The Reckoning (7 page)

I sighed internally, wishing he hadn’t gone and ruined the moment. Deciding that I loved Ritter had only been part of the battle. He was an old-fashioned man, which wasn’t surprising given his age, and he was more than eager for a physical relationship. So was I. The catch was that every Unbounded union—unless with a sterile mortal—resulted in offspring. While Ritter would be thrilled if I got pregnant, there were two issues regarding children that made me unready for the risk. Thankfully, Stella and I had come up with a possible solution.

“Well?” Ritter kissed me again.

I inched closer to him on the mat, reaching over to smooth a strand of his sweat-dampened black hair. “I love you.”

And I did. But I wondered what I would do if I couldn’t get the hang of channeling Stella and using nanites to prevent ovulation.

Renegades were particularly careful of their children and extended posterity, watching over all of them for six generations to see if they underwent the Change. In my mind it was a huge responsibility, but that was only the beginning of a much darker issue. Even with gene manipulation and altered sperm, we still had a fifty percent chance that any child we had together might be mortal. I was already struggling with how I would have to watch Chris and his children grow old and die before I’d aged another two years, and the idea of that happening with my own child seemed beyond horrifying. I loved my niece and nephew, and I’d always thought I’d have a child or two one day, but my Change and my new lifestyle had made that seem impossible.

“Good.” Ritter seemed satisfied with my response and kissed me again. For a very long time, I was perfectly happy not thinking about anything else.

AFTER A LONG, HOT SHOWER
in my suite on the third floor, I was feeling rested again, but I wasn’t surprised to find Ava waiting for me in my sitting room when I emerged from the bathroom in my robe. I went toward her. “Thanks for coming.”

“You seemed to think it was urgent.” Ava remained by the door. “We have ten minutes until the others will be downstairs to hear the result of our meeting, and I’m expecting a call from the president before then.”

“You’re planning to send us to Iran, aren’t you?”

“If we have to. Stella says the plutonium will go in by way of Lebanon and Syria, so stopping it en route might be possible, but so far Iran itself does seem to be your most likely destination. However, it’s definitely not my first choice. One of our European Renegades was born there, and he visits regularly to check on his interests. He has people he trusts, so he’s looking into the chatter now to see if there is any new information. Perhaps even a way to stop the plutonium before it enters the Middle East.”

“I’m not sure I should be involved.”

Her brow arched. “Exactly what happened in Texas?”

Sinking onto the couch and pulling a leg under me, I began telling her about the battle and the mental force I used on the Emporium soldier and how drained I’d felt afterwards. “And before you chalk it up to stress, I know something’s different now.” I hesitated for a heartbeat before adding. “I want to look inside the box.” I meant, of course, the box in my mind where I’d secured the snake Delia Vesey had inserted into my unconscious mind during our last encounter with the Emporium in New York City.

Ava moved away from the door at last and sat beside me. “Do you think that’s wise? We haven’t been able to remove it, and if it has changed inside the containment box, it might be impossible to seal it back inside.”

I unwrapped the towel from my hair, letting it slide to my lap. “I have to know. I’m worried I’ll be a danger to the others, especially on an operation this important.”

Delia had created that thing, that piece of whatever, and I had no idea what it might be except that it was similar to bindings she’d put into other people’s heads. Those bindings, also manifesting as thin snakelike threads of shiny black, hid certain thoughts from other sensing Unbounded—particularly Ava and me so we couldn’t ruin their plans if we captured the operative—but they also seemed to allow her mental access to that person from a greater distance. Maybe even control them. As far as our research went, we’d uncovered no way for the binding to be removed except by the person who created it.

“If there is any possibility that she could take control of me,” I added, “we have to know. Maybe that box I made isn’t as strong as I thought. I want you there to watch me open it. I have to know if there’s been a change.”

“We’ve checked the box every couple days.” Ava’s words came with anger. Not directed toward me, but at Delia, who seemed determined to use me to her own ends.

