The Psy-Changeling Collection (259 page)

“There are ways to do that without destroying the individual.” He threw his apple core into the undergrowth, his jacket dusted with snow that fell from an overhanging branch. “Let’s go down here.”

She followed him through the snow-covered firs, but her mind had turned inward. For the first time since she’d woken, she looked deep within, examining the strands of control—of compulsion—that swirled around her psyche. Each was barbed. Ripping them out would destroy parts of her, maybe cause brain damage. It would’ve been easy to give up—but she chose to let the brutality fan the simmering flames of her anger.

And when she saw the pathway, she didn’t hesitate to take it. The vines of control ripped at her from every side, drawing blood that felt real, the acrid scent of it thick in her nostrils, but she pushed through, determined to find answers, determined to find herself.

Two steps later, terror silvered into her mind, into her very heart. “Dev.” A husky plea to a man who seemed to have frozen his own heart with the dawn.

He took her hand, the heat of him soaking into her skin, through her blood, into her very cells. The terror remained, but she understood it now. It was an implanted fear, designed to stop her from reaching the end of this road. Her mind felt as if it was awash in blood by the time she completed the task, but she didn’t stop.

And there it was, buried so deep that it was as much a part of her as her heartbeat—her link to the PsyNet, to the biofeedback that kept her Psy brain from dying. She looked at the solid column of light, brilliant and beautiful, and understood that it offered no means of escape. The link jacked her directly into the fabric of the Net itself, but it was no tunnel. No, this was the most solid of conduits, its only purpose to keep her alive. To get out, to actually surf the Net, she’d have to find a doorway.

She’d tried to do that once before, but then she’d been physically weak, her mind in chaos. It was possible she’d missed something. Today, she took every step with slow deliberation . . . and she found it. The psychic doorway was hidden behind several layers of barbed wire. Swallowing, she thrust her hands through the viciousness of the coils and cracked it open the barest millimeter.

Black.

Not the black of the Net, but the black of a shield. She knew the shield had been created by her torturer, that it linked back to him on some level. But . . . “It’s not mind control,” she said out loud. “It’s not an open link. That would take too much energy.” So he’d immured her in her mind, given her instructions, and set her free. “He doesn’t know what I know, doesn’t see what I see.” The fist around her heart fell open.

“You’re probably programmed to contact him if you discover something important.” Dev’s tone was flat as he came to a stop in a small clearing pierced by a ray of sunlight. “Could be as simple as a phone call.”

Closing the psychic door, she backed down the path and returned completely to the world. It was an effort to keep her feet on the glittering white of the snow, to tell herself she wasn’t truly bleeding. “I don’t think I was ever meant to come out of this alive.”

The tendons of Dev’s jaw pulled white over bone. “What did you see?”

“The roots of
his
control, they’re buried deep. I can’t see a way to pull them out—even if I could figure out how—without killing myself in the process.”

“He must have the psychic key to unlock it safely.”

“Not like he’s going to give it to me.” She slid her hands into the pockets of her coat, chilled to her very soul. “So since I’m dead either way, do you know what I want to do?”

Dev simply watched her with those amazing, amber-flecked eyes.

“I want to follow the only thing I have left—my gut.” “What’s it telling you to do?”

She met his gaze, hoping for understanding, for freedom. “To go north.”

But it was ice that met her. Cold, blank . . . metallic.

Dev had
every intention of continuing their conversation, but returned home to find a situation in progress. “We’ll talk about this later,” he told Katya.

“There’s not much to talk about. Will you let me go?”

“You know the answer.”

“Say it.” Her body trembled, her hands fisted at her sides.

Angry at her for demanding something he could never give her, he answered with a curt “No.”

Still feeling the impact of her flinch several minutes later, he switched the clear screen of his computer to comm mode, dialing through to Aubry. “Maggie says we’ve got an uprising in progress.”

The other man nodded, face grim. “It’s the young ones, twenty-year-olds who think they know everything there is to know.”

“Are they with Jack?” His cousin stood on the opposite side of the fence to Dev on the most critical issue facing their people, but he’d never gone behind Dev’s back before.

