Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

Max and Sophia had integrity stamped on each and every cell in their bodies.

The trade-off of having to accommodate their viewpoints in her decisions, even when the accommodation equaled less profit or power, was worth it. Because there were very, very few people Nikita could trust in this world. She wasn’t about to discard two who had agreed to work with her on the proviso that they would immediately sever their contracts should she act against their conscience.

Who knew, after long enough under their influence, she might even become an honorable person. Like the man who stood looking down at her. Anthony was ruthless, but she knew he had never crossed the lines she had. He protected where she destroyed.

“I’ll make sure you’re safe,” he said, voice hard. “Go under.”

Other than Max and Sophia, Nikita didn’t trust anyone to watch her back. Well, except for Sascha—her child didn’t have the killer gene. Anthony did. “Pain is nothing.”

“If I wanted to kill you,” he said, “all I’d have to do right now is rupture your healing wounds. You’re too weak to stop me.”

Nikita wanted to disagree, knew she was wrong. “Why did Sophia allow you in here?”

Anthony just looked at her.

Turning her head, Nikita stared at the wall . . . and then she closed her eyes and put herself under, where the pain didn’t stab at her.

Chapter 64

ZAIRA WENT TO see Ivy ten hours after the tears that had broken things inside her. Aden had stayed with her throughout, only leaving to go to New York an hour past. Blake remained in the city, but Amin’s team was having trouble pinning him down and he wanted Aden’s input on their strategy.

The one good thing was that Amin was dead certain Blake hadn’t committed any further murders, too focused on keeping himself alive. Meanwhile, BlackSea had left Venice, taking Olivia with them; Aden had authorized her release when medical scans showed the woman had neural damage to her memory centers. Distraught, she remembered her child, but she had no other useful information.

And that child, to Zaira’s intense frustration and anger, remained among the missing. Miane hadn’t said anything and neither had Zaira when she farewelled the BlackSea alpha, but they both knew Persephone’s time was running out at a critical pace, if she was even still alive.

“I need to find her,” Zaira said to Ivy as she helped the E . . . helped her friend put together a secondary trellis for her berries. “The idea of her caged that way, to die without ever seeing daylight again.” She shook her head. “No.”

Ivy’s face was somber. “You’re doing everything you can,” she said. “Vasic’s kept me up-to-date with the search efforts—I know you have data crawlers in the Net and online, and that the word has gone out among all Arrow contacts worldwide.”

“It might not be enough.” The renewed rage inside Zaira was rigid and tight and red. “These people are smart, Ivy. It’s like they watched Pure Psy and other groups implode and learned from their mistakes.”

“A cold mind behind it all?”

“Subzero. Aden says that doesn’t rule out the other races—simply because they were never Silent doesn’t mean they can’t be evil or calculating. The person at the top of the food chain could be Psy or human or changeling.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Ivy was quiet for a minute as she hammered in a nail. “I can sense a certain level of emotion at all times and I’ve passed humans and changelings on the street and just felt like shivering.” She did so now, as if in sensory memory. “Bad people are bad people, full stop.”

Ivy’s words touched too deeply at Zaira’s own fears. “I need to know if I’m bad inside,” she forced herself to say as she took the hammer from Ivy, her ruby ring sparkling in the light.

Features set in a dark frown, Ivy tightened the printed cotton scarf she was using to keep her hair off her face. “Of course you’re not,” she began, her voice getting that fierce tone it always did when she was about to launch into a defense of Arrows. Ivy didn’t think the squad should forget what it had done under Ming and pretend it had no blood on its hands, but she also believed that since this was the first time all of them had ever had a chance to make a free choice, that choice should be what defined them.

“No, I’m talking about—” Zaira shook her head, started again. “I cried,” she said and because it was too hard to go on right then, covered her pause by hammering in a nail to strengthen the supports. “I haven’t cried since I was three years old and I decided crying didn’t help anything.”

“So you just stopped?” Ivy held the support brace in place as Zaira pounded in a second nail.

Putting down the hammer, Zaira tested the brace to make sure it would hold. “Yes.”

“You were one tough little girl.”

Zaira helped Ivy lift up the trellis and get it into position, the posts going into the holes Vasic had already dug for them. “I had no choice.” Crying weakened her and she couldn’t afford to be weak. “Why are you building this anyway?” she muttered as the two of them fought to get the posts exactly in place. “Vasic could’ve pushed all these nails in within a minute, got the trellis positioned in less time.”

“Doing orchard maintenance helps me think, clears my head.”

“Martial arts does the same for me.” She glanced around. “Where’s your shadow?” She’d become used to Ivy’s small white dog.