“No games, Aden. You know his mind—he speaks to you.”
Aden looked down at the glowing foam before the sea sucked it back in. “Vasic believes it doesn’t matter the Councilor at the helm, or whether the machinery is called Council or Purity—in the end, we’re nothing but warm bodies to bleed for them.” So many Arrows had died to protect Silence. Their only reward had been more death.
“Yet we give our allegiance to Kaleb Krychek.”
“There are reasons.”
Abbot looked out toward the lingering golden light in the windows of some of the homes that hugged the cliffs, and Aden saw bleak longing in those eyes as blue as the deepest part of the Aegean. A breach of Silence, but an Arrow never betrayed one of his own.
“We are Arrows for a reason,” the other man said at last. “We cannot survive without Silence.”
“Perhaps.” Aden thought of Vasic again, of the price the Tk-V had paid to retain his sanity. “But perhaps the price of survival has become too high.”
Chapter 31
TEN HOURS AFTER the meeting on DarkRiver land, Hawke had to fight the urge to simultaneously pull Sienna to his chest and strangle Judd. The two of them walked into the den after having finally checked in by phone when they landed in San Francisco—six hours behind schedule. He did neither.
“Why the hell,” he said the instant the office door was shut, “did you not tag Walker with a telepathic report?”
“We had a situation,” Judd said, making Hawke’s blood run cold. “I had to do a fast teleport to get Sienna out of a tight spot. Combined with the teleport in and out of the village for both of us, as well as what was necessary to complete the op, it brought me close to flaming out.”
Eyes on Sienna, Hawke said, “Explain.”
She drew up her spine. “Since Judd was effectively drained, we made the decision to conserve my psychic energy. A long-distance telepathic report would’ve only utilized a small amount of power, but that may have counted in a confrontation.”
Heart an ice-cold block in his chest as he read between the lines, Hawke nodded at Judd to continue.
“We missed our scheduled flight because I needed time to recover enough that there was no chance of a collapse.” Judd carried on when Hawke didn’t interrupt. “The charges have been placed. Brenna can activate any or all of them from here.”
“Have her build two remotes as well—I’ll carry one, you take the spare,” Hawke ordered. “We need to be prepared in case we have to abandon the den.”
Judd’s eyebrows rose. “Has that ever happened?”
Hawke gave a curt nod. “Once. The location had been leaked.” As a lieutenant, Hawke’s father had known too much when he’d been compromised.
The only reason SnowDancer had managed to reclaim the den was that the men and women who’d been left after the blood and death had gone out and quietly executed the small group behind the psychic rapes. No one had ever connected the deaths to SnowDancer, a deliberate choice on the pack’s part. They’d been too weak to chance a Psy reprisal. But they were no longer weak, no longer broken. “Tell Brenna the remotes are a priority.”
Judd nodded. “We also captured detailed images of the camp with the cameras hooked into our collars.”
“Mariska can clean up and summarize the footage.” The twenty-eighty-ear-old senior tech was so shy she appeared standoffish, but had a mind like a scalpel.
“I’ll drop it off to her. If you haven’t got any more questions, we should get changed and try to rest.”
“From the way Brenna kissed you at the entrance, I don’t think you’ll be doing much resting,” Hawke said, and saw Sienna’s lips tug upward a tiny fraction.
Judd, on the other hand, showed no physical reaction. “Goodnight, Hawke.” Cool, very Psy, very Judd. “Sienna, you should get to bed, too.”
Sienna glanced up, expecting Hawke to stop her, but he’d already turned away to look at something else on his desk. Deflated, she exited with Judd.
“Sienna,” he said, halting her when they would’ve split two corridors later, “you did very well.”
Her shoulders went tight at the memory of that instant before the guard had been distracted by a call. It had given Judd the time to answer her telepathic hail and ’port her out. “I could’ve gotten us both caught.”
“Things happen in the field—the mark of a good operative is how you respond to the challenge. You stayed composed and silent, the right course of action given the circumstances.”
It felt good to hear that. “Thanks.”
“How’s your rib?”
“Fine.” Judd hadn’t mentioned it to Hawke, but the work he’d done to knit the bone was the real reason he’d been so wiped out. She’d been hurt worse than she’d thought. “Doesn’t even feel bruised.”