Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Her breathing was too faint, her pulse sluggish.

No.

Turning her over carefully onto her back, he unzipped her jackets, pushed up her sweater, and found her Arrow uniform once more sticky with blood. When he peeled it up and examined the bullet wound, he saw it was bleeding steadily. Grabbing the last disposable laser, he gripped the penlight again and sealed multiple torn veins. By the time the laser flickered, she wasn’t leaking fresh blood.

He had to fight himself not to try to use his M ability to reach the internal wounds he couldn’t see. Given the viciousness of the pain feedback to any attempt at using psychic abilities, she could wake to find him burned out, unconscious. And much as Zaira liked to tell him to leave her behind, he knew damn well she’d never leave him behind. She saw him as critical to the survival of the squad—he’d never been able to make her understand that she was as important. So if he went down, she’d stay, guard his back. Die.

That fact and all the others weighed against testing the padlock on his ability.

That didn’t mean it was an easy decision.

Bandaging the wound, he found another one of the small, nutrient-rich drinks in the medkit and, lifting up her head, coaxed it down her throat, drop by tiny drop. Afterward, he placed her head on his thigh and kept his finger on the pulse in her neck, under the hood he’d tugged up over her head so she wouldn’t lose heat through her skull. The fact that the top of her head was tucked up against his abdomen should also help her maintain her body temperature.

“Stay with me,” he said as her pulse refused to grow stronger.

Zaira had survived a childhood so hellish, she should be insane or broken or a monster. Instead, she was one of the strongest Arrows he knew; she’d protected their most wounded, most broken for over five years. That many long years she’d stayed dead to the world, stayed in a tiny network that he knew must’ve felt like a prison to a woman who’d grown up in a barren locked room.

And still she’d gone because he’d asked her.

He would not allow her to die now, when, for the first time, she had a chance at a real life. This desolate landscape would not claim her fire. It had no right. “You will stay,” he ordered, his lips against her ear. “You promised me.” That promise had been made nearly twenty-one years ago, but he’d never forgotten, never would forget.

Even after months of sufficient food and daily outdoor exercise, she’d still been so skinny and small and with such anger inside her. Barely four feet tall back then, at least a foot shorter than him, and yet she’d said, “I won’t run anymore. I won’t try to leave. I’ve decided to stay and protect you.”

“Why?”

Midnight black eyes afire in a sun-browned face that was all sharp bones. “Because you don’t have a monster inside you.”

“Keep your promise,” he said now. “Don’t leave. Stay with me. Stay.”

His only answer was a pulse so faint, he could barely feel it.

Chapter 6

STANDING BELOW A star-filled North Dakota sky, Vasic tried and failed for the hundredth time to get to Aden or Zaira. “I can’t sense either of them,” he told Ivy where his wife stood next to him on the wide verandah both his lost squadmates had helped build.

The light above bathed the area in a gentle glow that didn’t penetrate the night darkness beyond. “I’ve never not been able to sense Aden.” The idea that his failure meant his closest friend was dead was a possibility he refused to consider.

Dark circles under the translucent copper of her eyes and lines of tension around her mouth, Ivy took the phone from her ear and thrust it into a pocket. “Sahara says Kaleb’s continuing to try, too, but he’s getting nowhere.”

That was bad. Vasic was a born teleporter and Kaleb Krychek a cardinal telekinetic who could also lock on to people rather than simply places. If the two of them couldn’t locate Aden or Zaira, no one could. “I can’t even tell if they’re together or not.” The timing of the abductions suggested the same foe at work, but they couldn’t rule out two separate actions or two separate prisons. “The Es connected to Aden and Zaira—they’re still sensing nothing?”

Ivy rubbed her face. “Yes. They’re saying it doesn’t feel like death . . . just as if they’re lost.”

Vasic had never known Aden to be lost. Even as a child, his best friend had known where he was headed, known what he wanted.

Wrapping her arms around him, warm and soft and loving, Ivy said, “Aden’s strong, resourceful, incredibly smart, and Zaira’s lethal, with a mind that thinks in ways no one can predict.” The bond between them rippled with her passionate belief. “Whatever the situation, I know those two will come out on top.”

Vasic held her tight with the single arm he possessed; Samuel Rain’s attempts at designing and building him a working prosthetic had continued to fail. Vasic could’ve halted the entire thing, but after what the brilliant robotics engineer had done to save his life, it was a small enough thing to indulge Samuel’s eccentricity and determination to succeed.

“He needs constant challenges,” Aden had said a bare week earlier, while he and Vasic were going through a martial arts training routine in the open area to the left of the verandah. “Right now, you’re it.” A small pause. “Sooner or later, he will succeed or go mad trying, so you’d better decide if you do, in fact, want a prosthetic.”

“Since I was eight years old,” Vasic said to Ivy, the side of his face pressed to the soft black of her hair, “Aden’s always been there.” A quiet rock that didn’t shift or give way no matter how vicious the deluge. “The idea of not being able to speak to him . . . I can’t process it.” Vasic had once had a death wish; it wasn’t until this instant that he understood what it must’ve done to Aden to believe he’d have to watch Vasic die.