Shades of Treason (14 page)

She’d been wrong.

She’d been completely, unalterably wrong. The pressure she’d felt back on the
Obsidian
and the voice that had shut up the moment she’d touched the war chancellor wasn’t Hagan’s. She’d pulled him from the CR2 and pressed her gun into his skull. He’d been furious. He’d called her a disgrace to the anomalies and to her fail-safe, and he’d sworn he’d make sure she spent the next century rotting on a bed in the institute.

And that’s when she knew. Hagan wasn’t the telepath.

Maybe the telepath didn’t exist.

Maybe she’d lost her mind.

Maybe she’d snapped.

It seemed more possible now than it had the previous times she’d considered it.

She jumped over a tree root. There was a way to know for sure. She could ignore Trevast’s last order, turn herself in, and give Rykus what he wanted. If she was crazy, the Coalition would comb through the files and find exactly what they expected. She’d be sent to Caruth, to the institute. They’d give her psychological tests, trigger drug-induced hallucinations, dissect her mind and body. It was every anomaly’s worst nightmare, but if she’d killed her teammates, she deserved it.

But if she hadn’t snapped, if her memories were real and this telepathic stranglehold wasn’t some bizarre synapse gone awry, the Coalition would learn the identities of the telepaths. Trevast hadn’t said who they were or how many, just that the revelation would lead to suspicions and accusations, paranoia on a universal scale. With so much infighting between the planetary governments already, the Coalition wouldn’t survive.

The Coalition
had
to survive.

A hand on her arm jerked her to a stop.

“I said we’re resting.” Rykus squeezed the pressure point at the crook of her elbow.

The air behind her was cooling, the roar of the brimfire fading, but the indictment in her fail-safe’s eyes scalded her as thoroughly as if she’d been caught in the Predators’ crosshairs. She lost her balance when she turned toward him, a testament to how exhausted and weak she was. She braced a hand against his chest to stay upright.

And she kept it there.

Rykus’s body tensed and his scowl deepened to a depth greater than the Spiral Canyon. She should have retreated or at the very least stopped touching him, but the contact wrecked her mind. His strength, his presence, washed over her, and awareness prickled across her skin.

He looked down at her hand. His jaw clenched, and the muscle beneath her fingers flexed.

Confessions and apologies and regrets tangled in her throat like wires from a power console with one too many upgrades. She couldn’t straighten out what she wanted to say, so she swallowed the words and let them kick around her heart. She wished she didn’t have to. She wished she could tell him the truth. She wished she could clear her name so he’d never look at her this way again.

She felt his condemnation when he swung the blade of his hand into her arm, knocking her touch away. Before the sting of the chop faded, he’d maneuvered the damp backpack off her shoulders.

“On the ground. Face in the dirt. Ankles crossed.”

The loyalty training had her fully hooked, and the only protest she managed on the way to the ground was an overly dramatic sigh.

“I said face in the dirt.” He shoved the back of her head down.

Grit and leaves dug into her face. She said nothing and crossed her ankles. It felt like there was a magnet in her chest, one that both pulled her toward and propelled her away from her fail-safe. The more she realized she’d lost control over her actions, the more powerful the magnet became. She was sure it would punch a hole straight through her any second.

“Hands behind your head.”

Ash complied, no resistance at all, and hated herself for it. He wasn’t even using compulsion. The general influence of the loyalty training was all that was needed to bend her to his will.

The warmth of Rykus’s hands closed over her shoulders. They swooped down her back then moved to her sides. Up her ribs, under her arms, then down to her hips and butt.

Perfect opportunity to regain control.

She turned her head a fraction to the left, just enough to avoid a mouthful of dirt, and made her voice husky. “Take your time, Rip. Be as slow and thorough as you want.”

His hands patted down her arms as if she hadn’t said a word. When he reached her left wrist, he pulled up the sleeve of her stolen uniform, revealing the comm-cuff she’d taken from Hagan when she’d dragged him from the river.

She’d known Rykus would take it the first chance he got. She’d noticed he didn’t have his cuff when he’d ordered her to put down her gun and hand him the emergency pack.

Rykus’s fingers curled around the device and yanked.

“Ow,” she bit out. Even if her wrist hadn’t been bruised and tender, that would have hurt. “Why don’t you cut my hand off while you’re at it?”

