She really wasn’t herself yet.

They passed a guard tower. In her peripheral vision, she saw Rykus glance up at the armed man watching them. When he looked back at their path, she realized why he was there.

“You’re here to say good-bye.” She made sure her tone was level. Emotionless.

Looking at the grass beneath their feet, he said, “I’ve been summoned to Meryk. My actions are under review.”

“Your actions? The actions where you saved my ass?”

His mouth tightened into a humorless smile. “I bent rules to get to you on the capsule. I pursued you to Ephron without authorization and defied Bayis’s order to surrender to the pursuit force. And there’s some question as to why I couldn’t get the cipher from you on the
Obsidian
.”

“They have enough information to clear you,” she said, trying to ignore the protective furor building in her chest. “I’ll clear you.”

“I’m not worried about that.”

“What are you worried about?”

He glanced at her briefly before looking ahead again. “The Sariceans’ files didn’t contain any evidence of telepathy.”

Ash almost stumbled back into a nightmare. Her hallucinations had mocked her with the possibility that nothing would be there. Sometimes it was because telepathy didn’t exist. Other times it did exist, but the only evidence of it was in Trevast’s mind. Trevast had said the word
faction
. Trevast had been certain telepaths were real. Trevast, the hallucinations told her, had known the boarders were coming. He’d invited them on.

No. Ash shook her head, clearing out the dark thoughts and the lies so she could find the grains of truth. “Trevast told us telepathy existed before Jevan boarded. None of us believed it, but he did. Completely. And he’d been… afraid. Just before he died”—Ash swallowed—”he said, ‘Faction.’ He was trying to tell me something.”

“Admiral Bayis will look into it.”

She clenched her teeth. Rykus must have noticed.

“He’s done everything he can to help us, Ash. You can trust him. He’s being careful with the information. He has a very select group of people analyzing the data. I-Com and the entire senate are raising hell about the secrecy, but he’s used his command authority to get an interstellar security exemption.”

An ISE. Good. Maybe they could contain the information. Ash was still certain the Coalition would fall apart if the public learned about the telepaths. She needed to prevent that, but she couldn’t do that on her own.

Rykus’s comm-cuff chimed. He didn’t look at it.

“Is that your ride?” she asked.

“I leave in an hour.”

“Any idea what will happen to me?”

“Officially, you’ve been reassigned to another special operations force. Your CO is Major Tanner Liles. He’s a good man.”

Rykus had to have broken a few extra arms to get her reassigned so soon. He knew her well enough to know she needed to get back to work. Needed the distraction and to put her skills to use. She wasn’t sure yet how she felt about a new CO. She wanted her old CO, her old team, back.

“And unofficially?” she asked, stopping beside the door to the institute.

Rykus faced her. “You’ll be debriefed on Meryk first.”

“So, we’ll both be there.”

“Yes.”

That heavy silence settled between them again. Not exactly awkward, but not comfortable either. Now that she could talk to him freely without any worry of a blackout, she didn’t know what to say.