Shards of Hope

Chapter 75

WHILE ZAIRA AND a number of other teams continued to mobilize to find Persephone, Aden watched over the children and the Arrows in the valley. Interview requests kept being made on air and on the PsyNet by media sources desperate to talk to him, but Aden had no intention of appearing on any screen or answering any questions.

The squad had to maintain a fine balance between not being so “other” that they became terrors people wanted to kill and being so visible that the other major powers considered them a threat.

Better to be the shadow who had a face, but a face you saw rarely and mostly when the shadow saved you from harm. His deliberate lack of public appearances would also ease the minds of those who might’ve believed the Arrows would make a bid for total power in the Net.

And his place was here, holding together a family that had as many damaged adults as it had innocent children. There were, however, some hopeful signs. From the start of the relocation of the squad’s “heart” to the valley, Aden had made it clear that regardless of their geographical assignments, each member of the squad had a confirmed space in a home here. Aden had been surprised—in a good way—at how many of the long-range scouts had begun to return to the valley in the time between assignments.

Jaya and Ivy, the two Es most involved with the valley, had begun to drop a quiet word in his ear when they felt a scout wasn’t ready to leave:

“His heart is too hurt.”

“She’s tired.”

“They need to heal.”

Aden had found ways to delay assignments by juggling squad members. It was easier now that so many of the older or “broken” Arrows had come out of hiding, and because his men and women weren’t being wasted on Ming’s personal vendettas. As for the training sessions with their young, those continued—sometimes a lesson was tough, but it was never brutal.

When Aden found Carolina sobbing behind one of the cabins that afternoon, he didn’t hesitate to scoop her up in his arms and rock her until she sniffled and told him what was wrong. “I can’t make my mind do what the teacher says.” Her lower lip shook. “I tried hard, Aden. I really tried.”

“You don’t have to do it all at once,” Aden told her, making a mental note to have a talk with the teacher involved. Walker was doing an incredible job of educating them in how to handle the increasing emotionality of their charges but not all had adapted well. He knew they, too, were trying and that it would take time. What gave him hope was that not one had asked for a transfer.

Rubbing away her tears with small fists, Carolina said, “Really?” A quiver of hope. “I won’t get in trouble?”

Aden sat down with her in his arms, his back against the cabin wall. “The reason you need to learn to control your mind is that you’re a Gradient 9.3 Tp showing signs of being a natural combat telepath.”

Carolina’s family had signed her over to the squad when she was three. She’d hurt herself by stepping onto a piece of broken glass. In her pain and panic, she’d broadcast so loudly that she’d incapacitated every individual within her home. Like a gun going off near a changeling’s ears, it had made them psychically deaf. Two younger members had ended up unconscious, one with what they’d initially thought was permanent brain damage. “Your strength means you can do a lot of harm with your mind if you’re not careful.”

Big eyes looking into his, solemn and sad. “I could hurt my friends?”

He didn’t want her to feel only those emotions when it came to her ability. “Yes, but if you learn control, you can also do amazing things to help people.”

A thoughtful silence. “Do you think I can learn?”

“I think you’re very smart and might one day be as strong and as disciplined as Zaira.” Pressing a kiss to the top of her head when she beamed at him, he set her on her feet again. “Go on and join your friends.” Arrow children were allowed to have friends now, but they were also always closely supervised. The fact was that their abilities were lethal, a truth none of them could afford to forget. But where before the protections had suffocated, they were now a simple safety net the children appeared to find comforting.

Taking another minute of quiet, he located Zaira’s mind on the PsyNet. She was so contained, her light shielded from prying eyes, but that didn’t matter, not so long as she trusted him with it. “Any news?” he asked.

“We found what might be another bolt-hole, but it doesn’t appear to have ever been used. Mica’s seeded it with electronic bugs, so we’ll hear the instant anyone returns.” Her mind reached out to his along their conscious bond. “We’re about to investigate the final three locations on our current list—I should be back in the valley by nightfall.”

“Persephone couldn’t have a better champion,” he said, knowing that if he heard any reports of the child’s body being found, he’d make damn sure Zaira never laid eyes on the heartbreaking discovery. It would break her. “I’ll see you tonight—I’m heading out soon to pick up a new recruit.”

That recruit was a two-year-old child who’d broken his mother’s arm during a telekinetic tantrum that had taken place in a large and busy shopping mall three hours earlier. The woman didn’t want to give up her son, but she needed help. Aden intended to offer it; whether or not the mother and child could move into the valley would depend on if the deep background check he’d initiated on the mother and her family showed any traitorous tendencies.

