The Guardians (MORE Trilogy) (17 page)

“Just buying us some time,” Ava said, calling on her gift again.
 

With a low rumble, the front of the cave shuddered and collapsed in on itself, kicking up a cloud of dust. When it finally cleared, a pile of dirt and rocks lay where the entrance had been.

“Nice,” Tiernan said with an appreciative grin. “Remind me never to tick you off.”

They turned and headed toward the car at a slightly slower pace, knowing their pursuers would have to do some digging before they could take up the chase. Emma kept eyeing Tiernan with something between awe and fear, and Ava finally nudged her shoulder lightly.

“He’s big and scary looking, but he’s not so bad,” she said, earning an irritated glare from Tiernan. She ignored him and asked, “Was Caleb all right? Did you see . . . did they hurt him?”

Emma shook her head, but she wouldn’t meet Ava’s eyes.
 

“Did they hurt you?”

Emma didn’t answer; instead she bit her lip and reached up to tuck a lock of purple hair behind her ear. “Are you a friend of Caleb’s?” she asked.

“Yes. I think he’s in trouble. I need to find him.” She glanced at Tiernan. “
We
need to find him.”

Emma nodded, her pale skin seeming even more translucent in the bright sunlight. “Can I come with you? To find him?”

“Absolutely not,” Tiernan snarled as he topped a hill and stomped heavily down the other side.

“What Tiernan means,” Ava said pointedly, “is it’s probably going to be pretty dangerous. It’s better if we take you somewhere where you’ll be safe.”

“But I . . . I need to go with you,” Emma said, her voice taking on a pleading tone. “I need to fix him.”

Ava’s skin chilled and she stopped in her tracks. “What do you mean, ‘fix him’?”

Emma wrapped her arms around her stomach, her fingers digging into the puffy red coat she wore. “I did something . . . they made me do . . . something to him.”

Ava felt her gift flare in a rush of possessive alarm, remembering the feel of Emma’s power in the cave. “What did you do to him?” she asked, fighting to keep control. Her power pushed against that control, poking at it angrily.

“They made me do it,” Emma said, eyes wide as her voice wavered. “They said it would be worse for both of us if I didn’t.”
 

Ava took a deep breath, searching for some compassion, some reassurance as she started walking again. “What did you do, Emma? Please tell me.”

They crested another hill and followed the trail leading back to the Jeep.
 

Emma eyed Ava carefully and said, “I can affect people’s minds. Block memories sometimes, other times change them.”

“Change memories?” Tiernan glanced back, suddenly interested.

“Yeah. Or change the mind itself—how people think, their personalities sometimes. They—the Rogues, did you know they’re Rogues?”
 

Ava nodded.
 

“They had me change Caleb. They needed him to work with them—to forget his loyalty to the Council. So I had to instill doubt in him. Make him doubt the Council, the Law, his purpose as a Protector. Open his mind to the possibility of something different.”

Ava felt nauseous as a wave of panic curdled her stomach. “You made him want to work with the Rogues?”

“I didn’t
want
to do it,” Emma said, pleading. “They made me. That’s why you have to let me come with you. I need to fix this. I can put Caleb back to the way he—” With a choked shriek, she flew backward and slammed against a tree.
 

It took Ava a moment to realize she’d done that. Her power enveloped her, feeding on her fear—her rage—and Emma stared blankly back at her, terror sparking tears in her eyes. The pounding of Ava’s heart echoed in her ears, blood rushing under her skin as her gift held Emma tight against the tree. She could hear Tiernan speaking to her in a low voice, but at first it was just a muddle—white noise under the screaming of her anger.
 

“Ava, let her go.”
 

She felt cool fingers against the heated skin of her wrist and blinked down at Tiernan’s hand carefully wrapped around it.
 

“She’s a victim here. Just like Caleb. Don’t hurt her.”

She looked up at him.

“You need to calm down,” he said. “Let her go.”
 

Ava took a deep breath . . . and another. Slowly, resentfully, her gift receded, and Emma slid down the tree into a shivering heap, curled up among the gnarled roots.
 

“I’m sorry,” Ava whispered. “I didn’t mean—”

“We need to talk about this later.” Tiernan reached down, and Emma shrank back. He rolled his eyes and offered her a hand, which she took at last, allowing him to haul her to her feet. “Jeep’s just over the rise,” he said, releasing Emma as he took off in long strides.
 

Ava and Emma followed behind at a distance, neither meeting the other’s eyes.

Once they’d finally reached the Jeep, Emma slid into the backseat and shrugged out of her coat. She pulled her legs up, wrapping her bony arms around her knees, and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.
 

Ava looked through the windshield, ignoring Tiernan’s significant glances. It was only when they pulled out onto the main road that she finally sighed heavily and turned around to look at Emma. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have done that back there. I know you didn’t hurt Caleb on purpose. It’s just that . . . Caleb is important to me. I need to make sure he’s all right.”

Emma unfolded her body and reached over the seat to touch Ava’s shoulder tentatively. “I can help you,” she said. “I will. I’ll undo what I did and he’ll be . . . Caleb again. The Caleb you know.”

Ava wasn’t sure that they had an alternative. If Emma changed Caleb, she’d have to change him back. Who knew if there was anyone else who could undo what she’d done, and it wasn’t as if they could spend the time looking.

“How long have you been with the Rogues?” Ava asked.

Emma sat back, resuming her curled up position as she looked out the window. “Since I was a little girl.”

“How old are you?”

“Seventeen. Almost eighteen,” she said the way seventeen-year-olds did, with a slight lift of her chin.
 

Ava smiled briefly. “And what you did to Caleb—did they make you do that to other people, too?”

