Authors: Dean Murray
That
was dangerous. I couldn't afford to keep her around just because she
made me a little less lonely, but the urge to do so was something I
was going to have to fight on a nearly constant basis.
We
rounded a bend in the trail and were suddenly faced with the visual
music of a waterfall trickling down from the cliffs above us. It
wasn't a particularly tall waterfall and there wasn't all that much
water coursing down the rock, but it was still perfect.
Maybe
it was the sheath of ice that had formed on the rocks or maybe it was
simpler than that, but the ribbon of water somehow turned the
clearing into a winter paradise. It was so idyllic that for a second
I didn't even seen the man waiting for us a dozen yards further into
the clearing.
"My
name is Carson. What do you have to say that's so important Shawn
thought it worth introducing the two of us?"
Brindi
moved a little in my arms but didn't wake up. I looked around for
somewhere to sit, but it was really just an attempt to buy myself
time to think.
"The
Coun'hij has Agony. I went to Shawn hoping that he'd help me break
Agony out. I can only assume that he sent me to you because he thinks
you might be able to help."
Carson
approached Brindi and me slowly so as not to be a threat, but he
obviously wanted to be close enough that there wouldn't be any way
for me to sneak a lie past him.
"Agony's
death will be a profound blow for the resistance, but I fail to see
what it has to do with me. He's fought a good fight, and lasted much
longer than anyone expected him to, but his fate was sealed from the
time that he broke away from the Coun'hij and started working against
them."
"The
Coun'hij isn't the kind of group to let anyone stand to one side. So
far you seem to have managed to stay off of their radar, but
eventually they'll find you and you'll either have to ally yourself
with them or face the consequences of rebellion."
"Is
that a threat?"
The
words came out low and angry and his voice had changed pitches enough
to warn me that he was only a heartbeat away from shifting forms. My
beast surged forward in response, and although a part of me would
have welcomed a straight-up fight rather than another round of verbal
sparring with someone who probably wasn't going to help me, I stomped
on my anger, forcing it down to where I controlled it rather than it
controlling me.
It
was harder than I expected it to be, and it wasn't just that my beast
had gotten behind the emotion and started pushing. The tide of rage
rising inside of me was deeper and stronger than anything I'd ever
felt before and that was scary.
I'd
felt something similar bubbling under the surface when Kaleb had told
me that he was planning on giving Rachel to Vincent, but it hadn't
been quite the same. Back then some kind of defensive mechanism had
walled me away from my emotions, armoring me in stillness so that I
could do what needed to be done. By the time my armor had fallen
away, I'd already saved Rachel.
I
reached for a similar measure of protection this time, but it wasn't
anywhere to be found. I was furious and even worse, I
wanted
to be furious. The temptation to give into the rage was nearly more
than I could withstand, but a tiny part of me knew that if I let
myself be provoked that everything would be stacked against me.
I
was on Carson's home turf and I had Brindi to worry about. I couldn't
fight with her in my arms and even if I could, that went against
everything that had brought me out here in the first place.
I
started shaking from the effort of controlling my transformation, but
unlike most of my kind I had another option besides shifting, an
option that was still dangerous but less inflammatory than becoming a
hybrid would have been.
I
hugged Brindi tightly against me with my right hand and forced all of
the anger and hate coursing through me into my left hand as it fell
away from Brindi's body. My left hand exploded and then shrank back
down leaving me with the hand and claws of a hybrid.
"It
wasn't a threat. Kaleb and the rest won't learn about you from me, at
least not without torturing me first. I was just speaking from
personal experience. I thought I could stay in the middle and avoid
choosing sides between Kaleb and Brandon, but I was wrong.
"People
like them aren't wired to ever be satisfied. They always want a
little more power, a little more influence, one last victory over an
already battered enemy. It took almost seeing my sister sold into
slavery for me to realize that I had to pick a side."
"Shawn
said that you saved her, your sister Rachel, I mean."
"She's
alive and I'll do whatever is needed to keep her safe, including
letting you insult me, but don't mistake my willpower for
submissiveness. If you were someone else, someone I didn't need,
someone who knew me well enough to realize what I've done already to
try and stop Kaleb and the rest, I might not have been able to avoid
responding with the kind of escalation you would have gotten out of
most other hybrids."
Carson
nodded slightly, not necessarily in response to my words, but rather
because of something else, some other question he'd been waiting to
see the answer to. He gestured with his hand and suddenly my rage,
which had been still on the edge of getting away from me, dissipated
as though it had never existed.
"So
you do have an ability."
Carson's
smile was remarkably boyish and disarming. "Yes, and although
it's not as overtly powerful as the kind of stuff the Coun'hij
typically looks for, it's proven very useful over the years."
"Useful
how?"
"Well,
for one thing it allowed me to test your mettle in ways that
otherwise would have taken months or even years' worth of time spent
with you. I never would have guessed that you'd be possessed of such
strength of will, not at such a young age."
I
was suddenly tired and the only possible explanation was the
emotional rollercoaster I'd just been put through. The emotions that
Carson had pushed into me hadn't just been strong, they'd had a
crushing weight to them that had taken everything I'd had to resist.
"So
now that I've passed your test will you help me?"
Carson
studied me for several seconds before nodding hesitantly. "I
think I probably will at that, but it will take more than strength of
will to buy my assistance."
He
pointed at Brindi. "You saved her a few days ago."
He
obviously already knew the answer from his conversation with Shawn,
but I nodded anyway.
"Yes,
but she saved me first. She stepped into the middle of a hybrid fight
to help me kill one of the hybrids who attacked Shawn."
"And
was injured as a result. What will you do with her once she's healed
and doesn't need your touch to keep her from dying?"
"I'm
not sure. We've only just begun discussing options."