“Not inside it. It’s different now. I feel . . . pressure. Especially after last night.”

She didn’t question me further, for which I was grateful. “We’ll look at it after the meeting.” I also knew that even if I changed my mind, she would insist on following up on my first gut instinct. That was what made her a good leader. She listened to us.

Ava took up the towel and began rubbing it over my scalp and down to the ends of my shoulder-length hair in a motherly gesture that was as unexpected as it was appreciated. I relaxed into her hands. Being with her like this reminded me of my grandmother back in Kansas. So far, the Emporium had left her alone, but it worried me that she’d chosen to stay behind.

A beeping sounded from Ava’s cell phone, and her hand left my head. “Hello? Yes. I’m ready.” Covering the receiver, she said, “Stella says the president is ready for me. I’m going to take the call in the conference room.”

“I’ll pull on some jeans and meet you downstairs.”

“All right.” She handed the wet towel back to me and arose, starting for the door, where she paused. “Have you told Ritter about the change you’re feeling?”

I shook my head, feeling a bit ashamed. I didn’t want him to consider me weak, and I certainly didn’t want him to pull some macho stunt and insist that I stay where he could protect me. As much as I admired him, he couldn’t beat Delia. Not alone.

Ava’s lips pursed. “We can wait on that until we find out if there really is a difference.”

I nodded. She left then, leaving me clutching the towel. I closed my eyes, focusing inward to my own consciousness. There was an area that was much the same as anyone else’s, except I was inside my own thought stream and it seemed much larger, more like a band of asteroids than a stream of sand. There was so much space between pieces of sand, or my awareness so small, that I often didn’t notice any thoughts at all but the ones I was concentrating on. In one corner—if I could call it that—there were two black boxes I’d created that were similar to the black snake, constructed from my thoughts and manifesting as a smooth, shiny substance. Inside one of these boxes, I’d stored away my acrophobia, taking it out nearly each night on the roof of our building to stare it into submission. I’d conquered it—or at least the paralyzation caused by it—but the fear never disappeared entirely. The other box was the one I’d made for Delia’s evil little present to keep it isolated from the rest of my mind. On the outside, the box appeared unchanged from every other time I’d examined it.

Wait. There was something different. Two thin shoots of blue light seeped from the box, wavering and weak, traveling a short distance before disappearing altogether. Did that come from my box or from the snake inside? The other box containing my acrophobia didn’t have anything radiating from it, and it had been there longer. Whatever the light was, I didn’t like the look of it, but I would still wait for Ava before I opened the box. Where Delia was concerned, it paid to be careful.

I dressed slowly in jeans and a long-sleeved aqua T-shirt. I pulled on the gold chain Ritter had given me in New York along with its three gold rings. I tucked it between my breasts where I always wore it except during training. The weapons he gave me might be his way of courting, but, for me, this is what had made us real. The two simple gold bands had belonged to his mother and little sister, both murdered by the Emporium. I was now the keeper of his most beloved memories. Sometimes I worried that I couldn’t be enough.

But I was going to try.

The third ring, the one with the diamond, was for our official engagement, proof that he was trying to learn my language just as I was trying to learn his.

As I emerged from my suite, Mari caught up with me. Today her long, dark brown hair was free around her shoulders, framing her heart-shaped face. Her eyes resembled deep shadows. “I can’t believe all of this, can you?” She shivered. “I don’t know anyone in Israel, but I looked up how many people live there and my mind keeps adding up all the deaths. Over eight million. That’s the population of New York, give or take a couple hundred thousand. Or almost the populations of LA, San Diego, San Jose, San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, and Long Beach combined! Add that to the number of people all over the world who might be affected—so many numbers that my mind wants to count and categorize. I just—” she broke off with a groan. “Oh, let’s talk about something else. Let’s see . . . uh, I got a call from Oliver this morning.”

