“Did you think I was just going to leave you here?” Each word rises in volume until I’m nearly shouting the last one. Everything I’ve gone through to get here and he tells me I should have stayed away?
“I hoped you would.” He flinches. “I knew… after everything, I deserve to be here, but this is not what I wanted for you. I wanted you safe and being here is anything but safe.”
“What about what I want? Don’t you think you’ve made enough decisions for me?”
“I was trying to protect you. I—”
“No. If you were so worried about trying to protect me, you should have spent a little more time thinking about how I would handle life without you,” I say.
“I did. I made Flint promise to do whatever was necessary to keep you safe.”
“Flint? Your boyfriend was your master plan?” I slide closer to Jace and throw my hands up. “You knew about the emotional link, so obviously you’ve been calming me for a while, keeping me whole, chasing the nightmares away. Was Flint going to do that for me too? If it wasn’t for Lir…” My hand comes up over my mouth as the thought completes. If it wasn’t for Lir I would have fallen apart.
Jace wasn’t the only one to feed me emotions. Whether Lir had used it to manipulate me or not, the link with him had kept me together in a way I could not have done for myself. It’s also the only way I could have ever made it here.
“Who’s Lir?” My attention snaps back to Jace who seems to have regained some of his bearings.
Good question actually. Who exactly is Lir? I struggle to find the right answer before landing on simply saying, “He’s my friend, the one who brought me here.”
“And he’s E’rikon.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t trust them, any of them.” He paces, running an agitated hand through his hair. “You need to get out of the city. If they find out you’re here…” He shakes his head rapidly. “They can’t find out, Jax. There’s this whole ‘initiative’ they have. I don’t know much, but I know it involves wiping us— and I do mean human when I say us— completely out.”
“The human initiative.” My stomach drops.
“Yeah. I’m pretty good at playing a vegetable at this point, so they talk sometimes when they think I’m not listening. There’s a general guy or something—”
“Vitrad.”
He shoots me a quizzical look. “Yeah. He heads up their military division, but there’s this other group—”
“The Council.”
A pause. “The Council and it’s run by this one guy—”
“Stellan.”
Jace stops his pacing and crosses his arms. “Do you want to tell this story? How do you know all that anyway?”
I shake my head mutely and he continues. “This is important information you’ll need to get to Flint once you leave. So the Stellan guy, it’s his family the Vastras, the Vantras…something like that…they are kinda like royalty or something and they’re related to Vitrad somehow. There’s some sort of power struggle going on with the Council against Vitrad, but the kicker is that Stellan’s son has sided with Vitrad in the whole thing because he has a vendetta….well, against me.” His shoulders droop. “I’ve done horrible things, Jax. Dane used me, my abilities, that non-human half of me, just as much as these aliens would like to do.” He curls his hands into fists and closes his eyes. “But that’s not the big picture here. The Council has been staying Vitrad’s hand, but it’s only a matter of time before the balance shifts. It’s already happening. And when the E’rikon make their move, it will be the end of us. They have things we couldn’t even dream up…”
The fire in his eyes bores into me, vehemence lacing his words. “As much as they’ve…studied… me, they still have no idea what I’m capable of, what you’re capable of if you put your mind to it. You and I, Jax, we’re the only weapons, the only hope the humans have against the E’rikon. I’m not sure exactly what it is we’re supposed to be able to do, but the aliens cannot be allowed to figure it out. No matter what they’ve done to me, I’ve given them nothing. They figured out what I was when they landed in that clearing. If they find out about you, especially that you’re my twin…Get out of the city. Find Flint. Tell him about what’s going on and have him take you far away from here.”
He jolts and cocks his head to the side. “They’re coming. I have to get out of here. Whatever happens, remember I love you.” He pulls me in for a hug and kisses the top of my head.
“But they already know…” My protest too late, his shape has already dissipated and I’m left alone in my dreamscape. Getting out of here just became even more important. I’d always thought the E’rikon hadn’t attacked before because we were at least evenly armed or they just didn’t care. That illusion has shattered with my brother’s revelations.
What would Jace think of me if he knew that I gave Flint the key to his own destruction and set him on a path directly here? And if he knew that all his pain and screams were for nothing, that they had me anyway, that I’d delivered myself here based on the promises of the very boy who was the catalyst for what could be the end to the human race? He’d hate me. My only hope to redeem myself is to get us both out of here before the sky falls down around us.
TWENTY SIX
When my eyes open the thing I most want to do is close them again. I’m still in the white room and I want more than anything for it to just go away. I raise a stiff arm to push my hair out of my face and realize that I’m no longer restrained and I’m dressed in a simple gray gown. A nervous feeling, a smaller, lesser cousin to hope, crawls into my stomach. They aren’t going to bring the light back, at least not right now. My sigh of relief puffs my lips out and I close my eyes again.
The hiss of the door brings me to full alertness and my limbs tense in preparation. Preparation for what I have no idea, my legs are much too shaky to even hold me up much less allow me any sort of defensive position.
The smell of bread wafts into the room and my stomach clenches and growls. Aching hunger brings me up to a sitting position and I curl over my still rumbling stomach. How long has it been since I’ve eaten? Is this a new form of torture, letting me smell the food? But no, a loaf of bread lands on my cot and I snatch it up with greedy hands. I don’t even bother looking up until the bread is gone and I am searching out the crumbs on my blanket with a wet finger. A disgusted snort brings my head up and my eyes narrow on Vitrad’ face.
“You.” The word comes out in a snarl.
“Save the theatrics for someone who cares Miss Mitchell,” he says. “You may have caught the attention of the Vestra family, but their allegiance is fickle as is their power here. Stellan may be swayed by his wife for now, but without results we will just have to go back to the way things were.”
Vira did something for me. At least she bought me time.
“I don’t know what you expect me to do. I don’t know what you want from me,” I say.
“Yes. You do. You just refuse to help us.” He stops my retort by raising his hand. “At least that is the report I will present to the rest of the Council. How quickly do you think the people will turn on the Vestras when they find out that Steliro has bonded with a halfbreed spy who tricked her way into our city in order to get information on our defenses? Perhaps she even assisted her brother in the murder of my dear, dear daughter’s bondmate.” He makes an exaggerated swipe below his eye with one finger and raises his eyebrows.
My next words catch in my throat. Vira was right. Vitrad is using this as an opportunity for a takeover. The level of deception and lies twisting and turning together leave my mind spinning. Who can I trust?
He continues. “Both you and your brother have managed to keep us out of your heads, but you can only imagine how fascinated I was to learn that there really is some truth to the rumors that you are capable of something special, at least according to your brother’s pleas to keep that information from us. There is a weapon inside you Miss Mitchell and I want it.” The cold smile that slithers across Vitrad’s face sends ice through my veins. He laughs, a hard sound that screeches in my ears. “I can see the realization forming on your face. Yes, Steliro gave me this information. Did no one tell you that you cannot block out your bondmate?”