Dawnbreaker: Legends of the Duskwalker - Book 3 (34 page)

Wait. That wasn’t quite true. She’d missed it before, but she saw it now. He
was
sleeping peacefully, and it was the
peacefully
that made the difference. The intensity was gone from his face, the brow and jawline relaxed.

“Yeah, Mouse, he’s good,” Cass said.

Mouse nodded.

“Just so we all agree,” Mouse said. “You gave it your try. If I wake him up, and he’s not himself, I’m gonna put him down for good.”

“He’s back,” Cass said. “I know he is. If you wake him up right now, it’ll be Swoop looking back at you.”

“I hope so,” Mouse said. “But if it’s not, don’t get in my way.”

Cass nodded. She was still feeling woozy from whatever had ambushed her. Even if she’d wanted to get in Mouse’s way, she didn’t think it would have been particularly effective.

Mouse went to his med pack and spent a couple of minutes gathering up the supplies he needed. He returned to Swoop’s side with his med injector in one hand and his sidearm in the other. He knelt down at Swoop’s side, and said something to him, too quietly for Cass to make out. And then, he placed the injector against the side of Swoop’s neck. The device hissed softly. Everyone went still.

At first, there was no effect. Then after a moment Swoop’s head turned slowly one direction, then back the other just as slowly. His mouth opened, but no sound came out. He relaxed, like he’d fallen back asleep.

And then, without warning, his hands shot up from his waist, and the litter hopped from the force. Swoop’s eyes popped open, wild and electric blue, and he raged violently against his bindings. Mouse slid back like he was on rails, brought his sidearm up as Swoop’s head snapped around from side to side. Swoop was cuffed at the wrists, and the cuffs were secured through the straps on the litter, so there wasn’t much he could do. But that didn’t stop him from trying.

And then Swoop went still, his eyes on Cass. He blinked and squinted against the early morning light. Looked over at the others.

“Mouse?” he said. And Cass’s breath escaped in a rush of relief and joy. Mouse slowly lowered his weapon.

“Swoop?” Mouse said.

“Somethin’s wrong with my eyes,” he said. Then he looked down at his own body, at the straps around his arms, waist, legs, at his hands bound. Then back up at his companions. “Must’ve been a bad night.”

Everyone stood stunned for a few seconds, and then launched into a flurry of activity, getting Swoop free of his restraints, hugging him, laughing, crying. After Finn got Swoop’s feet unbound, he popped up and ran over to the wayhouse hatch.

“She did it!” he called. “She got Swoop! He’s back!”

Mouse helped Swoop up to a sitting position, despite Swoop’s protests.

“All right, all right now,” he said, pushing the others off him goodnaturedly. “I ain’t your dog, quit your fussin’.”

He looked over at Cass, still sitting by him, and their eyes met. For a moment, she wondered if he understood what had happened to him. How he’d been changed. But in that look, she saw it. He understood. Or at least, he knew he was different. It’d probably be a long while before he really
understood
.

“Lady Cass,” he said, dipping his head.

“Swoop.”

“I knew you’d be back to get me. After the first time,” he said. He looked down at his hands, then back up at her. “Reckon I’m gonna need a few pointers.”

Cass crawled up to her knees and wrapped her arms around him. He patted her back with one hand, clearly uncomfortable with the show of affection. Definitely back to himself.

“I don’t know what you did,” he said quietly, “or how. But thank you.”

“Couldn’t have done it without your help,” she said as she leaned back from him. And when she did, the whole world swam away from her. Swoop’s hands closed tightly on her arms, kept her from falling backwards again.

“Whoa now,” Swoop said.

A moment later, Mouse was there.

“Easy, Cass,” he said. “Easy now.” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, held her steady. Swoop released her and even though Mouse was still holding her, she felt like she was sliding backwards along the shifting ground. She was aware of some commotion going on around her, though it felt muted and distant. At one point, Kit and Wick both appeared, came over to see the miracle of Swoop’s return. Mouse was saying something to Cass again, and again she couldn’t understand the words. A strange flutter rippled across her mind, like a burst of a multitude of voices speaking gibberish, then suddenly silenced.

“I’m all right, Mouse,” she said, and even she didn’t believe it.