“You’re lucky you’re still breathing.”

“So are you,” she said into the dirt. “Or did you not realize those Predators could have taken you out too?”

No response to that. Just a heavy silence that even the birds and critters honored. It stretched out over several seconds, and when it became noticeably long, she knew he’d discovered her little trick. “Sorry, Rip.”

“What did she do?” Hagan clutched his bloody hand to his chest. He had a dirty strip of cloth wrapped around the bullet hole she’d put in his palm.

“How long?” Rykus demanded. She could picture him squeezing the comm-cuff in his hand, his eyes narrowed, his posture lethal as a sin snake poised to strike.

“Thirty-six hours,” she answered. Then, being extra helpful, she added, “Probably thirty-five and a half now.”

“Thirty-six hours until what?” Hagan asked.

“She put a lockout code on it.” Rykus’s voice could have chiseled stone. Yep. Definitely pissed.

“You can’t break it?”

“She can’t even break it,” Rykus said. “Not for thirty-six hours.”

She turned her head just enough to see both men.

Hagan’s face was red. She didn’t think that was entirely due to the brimfire.

“Give me the gun,” the chancellor said.

“Why?” Rykus didn’t take his gaze off her.

“Because I’m going to shoot her.”

Rykus’s hand moved toward the holstered Covar. His fingers twitched as if he was actually considering handing the weapon over. Instead, he reached up to his shoulder and pulled off the emergency backpack.

Her stomach dropped faster than the CR2 had through Ephron’s atmosphere. She hadn’t had a chance to check the pack. It could contain a comm-cuff or another communication device.

She told herself to rise to her feet and run, but her body remained prone on the ground, just as her fail-safe had ordered.

Rykus crouched, unzipped the pack, then searched through it.

Come on, Ash
, she told herself.
Get up.

He set aside a handful of e-rations, a pouch of water, a small med-kit. Everything looked dry and in good condition. The pack had a waterproof liner. Whatever Rykus found in there would function.

Raising her head, she stared at the dense forest. She could disappear into it so easily.

Run
, she willed.

“Face. Dirt.”

Her head thumped to the ground.

Oh, for the ever-living hell—

“Goddamn spacers.” Rykus pulled out a black, hand-sized rectangle. Not a comm-cuff. Just a beacon that would send out a generic signal.

The freefall of her stomach stopped, leveled out.

“Careful, Rip,” she said. “Our honorable war chancellor might take offense to that.”

“It doesn’t work?” Hagan asked.

“It works.” His expression remained unreadable, but something in his gaze changed. Intensified. If he didn’t stop glaring at the device in his hand, she was fairly certain it would crack. “Along with every emergency beacon from every other crashed shuttle, life raft, and dirtside transmitter.” He shoved the beacon into the bag. “It’s useless.”

“Fleet’s always been cheap.” Ash meant for her voice to sound cheery but didn’t quite achieve it. Damn. It was a sad day when she was too tired to get under her fail-safe’s skin.

“Drink.” Rykus threw the water pouch to Hagan. “There’s a caff-pill and skin glue in here.” He threw the med-kit. “Plug that hole in your hand. We’re trekking it to Ephron City.”

Ash turned her head ever so slightly. “I wouldn’t mind a caff—”

“Trekking it?” Hagan said. “It has to be a two-day march.”

“Wind’s blowing from the west.” Rykus held a tightly woven braid of paracord. “The fires will overtake us if we stay here.” He used a knife to cut a length of cord, then rose.

Ash looked at the forest ahead again. If she was going to escape, now was the time.

Rykus’s boots stopped inches from her face. He stood there, looming like a behemoth-class warship bearing down on a two-seater small craft. He’d always had a talent for making his anomalies feel insignificant. Ash half expected him to shove her head into the dirt again. Instead, his gaze and the weight of his last command pressed her down as effectively as a sub-atmo fighter in a steep climb.

“Why didn’t you escape when you had the chance?” His hands closed around her wrists, maneuvering them together over her head.

“Mind being a bit more gentle, Rip?”

He looped and twisted the cord around her swollen and bruised skin, probably in a Caruthian lock-knot, which would be damn hard to break out of. The more she pulled against it, the tighter it would become.

