Chapter 32

Intercepted: Encrypted message from Claire Marshall to parties listed at end of report.

Sent: September 4, 2083

Transcript: Pax is the only one with the ability to right the ship. My father was brilliant and he trained Pax. The problem is Theodora. I don’t know how she wormed her way back into his life, but Father made it clear that she is the threat. I don’t believe that status to have altered. We need to separate them without causing harm to Pax—though surely, the twin bond must have frayed to nothing by now?

Status: Urgent. Imminent threat to Theodora Marshall.

—Confidential report to Pax Marshall from ZDex Private Security Consultants (4 September 2083)

MOON AND ELBEK were already waiting out in front of the facility. They looked freshly scrubbed, their packs sitting neatly against the steps. Both gave Theo warm smiles, then took a seat on the steps and dug into the box of bakery items Yakov had brought for them, with enthusiastic sips of coffee in between.

Since the pair seemed in no hurry to head off, Theo felt comfortable asking, “Did you stay in the facility?”

Elbek, his black hair pulled back in a short tail, nodded. “Just inside the front door. Place is definitely haunted, though.”

“But the ghosts didn’t mind us,” his partner added after swallowing a bite of a cheese and bacon roll, her own hair in pigtails that made her look incredibly young—and belied her air of extreme competence. “We played cards, invited them to join us, but they just wanted to watch.”

Theo stared at the twosome, wondering if they were amusing themselves at her expense, but the two seemed very matter-of-fact in their expressions. Her shoulders prickled without warning, her nape cold. And she thought, yes, this place had plenty of ghosts. But unlike with the amiable bears, she didn’t think the ghosts felt any sympathy with her. They knew what she was. Blood of the man who’d turned them into ghosts. Who’d stolen their lives.

“No signs of any attempted incursions,” Moon was saying to Yakov now. “We took turns doing runs around the property throughout the night, didn’t catch sight of anything that shouldn’t have been present.”

“But,” her partner picked up, “there’s something out back beyond that small house that you should investigate further. An oddly open patch with sunken areas. Didn’t catch any suspicious scents, but . . .” He shrugged.

Theo didn’t understand his meaning, but Yakov clearly did because he said, “Thanks.” A new grimness to his tone. “I’ll check it out.”

“Moon might not have minded the ghosts,” Elbek added, “but they creeped me out. I only stayed inside because it rained last night and I didn’t feel like being a wet bear. I say the spirits seemed more malevolent than friendly.”

Theo thought again of the woman who’d banged her head against the wall, of the man who’d cried. “Those walls witnessed a lot of pain. It’s bled into the building, is barely hidden under its floors.”

Moon held Theo’s gaze. “Are you sure you should be here?” An oddly gentle question. “It makes your aura go dark.”

There was so much Theo didn’t know about changelings, and about what they could do, but she could recognize kindness and concern. “I have questions that need to be answered.”

Bodies that needed to be unearthed.

 . . . HIDDEN under its floors.

Yakov wondered if Theo had said that in response to Elbek’s report about the land out back of the property, but he waited until after the other man and Moon had left to speak his thoughts aloud. He and Theo yet stood in front of the facility, the clouds dark overhead, and the leaves beneath their feet old and browned.

“Do you think there’s a possibility that the victims of whatever it was that took place here were buried on the grounds?”

A sudden frozen stillness from Theo, her body an unmoving silhouette against the backdrop of tangled greenery all around them.

No, she hadn’t understood the meaning of Elbek’s report.

When she spoke at last, she said, “My grandfather was very good at covering his tracks. It wouldn’t make rational sense for him to leave evidence lying around—especially in a region with such a heavy predatory changeling presence. A curious changeling might jump the wall and go exploring in the grounds.”

Yakov nodded. Marshall Hyde hadn’t reached the status of Councilor without being expert at presenting a certain face to the world; he’d never risk airing his dirty laundry. “Bodies moved out to be disposed of elsewhere?”

