Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Eyes burning with what she told herself was pure rage, she hit on another changeling mind. This one was a healthy adult male in running clothes. That alone didn’t make him guilty; there were a number of runners milling around, the park having a well-utilized track. Because she couldn’t use her telepathy to clear him, she watched him with her peripheral vision while she used a small scanner she’d grabbed off a medical tray as a prop, as if she was gathering data from the scene.

The truth was that the tool was meant for DNA scans and loaded with the profiles of those in the squad; all it flashed was Aden’s name, his blood painting the grass. The rage boiled hotter with each iteration of his name, each reminder that he’d been hurt, might be dying.

When she continued in her apparent work without doing anything flashy or interesting, the crowd began to disperse, until only a white-haired human couple and the changeling runner were left. She didn’t discard the elderly pair until a deep scan showed them as having no ulterior motives. The changeling made no aggressive moves, but she stayed within his reach, within shooting distance.

Her patience was rewarded five minutes later as he slid his hand surreptitiously to the back of his shorts. By the time he brought out a sleek gun complete with silencer, she was already moving. Her body slammed his to the ground as his finger touched the trigger, the shot thudding into a nearby sculpture. The human pair screamed while the shooter grunted and tried to punch her in the face, but Zaira had calculated his muscle mass and strength in the time he’d watched her, had already devised countermeasures against his greater strength.

She was also powered by rage.

Avoiding the blow, she smashed a single fist down at the precise angle to do maximum damage.

Blood splurted. His eyes altering from human blue to a slitted black, he swiped at her with a clawed hand. She flipped out of reach and deliberately waited until he was almost upright to kick out with one booted foot and dislocate his knee. He crumpled to a sideways position on his knees with a scream of fury, this changeling who had shot the only person who had ever loved her.

Not giving him time to recover, she kicked again, smashing his jaw.

Another kick, this one to his ribs. She deliberately avoided his head, not wanting him unconscious, wanting him to feel this, feel the cold rage that drove her. She saw others join the human couple, saw phones turned in her direction as people recorded the violence, but that didn’t stop her. Today, Aden wasn’t there to stop her, either, his solid, stable presence missing from her mind.

The aloneness howled, the rage creature wanting blood, wanting to brutalize this man who might have stolen Aden from her forever.

Taking the shooter to the ground once more with another well-aimed kick, where he lay on his back and struggled to breathe through his broken nose and shattered jaw, his face smeared red, she stepped on one thick wrist so he couldn’t get her with his claws, and when he lifted his other hand to slice at her, kicked out with her boot at an angle that would’ve broken a Psy male’s bones.

Changeling bones were tougher, so the bone didn’t break, but she did enough damage that his hand didn’t seem to work as it should. When he scrabbled at her, there was no power in it, his claws not even penetrating the tough fabric of her uniform pants.

He was totally at her mercy.

When she glimpsed his form begin to shimmer, she said, “Don’t shift.” Her own gun in her hand, pointed directly at him. “You do and I’ll shoot directly into the shift.” She didn’t know exactly what that would do, but she had a feeling it would be fatal. “It’ll be interesting to see if the pieces of you that end up scattered all over this park will be from your human or your animal form.”

The man’s body solidified, the threat clearly finding its mark.

She thought about how to torture him and a hundred different methods popped into her mind. Sliding away her gun and lifting the foot not on his wrist—which she’d slowly crushed and which had to be causing him agony, she placed it very carefully on his sternum and met his gaze. The torture was psychological this time.

She had no intention of crushing his ribs into his internal organs. To do so would equal too quick a death. But he believed she did, terror a slick sheen over his eyes. Giving him just enough time to truly fear her, she took her foot off his sternum and went down on her haunches without removing the boot she had on his mangled wrist.

Then, dropping her voice into a range that would be inaudible to their audience but which this changeling would hear, she said, “You have two choices. To die quickly or to die slowly and in intense agony. If you choose the latter, it doesn’t matter if you later beg me for mercy. I won’t have mercy. I don’t know how. I was trained that way.”

She saw from his expression that he believed her.

Speaking through the blood that had bubbled down to his mouth, he said, “Quick.” His voice was slurred as a result of the damage she’d done to his jaw.

“It doesn’t work that way,” she said, grinding her boot into his broken wrist without doing anything other than slightly shifting her weight.

A scream erupted from his throat, causing their silent audience to flinch. Waiting until he’d settled, she said, “Tell me what you know.” She didn’t elaborate—there was no need for it. And this one had to know something. His hit had been too up close and personal with too high a risk of capture. He was either a leftover Pure Psy fanatic or part of the conspiracy.

Instinct told her it was the latter. He hadn’t intended to become a martyr; his plan was to escape. And there was the fact that the squad had picked up certain scuttlebutt in the dark highways of the world—seemed like the contract killers were turning down major pay packets at any whisper a hit might involve an Arrow. Too many of their fellow killers had been eliminated or taken hostage for the money to be worth it.