Invaded (34 page)

The connection broke, and instantly Syrine’s posture sagged while Cara’s lifted—lighter
by a hundred pounds of worry and doubt. “Wow,” she breathed, blinking at the
girl she’d once considered an enemy. “You’re a walking opiate. I can’t believe you
did that for me.”

Syrine gave a weak smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes, which had begun to well with
tears. “Can I ask you to repay me by listening to my advice?”

“Of course. After that, I’d give you a kidney.”

When Syrine opened her mouth to speak, her breath hitched and one tear spilled down
her russet cheek. It brought Cara down a few notches. If she’d known Syrine would
soak up all her
unhappiness like an emotional sponge, she wouldn’t have agreed to it.

“You think Aelyx doesn’t love you enough to stay on Earth, but that’s not the case.
There’s something you don’t know. During the tour, there were several attempts
on his life. I’ve lost count of how many.”

Cara’s mouth dropped open. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

“Perhaps for the same reason you hid your troubles from him for so long. He didn’t
want to worry you. Aelyx loves his home, but he loves you more. I have no doubt he
would stay here
if it were possible.”

Cara remembered their argument, when she’d accused him of quitting too easily. Now
she felt like an ass.

“I can feel your concerns about the colony,” Syrine said. “And some of them are legitimate.
But you made your choice out of fear of the unknown. Now that your mind is
uncluttered, you should see the issues more clearly.”

“But the lack of freedom hasn’t changed,” Cara pointed out.

“Not
yet
. You feel defeated by the development panel,” Syrine said. “But the fight isn’t over,
and you’re not alone.”

Cara supposed she had a point. As the only human on the planet, Cara had felt isolated
among the Elders. But more of her kind would come—even her brother. Maybe Alona would
allow more
human representatives on the panel to balance the power.

“I also sense,” Syrine continued, “that you feel out of place among your human peers.”

There was no point denying it.

“You’ve changed,” Syrine said. “And your needs have changed with you. I have no doubt
that you could stay on Earth and make a satisfying life for yourself. But you crave
more than this world has to offer. Why settle for
satisfying
when you can have
spectacular
?”

The words turned over in Cara’s mind, eventually resonating within her so strongly
she felt their wisdom clear down to the soles of her boots. She drew a slow breath
of enlightenment, and
when she exhaled, she knew where she belonged.

It wasn’t on Earth.

She was no longer Cara Sweeney, Midtown High valedictorian, two-time debate champion.
She also wasn’t fully
Elire
, resident of the first Aegis,
l’ihan
to Aelyx of
the first Aegis, Chief Human Consultant. Instead, she fell somewhere between the two,
and the colony was a fertile middle ground where she could discover her newly evolved
self.

“You’re right,” Cara said.

Syrine’s brows lifted in hope. “So you’ll come home with us tomorrow?”

Home
. To the majestic, muted forests where the air smelled of citrus and the faded indigo
ocean stretched to meet a horizon of pure slate. To Elle and Larish and Vero. Maybe
L’eihr didn’t feel exactly like home yet, but she had faith that someday it would.
“Yes, I want to go back.”

“Excellent,” Syrine said, wiping her eyes. “I can’t wait to tell Aelyx.”

Neither could Cara. Her legs practically twitched to run to him. “He’s in the building
across the street.”

“I’ll come with you.” Syrine exhaled a shaky breath. “I need to see David. I mean…”
She lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug that wouldn’t fool anyone.
“To ask what we should have for dinner. It’s no big deal.”

Sure, it’s not
. “Come on. Let’s drag my brother out of the pantry.”

David’s steps grew sluggish as they reached the fifth-floor landing, and Aelyx noticed
the boy’s hand occasionally slip from the rail. “We can stop
here,” Aelyx said. There was no reason to continue to the top floor, no matter how
“amazeballs” the view, according to David. With the sleet thickening and gray clouds
obscuring
the sun, there was nothing to see anyhow. “I just needed some space. Now I have it.”

David paused to catch his breath. A pained look crossed his face, and no matter how
many times Aelyx tried to catch his eye, he kept his gaze averted. Why was he so intent
on scaling this
freezing-cold stairwell when he clearly needed a rest?

“Let’s keep going,” David said. “It’s not much farther.”

