BONDS OF JUSTICE

And the bedroom, when he returned to it—


His head snapped back to the organizer. Sophia might forget her cell phone, but she was never without that computronic device. Gut clenching with a fear so visceral he couldn’t afford to feel it if he was going to function, he ran out of the apartment and straight to the security hub at the heart of the building.

Entering using the override Nikita had programmed into his key, he had the Psy guard rewind the corridor feed. “Stop! Who are those two?”

The guard enlarged the view. “The facial recognition software places the female as an M-Psy attached to a local branch of the Center, while the male appears to be a security expert.”

Max shoved down his raging worry, focusing only on the lethal clarity of his anger. “Why were they allowed up?” he asked, his tone a whip. “I fucking warned you all that she could be a target!”

The guard was already accessing the security log. “According to this, they had an authorization which overrode our—”

“Bring it up,” he interrupted. “The authorization!” It was a snapped command when the man didn’t immediately understand.

The screen filled with a crisp document mandating the removal of Sophia Russo, Designation J, to the Berkeley branch of the Center for Comprehensive Rehabilitation.

Rage burned an inferno across Max’s skin, but his mind remained mired in ice. “What does that mean?” He pointed to what appeared to be a coat of arms or an emblem of some kind on the bottom of the page—a small square of black overlaid with a web.

The security guard went unnaturally still. “That’s Councilor Henry Scott’s new emblem.”

Max was already coding in a call to Nikita as he ordered the guard to send the location of the Center to his phone. “Nikita, Henry Scott is having Sophia rehabilitated,” he said the instant Nikita answered, knowing Henry’s interference would ensure Nikita’s cooperation. Councilors, he’d learned, were as territorial as changelings. “She was taken an hour ago.”

Nikita didn’t ask useless questions. “Which branch?”

“Berkeley.”

“Wait.”

He was in the car and screaming out into the rain-dark city by the time her voice came back on the line. “They haven’t yet reached the Center.” A pause. “They should have according to the time frame you’ve given me.”

He forced himself to think, to focus. The rain hadn’t turned torrential until about twenty minutes ago—Nikita was right, they should’ve reached the Center by now. And then, suddenly, he realized that Nikita should’ve been able to contact Sophie on the Net. Everything stopped as he forced himself to ask, “Is she still alive?”





CHAPTER 41


“Her mind is present in the PsyNet,” Nikita said, “but she’s not responding to telepathic hails.”

Relief mixed with a cold, cold anger. If the bastards had hurt her—“I need you to find out the make and model of the car the Center people were driving so I can ask Enforcement to put out an alert.”

“You’ll have the information in minutes. I’ve already notified the Center not to proceed with the rehabilitation order.”

Thanking her, he hung up. But he knew Nikita’s intervention wouldn’t help, not if Sophia had been taken somewhere else. They could’ve already—No. “Hold on, Sophie. You just hold on.” Opening his cell phone, he made another call. “Clay, I need your help.”

The changeling male turned out to be at an indoor training facility at least twenty minutes closer to the Center than Max. “I’ve got several soldiers with me,” Clay said, able to hear the incredible strain in Max’s voice. But he knew from experience that the other man wouldn’t appreciate sympathy, only practical assistance. “We’ll head out now.” Hanging up, he pulled a team together, and they drove out into the pounding rain.

“Pretty isolated,” Kit said when they reached the road that led to the Center, his auburn hair appearing deep brown in the stormy light. “Visibility’s low.”

And getting lower as thunderclouds continued to roll in, their heavy weight making it seem as if it was late afternoon when it wasn’t yet midmorning. “This is the only way to the place.” The Psy had located their new lobotomy facility in an innocuous building set on a patch of fenced land that DarkRiver had kept an eye on, but hadn’t considered a threat because it had no obvious military or tactical function. “If they’re not on this route . . .”

“Stop!” Kit’s cry came at almost the same instant that Clay pulled the car to a halt, reacting even before the proximity sensors detected the overturned vehicle on the road.

Getting out, Clay held up a hand to the packmates following in the vehicle behind them and ran to the wreck. “I have a male on this side, injured—fuck, it looks like his throat’s been slashed.”