Betrayal's Shadow (12 page)

“What do you really know about her murder?”

“It happened after I arrived here. She arranged the meeting in a border town in Arizona.” He shook his head, reluctant to proceed. “I wouldn’t have known of her death if not for Rasheer.” He barely spoke the last words, because he could still hear the inflection of Rasheer’s voice and remember the bliss on the man’s face as he’d spoken of subjecting Isa to his fantasies.

“You can’t blame yourself.”

He glanced up, surprised at her tone, to find her eyes narrowed, her arms crossed over her chest and anger permeating her expression. Anger with him?

“I should have tried harder. If I had kept her distracted, she might be alive now.”

The smack of the empty water bottle on his arm surprised him even more. Out of instinct, he grabbed her arm and pulled her next to him, close enough to restrict her retaliation.

“Maybe it’s your fault there isn’t world peace. Look, hindsight is wonderful, but the most you can be faulted for is exercising your own judgment and trying to be everything to everyone.”

He raised an eyebrow at the determination in her voice. “First you considered me at fault, and now I’m absolved. Tell me how you really feel.”

She shook her head, dropped it to her knees, and then laughed again. “Not so good at holding back. I’m providing objective detachment from outside this situation.”

“Objective, perhaps. Detached?” He gave her smile. “It would seem not so much. Though if Isabella didn’t die by Xavier’s order, it’s logical to conclude she had information someone else found threatening. I will ultimately find them.”

Mia nodded, seeming to postulate theories again. “She had some hook to get you in with Xavier. Since no one else had contact with Xavier.” She paused and waited for his confirmation. “Her murderer might not know what she promised or whether she delivered the information. It’s possible she was killed to stop her from leaking what they assumed she knew.”

He silently agreed with her, but she’d dropped her gaze and grown very quiet. Too quiet. With a finger, he tilted her chin so he could see her face. “Don’t stop now.”

She swallowed hard and pursed her lips. “If you rule out Xavier and Rasheer and random coincidence, that pretty much leaves…your people as the suspects?”

Turen let out a breath and dropped his hand. He’d chosen to avoid that consideration—not possible with his human source of objectivity and detachment.

“You’re quite good at homing in on the details, despite the topic’s discomfort.” He rolled his lips in thought. “Isabella was academically intelligent. She leveraged information well, but it’s difficult for me to believe she possessed dangerous information or the capacity to keep it secret.”

“Maybe Isabella stumbled across a secret in her aim to please you and taunt Xavier. Or maybe what she manufactured was too close to someone else’s truth?”

He gave his head one shake but it didn’t help settle the fractured bits and pieces that swirled in his mind. “This is less than square one.”

Mia drummed her fingers on her knee and stared at the opposite wall. “Wouldn’t the person who killed Isabella think she might have also told you?”

Turen turned to her. “I was not seeking Isabella’s company, quite pointedly.”

“So everyone was aware of your refusal to mate with her.”

He shrugged but watched her face, still unable to read the direction of this train of thought. “I wasn’t vocal, but I wasn’t available either. She, on the other hand, made her feelings clear to anyone she suspected would aid her cause. It was her way of pressuring me to change my attitude.”

She finally met his gaze. “I’m having a hard time mustering sympathy for the circumstances she created, not that I can’t appreciate her dilemma.”

Turen gave her hand a quick squeeze. “She paid a terrible price for her persistence.”

She let out a wide yawn.

“Enough for now?”

She nodded, her eyes closing until her head rested against the wall. In minutes it slid against his shoulder, and he slipped his hand back over hers.

When her breath flowed, even and deep, her disappearance minutes away, he touched her hair softly with his fingers. “Be safe, gentle warrior.”

CHAPTER 8

Mia paced. The details of the last several nights swirled in a confused cloud as she tried to make sense of the pieces.

Turen’s order of silence was for her protection. Fine, though she needed to work out this puzzle. Her brain organized data by writing. What harm could there be in a journal to clear her thoughts?

From her bottom desk drawer, she extracted an old laptop. The machine lacked Internet capability—ideal for her purposes.

She proceeded to the kitchen, put on the kettle for tea and booted up the machine.

First, some order. She grabbed a notepad and pen to brainstorm her nightmares into logical, safe lists. The kettle whistle blew, and still she stared at the paper without satisfaction.

The hybrids, the cell, the bloodied flesh and bruises on Turen’s body, each too vivid a horror. Her list of topics had turned into ugly artwork. Circles joined the common threads and lines connected items of larger scope or questions. No dominant theme jumped forward. She forced back the urge to crumple the sheet and snap the laptop shut in order to rid the fear marching in tiny spider legs across her skin.

Focus. Don’t escalate emotions.

What was her ultimate aim here? What one goal did she want to concentrate on as she sifted through the impossible events? She needed one uniform way to consider all this data. Carrying her tea back to the table, she considered again the mishmash of information.

A historical timeline worked.

With a fresh file on her laptop, she started on the milestone of the children quarantined at the Sanctum and formed the outline with as much emotional distance as she could muster. Next, she added details of Isabella’s plan and Turen’s final entrapment in Xavier’s compound. The uncomfortable descriptions of the compound and its inhabitants she added in a separate file, one she wouldn’t have to view every time she edited the timeline.

She tapped her forefinger on the keyboard and watched the steam rise from her steeping cup of tea.