Emma’s gaze darted back out the window as she swallowed thickly, her eyes fluttering closed. “They made me do a lot of things.”

“How?” Tiernan eyed her through the rearview mirror, ignoring Ava’s reproving look. “If you could do to Caleb what you say you did, why didn’t you fight back? Make them let you go?”

Despite her protective feelings toward the girl, Ava found herself almost breathless, waiting for the answer.

Emma picked at a loose thread on her sweater, avoiding Tiernan’s hostile gaze and Ava’s more concerned one. “They have ways,” she said, her voice low and almost brittle. “Drugs and . . . pain.” She rubbed at her temple, eyes drifting shut as if remembering something unpleasant, and when she opened them again, they were glazed and almost blank. “Let’s just say I’m not the only one able to affect someone’s mind. Maybe it makes me a coward, but after a while, I
 . . .
” She looked away and swallowed heavily.

Ava felt a rush of empathy for the girl and blinked back a prickling of tears. She swiped at her eyes and turned to Tiernan. “So, what now? Are you going to call Andreas again?”

Tiernan glared at her, with a significant jerk of his head toward the backseat. Obviously, he still didn’t trust Emma, regardless of what she said.
 

“We’re kind of in this together now, I think,” Ava said, barely resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “A little late for suspicions, don’t you think?”
 

Tiernan apparently got what Ava wasn’t saying—that if Emma had the power she said, she could have turned either of them over to the Rogues at any point. Really, if she could do what she said, and they had pretty good evidence that she could, she could have made them turn themselves in. Or even turned them Rogue.

Ava felt a bit nauseous at the thought. Still, it seemed apparent that they were on the same side. And she couldn’t get past the fact that they needed Emma if they were going to help Caleb.

Tiernan may not have been a mind reader, but it didn’t take him long to catch up with Ava’s train of thought. With a disgruntled noise, he picked up his phone and called Andreas.

Chapter 8

North. According to the sensor, they were to head north.
 

Tiernan clenched his jaw in frustration. He hated depending on Andreas and his super-sensor, but Caleb’s trail had disappeared before they’d reached the Jeep and he really had no alternative. Someone was helping Caleb evade them. Someone was covering his trail, and apparently, even masking his shifts, making it more difficult for the sensor to track him.

So . . . north.
That was the extent of their instructions.

“So what’s north?” Ava mused, half to herself. “Idaho, Wyoming, Montana
 . . .
”

“Canada,” Tiernan said when she paused. He might have imagined it, but he could have sworn Ava stiffened a bit at that. “What?” he asked.

Emma leaned forward over the seat. “I think Canada,” she said.

“Why do you say that?” Tiernan made a turn onto the highway and floored it. The Jeep shuddered in protest but slowly sped up.

“I overheard some of them talking,” she said. “They said something about Ontario.”

“Ontario?” Ava seemed nervous for some reason, and she avoided his gaze. “Why would they send Caleb to Ontario?”

Emma shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t hear much. They stayed away from me when they didn’t need me.”

Tiernan eyed Ava curiously, watching as she stared purposefully out the passenger window. “What is it?” he asked.

“Nothing.” She bit at a hangnail, frowned when it started to bleed, and an instant later was healed. “Kind of anxious about everything, you know?” She gave him a weak smile, and he let it go, even though he was far from convinced.

About an hour later, Tiernan pulled into a gas station and set the pump as Emma and Ava went inside for supplies. He pulled out his phone and dialed Andreas again.

“What is it?” The Council member didn’t seem happy to hear from him.

“We’ve picked up a passenger,” Tiernan said, keeping his eyes on Emma through the glass walls of the mini-mart. “She claims to be a Rogue prisoner with a particular gift for dealing with memories. She says she’s altered Caleb’s mind and wants to help us find him so she can undo what she’s done.

“I thought you’d want to know,” he said. “And maybe check her out.”

“I see,” Andreas said slowly. “And this girl’s name?”

“Emma Reiko.” Tiernan waited a beat, but got no response. “You heard of her? She said she’s been held by the Rogues since she was a child.”

“No. The name doesn’t ring a bell,” Andreas replied, but Tiernan could hear the tap of computer keys in the background. “I’ll look into it. In the meantime, keep the girl with you. It’s possible with such a gift she could prove useful to the Council. I don’t need to tell you how important it is to keep her away from these Rogues.”

“Understood.”

“She hasn’t influenced you, has she? Or Miss Michaels?”

“No, sir.” Of course, how could he be sure? Tiernan didn’t like that thought, so he put a bit more conviction in his voice. “My loyalty still lies with the Council, sir.”

“Good.” After a beat, Andreas asked, “And Ava?”

“Sorry?”

“Is her loyalty with the Council as well?”

Ava and Emma shoved open the mini-mart doors, carrying several bags and chatting quietly. “It’s no secret she has no love for the Council, sir.” He lowered his voice, hoping she couldn’t hear him. “But she’s no Rogue.”

“Very well,” Andreas said. “I’ll be in touch.”
 

Tiernan put his phone back in his pocket and grabbed a couple of bags from Ava, peeking inside. “No doughnuts?”

“Other one,” Ava replied, taking Emma’s bags so the girl could get into the Jeep. “You eat too much sugar, you know.”

Tiernan shrugged. “It tastes good.”

“But it’s bad for you.”

“Doesn’t matter,” he said, thumping his chest lightly. “Race, remember?”

Ava shook her head and got into the car. “You know, just because you
can
eat it, doesn’t mean you
should
.”

“Why not?” Tiernan took a little too much pleasure in watching her flounder for an answer.

“You just . . . you just shouldn’t!” she snapped at last, and Tiernan laughed as they pulled out of the parking lot and headed north.