Mouse had her in his arms now, was laying her back on the concrete with his hand cushioning her head. It seemed harder to breathe than it should have been.

“What’s going on, Cass?” Mouse said. “Can you tell me?”

“I just feel...” Cass said. “I feel really tired. Dizzy.”

“OK,” Mouse said. “Well I need you to stay awake right now, OK? I need you to keep your eyes open.”

“OK.” And Cass did. She stared up at the sky as it brightened above her. It seemed fitting; day break. A new start. She lay there for a few minutes, while Mouse ran some checks on her, tracked her pulse, shined a light in her eyes. During his evaluation, whatever shadow had come over her seemed to pass again and her head cleared.

“I’m all right now,” she said. “Really, this time.”

Mouse looked down at her, obviously not taking her at her word.

“No, really,” she said. And to prove her point, she sat up under her own power. To her satisfaction, her head didn’t swim when she was upright. The others had moved some distance away, across the courtyard, and were gathered in a knot around Swoop. She hadn’t noticed when they’d done that.

Mouse ran her through a couple of other tests, and even though she apparently passed them all, he didn’t seem as pleased about it as he should have been. Unsatisfied that he hadn’t diagnosed the problem. He poked and prodded at her a little longer, asked her a few more questions. She told him about the strange headache she’d gotten after her first attempt at freeing Swoop, guessed maybe it was related. Something about the strain of the connection. Wren had never mentioned it hurting him to wake the Weir, but now Cass wondered. Was this how he felt each time?

After that discussion, Mouse still didn’t seem content, but he gave up trying to diagnose her for the moment. Cass shifted her attention back to the team across the courtyard. It was strange, of course, seeing them all there together again. Almost as if time had been rewound, or shifted to some alternate history. Even having been so sure that she’d Awakened Swoop, it seemed impossible to accept that he was really there, that she’d really done it. The certainty and the reality somehow failed to connect. The change was almost too significant, too sudden to embrace. Just the night before, Cass, along with everyone else, had believed waking the Weir was something only Wren was capable of. No. Not
everyone
else
.

“How did you know, Mouse?” Cass said.

He followed her gaze over to Swoop. Shook his head. “Oh, I didn’t
know
.”

“But last night. I wouldn’t have even tried if you hadn’t asked. Never would have even
thought
to try it. What made you think it was even remotely possible?”

Mouse sat down beside her, shoulder to shoulder, and joined her watching the others across the courtyard. He took a moment to gather his thoughts.

“You know, it’s funny, Cass... how much what we believe about ourselves affects what we
perceive
about ourselves.”

“I don’t understand what you mean.”

“I know,” he said, and he smiled at her with kindness. “Your boys. They’re both pretty gifted, huh?”

It was strange to Cass to hear Asher spoken of that way. Wren, certainly. But Asher... what he’d chosen to become was truly terrible. It was hard to think of his power as any sort of
gift
. But she couldn’t deny the talent he had.

“Yes,” she said.

“
Both
your sons,” he said. He paused. Then added. “Brothers.”

Cass nodded, but corrected him. “Half-brothers.”

Mouse nodded, a trace of his smile still lingering. Like he knew something...

And then like the sun burning away a cloud, she understood what he was suggesting.
Half-
brothers.
Her
sons. Whatever natural talent her boys shared must have come through their common parent. Her.

She blinked at Mouse, at what he was saying, at what it implied. He read her look, the dawning that overtook her, smiled again with a little shrug.

“You think...” she started, struggling to wrap her mind around a concept at once so foreign and so personal. “You think
I’m
like them?”

“It’s something I suspected for a while now,” he said. “Nice to be proven right every now and again.”

Cass felt a blossoming in her soul at the revelation, even as she rejected it. It couldn’t possibly be true. She’d never been done any heavy hacking with RushRuin; physical security was more of her thing. The real world, not the other one. But as she resisted this radical shift in perspective, she began to recall little moments in her past that had previously been unconnected in her mind. Her old boyfriend Zenith’s early fascination with her; how she’d always been the one to fill in on small jobs for RushRuin, even over Jez and Ran; how quickly she learned Wren’s tricks for masking her signal when they fled RushRuin; how long she’d managed to evade Asher’s determined search. She hadn’t ever really trained for it, but now that she reflected back it seemed undeniable to her that she’d always had a sensitivity to the digital realm. She’d just always assumed because her son’s fathers were gifted, they’d been responsible for the boys’ talents. But no, Zenith hadn’t really been a man of the same quality. Underdown, Wren’s father, had been elegant. But Asher’s father, Zenith, had been more of a brute-force kind of guy. A thug. Even as a young boy, Asher had easily outclassed his father.

