Chapter 45
I can’t believe Neiza is already a year old! A month past it even! I tell you, my dearest D, time passes like water through the fingers when you have a child. I swear I turned around and she’d gone from sleeping fifteen hours a day to clapping her hands and laughing and making the most adorable sounds—and never wanting to sleep!
Oh, listen to me. I sound like every besotted mother there ever was! Thank you for indulging me as you do.
But that’s not why I wanted to write. I suppose I could’ve just come over to the den, but it’s our thing, isn’t it? These letters? I’ve kept each one you’ve ever written to me.
Anyway, they’ve set the date for the Changes to Silence Referendum: July 24th next year. I’m including all available documentation listing the pros and cons, as compiled by smart people on both sides of the issue. You know how much I respect you. Please do read it with an open mind and let me know your thoughts.
Love from your favorite little sister,
Hien
—Letter from Hien Nguyen to Déwei Nguyen (20 February 1978)
THEO’S MIND FELT bruised as it always did after one of her rage attacks. She should probably find something else to call them, but why, when the words she’d chosen as a teenager described them so well?
Today, the bruise throbbed until it blurred her vision and her stomach muscles hurt, as if she’d clenched them so hard that she’d torn something. She knew the latter for an illusion; most often, the damage was limited to contusions and cuts. Once, she’d woken up after hours of unconsciousness—probably caused by a blow from a heavy object she’d sent flying.
That had been before Pax took over the family.
She’d cleaned up the blood, then gone to a medical facility for indigent street people because they wouldn’t record her injuries into any system. The doctor—a human woman with gray hair—had been kind, had asked her if she was being abused.
A question come far too late.
“Theo?”
She whimpered, wanting to hide away. She’d never wanted Yakov to see her this way, as a creature devoid of reason or sanity, a thing without a mind. Just viciousness and violence.
But it was far too late for that, too. He had his arms locked around her, his body at her back. His breath brushed the hairs on the side of her face as he said, “Theo, can you hear me?”
She wanted to just shut her eyes and sink into the throbbing in her head, pretend that this humiliation hadn’t taken place, but all that would do was extend the agony of it. This was her own fault. She should’ve told him, but she’d wanted to pretend she was normal when she wasn’t normal, hadn’t been any kind of normal for a long, long time.
“Yes,” she answered, and it came out a throaty rasp.
Her skin heated on another hot wave of humiliation—she must’ve been screaming. The rages had begun while she was still living with Colette, during a time when the inside of the apartment was under full surveillance. Another attempt at control by her grandfather, one instituted because of Theo’s increasing defiance.
As a result, there’d been recordings.
The worst were the ones where she screamed and screamed.
She’d slapped her own hands over her ears the first time Colette had shown her one of those videos, and she’d rocked back and forth, believing herself a madwoman. She wasn’t so sure that the shocked young woman she’d been wasn’t right—because she should have this under control by now. Only she didn’t.
Her gaze went to her wrist.
No metal bracelet. Only a welt where the material must’ve scraped her skin when she tore it off. She’d have to make it stronger next time, she thought dully. Strong enough that even the stolen power of a 9 couldn’t tear it off. And she had to ramp up the intensity.
Because it had activated right after the rage hit—she’d frozen at the painful jolt, her senses attempting to realign into sanity. Then her brother’s power had poured into her in an endless wave, burning away the cold iron of control and leaving only rage in its wake.
Theo? Pax’s voice in her mind, as if he’d sensed her thoughts. I felt the power draw. Did you have an episode?
Yes. But I’m fine. Lying in an effort to protect him was instinct. Are you?
Yes. Do you need help?
No. She didn’t tell him that she wasn’t by herself, didn’t even want to acknowledge the humiliation of it. I need to be alone in my head right now.
Pax withdrew without further questions. He knew about her episodes not only because he sensed it when her mind began to siphon his power, but because their grandfather had made him watch the recordings of her in the worst of the rages. It had been a brutal slap to Pax’s request for information about Theo.
Pax had never told her, but she could imagine what their grandfather had said to him at the time. Your sister is an unstable liability. Look at her! Pathetic!
Flinching inwardly, Theo tried to take her mind elsewhere, but there was no disassociation, not here, not now. Everything was too sharp, too bright, too real to escape. Yakov, this bear who had touched her with such tenderness that night, yet held her tight. She didn’t blame him. She had no idea what she’d done to him in the midst of the vast blackness that had sporadically swamped her brain since she was sixteen years of age.
“You were born defective,” her grandfather had told her after she almost killed Colette by accident. “That is the true reason why you had to be separated from your brother. Do you understand now? You could’ve killed him.”
Theo had wanted to argue that she would never hurt her twin, had stayed silent because it would’ve been a lie. She had no awareness of the world in the midst of the rage storms created by her broken brain.
“I’m going to let go,” Yakov said, slowly following words with action.
She felt cold, so cold as he unwrapped his arms from around her, but she forced herself to move away. He couldn’t want to be near her, and the least she could do was give him his wish. Tugging down the rucked-up bottom of her short dress, she kept her back to him as she stared down at the carpet, her hair hanging around her in a curtain.
“I apologize.” Her throat felt raw, lined with crushed stone. “Did I hurt you?”
“I’m a bear,” he said roughly, and then he was moving to come down on his knees in front of her.
