Secret Worlds (492 page)

Lena stood over the still Councilor, her head bowed. The smell of his urine filled the closed air of the car as the pool widened around his waist where he lay. The hole inside her still gaped, black and empty. If anything, it was deeper. Why wasn’t this enough?

Because of Danny.

Alex sat behind her on the couch. He’d settled himself there after he’d gotten answers to the soft questions he’d asked the Councilor as she worked on the man. He had learned it was Councilor Four who was making a move against Sparks, and that a major trade house stood behind him. She tried to care.

She turned to him now, and the dark grief of betrayal welled up from that pit. She couldn’t believe her brother had been the one to force his hand.

He leaned into the corner of the couch, legs splayed, arm propped up on the armrest and three fingers spread over his mouth and chin as he watched her. She could see her grief reflected in him.

She left Three where he was and crossed to stand in front of him. His body tensed, muscles contracting in a barely perceptible wave as she approached. She looked to the side, at the collar beside him, open where it had come to rest when he’d pulled it off of her and thrown it across the room.

“I wish Danny was here.” She struggled to look away from the collar back to Alex. “Just so I could snap it around his neck. So he could know what he did.”

His eyes were very dark and, classic Alex, unreadable. “He didn’t do it. I did.”

“I know.” She did know. And she felt a fair share of anger for him, too. But she understood why he’d done it. Alex flexed around a situation. He made it work, and it had. He wouldn’t have had to if her brother hadn’t turned on her. “But when Danny saw me, he didn’t come to me. He turned me in. If not for you, they would have killed me. He didn’t care.”

He opened his mouth to deny it, but then closed it, opting instead to shake his head. Otherwise, he remained quiet, tense and waiting.

She reached out and picked up the thing. Like the collars she’d removed from the girls, the thick, hollow choker of metal had a hinge on one side and a powered clasp on the other. A tiny double row of buttons led to the clasp. It looked totally innocuous. Yet her skin crawled, and her stomach twisted with fear and revulsion. She swallowed and tightened her jaw so her chin wouldn’t give away her emotions.

He leaned forward in a slow, deliberate motion. “I’m so sorry, Lena. I should have found another way.” His hoarse voice filled with regret and self-loathing. “It was a tactical decision, always temporary. I made the decision because I know how strong you are. But it doesn’t excuse what
I
did.”

“It was Danny—”

“It was my choice. If we’re going to get past this, I need you to face it. Stop focusing on your brother and—”

“I can’t!” She didn’t have much left, and she couldn’t lose them both. “I can understand a tactical decision. But I can’t forgive my brother turning me in. And nothing you can say will change that.” She stared at him as he reached out and took the collar from her to bend it backward and snap it at the hinge. A new fear bloomed. “Unless there’s something more? Something that would change what we had?”

“Don’t say ‘had.’” He lifted his hands as if to reach for her, and she danced back, out of reach. He let her go. “There’s nothing more to it. It made the most sense at the time. I wish I’d found another way. It was wrong.”

She nodded her agreement.

“I won’t collar you again. Not ever.”

She nodded again. “Not me. Not my girls, either.” If he tried, she’d drop him before he could raise his defenses. It didn’t matter how she felt about him.

Alex took a deep breath and shook his head as if to clear it. “Look, we need to talk about this. But first I have to go reassure everyone that we’re dealing with things, that we’re questioning you, that we’ll have answers soon. Are you okay for now?”

“Sure.” She took a deep breath. “I’m fine. Go do what you need to do.” She turned back to the Councilor.

This time when Alex approached her, she didn’t pull away. His hands were gentle on her arms as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

“I’ll be back. And Jackson will be here soon. You won’t be alone.”

She nodded, but said nothing.

He left.

She hoped Jackson wouldn’t be back too soon. Contrary to Alex’s assumption about the Councilor’s still form, the man wasn’t dead. Alex wasn’t the only one who’d improvised as needed.

