Unravel (47 page)

His eyes swept across the room and found Elissa. Despite the grimness of his expression, a smile crept into them as he looked at her, and for a moment she thought he would come straight over to where she waited.

He didn't, though. He stopped halfway down the staircase and turned on a mike clipped to his collar. As he began to speak, Elissa realized that as captain of the ship that had brought them all here, he'd been given the unpleasant task of explaining the situation with the Spares.

He didn't have much more information than Elissa had already gathered from her family. Up until the last twenty-four hours, the reunions of Spares and twins had gone fairly smoothly. Not everyone had chosen to be reunited with their double, but those who had, had mostly formed relationships that ranged from a cautious friendship to the intense bond Elissa knew herself, and that she had witnessed with the other Spares and their twins.

Here, under the close supervision IPL officials had provided, other people had picked up on the odd phenomenon that Cadan, like Ady, was referring to as a fugue state: times when a Spare would seem to check out of normal consciousness, flipping back with no apparent awareness that time had passed. As a possible symptom of something more serious, it hadn't been ignored, but it had been seen as nothing more than an aftereffect of the trauma the Spares had been through, or the psychic shock of being reunited with their twins.

Then, the first of the attacks. A fifteen-year-old girl called Amanda had been strangled by her Spare—in the middle of a board game with two other pairs, and with no warning at all that anything was wrong. The emergency staff were dealing with the fallout from that when the second attack came.

Cadan didn't go into detail about that attack, or any of the others. All he said was that there'd been twenty-two attacks in all, fifteen of which had resulted in the death of a twin. And of the fifteen Spares who had killed their twins, six had also killed themselves, and the others were in states of catatonia.

Like Zee.
Elissa found her mind trying to shy away from the reality of it all, found herself thinking ridiculous things like
maybe it didn't hurt, maybe the dead twins didn't know what was happening, maybe the catatonia happened before the Spares realized what they'd done. . . .

Cadan's voice pulled her out of the morass of wishful thinking she knew very well probably wasn't anything like true.

“IPL doctors and scientists are working on finding an explanation for this,” he said. “So far they've identified three common factors. First, all of the pairs to whom this has happened have been at least twelve years old. There have been no attacks with the younger age groups, and as far as officials can tell, no incidences of the fugue state, either. Second, it has happened only to those pairs who were reunited at least sixteen days ago. Third”—and now his eyes met Elissa's again, and she saw, not only the smile, but the look of relief within them—“it has happened only to those pairs with no current telepathic connection.”

A stir—of relief, confusion, distress—went around the room, but Elissa hardly noticed anyone else's reaction. Relief bloomed in her chest, and warmth spread to every nerve
ending.
Lin's safe. Lin's safe. I don't have to let them take her away.

Cadan looked carefully away from Elissa and resumed speaking. “The IPL team working on this wants me to make very clear that none of these factors provide a guarantee of safety for those outside the specified groups. No one yet understands how this has happened, or why, and the data is insufficient to make a full analysis. For this reason, Spares and twins need to continue to be kept separate while the team continues to work on identifying the reasons behind these incidents.”

From all over the room, voices combined in a rising murmur of protest. Cadan held his hand up. “The team understands this is difficult for both Spares and their twins—and for those parents who've been hoping to be reunited with their children. IPL officials, aided by Philomelen police, are going to work on providing supervised contact in the very near future. Also, brain scans are being performed on all Spares, again in an attempt to identify the source of the pathology that causes the attacks. As this can be a distressing experience for the Spares, and as they will be fully restrained throughout, IPL medical personnel are inviting their twins to be present during the procedure.”

Lin in a machine. Lin being
strapped down
into a machine. Elissa looked up at Cadan, sick with horror.
You're calling it nothing but a “distressing experience”? What the hell is wrong with you? You know what she went through. You know what they did to her.

Again, his eyes met hers, a very brief glance. She dragged in a steadying breath. Okay, they weren't Cadan's words. But how
anyone
who knew how the Spares had been treated could minimize what they needed to do to them now as nothing
more than “distressing” . . . She curled her fingers up into her palms, drew in another breath. At least she'd get to
see
Lin. And at least Lin would know she wasn't likely to kill Elissa.

What is it that's making the difference?
Of all the factors Cadan had mentioned, the fact that it had happened only to the twins with no telepathic link seemed like the most significant. But if the doctors weren't sure, then how could Elissa work out what lay behind it?

Cadan was talking again, explaining that the team of doctors and scientists was going to be performing the first scans on the Spares who had no link to their twins, trying to isolate any common factor in their brains.
Not Lin, then, not yet.
She bit at her thumbnail, watching Cadan as he spoke, waiting for him to finish.
I have to see her. If I can catch up with him when he's done here, maybe he can help me see her.

It was selfish, she knew, using her connection with Cadan to jump the line of all the twins who were probably as desperate as she was to see their Spares. She didn't care.
I tried to be unselfish. I tried to think about other people and I tried to get Lin to think about other people, and look where it got us.

Cadan finished talking, and as he came down the rest of the steps he was swamped by a crowd of people, by a jumble of questions and high-pitched anxiety. Elissa waited, every muscle tight.

“Elissa, don't bite your nails.”

Elissa looked around, whipping her thumbnail away from her mouth, an automatic reaction that came before she could think. She stared at her mother, incredulous, anger rising in a wave.
You're telling me what to do? Still? Now?

