Closed Hearts (27 page)

The fight still raged at the front gate. Julian stood tensed at the edge with Anna lying at his feet. His fists were at the ready, prepared to punch his way out of the facility or possibly defend Anna from whoever might come through the gate. I reached out to the agents beyond. One had succumbed to the collective pressure of the mages’ minds, turning on his partner and shooting him in the leg. The two agents that still had control of their minds had him pinned to the ground, while the injured one was passed out cold.

When we reached Julian, I could hardly say the words, they were so bitter in my mouth. “I lost him,” I said. “I tried to… I had to get Hinckley out of there.”

Julian nodded sharply, not looking my way, his attention on the gate and the agents beyond. Hinckley pushed me away to stand on his own and joined me in reaching for the remaining agents. Together, we were the tipping point of pressure on their minds, and they both collapsed under the collective mental strength of the mages.

Our motley crew—an unconscious Anna over Hinckley’s shoulder, Sasha still carrying Ava, Julian and Myrtle leading the other four inmates—stumbled out the gate. We shoved all four agents out of the way and climbed in their cars.

Eleven mages, two cars.

It would have to do.

We abandoned the agents’ cars near the facility. Julian hailed a couple of autocabs, which had even less room than the FBI cars, but getting autocabs so close to Jackertown wasn’t easy, and we didn’t have time to hang around waiting for more. Decrepit brownstones blurred brown and gray past the window. My eyes didn’t even try to track them.

I lost Kestrel. I lost my chance. I could have had revenge for the long list of horrors he had already committed. Simon’s death. The experiments. The camp. And I could have prevented more. Now he would go right back to tormenting the changelings I had been forced to leave behind
again
.

I pressed my cheek against the cold flexiglass. He was a monster. Why wasn’t I strong enough to stop him? My chest caved into the emptiness inside me. I couldn’t pull the trigger when Kestrel was lying helpless at my feet, but I had no problem shooting when he was fleeing out the door. What difference did it make? Kestrel wouldn’t have hesitated. If our positions had been reversed, he would have executed me without blinking. Maybe I had avoided becoming a monster like him by just a hair. But was that really more important than stopping Kestrel?

I had no answers. The emptiness grew and threatened to pull me in.

Anna shifted in the seat next to me, her arm falling against Julian in the command seat. Hinckley crammed in the back with Sasha, who still cradled Ava in his arms. I wanted to worry about her, but the emptiness inside me wouldn’t allow it.

The glass grew warm with my cheek and the summer day. The overnight drizzle hadn’t burned off, and stubborn drops of water clung to the outside of the flexiglass. As I stared, the drops slowly joined together and ribboned down the window.

Now that we had escaped Kestrel’s facility, the reality of finding Raf hit me. I clung to the sliver of hope that he was still alive—that Molloy had lied to me and hadn’t killed him after all—but the most likely outcome of a search for Raf would be finding his body. Or worse, seeing what the pravers had done to him before he died. Part of me wanted to take the autocab when the mages were done with it and set an autopath to a rocky beach a thousand miles away where I could sit and watch the waves beating on the shore. Go as far as the unos would take me and not look back. Pretend that I hadn’t failed to kill the monster that had tormented countless jackers. Pretend that I hadn’t failed to free the changelings. Pretend that I hadn’t failed to keep Raf alive.

Anna twitched again, her muscular arm brushing mine in the tight space. She was already rousing from the dart’s sedative. She was so strong, and I was weak. Tired. Empty. If I had spent a long stretch of time in Kestrel’s facility like her, I would probably be dead. I had been ready to give up after just one week. Someone like Anna would never give up. She would keep looking until she found Raf. She would bring the body back to his parents, saying she was sorry her love for their son had gotten him killed. Sorry she couldn’t stay away from him long enough to keep him alive. Take the slap across her face that she deserved. My mind fled from that image, sinking into the black hole that was growing inside me, consuming me from the inside out.

I wasn’t like Anna. I couldn’t do it.