“He had telekinetics on his payroll,” she said. “All Councilors did. He could’ve had them taken anywhere—straight into the heart of a crematorium, dropped into a volcano, or thrown into the deepest part of the ocean.”

That she’d simply accepted that there must’ve been victims of whatever it was that had gone on in this place gave him another indication of just what kind of horror she’d witnessed as a child. But her experiences had blinded her to a stark truth. “Your grandfather wasn’t in charge after his death.”

Theo’s pupils expanded. “No,” she said at last, then turned to stare out at the grounds. “You think the staff—or at least some of them—murdered the patients and got rid of them.”

“Would they have had access to the telekinetics?”

Theo shook her head. “Teleport-capable Tks are too thin on the ground. Even our privately contracted Tks are only available to senior members of the family.” Tucking her hands into the pockets of his jacket, she said, “You’re right. There are bodies out there.”

“You sound certain.”

“I read up on Centers during my flight to Moscow. About a quarter of the victims of a brainwipe, the ones who were the most functional, ended up being put into menial positions. Jobs that no one else in Psy society wanted.”

That thrumming rage in Theo, it was back, and it was a hum against his skin.

“The others died.” Flat words. “Slowly, and in a way that their deaths could be listed as natural, but the truth is that they died of medical neglect. While a few were kept around to show us what would happen to us if we stepped out of line, the majority were left to rot.”

Yakov’s claws thrust out of his fingertips, his bear in a rampaging kind of mood. It took everything to keep the ursine part of his nature under control. “You think that happened here?”

“I don’t know, but I know there were a number of very damaged people in this place. Why would the staff spend time and money caring for them if they thought they could erase them from the equation and pocket the entire funding for the Center? After all, the families of the victims were never going to check up on them.” Cold words, but her eyes were pure black now.

Yakov forced his claws back in with sheer effort of will—because one of them had to be rational, and he had a feeling his pchelka was in no mood for that. The impending explosion he sensed in her? It was heading ever closer to the surface.

“We check the interior first, then the grounds,” he said. “Lack of the scent of decomposition isn’t a surprise given that it could’ve been over three years since any bodies were buried.” Hands on his hips, he looked out at the green. “And the dead have waited a long time. I don’t think they’ll begrudge us another day.”

Theo nodded . . . and then she walked into the past, into the world of ghosts who hated the blood in her veins. She almost expected to feel a shove against her when she crossed the threshold of the building, but all she sensed was the musty scent of a closed-up building . . . and those veins of agony and fear.

The walls pulsed with it.

The enormity of it threatened to crush her, but more than answers for herself now, she wanted justice. For all those who hadn’t made it out. All those who might lie buried on the grounds.

Her anger felt old now, old and strong, and hot enough to burn down this entire monument to her grandfather’s evil.

This time, she and Yakov did a methodical search, deciding to start on the top floor and work their way down. “Being at the top means it would’ve been the hardest to clear,” Yakov said after they reached the third floor. “Everything would’ve had to be brought down via the stairs or the elevator. People get tired of repetitive work; they make mistakes.”

Theo took in the scuff marks on the walls, the dents in the doorways, the areas where things had literally been ripped off the walls. “Agreed.” She touched her fingers to a spot where the paintwork was badly scraped and found herself releasing a withheld breath when no screams reverberated inside her skull. “Especially since this appears to have been a rush job.”

“Look everywhere,” Yakov said. “Lift mattresses if they’re still on the frames. Tear open those mattresses. Screw open any air vents, and look behind all electrical outlets.” Putting down the daypack he’d grabbed from the car before coming inside, he removed a slim packet of tools and passed them to her. “That should get you into most things.”

Included in the set was a scalpel.

Cheeks going ice-cold, she closed the kit and went to move away, but Yakov stopped her. “Hey.” A big and warm hand cupping her icy cheek, bear eyes looking into hers. “You’re not alone, pchelka. Don’t you forget that.”