Laine Ivory met her eyes. “We did it for your own good,” she said.

Elissa put her hands up, a barrier between herself and her mother's words. “No.
No
. It doesn't matter how many times you keep saying that. It doesn't make it okay. It doesn't make it better.”

“Oh, it's very clear you hate us. But you should still admit—”

“I
don't
,” Elissa said, exasperated. “I don't hate you. But I'm not
admitting
anything. You did it all wrong, and you're not even trying to see that!” She flung a hand out toward the crowd. “
Look
. Look what it did, you going along with what SFI was doing. You didn't challenge them, you didn't tell them it was evil and immoral and illegal.
Look
at all these damaged people!”

Fury flashed over her mother's face. “And now you're
blaming
us? We didn't know what they were doing!”

“You didn't
let
yourself know!” She raised her hands farther, blocking out her mother's view of her face. “I'm not
talking
about this.”

“Elissa.”

“No.”
Her teeth snapped down on the word. She turned, pushing through the people standing behind her, refusing to look back.

She reached where Cadan stood just as he was extricating himself from another group of questioners. His eyes met hers through a gap between them, and after a moment he managed to excuse himself and come toward her.

“Your parents—I just saw them. Are you okay?”

He spoke at the same time as she said, “Can I see her?”

Then she registered that he'd asked her a question too. “Yes. I'm all right. Kind of mad, though . . .”

He grinned a little. “Yeah. Look, about Lin—”

“Cadan, she's going to be so freaked out.”

“Yeah, I know, I know. But like I said, there's no guarantee of safety. They wouldn't let me make it part of the announcement, but the brain scans they've already done? All of them—all of them performed on the over-twelves, that is—they
all
show some kind of abnormal activity. It's more marked in the unlinked Spares, but it's there for all of them. It sounds like you and Lin should be safer than the twins without a link, but no one's going to want to risk—” He broke off, frowned. “But wait a minute, why are you asking? The link, the way it's been developing between the two of you? You don't need to see her to talk to her.”

Tears pricked unexpectedly in Elissa's eyes. “She's shut me out. Or she's not cooperating. Or something. I can't get through to her.” Frustration and disappointment and worry combined in her voice, making it tremble. “I'm not the superpowered one, Cadan. Everything I've done, I've only managed because I've been doing it with her. If she shuts me out, I'm just—just
me
.”

“More than enough,” Cadan said, for her ears only, his eyes smiling into hers.

For a moment all other preoccupations fell away. She slid her hand into his and felt his fingers curl around hers to pull her a little closer. She leaned in, just enough that she could feel the warmth that came off his skin, catch his scent. He smelled of sweat and too much coffee, a smell she wouldn't have ever thought she'd have liked. But, of course, it was still him underneath.

“I have to go in a minute,” he said. “I'll talk to someone about you seeing Lin, okay? I'll do what I can.”

“Okay.”

He bent his head, then caught himself. He wasn't going to kiss her in this crowd. But he did pull her closer, just enough so the top of her head brushed his cheek, so the feel of his warmth spread all along her body, so that if she shut her eyes it felt, for a moment, as if they were alone. . . .

“Seriously?”
said Bruce.

ELISSA JERKED
upright, dropping Cadan's hand. When she turned around, Bruce was standing a couple of feet from them, staring at Cadan.

“No way,” he said. “No
way
. Jeez, man, tell me she's freaking out and you're just being kind.”

Elissa was still close enough to Cadan that she felt him stiffen.

“Bruce,” he said. “It's good to see you.”

“Yeah? Suppose you answer my question, then.”

There was undiluted hostility in Bruce's voice. Elissa blinked at him, confused. What did it matter to him if she and Cadan were together?
And haven't we all got more important stuff to worry about?
For the first time, she consciously noticed that the dark blue clothes he was wearing weren't the familiar SFI uniform he'd more or less lived in for the last four years, but civilian clothes—dark blue jeans and a T-shirt
in the same color.
Does he know he's wearing as close to uniform as he can get?

Cadan folded his arms. “Have to say, didn't actually notice a question there, Bruce.”

“Don't play dumb. Are you”—he made a dismissive gesture, as if whatever terms came to mind weren't ones he wanted to use—“in a
relationship
with my sister?”

“Yes.” Cadan's voice was flat.

Bruce took half a step back, folding his own arms. “No wonder she's so freaking pleased with herself, then. Jeez, Cay, what were you thinking?”

“Yeah, not really sure that's your business.”

Elissa flicked a glance up at Cadan's face. It was expressionless, the only hint of what he might be feeling in his eyes, cold as chips of ice.

“Not my business? You didn't hear the way she just talked to my mother! God, Lis”—and now he turned on her—“what the hell is wrong with you? She's been worried half to death about you—it only got a bit easier for her once we heard you were with Cadan—and now, just when she thought you were going to be safe, it turns out you're in danger of being beaten to death by the freak double you ran off with!”

Heat rushed up into Elissa's face. “Don't call her that! You weren't there. You don't know anything of what's been happening—you don't know what Lin's had to go through.”

“And you don't know what
our mother
has been going through!” The heat in Elissa's face was suddenly reflecting from Bruce's. “Then you meet her again, when she's been beside herself with worrying about you, and you just wave away all the danger you're
still
in. Is this what getting
Cadan has done for you? You selfish little brat
—”