I was so mired in my thoughts that it surprised me when we pulled up to the mages’ headquarters. I almost didn’t get out, but I dragged myself from the front seat so Anna wouldn’t have to climb over me. I followed the crew inside, stumbling over the threshold into the cavernous building. I had to find Raf, but I could barely think straight, much less figure out where to start. The couch beckoned, and I sank deep into it, drawing up my knees and locking my arms around them. A shudder threatened to shake me into pieces.

Sasha shuffled past me, taking Ava to the racks in the middle of their converted factory. Julian joined Anna at the kitchen table where she was talking to the others, including Hinckley, who stood at attention by her side. She was probably debriefing, already back in command as if she hadn’t just woken up from a dart.

I should have been thinking of a way to find Raf, but instead I clamped my legs tighter to my chest, trying to keep all the pieces together. The mages bustled about, making their plans, whatever they were. I leaned my head against the back of the couch and closed my eyes. Minutes ticked by, and bit by bit, my body released the tension that was holding me together. Right as I thought sleep might take me, a weight pressed on the couch next to me, causing it to shift. I held still. Maybe whoever it was would go away. When they didn’t, I drew in a breath and forced my eyes open.

“Are you all right, keeper?” Julian said it gently, as if speaking too loud might shatter the tight space I had drawn around me. He propped his arm on the back of the couch and scanned me like he expected to find a wound or maybe a dart sticking out.

“Yeah,” I said, but it sounded like a lie. It
was
a lie. I slowly uncurled, and the cool air of the warehouse wafted away the warmth built up in my cocoon. Anna and the others were still discussing plans at the kitchen table and ignoring us. Julian had changed into all black clothes, looking more revolutionary now and less boardroom ready. Sasha and Ava were nowhere to be seen. “How’s Ava?”

A brilliant smile flashed like lightning across Julian’s face, then was gone just as fast. “She’s resting in her bunk. Between the thought grenade and the gas, she was hard hit. She’ll be fine, but it will be a while before she fully recovers.”

“That’s good. That she’ll get better, I mean.” I rubbed my forehead. My brain was still fogged, but I knew I needed help to find Raf—I had almost no chance on my own in Jackertown. If Molloy had traded Raf, that was where I would have to start. Would any of the mages be willing to help me search for a lost reader—especially one who was likely already dead? Was there something I could bargain with to get them to help? My brain couldn’t sort it out. I wondered if the thought grenade did more than make me nauseous. Julian had taken the full brunt of the grenade, and he seemed fine.

“I need to find Raf,” I said to Julian, “but I don’t know where to start. It’s like my head’s stuffed with cotton.”

“You’re just tired.” Julian peered at me. “I’ll help you find him, keeper. You don’t have to be alone in this. Not anymore.”

Relief washed through me, and a bit of the fog lifted. It was very mesh of him to help.

I managed a small grateful smile. “Thanks.” He smiled back, and that instinctual thing tugged at me again. It made me want to lean closer to him. Maybe something had gone wrong when he handled me, and a residual side effect was muddling my brain.

“What did you do to me?” I asked. “Back in my cell, when I linked into your mind? What did you do?”

Julian dropped his gaze and picked at lint on the couch. His face darkened and my eyebrows hiked up. Was he blushing?

“I didn’t mean for that to happen,” he said. “I’m sorry. I needed to talk to you and since I couldn’t link into your head—”

“You wanted me to link into yours. Got it. But…” I still didn’t understand. “One time I jack into your mind, and it’s nothing but a horror sim. The next time, I fall in love with you. What is
that
all about?”

