“Say it.”
She kept her lips closed.
“Say it.”
No. No. No.
“Say it.”
He didn’t tire, didn’t stop, didn’t shove into her mind. The horror of waiting for the pain, the terror, was somehow worse than the violation itself.
“Say it.”
She held on to her sanity through the first days, the first weeks.
But still he wouldn’t relent.
Her tongue felt so thick, so dry. Her stomach hurt. But she held on.
“Say it.”
It took three months, but she did. She said it.
“Ekaterina is dead.”
“She’s unconscious.” Glen shined a light into Ekaterina’s eyes as she lay slumped on the pillows. “Could be the residue of the drugs in her system, but I think the trigger was her name—some kind of a psychic grenade.”
“More likely a combination,” Ashaya said, then reeled off the chemical compounds of the sleeping pills Glen had noted on the chart. “Some of these agents cause memory loss in Psy.”
The doctor’s eyes brightened at having found a colleague. “Yes. There’s a possibility some of the drugs were used sparingly in conjunction with other methods to psychologically break her.”
Dev stared down at Ekaterina Haas’s scratched and bruised face, wondering what she’d given up to come out of the torture alive . . . what she’d let her captors put in her. His hands fisted inside the pockets of his pants—whatever bargain she’d made, it hadn’t saved her. “What you said when you first arrived,” he murmured to Dorian while the doctor and Ashaya were distracted, “it can’t happen.”
“Shaya wants her close.” Dorian folded his arms, eyes on his mate. “It devastated her when she thought Ekaterina died.”
“Whatever happened to her,” Dev said, unable to take his own eyes off the thin figure in the bed, “whatever was done to her, she’s not the woman your mate knew. We’re far more capable of monitoring her.”
“And if she proves a threat?”
Dev met the other man’s gaze. “You know the answer to that.” Dorian was a DarkRiver sentinel. And the leopard pack hadn’t reached its current status as one of the most dominant changeling groups in the country by being weak . . . or easily forgiving.
Blowing out a soft breath, Dorian returned his attention to his mate. “You make that decision, you bring me in. You let me prepare her.” His voice was a harsh, low order.
Dev was more used to giving orders than taking them, but Ashaya had saved the lives of Forgotten children at risk to her own. Then she’d blown the Council’s secret perversions wide open. She’d earned his respect. “Fair enough.” However, as he watched Ekaterina’s chest rise and fall in what seemed to him to be a dangerously shallow rhythm, he wondered once again if he’d be able to do the deed if it came down to it. Could he break that body that had already been broken so badly?
The answer came from a part of him that had been honed in blood and pain. Yes.
Because when you fought monsters, sometimes, you had to become a monster.
PETROKOV FAMILY ARCHIVES
Letter dated May 24, 1969
My dear Matthew,
Your father says that one day you’ll laugh at these letters I write to you, to the son who is, at the moment, trying to suck both thumbs at once. “Zarina,” David said this afternoon, “what kind of a mother writes political treatises to her seven-month-old son ? ”
Do you know what I told him?
“A mother who is certain her child will grow up to be a genius.”
Oh, how you make me smile. I wonder, even as I write this, if I’ll ever let you read these letters. I suppose they’ve become a kind of journal for me, but since I’m far too sensible to write “Dear Diary,” instead I write to the man you’ll one day become.
That man, I hope, will grow up in a time of far less turmoil. The psychologists’ theories notwithstanding, early indications are that it’ll prove almost impossible to condition rage out of our young.
But that isn’t what worries me—I’ve heard disturbing rumors that the Council is looking more and more to Mercury, Catherine and Arif Adelaja’s secretive group. If those rumors prove true, we may be in far more trouble than I believed.
It’s not that I have anything against Catherine and Arif. Indeed, I once considered them friends and have only admiration for their courage in surviving the worst tragedy that can befall a parent. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that they are two of the most extraordinary minds of our generation. And, having spent considerable time with both of them, I know one thing with categorical certainty—they want only the best for our race.
But sometimes, that depth of need—to save, to protect—can become a blinding fervor, one that destroys the very thing it thinks to safeguard.
I can only hope the Council sees that, too.
Love, Mom
CHAPTER 5