Theo found herself clenching her hand in his T-shirt, the warmth of him a welcome furnace. “I want to raze this place to the ground,” she admitted. “The violence in me, it wants vengeance.”

Those primal eyes flashed. “Later. Today, we take apart the monster’s lair.”

Her blood heated, and this time, it wasn’t with rage. “Let’s tear this hellhole apart.”

“That’s my pchelka.”

Theo stayed true to her word as she tackled one end of the first room, Yakov the other. She didn’t intend to leave a single corner unexamined. If there was anything to find here, she would find it.

It was only when she flipped open the toolkit to remove a screwdriver that the nightmares tried to crawl back in, carried on the gleam of the scalpel. She could feel the icy purity of the blade as it sliced across her palm, the scarlet so wet, the pain a dazzling shock of brightness.

This is what happens when you don’t follow orders, Theodora.

“You’re dead,” she muttered vengefully under her breath. “Blown to so many pieces they had to scrape you up.”

“Who’s that?” asked the bear with preternatural hearing.

“My dear departed grandfather.”

Yakov snorted from where he was on his haunches unscrewing a plate off the wall. “Sarcasm suits you, Thela.”

Grinning—though it was likely a terrifying twist of the lips, complete with bared teeth—she continued on with her search, while Yakov worked with predator silence in another section of the room.

Every so often, she’d find herself in a position from where she could watch him—the flex of his thighs, the muscle of his shoulders, those fascinating veins on his forearms, the frown lines that formed between his eyebrows when he was concentrating, it all compelled her . . . aroused her.

Her breasts suddenly felt swollen, the skin too sensitive, the fabric of her bra an abrasion.

But it wasn’t only how Yakov moved, the warm hue of his skin, the rich silk of his hair. It was the lines in his cheeks that said he laughed often and the sparkle in his eyes when he was amused. How he didn’t condemn her for the rage within. How he’d lain quiescent and allowed her to caress his bear.

She could never imagine this man becoming cold and angry and distant.

Bears don’t do that shit. We’d rather punch someone full in the face than go about trying to be stealthy and sneaky.

“Yasha?” She loved how that affectionate diminutive sounded on her tongue.

Concentrating hard on whatever he was doing, he just made a “Hmm?” sound in return.

“When you were small, did you ever go to bed mad at your twin?”

“No. We just stayed up fighting until our papa or mama came in to tell us to go to sleep. And then we fought in whispers until we figured out which one of us was wrong and needed to apologize.”

A grin thrown over his shoulder, her favorite dimples on full display. “It wasn’t until we were much older that we realized our parents could probably hear the whispering. They were either too exhausted to be bothered by it—or they decided to leave us at it. Conflict resolution. Bear style.”

Theo swallowed.

No, Yakov wouldn’t fight with silence or distance. He’d stand toe-to-toe with her and demand they have it out. After his answer about his twin, she was certain he’d refuse to move until they worked out the problem, a literal wall of stubborn, immobile bear.

Another woman might’ve found that overwhelming or aggravating in the extreme, an affront to her need for space to process her emotions, but Theo wasn’t that woman. Her chest constricted at the idea of having a man like Yakov in her life, a person who’d never make her guess at his emotions, or who’d threaten to shut her away from his warmth as a punishment. If he committed, he’d commit.

One hundred and twenty percent.

Until it drove her crazy . . . but made her feel safe down to the bone.

Wanting that so much it hurt, she made herself remember why she was here, the answers she didn’t know. Because she might yet discover that she’d sold out the lives of others in order to earn her grandfather’s approval.

If she had, it wouldn’t matter how much the idea sickened her now. She’d still have to pay the price of her evil, and part of that price would be to sentence herself to a life without joy. Especially when it came to a bear with a laugh that dug into her shattered and scarred heart and made itself at home.

Throat tight, she began to check the set of narrow drawers beside a patient bed.

Nothing.

And more nothing.

Until, at last, they moved on to the next room.