“I know. But the spirit can also be broken.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s . . .” He paused, thought about it. “Have you seen the birds in the sky?”
“Sometimes.” She’d spent most of her life in a cell without light, but there had been times when she’d been let outside, when she’d had to interact with other children. Her parents had called it “socialization” training so she wouldn’t be “an uncivilized monster” as she grew. Zaira didn’t think it had worked, but she was talking to Aden like a real person, so maybe she was wrong and it had.
“I think of the spirit as being a bird with wings that can fly free.”
Zaira tried to imagine that, failed. “My spirit’s already gone. It flew away a long time ago.”
“If it had, you wouldn’t want to run, wouldn’t want to escape.” He lifted away the laser he’d been using on her bones. “Your spirit is strong—it’s a wild, angry fire inside you. I need you to hold on to that fire.”
“Why?” she asked again. “Why do you care?”
“Because you’re mine now.”
• • •
ZAIRA woke to find the boy by her bedside, dream merging with reality. Only he wasn’t a boy any longer. He was a tall, strong, powerful man, but he still moved with silent grace, and he still had the same dark eyes. Eyes that told her she had to be strong, that he needed her to be strong.
Yet if she stumbled, he wouldn’t call her a failure; no, he’d simply break her fall and help her back up. Even after he’d been transferred out of the Turkish facility where she’d spent the rest of her childhood and teenage years, he’d found ways to tell her he hadn’t forgotten her, that she existed to him as a unique individual and not just another trainee.
Once, it had been an e-mail he’d managed to route past the firewalls and the security. Another time, Vasic had broken the leash on his mind and teleported Aden to her. The visit had lasted five minutes before they had to leave or risk being caught, but in those five minutes, Aden had made Zaira remember that she was a sentient being and not the robotic killer her trainers wanted her to believe she was.
He’d made her remember that she was her own person first, and his, second.
No one else had a claim on her.
“Zaira.” His voice was calm now, his expression betraying nothing. “We were rescued by the RainFire leopard pack. We’re safe.”
There were cues in his words her fuzzy, aching brain struggled to comprehend, but then he did something highly unusual. He took his hand and closed it over her own, squeezed. The physical link jerked her to full consciousness, anchoring her in the present even as her brain scrabbled for a psychic connection that would dissipate the silence inside her skull.
A vast aloneness.
No PsyNet.
No telepathic link with Aden.
Not even the vicious backlash of pain she’d felt earlier.
Nothing but crushing isolation.
As in that dark room of her childhood where no one could hear her scream.
Her breathing threatened to turn uneven. Squeezing her fingers around Aden’s, their connection concealed by her body and his, she regulated her respiration by falling back on basic Arrow training. As her brain cleared, she realized he didn’t want her to betray their psychic weakness.
So she didn’t.
Allowing him to help her into a seated position, she took the opportunity to scan the room. They were alone except for a lithely muscled male with light brown hair and eyes so brightly green that she wasn’t certain his irises were real. Identifying himself as Finn, the medic ran her through a barrage of scans and tests after checking to make sure her brain was registering the correct patterns.
Zaira cooperated in the checkup, the loose drawstring pants she wore bagging around her ankles until she bent and folded up the hems. Her white top was also too large and made of a cotton so fine Zaira didn’t know what use it was as clothing—it wouldn’t effectively stop a scratch from a child, much less a bullet.
At least the medic seemed to know what he was doing.
“You had some pretty bad internal injuries, never mind the brain stuff,” he said after he’d completed the tests. “I’ve fixed you up, but you’ll be tender for a few days, possibly up to a week. Take it easy. Not that you’ll have much choice, given the weather.” A grimace. “And ignore any snarly cats you see—we’re not used to being penned in.”
Aden didn’t speak until Finn walked out of the room to retrieve something. Then, placing his lips close to her ear, he said, “Changeling hearing is acute.” When she nodded to show she understood the warning, he spoke again in that near-inaudible whisper. “Do you have access to the PsyNet?”
Fingers clenching on the edge of the bed, she admitted the terrible truth. “It’s silent inside my head.”
In Zaira’s eyes, Aden saw a hollow darkness. “You’re not alone,” he said, aware Zaira’s reaction to extended psychic aloneness could spin in either direction. As a seven-year-old new trainee locked inside a trainer’s shields, she’d gone into a berserker rage in an effort to break out; the trainer had been forced to knock her out lest she claw out his eyes. A week later, in the same situation, she’d gone catatonic for five days.
A permanent note had been made in her file: Zaira Neve is not to be confined on the psychic plane. This flaw does not negate her usefulness as an Arrow—once out of training, she will never be in such a situation.