Was it really possible? Did
she
possess that talent? Looking across the courtyard at the man she’d just brought back from enslavement to the Weir, it seemed more than just possible.

She shook her head. “I don’t know, Mouse,” she said. “I don’t think I could’ve done it if I hadn’t been through it myself. Not if Wren hadn’t showed me the way.”

“I don’t see why any of that matters,” Mouse said. “Fact is you did it.”

“Once,” she said. “I did it once. It helped that I knew Swoop. That I could remember him. It helped me find him, somehow. I don’t think I could do it again.”

Mouse shrugged. “Only one way to find out.”

She glanced over at him, and he looked back at her, smiling. Then his eyes went sad and some deep hurt revealed itself, and he looked away quickly.

“Anyway. Thing is, you did it. When it mattered. When we needed it. So maybe don’t sweat the how or why so much, and just celebrate it. For now.” He gave her side glance and leaned his shoulder into hers, pushing her gently off-balance. “You sure you’re all right?”

Cass nodded. “Just a lot to deal with, I think. Haven’t had much sleep lately.”

“Yeah. Well you can rest up today. Judging from what Able and I saw when we scouted it out this morning, I think we’ll be pretty safe here for a couple of days at least. As long as we stay smart.”

The casual way he mentioned it, his assumption that she was staying with them, sent a pang of emotion through Cass’s heart. Guilt? Sadness?

“Mouse,” she said. “I think something happened when I brought Swoop back. I think Asher knows. He knows I’m alive. And maybe he knows where I am. I can’t stay, not even if everyone wanted me to.”

He was looking at her again now, unfiltered concern in his eyes. He shook his head.

“No, you’ll stay with us, Cass. We already talked about this. We’re not just letting you go off somewhere to try to make it on your own.”

“That was when we still had Gamble. Look at your team, Mouse. It’s broken right now, and I’m the one that broke it.”

“That’s not true, Cass–”

“You’ve all sacrificed so much for me, for my son. I’m not going to bring any more danger down on you.”

“I’m not having this same conversation with you again–”

“It’s not a conversation, Mouse!” Cass said, a little more sharply than she meant. She tried to soften her next words. “This isn’t theoretical anymore. Asher knows. It’s best for everyone if I leave.”

“For everyone?”

“In your heart, you know it.”

Mouse looked away again. “I don’t think you know my heart as well as you think you do.”

“I know you don’t like it.
I
don’t like it. And believe me, if there were another way, I’d take it.”

“There is. Stay. We’ll face it together.”

Cass shook her head. “There’s no doubt you’ll be safer without me,” she said. And though she knew it would hurt him to hear her next words, she felt like they had to be spoken, for his own good. “And I’ll probably be safer without you.”

Mouse just sat there next to her for a few seconds in silence, staring at his feet, jaw working.

“If this is on account of what I said last night–”

“No, Mouse,” she said over the top of him but he continued.

“No, look. I said some things I shouldn’t have. Some things I didn’t mean...”

“It’s not about that,” she said. “I wish it were. I wish this was a thing that could be fixed with words. But it’s not.”

His brow furrowed. And then, unexpectedly, he got to his feet. “You know, I thought we’d lost you one time. Thought I’d seen the last of you, when you took your boy on to that tunnel.”

Cass looked up at him towering above her. He turned away from her. Stood in silence for a span. Then.

“I don’t know if I can say goodbye to you again,” he said, and he walked off towards the others.

For a time, Cass continued to sit there on her own, watching the rest of the team. Even Sky had shown up, his happiness at Swoop’s return tempered by his own raw grief. But he was taking part. They were all circled up around Swoop. He stood in front of them all, arms crossed, head slightly lowered, a look of vague dissatisfaction on his face. In other words, looking every bit himself. The tone of the chatter had settled and taken a heavier turn. The others filling him in on all he’d missed, most likely.