She had paralyzed Three while she tried to figure out how to make his passing enough to ease the pain inside her. As long as she had more pain welling up from inside, she had more pain to share with him. And the pain still formed a thick, untouched pool deep in her belly.

She squatted beside his head. “Open his eyes,” she commanded.

His eyelids peeled back. The horror and desperation in them was real, but fading. Although she’d made sure the Dust still pumped his heart, the lack of oxygen from his paralyzed lungs slowly starved his brain. That would never do.

“Let him breathe.”

Air wheezed in and out of his narrowed windpipe. The lights began to come back on. Terror bloomed again.

She smiled. “Hello again, Councilor Three,” she said. “You do remember me still, yes?”

She could see he did, and it was good. She needed to feed off the fear and pain that didn’t sate her. She hadn’t decided yet what a just retribution would be. She should decide soon, though. He was fading fast, and she could only do so much to keep him around before she’d have to heal some of the damage in order to prolong his suffering. She reached out, considering how best to heal so he still felt the pain.

Her hands were shaking. She frowned. Why? She wanted this. She’d waited and worked toward this. She needed it to show her parents—

Your parents would be horrified by you.

No. No, they’d be proud. Wouldn’t they?

The door behind her slid open and closed. She tensed and turned, still crouched beside Three.

A look of shock and revulsion crossed Jackson’s face.

“Lena.” His voice was strangled. “What are you doing?” He came closer, moving like a man approaching a feral animal.

“Making him pay,” she said. She didn’t sound like herself.

He crept close enough to see the Councilor’s face over her head. His mouth fell open.

“Close his eyes,” she told the Dust.

If it bothered him, she’d wait until he’d left again.

“Oh, Lena, no,” Jackson breathed. “You don’t want to do this.”

She laughed at him. She didn’t recognize the dark and ugly sound. “What do you mean, I don’t want to do this? I do. Very much.”

He stared down at her for a long moment, then he knelt in front of her. “No. You don’t. This will hurt you more than him.”

She blinked. “You have no idea what this man did to my family! To me!”

He reached out and took her hands from the Councilor’s chest. She tried to pull her hands away, but he held tight, gentle but firm.

“Look at him.”

She turned back to the Councilor, her gaze jerking over his chest in tiny, rapid movements. He wheezed with every labored breath.

You did that.

She clenched her jaw and looked down at her hands so she wouldn’t have to look back at Jackson. “I know what you see. But I see my parents, too. And it’s not enough.”

“Do you think your parents would want this for you? The people who spent their lives hiding you to keep you safe?”

They didn’t hide you just to keep you alive, Lena, they hid you to keep you from being corrupted.

He gripped her chin with gentle but firm pressure, pulling her face up. “I get it. And I understand wanting to make him pay. I do. But it will never be enough. You can’t fill yourself with pain and expect it to heal you. It has to be mercy.”

But Three hadn’t paid. She still had a well of pain inside. The debt wouldn’t be paid until it was gone.

In front of her, Jackson waited, face full of fear. He wanted her to believe that being merciful to a man who had no mercy would make it better?

“I can’t,” she whispered.

“You can.” His voice was gentle, and implacable.

“I
can’t
.” The wail of frustration and pain and anger bubbled up from the darkness inside. The pain was bigger than she was.

“You can, Lena.”

She stared at Jackson’s bleak face. He’d kill Three if he had to. He’d do it so she wouldn’t have to. She almost allowed him to take the burden for her. But she didn’t want this for him any more than he wanted it for her.

No more than her parents had wanted it for her. She’d been so focused on her pain, on revenge, that she’d never stopped to ask herself what they’d want. They’d want her to use Three. They’d want her to discover everything she could about her girls, about any other girls, and use that knowledge to keep them all safe. She had that information. Alex had gotten everything they needed from the man. It was time to let him go.

She reached out with her mind. She turned her face away as she spoke to the Dust—lungs, heart, brain, done. Councilor Three felt no more pain.

But she did.

