Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Chapter 61

ZAIRA, IT’S ADEN.

The words sank through the black fog, disappeared. But they came again and again and again, until she could no longer disregard them, until the fog around her mind started to lift enough that she could understand the meaning behind the words.

Aden.

She knew that name, knew the face of the man leaning over her, knew that silky black hair that fell over his eyes and shone blue-black in the moonlight . . . knew those lips that bore a cut that dripped blood, knew that cheek with its spreading bruise. “You’re bleeding.” The words were hoarse and hesitant, as if she was speaking a language she didn’t know.

When she tugged at her wrist, he opened one hand enough that she could slip her wrist out. Raising her hand to his face, she wiped away the blood. “I did this.” The fog had almost totally burned off, leaving her with the blinding light of knowledge. “I hurt you.” Hurt the one person she’d promised to always protect.

“I wouldn’t be much of an Arrow if I couldn’t take a few blows.”

He was trying to make her feel better. But the hollowness in her, it went soul deep. “I hurt you.” No longer caught in the madness, she remembered why this had all begun. “I was angry because he wanted to hurt you, then I did it for him.” She’d also almost lost control on a public street, could’ve permanently damaged the image and reputation of the squad. “I came a second away from exposing the monster that lives in me, in giving those who hate the squad a reason to exterminate us.”

Her eyes burned, her throat grew rough, the pressure inside her building and building. Twisting to the side under Aden’s body, she tugged her other wrist free and wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold together the fragmenting pieces of her.

Aden wouldn’t allow her to hide. Shifting to lie beside her, his face looking into hers, he brushed back her hair. “I’m fine. And what the public saw was a hard, fast takedown that’ll only reinforce our reputation as dangerous adversaries.”

Her eyes went to the cut, the bruise. “Don’t you understand, Aden? I can’t remember.” The blows, the kicks, nothing but the pitch-black of violent rage. “I thought I’d escaped, but this makes it clear that I did inherit the madness.” The insanity and violence was in her blood, in her genetics. “Those impulses are built into my neural pathways.”

Aden, his beautiful, bruised face looking into her own, his jaw so stubborn. “I don’t believe in predestination. We make our own destinies.”

She wanted to believe him, but she also knew the truth. “There’s a reason why our race was desperate enough to accept Silence, accept a truth that was a lie. I’m part of that reason.” It was nothing he could alter. “I can’t risk a life beyond the strictures of harsh discipline.” Somehow, she had to leash the rage again, lock in the insane girl inside her, and once more become the cold-eyed Arrow nothing . . . and no one, could touch.

Zaira wasn’t certain she could, that she hadn’t come too far, but if she didn’t, then who would protect Aden?

“Is that what you want for Tavish?” A pitiless question. “For Pip and the other children?”

“They’re young,” she began. “They can—”

“No.” He gripped the side of her face. “If what you say is right, if we inherit the worst of our genetic lines, then they can’t. One day, they’ll be here, in this moment, and their lives will end in a hard black box created of rules of behavior that allow no freedom. Is that what you want?”

“What I want doesn’t matter!” It never had. “Madness exists! It’s always existed, especially among our race.” The Psy had disproportionately high rates of insanity and mental illness, the dark flip side of their extraordinary gifts.

“If you’re mad, then I will walk with you into the darkness,” Aden said, his grip tightening on the side of her face. “Don’t you choose to leave me, Zaira. Don’t you do that.”

Her heart, that stunted organ that he’d given new life, hurt at the pain she sensed in him. Wrenching away from him because she couldn’t bear it, she sat up with her arms wrapped around her knees and she stared out into the vastness of the desert. And she thought of the hope in Tavish’s eyes, of the little girl who’d held her hand after the RainFire playdate and asked if she was permitted to have a doll now.

Their dreams, their hopes, they were chains holding her to the here and the now, refusing to allow any retreat.

And the biggest, strongest cord?

It was Aden.

The man who sat beside her. The man she had hurt. The man who’d allowed her to hurt him. “Why don’t you ever fight back when I lose control?”

“Because you’ve been beaten enough. Never again.”

It made her heart flinch, the way he said that, the potent emotion in his tone that she wanted to hoard and wrap around herself. “How do I fight, Aden?” she whispered, her shoulders slumping as the twisted rage creature inside her soul curled up into a fetal ball. “How do I fight something bred into my bones? I don’t want to become a monster, to lose myself.”

“With blind faith.” He gripped the wrist of one hand with the other. “And with love.” Raw words. “Don’t let one setback drive you back into a cage.” He took a shuddering breath. “I won’t stop you if you believe this is your only hope of survival, but if there’s even a ghost of a chance otherwise, then fight, Zaira. Fight for us. Fight for the children who will one day be us. Fight for the little girl you once were, the one whose spirit never flew away, no matter the horror.”