Aubry shook his head. “Looks like some kind of ‘radical’ college group. Snot-nosed punks aren’t as radical as they think.”

“Give me the short version.”

“They think, and I quote, that ‘there’s no need for their families to be tied to Shine.’ According to Beck, the pretty-boy academic leading the charge, we’re an ‘anachronism’ that serves no purpose in today’s society.” A snort. “I think it’s time we showed them the fucking reality—those tortured kids last—”

“No.” Rage infused Dev’s blood at the reminder of the children Shine had lost to the Council’s coolly logical evil, children who’d been murdered simply for being who they were.

Aubry’s scowl was pure thunder. “Why the hell not?”

“I won’t use those children again.” It was a line he’d drawn in the sand. He’d had to use them once, to save the ones who were still alive. It had scarred him. One more time and he’d be so far on the wrong side of the line there would be no redemption for him.

“Yeah, okay.” Aubry rubbed a hand over his face, having had the nightmare branded into his memories, too. “What do we do with Beck’s group, then?”

“Give them what they want. Take them off the Shine register, let them know we no longer expect them to come to our assistance if called.” Those with money contributed to the coffers, but the basic requirement was for service.

“Dev.” Aubry looked troubled. “They’re just stupid kids—they don’t know how much we do, how badly they might need us in the future. What about their own children? Some of the recessive genes can express out of nowhere.”

“I know. But we can’t afford to baby them.” It was a ruthless decision, but he had to focus on the ones he
could
help, could save. “They’re old enough—if they want out, give them out.”

Aubry met his eyes. “Tough love?”

“You don’t agree?”

“As a matter of fact, in this case, I do.” A sharp grin. “Let’s see how long they hold out without the Shine information line.”

“Yeah, yeah, crow all about it.” Aubry was the one who’d come up with the idea of setting up an information line manned by older members of the Forgotten, people who—between them, and with recourse to Dev and the board—could answer pretty much any question the descendants might have.

“I will, thanks.” Aubry’s eyes gleamed. “I did a shift on
the phones the other night and had this anonymous kid call in. He wanted to know if it was normal to be seeing everything in triplicate.”

“What’d you tell him?”

“To get his eyes checked and call me back.”

Dev laughed, but it was a hollow sound. Nothing could ease the vise around his heart—because no matter how hard he tried to keep Katya at a distance, the metal still melted for her, still burned for her . . . for the one woman he could never have. “Anything else I need to know about?”

“Jack’s quiet—don’t know if that’ll last.”

That vise twisted, powered by another layer of emotion. “I understand what drives him,” Dev said, staring out at the snow-covered landscape that spread beyond the windows. “Makes it a hell of a lot tougher to play hardball.”

“The fact that he’s your cousin doesn’t help.”

“No.” Dev thrust a hand through his hair. “If he’s quiet, let it be for now. It’s not exactly an issue we have an answer for.”

“We’re going to have to think of something soon. Or there’s a chance the Forgotten will splinter again.”

“I know.” Leaning back in his chair, he caught a glint of pale gold on his desk . . . a strand of Katya’s hair. It could’ve been transferred to the study on his body, but there was a chance she’d been in here. She’d have gotten nothing, but Dev was well aware she shouldn’t be this free to move, to sabotage.

Looking away from the golden strand, he made himself return his attention to the matter at hand. “You okay to keep an eye on these college kids?”

“Yeah. I’ll tag them in the files—if they do decide to go lone wolf, we need to be able to step in if they have children with active Psy genes.”

“That’s what Shine’s always been about.” Protecting the children. And if that meant the death of a Psy scientist . . . Dev’s hand clenched on a paperweight hard enough to crack it.

PETROKOV FAMILY ARCHIVES

Letter dated June 7, 1972

Dearest Matthew
,

I don’t know quite what to write, so perhaps I should just write it as it was and let you make up your own mind. This morning, through the oddest sort of coincidence, I met Tendaji and Naeem Adelaja
.