She flinched when he lifted a hand and slid it over her cheek and slightly over the back of her head to cup the side of her face. But she didn’t push him away, and she didn’t tell him to not touch her. He deserved whatever pound of flesh he wanted from her.
“Show me that beautiful face, pchelka,” he murmured in a coaxing tone. “I’m pretty sure you took a hit with a flying object.”
Lost, shattered, she didn’t resist when he tilted up her chin. But she couldn’t look him in the eye, instead looking over his shoulder at the wall she’d marked up and dented in her rage. “I’ll pay to have the damage fixed.” Fast, rough words. “I have the money. I can pay to fix it.”
Too bad she couldn’t do that for her own brain.
Ignoring her statement as if she hadn’t spoken, Yakov said, “Some bruising on your left cheekbone, but it’s not as bad as it could’ve been.”
Still unable to meet his gaze, she turned her head to check the rest of the apartment—but never got there, her gaze snagging on the bite marks on his biceps. Bile burned her throat. This was her fault. Even knowing what she was, she’d allowed him to bring her here, to this place that should’ve been a safe haven for him.
How selfish could she be?
“I’m sorry, Yasha,” she whispered, staring at the deep indentation of her teeth. “I am so sorry.” Her voice threatened to break.
“Hey,” he said, and waited.
Stomach churning, hurting, she met his eyes at last. Wild amber with a yellowish cast, of the bear that lived under his skin, those beautiful eyes held no disgust or anger. Unable to endure the hope that spawned in her, she scanned his face, his body, her gaze once more hitching on the bite marks on his arm.
“I’m fine,” he said. “I’ve had worse bites than that in practice sparring sessions with some of the younger members of the clan.”
Theo had never cried as an adult. “I’m not a bear,” she got out past the thickness in her throat, the burning in her eyes.
“Well, you fight like one.” Curved lips, gentle fingers tucking her hair behind her ear. “Come on, milaya moya, let’s get you into warmer clothes. Your skin is chilled.”
Tears barely held in check now, Theo didn’t have the strength to refuse him. She allowed him to tug her up to her feet, allowed him to hold her steady as he led her to the bedroom.
She felt like nothing, a ghost without weight.
Leaving her standing by the foot of her bed, he didn’t go to her suitcase and pull out a change of clothes. Instead, he walked out and grabbed the T-shirt he’d taken off during the sensual interlude that now seemed a figment of her crazed imagination.
“You like my scent, Theo,” he said with a gentle rub of his beard-shadowed cheek against hers. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
Her fingers clenched tight over the soft fabric when he put the T-shirt into her hand, his muscular body a warm wall against her. It took everything she had not to crawl into him, hide away from the whole world.
“This is drenched with my scent. Snuggle into it while I make you a hot drink.”
She stood there dumbly for long moments after he’d gone.
“I don’t hear movement, Thela!” Yakov’s voice. “Want me to come in there and help?”
Theo trembled.
Lifting his T-shirt to her nose, she took in a deep breath . . . and almost sobbed. It smelled of comfort and warmth.
Yakov, it smelled like Yakov, just like he’d promised.
Wanting it to surround her as fast as possible, she all but ripped off the dress, then put the T-shirt on over her panties. It hung off her, coming to halfway down her thighs, and it was the most wonderful piece of clothing she’d ever had.
“Come on out, pchelka.” More coaxing words. “I’ve got your drink ready.”
Heart thumping and the scent of Yakov the only thing holding her together, she made herself walk out and face what she’d done. But . . . the living area was no longer a scene of carnage. Not neat by any means, but just a place where a bear or two might’ve turned a fraction rambunctious.
Lower lip threatening to quiver, she looked over at the man who stood at the kitchen counter, holding up a glass for her.
“I’m sorry,” she began, even knowing that no apologies would ever be enough. “I shouldn—”
“Don’t you dare apologize for something you can’t control.” He pinned her with his gaze, his irises no longer bear amber, but the rich aqua green of the human part of him. “Unless you’re going to lie to me and tell me that you could control that?”
Her cheeks flushed with a burst of emotion that had nothing to do with the rage attacks; she wanted to bite back a response, but she forced herself to calm down, forced herself to breathe, forced her hands to unclench.
Leaning back against the kitchenette wall, Yakov raised an eyebrow. “I survived you in full fury. I won’t melt with a few harsh words.”
She blinked, stared at him, and realized he was right. She hadn’t killed him. She hadn’t even really injured him. Impossible. The two previous times she’d been with others during an attack, the consequences had been grave. Colette had ended up with broken bones, while her grandfather’s aide had needed extensive facial surgery to put her back together.
The latter, at least, hadn’t been all Theo’s fault. Her grandfather had pushed and pushed because he’d wanted to see what she could do. It just so happened that his aide had been in front of her when the explosion took place. And that aide had been carrying a glass of water for her grandfather.
Theo never remembered anything of an episode, but Grandfather had been taping her that day, too, and he’d shown her the results of her “defective neural structure.”
Theo would never forget how the glass had shattered in a stunning starlike pattern, the shards driven upward into flesh and bone, the blood splattering onto the desk before her grandfather stunned Theo with a weapon set at maximum.
Even as Theo’s body began to spasm from the blast of the weapon, the aide had begun to scream. That was how fast it had all happened. How quickly Theo had brutally wounded another living being.
But Yakov . . . Yakov was fine. “This isn’t right.” She ran to him, terror in her blood. “Internal injuries. It has to be internal injuries.”