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)
She’d all but forgotten that she’d asked Bram to act as courier; she appreciated her task force colleagues, but her relationship with Bram went far beyond trust. She’d wanted to see him, talk through her theories with him, just be in his presence, even if she could no longer feel what she once had when she was around him and the others.
The memory of emotion was enough.
“Bram’s…protective of us,” she said. “There are four of us—me, Bram, Saffron, and Yúzé. All Sensitives. All survivors of multiple reconditionings.”
Adam’s smile faded, his shoulders tight. “He’s not like you.”
“The damage doesn’t express in an identical way in each individual. Yúzé says it’s because the brain is so complex and that reconditioning, despite the Council’s claims to the contrary, was a blunt hammer that cut and bruised different parts with each unique pass.”
A tic in Adam’s jaw, his body so tense that she thought he would snap. But when he spoke, it wasn’t with anger. “They’re your family.”
“Yes.” She would put her life on the line for any of the Cartel, the emotional resonance so strong after all these years that she didn’t need to feel it today to accept it. “I’ll make the call now. Bram won’t stop worrying until I do.” She accessed her phone. “Oh, I have a hundred messages from Saffy. I’ll reply to her, too.”
“Not Yúzé?”
“He’ll be with Saffron. They began to live together when…” She paused, her loyalty to the Quatro Cartel coming up against her need to share herself, share this precious and broken little family, with Adam.
“Saffy and Yúzé need each other,” she said at last. “It’s safer for them to live together.” So they could monitor one another, so Yúzé could ensure Saffron didn’t harm herself in her rages, and Saffron could keep an eye on Yúzé when he began to spiral in his quiet, dangerous way.
It worked because the two had chosen the arrangement of their own free will.
Eleri and Bram worried most about Yúzé even though Saffron was the more volatile. Yúzé’s pain didn’t show; he just had a tendency to quietly investigate those who did evil without being noticed or seen, then he murdered them while sipping a cup of coffee in a café or walking past his target in the street.
Not so different from what Eleri or Bram or Saffron had done, but Yúzé couldn’t stop drawing memories once he started. He’d once convinced himself he was a molester of the innocent after he’d siphoned another—viciously evil—man’s entire memory, and he would’ve slit his own throat if Saffron hadn’t literally knocked him unconscious with a kick to the head. She’d been sobbing in the aftermath when she called Eleri, but she’d saved Yúzé’s life.
Now all Yúzé’s search history went automatically to the Quatro Cartel’s private chat, and he’d promised them he wouldn’t hunt on the PsyNet. But Yúzé couldn’t always control his impulses, no matter how hard he tried, so Saffron and he had a debrief every night where he never lied to her, that a promise he’d made after he came to after the near-deadly incident to find Saffron inconsolable because she’d had to hurt him.
Saffy, in turn, was more stable because she fought to be stable for Yúzé.
Across from her, Adam nodded. “I get it. Many a falcon flies better, stronger, with a friend by his side. We all fall sometimes.”
Eleri’s entire self seemed to sigh. He did get it. Understood that at times, broken columns needed each other to prop them up.
After finishing the nutrients, she got up to make the call.
Adam didn’t attempt to stop her when she walked over to the place where the falcons sunned. Glancing at her, they inched to the right, as if giving her a spot on the ledge. Something bloomed inside her chest, and she looked back at Adam, wondering if he had any idea of the gift he was giving her this day.
But he was looking the other way, answering a question from another clanmate, a slight grin on his face. She traced the line from his shoulder, up his neck, to his jaw, and found herself thinking about what it might feel like to touch that powerful body, feel those tendons and muscles under her fingertips.
A wave of air, a flutter of sound, wings unfurling.
She turned back just in time to see the falcons taking off. At first, she thought they’d disappeared because of her…but then she saw four others swoop in from the right, then watched as her three fell into formation with them, not a feather out of place.
A fighting unit, she realized. The group of lazily sunning creatures had all been soldiers trained to defend the clan.
A sense of wonder struggled to break through the wall of numbness inside her. Failed.
Sensitivity level at maximum. Exposure imminent unless all psychic abilities kept at a permanent flatline.