“Why me? What do I bring to this situation?” That seemed her most imperative question. She left the too difficult science of how this situation had occurred for another time, narrowing her focus on the areas for which she had the most information.

Turen? What was there about Turen that compelled her presence? It would make more sense to draw one of his own people to his side. Perhaps that was impossible.

Start with what you know
. Her tried-and-true process had never failed her. Examining the timeline, she detailed events based on her recollection of their conversations.

The sentences expanded on the screen, first dates, and then descriptive images. The words spun from her fingers faster than thoughts entered her head, the speed blurring in an impossible connection between her and the computer screen. Her hands cramped and her head dizzy, she paused and stared. Words had appeared that, in truth, she wasn’t sure she’d conjured.

She glanced at the clock on the microwave and blinked in shock. Three hours had delivered forty pages of notes.

With a shake of her head, she saved the journal, and pushed away from the table. The tea in her cup was still full, the dark, oily liquid now stone cold. Mia pressed her palms over her eyes and reveled in the soothing darkness, cool after the monitor’s glare. With a sigh, she opened her eyes, turned to the kitchen counter, and froze.

Suspended in the air, as if a clear teleprompter had descended from her ceiling, paragraphs of text glimmered before her in black on gold. Her fingers reached to touch it. With a slight pressure, words flowed to the side, following her movement.

Whoa. She started reading and drew in a harsh breath.

The house is so empty I want to cry out to make noise. I have no energy left for the effort.

Xavier has finally gone to the Sanctum. My hours of begging and cajoling him to take the children and leave me are finally at an end. His resolve not to abandon me was strong, but the evidence of the lesions and the vomit of my blood convinced him, as none of my words had been able to do.

He’s an honorable young man. I feel comfort knowing my brother and the others will be under his care, though I mourn for the burden he will carry to raise all the young. As if the souls we safeguard are not enough of a weight.

Xavier took with him Sagari, Turen, Ansgar, little Briet, and baby Isabella. From the farther cities, Drogan saved Grimm, Tsu, Quan, and Kamau.

I write these names for a record of the future with hope that these children will someday read this passage and know they were loved and cherished, sent by families whose last prayers were for their survival.

I have seen no words from the elders of the clans of Saladin, Boreas, and Oni. Perhaps we should have taken the action to contact each of our kind sooner after the virus struck, but we were foolish in our optimism and overrun in our effort to find a cure.

If I find the strength, I will note the names of the other children, in case some account is needed.

The bodies of my parents were consecrated with the others afflicted. I alone remain for this final testament and will “fold” to the mountains where I will await the grace of God. No one will find me there but His goodness.

May He find mercy on me and take back the weight of the thousands of souls whose care He blessed in me to safeguard for my children. In His kindness, I pray He delivers them forward to another of my kind so mankind’s souls may not be lost and wander an eternity in the abyss.

May those to come find their journey complete where mine was not.

May they cleave unto the love of their mates such as I have never known.

And may they have the same honor I’ve known in the joy and comfort of family and friends.

To Xavier, Godspeed.

To my brother Turen, may all my love guide you.

To the children who reach the Sanctum’s haven, God’s grace and protection, may this virus not rip apart your lives or your covenant with mankind or deprive you of the love you deserve.

~Rheanna

Mia jerked her fingers back and clutched them to her chest as she stared in horror at the words hanging before her—notes from Turen’s sister, details of her last testament and final thoughts before death. Because what were the odds of multiple Turens and Xaviers and immortal tragedy?

She lifted her hand to swipe at the tears that covered her face.

Rheanna. Somehow the woman’s words had sought her, not on screen or on page but on a clear image of brilliant text, suspended in the air in her kitchen.

Shit. Double shit.

She reread the passage three times before she sat with a frown.

Thousands of souls? Turen said he wasn’t human. He never mentioned souls. Then again, he hadn’t been big on full disclosure.

There was no reference to these beings in her knowledge of history or religion. Yet they had survived as a race in the same plane with the rest of humanity, enduring a major tragedy that had ripped the foundations from beneath their existence.

Did he bear this same weight of souls? Did Isabella?

Surely, Xavier of drug-lord fame didn’t carry souls on his conscience. Or was that the reason Turen was so determined to make contact with his friend, what compelled him to go to impossible lengths to save him? His depth of commitment had been obvious. He delved in death to find a way back for the comrade to whom he felt he owed his life.

With no connection to these people, what role could she possibly play?

Again, overwhelmed with voyeuristic prying, she touched the edge of the shimmering screen and the words faded from view.

She turned back her to keyboard. Her cursor still blinked beneath the last notation of Xavier and the Sanctum. She scrolled through her notes, afraid to touch the keys, having no desire for a repeat performance.

Perhaps there was one thing she could try. Near the bottom of the last page of notes, she paused, rereading a segment. She left the table, headed to her office, and brought up her email on her other computer.

Several short sentences later, she pressed Send.

She had stretched the constraints of Turen’s secrecy, barely, but with the words in her kitchen, her need for more information had reached a higher priority.

***

He closed his eyes and waited. With a roll of his shoulder he flexed his muscles, glad to be free of the chains for a day, even if the manacles seemed to be a permanent fixture. The exact minute she appeared her singular scent reached him.

She
folded
to a space opposite him on the cell floor, curled around her trusty backpack. He watched Mia wake, then flinch and purse her lips—details resonating with physical pain. “What’s wrong?”