He yanked her into a sitting position. The forest spun. She stared at Rykus’s chest until the world settled.

“Answer my question, Ashdyn.”

“Ashdyn?” She laughed. “Don’t get all formal on me, Rip.”

Her gaze rose from his chest to his eyes, and she cut off her laugh. His expression was as dark and cold as space, but there was a hint of heat in his gaze, of galaxies that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. Rykus had a gravitational pull as strong as any sun, and she couldn’t resist being pulled in by his flames.

“I should have escaped,” she said. “I made a mistake.” A huge mistake.

“Wrong answer.” He jerked her to her feet.

“What do you want me to say? Sir.”

“The truth.”

“That is the truth.”

Rykus still had himself under control, but she didn’t. She was tired, frustrated, and pissed off at herself, at Rykus, at the whole Coalition. She’d bled for them all. She’d given up her free will to become a Caruth-trained anomaly, all so she could protect it. And they believed she was working against it now. Working with the Sariceans.

“Why did you stay?” Rykus demanded again.

She pulled her arm free from his grasp. “I fucking stayed because of you. Sir. Because of the goddamn loyalty training.”

Invading her space, he forced her to take a step back. “That training didn’t keep you from turning against the Coalition. It didn’t keep you from shooting your teammates and the
Obsidian’s
crew.”

Anger creased his face now. It creased Ash’s entire universe.

“Tell me how many people I killed,” she demanded. “Tell me!”

He opened his mouth to fling a number in her face but caught himself. The skin around his eyes tightened then relaxed. In a voice much quieter than she’d just used, he said, “Brookins. My XO. You shot him on your way off the
Obsidian
.”

It took her a moment to figure out who he was talking about. She’d shot a total of four people during her escape. Only one of them was likely a fatal wound—the anomaly who’d very nearly prevented her escape.

“Well,” Ash said, feeling some of her independence, some of her brazenness return. “If your XO is dead, he wasn’t a very good anomaly.”

Her fail-safe stared, unmoving, as the wind picked up, carrying the scent of smoke and burning vegetation through the air. Her mental clock clicked to five, six seconds before the rage melted from Rykus’s shoulders. Slowly he shook his head.

“Sometimes, Ash… Sometimes I wish I’d never met you.”

Ash let a smile spread across her face. “That implies you’re sometimes happy you met me.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

FOR THE SIXTH time that hour, Rykus watched Ash trip.

She fell to her knees, almost landed face-first on the ground, but she caught herself before she hit. Without a word, she climbed back to her feet and continued on.

She was hurt. She favored her right leg, and the outer edge of her left hand was purple and swollen. A broken bone, perhaps. She should splint it. She should wrap her foot or ankle or whatever was causing her to limp, but anomalies were trained to push through the pain, and Rykus hadn’t given them time to rest.

They would have to stop soon. Hagan was struggling with the terrain too. He was uncharacteristically quiet, had been ever since Rykus had argued with Ash. He shouldn’t have done that, shouldn’t have asked why Ash didn’t escape. Her words, her fiery response that she’d stayed because of him, synchronized something in his soul, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t knock it out of alignment again.

Rykus stepped over a rotting tree trunk. The dense foliage they trekked through was filled with shadows and slithering critters, not just snakes, but gray-bellied
miranders
that fed on reptiles and, despite being a fraction of their size, the
kibben
monkeys that were endangered on this planet. All the inhabitants of the forest sounded skittish and uneasy. They hadn’t yet recovered from the terror of the Sariceans’ attack, and the fires burning their homes inched closer and closer.

The latter was why Rykus hadn’t called a stop. That and Ash might not have time to rest.

Every few minutes, Ash shivered despite the hot air. It was a sign of withdrawal from the boosters. She shouldn’t be experiencing the symptoms yet, but perhaps her injuries and her exhaustion were bringing them on early? A part of him wished he’d let Katie give her a booster on the
Obsidian
, but back then—a mere twelve hours ago—Ash had been sitting in the brig with only a few bruises, most of which were of her own doing. She hadn’t been tortured yet. She hadn’t fought her way off a Coalition warship. She hadn’t crash-landed a CR2 and escaped two attacks of brimfire that were meant to ensure she was dead.