Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)
“I need to get Judd,” Vasic said. “He may be able to do what the medics can’t.”
Zaira heard him through the rage. She didn’t know Judd well, had believed him another Tk. Clearly, he was something more. Vasic was gone on the next breath, and all she wanted to do was annihilate the person who had hurt Aden.
• • •
VASIC couldn’t teleport to Judd, not with the way the other man’s shields were structured, so he did the next best thing: got himself to SnowDancer territory, then called Judd. “Aden’s hit. Dying.”
Judd asked for a telepathic visual and, using it, teleported himself to Vasic’s side, his face set in harsh lines. “What can I do?”
Taking him back to the operating room, Vasic watched the Tk-Cell move in to attempt to repair the damage to Aden’s artery and veins. It was so severe the medics couldn’t plug the hole—Vasic had heard one doctor use the word “shredded,” and from what Vasic had seen, the bullet had been designed to cause maximum damage.
Judd might not be able to do much, either, his ability to move the cells of the body a slow and careful process that might not beat the ticking clock on Aden’s life. But each time the monitor beeped, it meant Aden was alive.
Vasic listened to that monitor for too long.
By the time he realized he hadn’t told Zaira what was happening and went back out into the corridor, she was gone.
PSYNET BEACON: BREAKING NEWS
Aden Kai has been shot. Unconfirmed reports are coming in from those who witnessed the shooting. All state it was a killing hit.
“His jugular was torn wide open, or more likely his carotid, maybe both,” one witness stated. “Look at all the blood on the grass. It just gushed out.”
“No one can survive that,” said a medic who was on his way to a shift at a nearby clinic at the time of the shooting. “He’s dead.”
The Beacon is attempting to make contact with the squad for verification.
Chapter 76
ABBOT HADN’T WANTED to leave Zaira alone in the leafy and sunshine-laden park where Aden had been shot, but she gave him no choice. “You need to cover Aden’s security shift in the valley. Go.”
The younger Arrow hesitated, his sea blue eyes scanning the people who’d drawn back from the center of the scene at their arrival. “You’re not safe here alone.”
That was what she was counting on. “I’m giving you a direct order.”
“Yes, sir.”
Staring at the blood on the grass after he left, Zaira crouched down to touch her fingers to it. It was still wet, the speed of events fast enough that the inevitable gawkers hadn’t stepped close enough to contaminate the scene. Driven by rage, her first thought had been to track the shooter, but then she’d realized there was an easier way. If this individual had shot Aden in broad daylight, then he or she was brazen enough to try again. A second public attack on an Arrow would cement the conspirators’ point that no one was safe.
So she’d give them an easy target.
Only Zaira didn’t play by the same rules as Aden. She didn’t only do surface telepathic scans as she waited while ostensibly checking the evidence; she went as deep as she possibly could without causing damage or alerting her targets. Part of her was still thinking, still able to remember that if she smashed the shields of blameless people, it would undo all the work Aden had done to place the Arrows in a position where the public didn’t fear them so much that they sought to hunt them out of existence.
We can protect ourselves, but what of the Carolinas, the Tavishes, and the other children we don’t even know about yet? If people start to fear Arrows, it’s a short step to start eliminating those who might grow up into Arrows.
Aden’s words. Words she could still hear through the roar of rage. As she could feel her small breakfast companion’s heartbeat as she sat so vulnerable and happy beside her. As she could hear the hope in Pip’s voice when he asked her when he could go play with Jojo again.
She would keep the innocents safe. She couldn’t promise the same for the guilty.
A few people dared come closer as she worked, including a man who said, “Is Aden Kai all right? We were some distance away so we couldn’t help, but we saw the shooter.”
“He’s fine.” No matter what, Aden needed to remain invincible in the minds of the public. “Can you describe the shooter?”
“A runner. Male, I’m fairly certain. I’m sorry, that’s all I saw.”
The witness was human, his shields paper-thin.
Her deep scan of his mind told her he wasn’t lying. So she scanned the next person and the next and the next, frustrated only by the changelings’ tough natural shields and by those Psy who had good enough shielding that her intrusion would be noted.
Those people she evaluated visually.
Two were mothers with very young children in prams, the third an elderly woman who walked with the aid of a cane. She felt confident in eliminating them from the suspect pool, though she took mental snapshots of their faces so she could trace their identities should it become necessary.
Every other individual who came within her proximity was subjected to a deep scan that told her all their secrets, all their nightmares. She didn’t care about any of it, discarding all data that didn’t relate directly to Aden and the attempts on his life.
He wouldn’t agree with her choice, would say she was violating people. Zaira didn’t care. Not when he was lying bleeding in a hospital bed. Not when his mind had disconnected from her own as his psychic abilities shut down. Not when his blood still glistened on the grass in front of her.