Chapter 31

Dear Déwei,

I understand your reservations, brother, I truly do, but I don’t think you can comprehend the chaos in the PsyNet right now. We’re all going slowly mad, losing pieces of ourselves and pieces of those we love.

Even my beloved Kanoa is starting to show neurological issues. He’s undergoing testing but is certain—and so are the medics—that the disorder in the Net is leaking through into his brain, causing irreparable harm.

How can you expect me to fight against the Protocol when it might save his life? And yet, at the same time, I would not lose you. Ever.

Your little sister,

Hien

—Letter from Hien Nguyen to Déwei Nguyen (5 March 1974)

“GUESS IT WASN’T in the files.” He rubbed his jaw. “Makes sense. Most people outside the clan wouldn’t know about Denu. Known to the world as Déwei Nguyen. A strong, empathic man who had his heart broken by Silence.”

She heard the respect in his voice, and though she had no experience with such deep family ties, she also understood that her family was an aberration. “His memory means a great deal to you.”

A nod. “The thing is, Theo, he left a little of himself behind in me and Pasha.”

Theo felt her eyes widen. She’d never considered that changelings might have psychic abilities, but of course they must. Prior to Silence and the retreat of the Psy race from the world, Psy, changeling, and humans had all lived in the same society. They’d married, mated, and had intimate connections with each other. Children had been born of those bonds.

Which meant that not only did some changelings have echoes of psychic abilities, so must any number of humans. Today, however, she was only interested in one of those descendants of the past: the bear in the driver’s seat.

“What did you see?” she asked, her voice a rasp.

“You. I saw you. When I was sixteen.” His thigh flexed under her. “We played in a field under the sunshine.” A glance at her. “So you see, pchelka, I’ve known you a lot longer than a couple of days.”

Theo’s mind spun, her center of gravity lost. But even with that, she felt the tension in his muscles. “What are you hiding?”

“I’m not hiding anything. I’m just choosing not to tell you everything.”

Theo narrowed her eyes. “That sounds like sneaky logic. Like a cat.”

His chest rumbled. “No need to insult me.” Scowl heavy on his face, he said, “I’ll tell you once I figure out the solution. Until then, it’s just a mess it’ll do no good to share.”

Stubborn, she realized. He was very, very stubborn.

And once again, Aunt Rita was proven correct.

Deciding to drop the subject for the time being because what he’d shared was startling enough, she said, “Tell me more about your dream.”

He did so without hesitation, and she felt her heart burst open with wonder at the joyous beauty of his vision. Then she almost knew how to laugh when he complained about her ID photograph and asked if it had been taken by a feline.

“What does it mean?” she asked afterward. “That we were always meant to meet?”

“It means what we make it mean.” His voice was oddly solemn. “My grandmother Quyen passed on a lesson that her father taught her: that nothing is set in stone. The future is ours to shape.”

The words rang in her head as they closed the final distance to the gates into what she was beginning to think of as her personal hellscape. Her mouth went dry. Her heart struggled to pump blood. “The future is what I make of it,” she said to herself after Yakov jumped out to unlock the gates, and it was the most hopeful thing she’d thought for an eternity.

Yet her lungs still protested her need to inhale and exhale, the echo of terrified screams a painful screech in her ears. Not her own screams. No, not just her own screams.

Breath short and shallow, she frowned, tried to remember where she’d been, what she’d seen. Today, however, her brain refused to cooperate.

Perhaps it couldn’t cooperate.

What damage had her grandfather done to her neurons? Had she been going through life believing herself whole when he’d cut out and thrown away pieces of her?

The idea made her stomach churn, but she forced herself to volunteer to close up the gates after Yakov drove through. If this was her hell, then she’d live in it, instead of allowing it to crush her.

“Done.” She jumped back into the passenger seat.

Yakov shot her an amber-eyed look. “Tough as fucking nails.” Lifting her hand to his mouth again, he kissed her knuckles in a way that had already become familiar—and wanted.

So painfully wanted.