Oliver Parkin, her Unbounded cousin we’d sent on loan to the New York Renegades. I really didn’t want to talk about the arrogant new addition to our group, but I would if it calmed Mari down. “How is he?”

Mari wrinkled her nose. “Same as ever. A snotty, know-it-all jerk. Only talked about himself.”

“He came through in the end when it mattered,” I reminded her as we started down the stairs, which was usually faster than waiting for the elevator.

“Well, believe it or not, I actually miss him. I just hope he doesn’t get himself killed.”

I grinned, knowing that was a big admission on her part. “If there’s one thing Oliver’s good at, it’s self-preservation. Besides, their leader knows what she’s doing, and she promised he won’t be in danger. If he can help them rebuild, sending him is the least we could do.”

“He’s probably driving them nuts.” There was more than a little satisfaction in her tone.

“I’m sure he is.”

We made it to the main floor conference room just as Keene McIntyre did. Apparently he’d finally decided to drag himself from bed or wherever he’d been and put in an appearance. He was dressed in jeans and wore his brown hair long and shaggy—probably to hide the disappearance of the vertical scar that had once gouged deeply into the edge of his face from his jaw to his hairline. The whole careless appearance did nothing to hide his lean good looks or the corded muscles running along his bare arms. Mari nodded at him and went inside, but Keene came to a stop and faced me.

“So what do you think of our mystery lady?” he asked. Keene was our scientist Cort’s half brother and formerly an Emporium agent. His Unbounded ability was yet unknown to me—and probably to himself—and as far as I knew, he hadn’t revealed to the others that he’d recently Changed. Ava knew, of course, since she shared my sensing ability, but he didn’t seem in a hurry to make any official announcement. The secret irritated me because we all lived in the Fortress together, and it was obvious to just about everyone that he was avoiding us. I wasn’t sure Cort even knew about Keene’s Change. There had been a lot of rivalry between them when Keene was still trying to please their father, who was one of the Emporium Triad leaders, but the brothers had always come through for each other and had ended up on the same side. It bothered me that Keene might not share something with Cort that would mean so much to him. Cort had lost too many siblings in his half millennium of life.

I shrugged. “Didn’t get much of a chance to talk to her, and it doesn’t look like any of us will with what’s going on.”

“I don’t like that she’s not in our database, and I never ran into her in all my work with the Emporium. She obviously wasn’t a Renegade, but she was prominent enough in the mortal world that we should have noticed her existence. That means someone must have done a lot of cover up. I know you have reservations about this sort of thing, but I think you need to break through her shield and see what she’s hiding.”

His green eyes seemed sharp enough to penetrate clear through to my inner thoughts, and I found myself instinctively strengthening my shield. “Then you haven’t heard. She’s a null.” I took a step toward the open door. No one else had appeared in the hall, which meant we were the last to arrive.

“A null,” he mused. His eyes now seemed far away, as if searching for a memory he couldn’t quite place. “Interesting.”

I nodded and continued into the conference room. The space was long and narrow, dominated by a large mahogany table that was wider than average and large enough to fit twenty people if we put two at each end, though we normally didn’t. Retractable monitors were set at each place, and some of these had been raised in preparation for our meeting. Benito had been at his picture hanging in here, so we had several peaceful seascapes that made me long for a vacation. All the others in our group were already present, except Chris and our mortal guards. And Benito, of course, who hopefully was back in his bed dreaming by now.

I sat in the high-backed chair next to Mari, the soft, black padding cradling my tense body. Keene settled next to me on my right at the end. Across the table from us, between Stella and Cort, Ritter drew my attention. His hair was wet from his shower and parted on the left side, the strands curving around to graze a mole on his right cheek. He’d shaved since I’d last seen him in the training room. He wore all black, and even his broad shoulders and muscled torso didn’t hide the bulges of dangerous weapons hidden in special pockets of his clothing. His eyes looked black in the artificial light of the room, locking onto mine, and a sense of rightness asserted itself in my mind. I lifted my brows slightly, acknowledging the connection that ran between us.