Aelyx sensed something wasn’t right. He took his friend’s elbow and helped support
him as they resumed their climb. “The drugs have stopped working, haven’t
they?”

“No, they work great,” David claimed, even as he strained to lift his boot. “But I
ran out a couple weeks ago. Jaxen only gave me enough to last until his next visit.
He’s supposed to bring more this afternoon when he shuttles down.”

Aelyx supposed that was good news, but it bothered him that Jaxen had withheld the
treatment until today. Powerful as he was, he could have easily sent a new supply
of injectables on any of the
transports from L’eihr to Earth. Unease twisted Aelyx’s stomach. He didn’t trust Jaxen.
What if he’d lied or neglected to bring the medication?

“Well,” Aelyx said, trying to keep his tone light, “worst case scenario: we’ll put
you in cryogenic storage until we get to the colony and find more drugs, then thaw
you
out.”

He’d expected a sniff of dry laughter, but as they reached the top floor, David clasped
Aelyx’s shoulder, keeping his eyes fixed on the gritty concrete floor. “I want to
thank
you. If it weren’t for you, Syrine never would’ve looked at me, let alone invited
me to the colony.”

“I didn’t do as much as you think. She’s crazy about you.”

With his head hung low, David tugged open the heavy door leading out of the stairwell.
“I’m going to take real good care of her. I promise.”

Aelyx lowered a brow as he preceded his friend into the expansive space that would
someday become a penthouse. Paint-splattered plastic tarps covered the floor, crinkling
beneath his boots as he
made his way toward the center of the room, but he was too distracted by David’s comment
to notice anything more. The boy had spoken with such finality.

The steel door clicked shut with an echo, and Aelyx turned to face David, who leaned
back against the door with his pistol drawn and trembling in his grasp. Before Aelyx
could process what his
eyes were trying to tell him, the rustle of plastic sounded from the opposite end
of the room, and he caught a glimpse of an eerily familiar soldier before the man’s
fist slammed against
Aelyx’s cheek.

The force of the blow knocked him to the floor. Stars exploded behind his eyes, followed
by a jolt of pain and ringing in his ears. He barely had time to blink before the
soldier kicked him in
the stomach, expelling all the air from his lungs with a
whoosh
.

“Enough!” David shouted.

At his command, the assault stopped. It was then that Aelyx understood his “friend”
hadn’t brought him here to admire the view. Anthony Grimes—the man who’d failed
twice to kill him—had been expecting his arrival.

“He’s supposed to look roughed up,” Grimes said. “So his corpse matches that kid from
Lanzhou.”

“I said no more.”

Aelyx sat up slowly, ignoring the ache in his gut, and swiveled his head toward David,
who finally had the decency to look him in the eyes.

“I’m sorry,” David said. His voice cracked and his gaze shone with unshed tears. “I’m
so sorry.”

G
rimes shook his head in disgust and glared at David’s trembling form. “Jesus, you’re
pathetic. You’d have your meds by now
if you weren’t such a pansy.”

You’d have your meds by now
…

So the pair was working for Jaxen, who wanted Aelyx dead for some inexplicable reason.
That probably meant they’d choreographed the attack on Christmas morning—the one in
which David
had thrown himself into the path of a bullet to “save” Aelyx’s life…thus gaining complete
access to him as his bodyguard. Now that Aelyx thought about it, he realized the
assassination attempts had increased once David joined the PR tour. The surprise meeting
with Grimes in the stairwell, the letter bomb, the poisoned food.

Had David facilitated them all?

He stared at the boy he thought he’d known—the one he’d visited for advice and trusted
like a brother. Molten rage surged through Aelyx’s veins, flushing his skin. He
couldn’t believe he’d pushed Syrine into David’s arms. Had he ever cared for her,
or was that a lie, too?

“Syrine,” Aelyx said, remembering how she’d opened the tampered envelope and tried
to eat from his plate—before David had stopped her. “She kept getting in the
way.”

“It wasn’t like that,” David insisted before emotion choked off his words. He swallowed
hard and splayed his free hand. “Jaxen tricked me. At first, he said all I had to
do was watch you, but then he changed his—”

“Shut the hell up,” Grimes interrupted. “Just shoot him already.” Aelyx made a move
to stand, and Grimes swung at him. The man’s knuckles caught the outside of
Aelyx’s lip, and his head snapped back while the metallic tang of blood crossed his
tongue. “Stay down!” Grimes ordered.