He was cutting through a sunlit city park on his way back from the assessment, his thoughts on how best to help the traumatized child, when he discovered that their hidden enemy hadn’t given up, had simply been waiting for an opportunity.

His instincts said the loving mother he’d just left hadn’t betrayed him, though the squad would no doubt debrief her to make certain. More than likely, the enemy had started to keep track of all rumors or reports of powerful or dangerous children, aware that, sooner or later, the squad would respond. Perhaps they’d intended to hit any Arrow who came to assess the child. It was pure luck that the Arrow in question was Aden.

And three hours was plenty enough time to get an operative in place.

This time, there were no theatrics, no complicated setup, nothing to warn him so he could strike out with his abilities. He felt the danger only at the last instant, the bullet whining through the air behind him.

He was shot.

He had a feeling the projectile had been meant to hit his skull, take him out in a single split second, but he’d listened to his instincts and moved at the last moment. The bullet entered through the back of his neck and punched out the front. He knew it missed his spinal cord because he still had functionality in his arms and legs, but from the blood spraying out, it had hit a major artery.

Drawing very slightly on Vasic’s telekinesis because he didn’t want to weaken his friend—who was currently with Zaira’s team—he clamped a hand over the gushing wound and, managing to stay on his feet, projected a shield that stopped the second bullet. I’m hit, he telepathed to Abbot; the Tk had been waiting for him at the end of the park so they could do a discreet ’port back to the valley.

His attacker took off at high speed.

Abbot ’ported in, took one look at Aden, and didn’t bother to give chase. Placing his hand on Aden’s shoulder, the other man took him directly inside a medical facility maintained by the squad. Aden’s knees buckled on arrival, the blood loss critical. But even then, his mind, it tried to reach out to the one person for whom he was the first priority, the one person who was his own.

Except they weren’t truly bonded and with his blood pumping out with each beat of his heart . . . she was too far.

ZAIRA felt the faint whisper of Aden’s psychic touch just as they cleared the final property on their list, but when she responded, she felt only blankness. Nothingness. Ice infiltrated her veins. Grabbing Vasic’s arm, she said, “Aden—go to Aden!”

The two of them found themselves in a white corridor splattered with blood a heartbeat later, two nurses and a doctor working on the man who lay on the floor, his skin pale and his white shirt saturated with red where it hadn’t been cut away by the medical personnel. “No.” It was a keening whisper.

Dropping to her knees, she found his bloodied hand, gripped it. “No.” You don’t get to go. You don’t get to leave me alone.

There was no answer from the one person who had never let her down.

“We need to get him into the OR!” The doctor looked up. “Vasic, teleport him in.”

That quickly, Aden’s touch was gone from her hand, the medics ’ported away with him. Kneeling on the floor staring at the red on her palm, Zaira felt the rage inside her rise in a murderous wave. She got slowly to her feet, and by the time Vasic returned, she was heading toward Abbot, the younger Tk standing shell-shocked in the hallway.

“I need to get Judd,” Vasic said. “He may be able to do what the medics can’t.”

Zaira heard him through the rage. She didn’t know Judd well, had believed him another Tk. Clearly, he was something more. Vasic was gone on the next breath, and all she wanted to do was annihilate the person who had hurt Aden.

VASIC couldn’t teleport to Judd, not with the way the other man’s shields were structured, so he did the next best thing: got himself to SnowDancer territory, then called Judd. “Aden’s hit. Dying.”

Judd asked for a telepathic visual and, using it, teleported himself to Vasic’s side, his face set in harsh lines. “What can I do?”

Taking him back to the operating room, Vasic watched the Tk-Cell move in to attempt to repair the damage to Aden’s artery and veins. It was so severe the medics couldn’t plug the hole—Vasic had heard one doctor use the word “shredded,” and from what Vasic had seen, the bullet had been designed to cause maximum damage.

Judd might not be able to do much, either, his ability to move the cells of the body a slow and careful process that might not beat the ticking clock on Aden’s life. But each time the monitor beeped, it meant Aden was alive.

Vasic listened to that monitor for too long.

By the time he realized he hadn’t told Zaira what was happening and went back out into the corridor, she was gone.

Aden Kai has been shot. Unconfirmed reports are coming in from those who witnessed the shooting. All state it was a killing hit.

“His jugular was torn wide open, or more likely his carotid, maybe both,” one witness stated. “Look at all the blood on the grass. It just gushed out.”

“No one can survive that,” said a medic who was on his way to a shift at a nearby clinic at the time of the shooting. “He’s dead.”

The Beacon is attempting to make contact with the squad for verification.