Jackson sat with her for several long moments. He slid his hands up from her chin to cup her cheeks, thumbs stroking the eyelids she had squeezed shut. With the barest of pressure, light prismed beneath her lids, melted together, and spread across her face. Her Dust responded to his touch, not with explosions but with comfort. Warmth. Peace.

“Thank you, I guess,” she finally mumbled, “for being here. Stopping me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He was a really bad person.” It was the only defense she could offer, in very small voice.

She almost didn’t hear his response.

“Turns out he’s not the only one.”

Shock hitched her breath in her throat. The rainbow light flashed away, replaced by a void. She pulled her face from his grasp and got up, moving around him to sit on the couch.

“I didn’t—I didn’t mean you.” He breathed out a heavy breath and ran his hands over his short hair. He stood in one smooth motion and came to the couch to crouch in front of her and take her cold hands in his.

When he spoke, urgency threaded through his words. “Alex has us sitting here, waiting for the others.”

His voice sounded far away and distorted. She frowned. So what if they waited? It was the plan, unspooling now as they’d planned it.

Behind him, the door opened again. Alex climbed up and pulled it closed behind him.

Jackson rose and crossed to him. All she could hear of their whispered conversation was Jackson’s angry, biting consonants.

Alex held up his hand, his head down, but staring at Jackson. “The plan has not changed significantly from the original—”

“We were supposed to be moving. They were supposed to have a fighting chance to get away.”

His words ran up against the immovable object of Alex, and Alex’s expression never changed.

Jackson pulled back. “This isn’t right.”

“You have your orders, Agent Lee. Unless ensuring Lena’s safety is a problem?” He gestured the younger man out.

Jackson straightened his shoulders and nodded with a jerk of his head. He didn’t slam the door after himself. It closed with a barely audible click.

Alex shook his head and crossed to the Councilor. He leaned down and felt for a pulse.

Jackson had told him.

Her voice still sounded hollow. “He’s really dead this time.”

He looked up. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I guess you’re not the only one who can make decisions on the fly.”

He blinked then barked a short laugh, more tense than amused. “I deserved that.” He crossed the room to crouch in front of her. “Did you get what you needed?”

“What I needed?”

His voice was quiet and his eyes bleak. “From his death. From revenge. Did you get what you needed?”

Did she? She shook her head. “Was I supposed to?”

A long breath eased out of his lips. “I never have. But I hoped it might be different for you. I hoped his death might serve you somehow. It might make liking it a little easier on you.”

He knew she’d liked it. He wasn’t judging her for it. Jackson’s horrified face flashed into her mind.

“We’re not supposed to like it, are we?”

“Apparently not. I do. I wanted it to be different for you.”

She slid forward to rest her head against his chest.

His slid his arms around her.

“It’s okay, Alex. I got something.” She leaned into him, drawing strength from his acceptance. “And that’s enough.”

Lena curled on the couch, staring at the wall opposite her, thinking about her parents. What would they make of her journey? What would they think of her choices? Of Alex? She looked at him now.

He had settled her back on the couch, telling her it was time for him to do his part in gathering information. He moved around to the far side of Three’s desk and went through the drawers, lifting out leather binders and envelopes. He set them in front of him on the desk and pried them open, carefully preserving the wax seals of each. He didn’t say anything. He went through the papers with methodical efficiency.

She turned to stare again at Councilor Three. In spite of what Alex had done, she couldn’t deny how good it had felt to sit beside him earlier, working together to get the answers they needed from the Councilor to keep their movement, and Sparks themselves, safe. Somehow it made it easier to know that they were the same. Perhaps that’s why she understood the choices he’d made all along? They were the same decisions she’d have made.

Confronting Alex head-on, his actions seemed not far removed from those of the Council. But from the side, from the angle she had on his motives and their truth, was he wrong? She didn’t think so. He didn’t care about consolidating power. He only wanted to reserve a place for people like them. If his methods were similar, so be it. Sometimes fire wasn’t fought with water.

She leaned forward and scrubbed her face with her hands. A moment later, her head popped back up.

Was that a scream?

As if her movement had reminded him again of her presence, he started to speak. “Lena—”