David’s face contorted in anguish. “I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I wanted to tell Jaxen
no, but Syrine finally gave me a reason to live. He’s the only one who
can get the drugs. I kept stalling, hoping the meds would cure me and I wouldn’t need
them anymore. But—”

“But then he’d have no power over you,” Aelyx finished, then paused to spit blood
onto the tarp-covered floor. “And he won’t give that up.”

The flash of fear behind the boy’s eyes said he knew it, too.

“Shoot him!” Grimes yelled.

David raised his weapon and lowered it again. Clearly he didn’t want to carry out
the murder, and Aelyx saw a sliver of opportunity to save himself. But he had to act
quickly. Grimes was
growing more agitated by the second, his breathing an audible hiss through his teeth.

“Jaxen will never give you the full cure,” Aelyx said in a rush. “Not when he can
keep you at his mercy with weekly injections. What will he force you to do next? When
will it
end?” Aelyx had to appeal to the boy’s dwindling sense of integrity while offering
a chance for survival. “I was only half joking when I said we could freeze you and
look for a
cure. You don’t have to do this. You can change your mind, and nobody has to know.”

While David hesitated, clearly tempted by the suggestion, Grimes pulled an ammunition
clip and a pistol from his pocket. “Don’t even think about it,” Grimes spat. “Jaxen
would kill us both, and you’re not the only one he made promises to.”

“He’ll kill you anyway,” Aelyx said. Dead men told no tales. “Or you’ll die along
with the whole planet when The Way ends the alliance, because your water supply is
infected. You need our technology to decontaminate it.”

Grimes paid no heed to the warning. He shoved the clip into his pistol, staring at
David hard enough to set him aflame. “Jaxen’s gonna need all the muscle he can get
to stay in
control after the coup. That’s when governments are most vulnerable.”

A coup? Aelyx refused to believe it. Jaxen was certifiable if he thought he could
stage a takeover. The population of L’eihr, including the capital guard, would never
support any faction
other than The Way. Besides, Jaxen was already in a position of great power. What
would he have to gain by throwing the planet into chaos? But despite the absurdity
of it, Aelyx saw how he could
use this information to his advantage.

“You could be a hero,” he said to David. “If we go to Alona and tell her everything,
she’ll reward your honesty and execute Jaxen for treason.” It would solve all
of David’s problems. “It’s not too late,” he promised, hoping some molecule of their
friendship had been genuine. “If you do the right thing, Syrine will forgive you,
and so will I.”

Grimes cocked his pistol and pointed it at Aelyx. “Forget it. I’ll kill him myself.”

“No.” David adjusted his aim toward Grimes in a clear message to hold his fire. The
other man gaped at the betrayal before his gaze turned to stone and he aimed at David
in return.
“Think for a minute,” David said. “It could work.”

“You can’t trust him!” Grimes shouted, nodding at Aelyx. “You think he’s gonna let
this go—just forget we’ve been trying to kill him for months? If
Jaxen fries, we fry right along with him.”

Aelyx faced David, the only man he had a chance of convincing. “I give you my word.
Who do you think you can trust more—Jaxen or me?”

David didn’t speak, but the set of his jaw and a nearly imperceptible nod of his head
told Aelyx he’d won. The dynamic in the room shifted, and after that, everything happened
in a
flash. In an attempt to outmaneuver the other, David and Grimes simultaneously raised
their weapons and fired.

A deafening shot tore at Aelyx’s eardrums, and in the time it took him to cringe from
the shock, both men lay crumpled on the splattered plastic tarp—Grimes with a disturbingly
tidy
hole in his forehead and David with his chest torn open like a package of raw meat.

Instinctively, Aelyx’s hands flew to his coat pockets for his cell phone, but he’d
left it in his bedroom along with his com-sphere. He crawled to David’s side and gently
patted him down for his cell, but the boy pushed away his hands, shaking his head
to communicate what Aelyx knew deep inside: no medical intervention on Earth could
save him.

Stammering in denial, Aelyx watched the shreds of camouflage jacket turn from green
to red as blood pumped out of David’s chest in time with his heart, each beat noticeably
slower than the
last. Aelyx had to do something. His hands moved to David’s blond head and down over
his shoulders in useless desperation while the boy drew a strained, wet breath.