The family was scheduled to come to the government block for a meeting with the Council, and security, as you can imagine, was tight. Their older brother, Zaid, there’s such pain in him, and yet such conviction, too. As soon as I looked into his eyes, I knew he’d do anything for Mercury
.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. My job as aide to Councilor Moran allows me a certain security clearance, though not high enough to meet the Adelajas now that they’ve become so very important to our race. Today I went in early, because I had a report to complete, and as I was heading through the lobby, I saw three men enter the elevator that goes up to the secure level. I thought nothing of it until someone called out my name
.

When I turned, there was Zaid, holding the elevator open. He’d remembered me from when the Adelajas lived on the same street as your father and me—back when we were first married. Well, I went to them and all three boys stepped back
out into the lobby, and we were able to talk for a few minutes before their meeting
.

Zaid . . . I always liked Zaid. He was such a solemn child—I knew in my heart that he carried the burden of terrible power. Now he reminds me of a soldier, strong, determined, proud. Beside him, his twin younger brothers were slender and so cold I could almost feel the ice on their breath. Tendaji spoke for them both—they were polite, precisely so, and their intelligence can’t be doubted. And yet I kept feeling as if I was talking to two shadows—it was as if something critical was missing
.

No, I’m not saying it right. Not missing, dead. Killed. As if part of them had ceased to exist. I said nothing of the sort, of course, spent most of that short time speaking with Zaid. I’d hoped he’d one day find peace. And I can’t argue that today, there was a sense of purpose in him that spoke of peace
.

If that’s true, then perhaps this Silence has a chance? But Zaid, with his courage, his strength, and his will, isn’t the future. The twins are. And they’re so removed from humanity that I fear what such a course will do to the wild beauty of our race. Will the PsyNet one day turn dark, our minds cold, isolated stars?

I don’t know. And it terrifies me
.

With all my love
,

Mom

CHAPTER 16

Katya jumped
when Dev walked into the sunroom, where she was viewing archived news footage in the hope of triggering new memories. His eyes went to the trail mix in her hand.

Heat burned across her cheekbones. She’d all but thrown it back at him when he’d handed it to her after that flat-out “no” about going north. Now frustration, anger,
need
, it all tangled inside her, stealing her voice. The only thing she could do was watch the contained strength of him as he walked around to sit on the sofa beside her. “NewsNet,” he said, taking the remote. “That’s the Council’s propaganda machine.”

Her paralysis snapped in the face of his arrogance. “It is not.” She tried to get the remote back, but he held it out of reach. “What’re you doing?”

“Here.” His body a line of heat against her side, he switched to an unfamiliar channel. “CTX is what you want to be watching—they’re the ones who broke Ashaya’s story, and they’re currently running a series on the recent surge of public violence by Psy.”

Unwilling, unable, to pull away from him in spite of her
simmering anger, she watched. “It’s very energetic.” No NewsNet reporter would ever gesticulate as wildly, much less use such emotive language.

“Hmm.” Reaching over, Dev stole some of her trail mix, popping it into his mouth in a smooth gesture that hijacked her interest from a report on what appeared to be some kind of political turmoil in Sri Lanka.

Drawing in a deep breath, she tried to focus. But the scent of Dev—rich and wild, with an edge that tasted of steel—settled over her senses, holding her in thrall. He glanced over at that very moment and for the space of a single frozen second, everything stopped. Dev broke the electric contact by putting his arm around her.

She resisted. Because in that fleeting instant, she’d glimpsed a thousand shadows in his eyes. “What’s going to happen when we get back to New York?”

“Later, Katya.”

Shaking her head, she turned to push at his chest. “The pretense ended last night.” With the painful honesty of that kiss.

He closed his hand over hers, holding her palm against those pectorals she ached to have the right to stroke. “A few more hours,” he said, his expression stark with things unsaid. “Do you want this to end so soon?”

No
, she thought,
no
. Even if their relationship was a fragile construct formed of hopes that would never survive in the harsh light of day, she wanted to cling to it with all the strength in her. Giving in, she settled herself back by his side, curling her fingers lightly into his chest, her knees scraping against his thigh as she sat with her legs bent, feet pointing away from him.