Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Bombers, murderers, serial offenders against the person, child kidnappers…a parade of depravity.
This one had been a murder case. Two changeling falcons shot out of the sky by a Psy who had never denied that he’d done it; his defense was that the sun had been in his eyes and he’d believed the birds a pair of natural raptors who’d been preying on his stock of genetically modified farm animals.
Not many Psy owned farms, but Wayne Draycott had made a living from modifying animals to create more resilient strains free of diseases.
He’d been more than willing to pay the fine for attempting to kill what he’d thought were natural falcons—creatures not on the list of species that could be hunted by farmers to protect stock—but he’d maintained that it was an honest mistake that he’d shot changelings instead of natural birds.
Eleri’d had no prior knowledge of whether that was true or not; she wasn’t the one who’d gone into his memories. But she’d known something was very, very wrong the second her mentor began to broadcast the memory from where they both stood behind the bulletproof glass of the witness box.
Reagan had shared memories with her many times over the years as part of her training. He’d begun with the less depraved ones, his aim only to teach her the technicalities of how to make the projection to a limited group. Because while Js had a facility for it, it still required knowledge of methodology alongside practice to do it well.
He’d amped up the darkness of what he showed her when she was a few months out from seventeen, readying her for the vile assault on her senses that would be her first walk through the mind of a violent criminal. In truth, nothing could’ve prepared her, but Reagan had done his best. All the senior Js did their best—the vast majority of them weren’t like some of the other specialists, who treated their juniors with cruelty and coldness.
The J Corps were compatriots who walked the same hell. Js understood that in the end, all they had was each other. Their loyalty to one another was absolute and the purest thing in their lives.
“Should a Councilor stand in this room and tell me to shoot you,” Reagan had said once, “I’d put the weapon to my own head. What would be the point in living if I destroy the one thing that makes me feel good about myself?”
Eleri, young though she’d been, had already understood what he meant, understood that to be a J was to be part of a family that had its own unique system of survival and protection. It was why Eleri had quietly helped eliminate an assassination threat against Sophie from a group of Psy who thought she had too much influence on Nikita Duncan, and why Bram had formed the Quatro Cartel when they were children.
Because Js were all other Js had.
So she’d been in no way ready for her response to Reagan’s memory capture that day in the courtroom. It hadn’t even been that violent, not in comparison to the scenes of mutilation and torture he’d shared with her just the previous week in an effort to build up her tolerance.
She’d thrown up then, her stomach revolting against the ugliness in her mind.
But that day, in the courtroom, her response hadn’t come from horror and disgust at the memories. It had been born of another reason altogether. She’d barely heard the court interpreter speaking the memory aloud, her heart was thumping so hard, her face ablaze.
He’s out in the field, heading toward a corralled batch of lambs. He has his testing kit in hand, and his long-range rifle on his back. “I don’t care about the fines for killing species on the protected list,” he’s saying, the glossy black of a phone transmitter curved over his ear. “I’m sick of the birds taking my animals or just leaving them mauled.”
Shadows overhead, the sweep of wings. The sun in his eyes, blinding him. He shoots without being able to see, the scream of a falcon piercing the air even as the second arrows down toward him.
He shoots a second time, is hit by the bird as it falls on top of him.
It claws him even as it takes him down, and only then does he drop the weapon, sit up in panic. “It’s too big—this bird is too big. I shot a changeling! I didn’t know! What have I done?”
Seventeen-year-old Eleri had jerked back into her own mind and senses in a whiplash of panic. She’d known she couldn’t interrupt Reagan while he was broadcasting, but she could feel the wrongness of it, the sense of a memory twisted through a fun-house mirror until it was distorted and not right.
Reagan, she’d telepathed urgently. Reagan, something’s wrong. The memory feels—