Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

And even those who still believed in Pure Psy were looking askance at recent events. The latest whispers tagged by the squad said the fanatics had started to mistrust their new ally when it was only the Pure Psy people who seemed to be dying—without any observable change in the status of Silence in the Net.

The honeymoon was over in those quarters.

As a result, the conspiracy had likely run out of disposable bodies and been forced to use some of its own. “Talk,” she reiterated coldly when he didn’t say anything.

“They’ll kill me.”

“So you choose a slow death.” Retrieving a blade from her boot, she had the point at his eyeball with such speed that he blinked, not realizing the blade was so sharp it would split his eyelid.

When it did, blood dripping into his eye, he said, “No.”

“Then talk.” She bent closer, always keeping an eye on his limbs. His shattered jaw meant he couldn’t bite her, but she didn’t disregard that, either.

As it was, he knew he was beaten, saw living death in her eyes. He spoke in a near-subvocal murmur and though his words were a touch garbled, she understood it all. And she knew he’d given her everything he had on the wider conspiracy, his fear of her too pungent to allow for a bluff. But she had one more question to ask him. “There’s a changeling child. About two years old. Her name is Persephone.”

His throat moved, Adam’s apple prominent. “She’s dead,” he whispered.

The rage in Zaira wanted to stab the blade into his eyeball. “You saw the body?”

A shake of his head. “I helped move her to a new holding area, and after, I was told she died in the night.” A touch of horror in his expression. “I never agreed with keeping the kid.”

But he hadn’t helped the small, vulnerable girl, which made him just as culpable. “Tell me the location of the new holding area, and any other locations you know.”

He gave her three addresses.

“Quick,” he said at the end, his breathing strained and pupils hugely dilated. “You promised quick.”

Zaira let the tip of the blade touch his eyeball. “I lied.” She wanted to torture him until he begged for her to end it. The fact that they were in public didn’t matter. The fact that people would see her as a monster didn’t matter. Icy rage had morphed into a red-hot murderous anger that shoved at her to rip him limb from limb. Smash in his skull as she had her parents’. Erase his face.

Sunlight glinted on the ring on her finger as she went to wrench back her captive’s head with a grip in his hair.

If you didn’t have anger inside you, you’d be inhuman.

I refuse to accept that my Arrows are frozen in amber.

I have faith in your will. Fight for us.

The memory of Aden’s voice, his absolute faith in her, halted her when she would’ve punctured the changeling’s eyeball in the first act of brutalization. The rage monster in her hesitated.

Don’t go. Don’t leave me alone.

I have faith that the girl who chose to stop crying at three years of age has the will to conquer this demon.

I like you. You’re nice.

Aden just needs you.

There is a reason every Arrow in Venice, even the most recalcitrant senior, would die for you.

Blind faith. And love.

Breathe, Zaira. Take a minute and just breathe.

Remembering Ivy’s lesson through her fury, she focused on the ruby on her finger, the ring that Aden had given her because he wanted to keep her, and took a breath. Another.

Aden loved her.

All those other voices were of people who liked her, too, who thought she had value as a person. If she did this, if she surrendered to evil, she’d lose them all. Persephone would die. And if Aden survived, he’d wake to find himself alone because the rage would’ve swallowed Zaira whole: she’d promised him he’d never be alone, that she’d always be with him . . . that she’d be his partner.

You aren’t locked in that cell anymore. You live in the light.

Aden was gone from her mind and it hurt. It hurt. But he’d marked her regardless, and she clung to the echo of him, holding him possessively tight. Don’t you go, she said along the dead telepathic connection she kept trying to force open. Don’t you leave me. I’ll become a monster if you do. It was a threat that held endless need. I can only be human if you’re there to teach me.

No answer, but the rage creature inside her was leashed. Looking down, she found herself facing a gaze full of terror, one eye red with blood that had dripped from his split eyelid. She’d broken him, obtained the data the squad needed. There was no need to kill him. Flipping the blade, she tapped his temple with the back end, putting him under.

Did you get what we need?

Looking up at the sound of Vasic’s telepathic voice, having ignored him during the fight, she gave him an affirmative. “Get him to a hospital and contact the authorities,” she said aloud for the benefit of their audience. “The threat has been neutralized.” I have Persephone’s last known location. We’ll go as soon as you ’port back.

While Vasic took care of the body, she slipped the knife back into place and picked up the scanner she’d dropped. Then she walked deliberately toward the crowd. The onlookers parted in front of her, mingled fear and awe in their expressions. “Where’s the gun?” she asked the human couple.

The man held it out to her, hand trembling. “I picked it up when you made him drop it.”

Zaira knew that, had seen him do it and never forgotten the gun that could be turned against her. “Thank you. You minimized the risk to others.”