The disgust in my voice made Julian wince. “It’s a reflex,” he said, still not looking at me. “Like a defense mechanism. When someone tries to jack me, they get nothing but an overwhelming urge to run away. I don’t know why it works that way, but it does. Like I said before, I don’t jack like you do. My ability is more… instinctual. I can link thoughts, but not much more. I’m actually just a linker.” A weak laugh escaped him, and he finally looked at me. “Normally, if I have to communicate without words, I can link in. If someone needs to link into my mind, I can try to control the effect that they experience. Reverse the response. But it takes a lot of effort. Usually I simply reflect the thoughts they want to hear, like I did with Harrier. With you…” He stared over the back of the couch at the distant machinery that was standing silent and unused. His voice was flat. “I needed to tell you the plan and we only had a short time. I thought if I triggered the mating instinct, you wouldn’t blow my cover story to get Kestrel to let me into your room. I didn’t think…” He turned back to me. “I swear I didn’t know the effect would be so strong. You were only linked in, Kira. Normally, I would have to handle someone to create such a strong result.”

“Normally?” I cocked my head to one side.

“Not normally with that particular instinct.” He rubbed his temples with both hands. “With any instinct. I’ve never… I don’t often have people linking into my mind. I underestimated the impact it would have. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, all right.” Was the urge to forgive him left over from when he messed with my head? I didn’t care for that idea
at all.
“Just don’t ever do that again,” I said, but the way he twitched made me feel bad for saying it. Maybe. Or perhaps it was that instinctual thing again.

“I won’t be able to.” He met my gaze. “Now that you know all my secrets, I’m sure you’ll never come near my mind again.”

“Secrets?” said Anna with a frown. While we were locked in our discussion, she had drifted over from the table. “I hope you mean your secret fondness for explosives and not something a little more…” She glanced at me. “Strategic.”

Julian rose up from the couch to face her. Nearly eye to eye, I could see how identical they were. Both dark haired, although Anna’s straight black hair hung neatly to her shoulders while Julian’s was perpetually mussed, like he’d just gotten out of bed. The angles in their cheeks were both hidden by softness, but Julian’s face seemed darker. Or perhaps he was blushing again.

“We’re trying to plan our next step with Kestrel,” Anna said. “Perhaps you’d like to join us?” Her tone said he was negligent in his duties, taking time to check on me. It rubbed me the wrong way, but I didn’t say anything. I wanted Julian’s help to find Raf, but it seemed like Anna was the one in charge. Could she order him not to?

“We can trust Kira,” he said.

“So you keep saying.” She peered down at me. “Still, things didn’t exactly go according to plan, did they, Kira?”

Julian’s jaw worked. “I told you—the plan failed because Molloy betrayed us.” He turned to me. “I figured Molloy set us up as soon as I woke up in Kestrel’s cell. I would have come for you sooner, keeper, but the juice Kestrel used was dampening my handling ability.”

“You would have come for
her
sooner?” Anna’s voice hiked up, but she didn’t seem offended that he came for me instead of her. More like she was shocked he would make such a bad strategic move.

All expression fled Julian’s face. “Kestrel had her for less time. I thought she might be stronger, better able to withstand the effects of the grenade.”

How could anyone think I was stronger than Anna? Maybe he was embarrassed to tell her how he had handled me.

Anna didn’t seem convinced either, and her shock morphed into concern. “You also thought we could trust Molloy.”

“I had no reason to doubt him,” Julian said, sounding defensive now. “His every instinct, as far as I could tell, was protective of his brother Liam. Your disappearance wasn’t a coincidence, Anna. I think Molloy arranged it, to bring Kira in. He was bent on having her on the team and forced her hand by holding her reader hostage.” He turned to me again. “I would never have sent you in there if I thought it was a trap. You
do
know that, don’t you, keeper?”

“Sure.” I believed Julian, but Anna seemed to think his judgment had taken a vacation.

“Kira was a prisoner like we were,” Julian continued. “And she helped us escape.”

“She also lost Kestrel, the main target of the mission.”

I was trying not to interfere, but I couldn’t let that stand. “As I recall…” I rose up from the couch to stand next to Anna. She was a good three inches taller than me. “It was your job to guard Kestrel.” Anna’s eyes widened, like she couldn’t quite believe my impertinence. Julian shot me a look like I wasn’t helping. I gave him a
What?
shrug. It was the truth.