"You
and your friends?"
"No,
her and I."
That
earned me another odd look from Carson. "You love her then?"
There
was an edge to his voice that should have awoken a surge of anger
from my beast, but I felt none of that now.
"You're
soothing my emotions right now, aren't you?"
"Indeed,
I am. It's quicker this way because I can ask you questions without
you getting up in arms at some perceived slight."
"And
if I don't agree with you then you can just manipulate me into
feeling like you're right?"
Carson
frowned and shook his head. "That's not something I'd do. Right
now there isn't anything for you to agree to. Whether we proceed as
allies is entirely up to me and therefore I'm not manipulating you
into
doing
anything. If we come to a point where you need to make a decision
I'll release your emotions and let you get back to an equilibrium
point before pressing you for a response."
"That's
asking for a lot of trust for someone I met all of five minutes ago."
"Possibly,
but I'd say that it's commensurate with the level of trust involved
in agreeing to join a doomed rebellion against the Coun'hij."
"I
guess you've got a point there. In answer to your question, I don't
love her, but I don't have to love someone to realize that they have
rights. I don't expect it to be easy, but we'll talk things through
and try to figure out some kind of route forward that works for both
of us."
"And
if you can't find something that works for both of you?"
"I
don't know. I guess if push comes to shove then I'll have to help her
through withdrawal."
"Because
that's the easiest option from your point of view?"
This
time the rage bubbled up even past the calm he was projecting into my
mind, but it was just the tiniest sliver of anger. I managed to
respond to him without letting what I was feeling bleed through into
my voice.
"No,
because I have the right to my own body just like she has the right
to hers. I'm not going to turn her into some kind of human chattel
subservient to my every whim, but by the same measure I deserve not
to be turned into a slave for her addiction."
I'd
done my best to conceal the fact that I'd realized Carson had a limit
to how much he could influence my emotions, but something must have
slipped past because he held up a calming hand.
"That's
fair. The best you can do in the really difficult situations is start
from your rights as an individual and work from there. What's your
plan?"
"I
don't have one, not yet, not really. It's too soon. I don't know
enough about where Agony is being held or how they are planning on
moving him, and I'm still trying to gather enough fighters to have a
chance at beating the Coun'hij's security detail. Even if they don't
have someone like Brandon or Puppeteer down there we're still
probably going to be up against a dozen or more hybrids."
"I
guess it won't be the first time that I signed up for an impossible
task because of an ideal. I won't betray you. How many people do you
have so far?"
There
it was. He'd just made an explicit statement, something that was firm
enough that there couldn't be any gray area with regards to what he'd
meant. I'd heard it and I'd been paying enough attention to detect
any of the usual signs of a falsehood.
His
pulse hadn't changed, his respiration hadn't wavered in the
slightest, and his body temperature didn't seem to be moving around
at all. Carson was either a masterful liar, the kind of psychopath
who didn't actually feel things the way that the rest of us do, or he
was telling the truth.
There
wasn't any way to be positive which it was. I had to make a judgment
call and if I was wrong then my friends, Rachel, Jack and every other
person currently depending on me was probably going to die.
"So
far I've got three hybrids and eight wolves in total. All of us have
some fairly recent combat experience. We killed a group of five
hybrids a little while ago and have mixed it up with vampires and
werewolves as well not too long ago."
Carson
frowned. "You're right, that's not enough, not nearly enough. Do
you have any other prospects besides me?"
"I've
got one other wolf that I expect to be joining me soon, but other
than that it's just you and Shawn. I'll be reaching out to some of
the independents who've been fighting on the border with Brandon, but
I'm not very hopeful that any of them will rock the boat right now.
They're all too worried that if they step wrong it will bring down
reprisals against everyone else still down there, that or their
families back in their home packs."
"That
makes sense. You're not planning on getting much out of Jaclyn or the
others because they are being watched?"
"Yeah.
How many people do you think you can come up with?"
Carson
was silent for a moment as he considered the question. I'd expected
him to look off into space while he was thinking, but he didn't.
Instead he looked at Brindi and his expression changed slightly. It
was almost imperceptible, but his face softened a little.
"From
the standpoint of raw numbers it's not going to be good. I think I
have three or four hybrids that I can depend on, maybe a few more
than that, but not many."
He
held a hand up before I could despair. "I'm going to have to eat
some crow, but I think I've got something better than a dozen hybrids
though."
He
didn't have to tell me what would be better than a dozen hybrids. The
answer was obvious. He had access to a hybrid with some kind of
extreme power. Someone like Brandon or Puppeteer, someone who could
tip the balance of the fight all by himself.
"Do
you think this…friend will agree to help?"
Carson
was still looking at Brindi as he answered. It was almost like he
knew her, that or maybe she reminded him of someone else, someone
important to him.
"I
think so, but there's no guarantee. The last time we saw each
other…well, things were said. Even if he does agree to help he
may not be able to make the difference. He's not always the most
dependable in a fight."
"Then
I guess I'd better keep trying to come up with more help. Saving
Agony is too important to leave anything to chance."
Alec Graves
Perfect Sleep Hotel
Omaha, Nebraska
I was disoriented and struggling to remember how I'd gotten here. I
remembered talking to Carson, remembered walking back to our SUV with
Brindi still in my arms, but I didn't remember coming back to Rio
Rico.
Even
odder, I couldn't think of any reason for Brindi to be here with me,
but she was. Not only that, she wasn't injured anymore. It wasn't
just the fact that she was moving around without wincing every time
she breathed. Somehow she'd put back on the black club wear that
she'd been wearing the first time I'd seen her in Chicago and her
bare stomach was as unblemished and whole as it had been before she'd
stumbled into my fight with the Chicago hybrid.