The shadows pressed in on them as they drove on. When she lowered the window in an effort to dispel the sensation of being suffocated by the darkness, the rustle of the trees seemed a sinister whisper. “I think I remembered a fragment,” she said, because she had to get it out. “Garbled. Less words than emotion.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Only when Theo’s back threatened a spasm did she realize how stiffly she’d been holding her muscles. The old injury rarely caused her trouble if she maintained her stretching routine and didn’t tense up for long periods.

Flexing back her shoulders to ward off the attack, she said, “I’m not afraid like the first time.” It was a revelation. “Now I’m just angry—not only for myself but for every other ‘patient’ at this facility.”

She took a deep breath and admitted the rest. “All my life, I’ve known my family was evil. But this much? To the extent of sacrificing a child?” Her stomach threatened to rebel. “I hate that I’m one of them.”

“Blood doesn’t make a person, Theo,” Yakov said, his voice a growl. “It’s but one component. Would you condemn your brother for being a Marshall?”

Theo’s response was immediate. “Grandfather tried so hard to break him, mold Pax in his own image, but Pax is Pax.” Her pride in her brother’s will was enormous. “And he’s a thousand times better than my grandfather.”

Stopping the car, Yakov reached over to squeeze the back of her nape with his hand. “Then so are you, pchelka.”

“You don’t know that. I don’t know that. I could’ve been my grandfather’s willing accomplice.”

Removing his hand to put it back on the steering wheel but not restarting the car, Yakov emitted a very bearish growl. “Then so could your twin. You can’t condemn yourself without condemning him, too.”

“It’s not the same!” Theo emitted a frustrated sound that came out sounding like a growl.

Shocked at her own behavior, she clamped a hand over her mouth.

Those deadly dimples appeared a second before Yakov’s laughter filled the car, a boom of sound that might as well have been a hug, it was so warm and all-encompassing. “That’s it, milaya moya, let out your inner bear.” A glance at her, laughter yet creasing his cheeks, but his voice solemn as he said, “You deserve to have the same faith in yourself, Theo, that you do in your brother.”

Theo’s rib cage felt like it was crushing her heart. “I can’t.” A confession tight and painful. “Not until I have proof. I know too much of what I did for my grandfather.”

Eyes of bearish amber touched with yellow held hers for long moments before Yakov gave a hard nod. “We’ll get you your answers.” Another squeeze of her nape. “Then I’ll say I told you so—because I have faith in you, Theo, my Theo.”

Theo couldn’t speak, her lower lip threatening to quiver.

“If this was the drive to the den,” Yakov said as he got the car moving again, “we would’ve been attacked by a few tiny gangsters by now.”

She realized at once that he was dragging her into the light and out of the dark, with memories of joy, of a family that would never abandon or hurt its children.

“The cubs know we look out for them,” he added, “so they like to hide up in the trees and then suddenly drop down while hanging from their feet. The aim is to make one of us scream or yell in surprise.”

The whispers of cruelty and evil that haunted her were no proof against such wild visuals. “Do they ever succeed?”

“Oh yeah. Because they know not to do it all the time. Lull us into a false sense of security . . . then boo!” His shoulders shook. “Kids also know never to dart into the road, or to otherwise get in the way of the vehicles—which just leads to them coming up with increasingly inventive ways to achieve their nefarious aims.

“Last month, Stasya—she’s our second-in-command—made the mistake of actually parking along the drive to take a call. Next thing you know, she’s got a cub going splat on her windshield. She refuses to admit it, but she screamed.”

He chuckled, the sound a kiss of warmth. “Tiny gangsters are still bragging about that—and every so often they jump out at Stasya from around random corners in the den. Last time around, she threatened to make bear fur rugs out of the lot of them and was immediately swarmed by a tiny attack force.”

Laughter in the eyes that met her own. “I’d worry they’d grow up to create a criminal empire, but both Pasha and I were previously tiny gangsters and we turned out okay. Mostly.”

Theo tried to imagine the adorable bear cubs she’d seen pulling such pranks. It seemed an impossibility. They were so small and so sweet. Surely, Yakov had to be exaggerating for effect?

She never got a chance to ask, because they’d arrived.

The facility loomed empty and sinister against the searing blue of the clear autumn sky.