Chapter 14

"I called her to help with the project after you left. Isaiah said she left early to get to her daughter's recital. Hours later, her daughter Ruby called saying she never arrived so I went in search of her, but it was too late."

Chari Gupta was one of two humans in the know at the lab. How could she be dead? I'd seen her face just yesterday. She had given a shy wave as she left early. I'd heard her thinking of her daughter's piano recital. When I saw Isaiah trying to stop her just to be a dick, I'd controlled his mind and sent him to the bathroom for a half hour to help Chari but she never made it to her destination. If I had never interfered she would still be alive.

"What did she tell them?" I asked.

I knew she must have told her torturers something. They wouldn't have killed her otherwise.

"Nothing," He sighed. "She and Isaiah were both bound as you. The price of their knowledge was secrecy above all else. No matter what they did or threatened her with, she could never talk."

Right, he hadn't said she'd been killed. He said her body failed and she died. Translation; she had taken her own life to end the pain. I didn't want to imagine what had been done to her. The poor woman must have been in Hell. It wasn't just physical agony. Chari had given up hope in everything; mercy, rescue, and in any God in whom she believed. She was a scientist and a damned good one. She must have calculated and realized that her odds of escape or rescue were unfavorable.

That was what Caspian had been trying to tell me on the phone. All I heard was, "…is missing." He had been trying to tell me that Chari was missing. Like me, at the first thought of trouble he had thought it was the Water Fae. It wasn't. It wasn't vampires either. These were humans after me.

"She was strong. She lasted several hours. When we got there her body was still warm. I wanted to pursue them but because it wasn't who we feared; Colman wanted to leave it be. The Prince agreed."

So he had no say. He didn't say the words but I saw it on his face. Niall and Colman were removed from the human world. One more dead didn't matter to them. They died with the clock. It didn't even matter that that one meant something to Caspian. His normally buoyant expression was tight with so much grief and anger. I reached out and gave his hand a hard squeeze. I wanted to make sure he saw everything I planned to do to whomever was responsible.

The lead agent, Lynch, was trying to keep up but we had lost him. He assumed we were using code words. He didn't ask and I sure as hell wasn't about to offer. The Agency had their secrets and I had mine.

"This was pinned to her skin."

Caspian reached into his back pocket. He moved slowly but the agents behind us still drew their weapons. It was a folded up Ziploc bag. I could see the blood, but couldn't smell it, not until it was unfolded four times, and then the scent registered as familiar. It was Chari's blood, but I also caught the scent of one my assailants. I didn't know which one, but I knew that he had tortured one helpless, defenseless woman right before he went to kill another.

'Run all you want but you'll never escape the seeds of evil sown by your father.'

That was what the note said. It was a written over a crisp piece of printer paper but the words were in blood, Chari's blood. I read and reread but it didn't get clearer. Not only was a human stalking me like prey, but they were bold enough to taunt me as they did so. If that wasn't enough, this person had been happy to sacrifice over twenty other people in one night just to get to me.

I was slowly building a profile. With this, I just added a little more to it. My enemy had money and power, enough to afford ex-military. He or she was able to train them mentally beyond what the CIA could afford thus far. That made even less sense, if that was possible. No one I had ever come across fit the criterion. I didn't know either of my biological parents, so it could have been an enemy of theirs.

Deep down though, I knew who this was. Right now I didn't know anything for certain. I needed answers and there was only one place I could get them. Sadly, it was the one place in the world where I was forbidden admission.

I sat and stared at the phone but decided against it for so many reasons, the least of which being that I was not my father's favorite person right now. I wouldn't get spotted by any vampires during the day, but I'd set up cameras in every port of entry in Nevada and he would know of my presence within a half hour of waking.

"I need to get to California," I told Caspian.

"That is not authorized," The agent in charge said.

The volume of aggression in the room amped up several octaves, and it had the agents reaching for their guns once more. Caspian arched a brow, and I pulled in a deep breath and held it. We knew that there was no way for him to stop me, but again, it seemed it was dick measuring time or something. I had no idea what it was about guns that just gave people a false sense of power.

I turned on the agents and entered their minds simultaneously. Their faces went blank as they complied with my mental commands. I left them conscious enough so they would know what I was doing. I've learned that if people could understand what they were doing while under a thrall it was less distressing. Two of them climbed into bed. The others made a pallet from my blankets and pillows. In my defense, they needed the sleep.

"Sleep," I ordered. Immediately five pairs of eyes closed behind heavy lids, and then those lids slid closed.

Taking the SAT phone off of the lead agent I sent a message to Lattesta. It was a text that told him exactly what I'd done and why. When I was finished, I faced Caspian who was looking at me just as he had on the day I had corrected his glove formula, awed but not afraid. I didn't care if he thought I was awesome. Oddly enough, what mattered was that he wasn't looking at me as if I was a monster.

"Can you get me somewhere you've never been?" I repeated.

Cas shook his head. "I need a destination. If you could draw me a picture I could absorb it, but I need to see where I am going."

Thank God for Google! I typed in the address of the club where Zee always held his performances in California. Drai's was only thirty miles from the western-most border of Nevada. That was as far as into the Kingdom of three as my father had been willing to allow his son to travel. Any vampire who dared further without permission was never seen again. I didn't know why but I didn't want to find out today. I printed out images of the club, inside and out. Caspian absorbed them, and then we were gone.

I drove us another thirty miles in a stolen car toward Nevada before I began calling to the one person who was most attuned to my mental voice. I'd never done anything like this before but, logically it seemed feasible. I hoped against my odds. My mental net was cast as wide as I could get it. I ignored the influx and sent out a beacon to my brother.

Nim always heard me. He had to hear me now, if only because I needed him so badly. From this distance I yelled, something I never did when trying to gain entry into my brothers' minds. I sat there on the hood of that stolen car for an hour and a half but came up empty in replies.

For the first time since I had left home I now thought Nim too no longer loved me. That hurt than anything because Nim was a rock. He never took sides. He was as unwavering as time itself. I'd never thought about it, but I always assumed that if no one else understood why I had turned my back on my family, Nim would, but apparently he didn't. He couldn't hear me, and now I feared that it was because he didn't want to. I wanted to curl into a ball and just sob.

Perhaps it would have been less painful if I could've just cried and gotten it out of the way. I didn't. I couldn't. I had an audience and nothing but clear skies above. My tears wouldn't come. I got back in the car feeling defeated. I started the engine but, at the same time, I felt my brother in my head. I stilled with my hand on the gear shift.

"What is it?" Caspian asked.

There were no thoughts to hear, likely because he was too far I felt him in my head and the feeling grew stronger with every beat of my heart. Exiting the car, I raced back out to the spot where I'd been calling out to him again. Instead of coming to me from the southeast which was closest, it felt as if he was coming from the southwest. He must have taken an alternate route to my location. I waited with baited breath, and then I heard it.

"Shy-shy?"

"Nim," I replied. "Hi!"

I must have looked out of my mind, standing there seemingly grinning at the ether with tears of joy shimmering in my eyes. As far back as I could remember Nim's voice was a part of my mind.

'Milk,' I would say looking at the bottle he had heated for me.

Nim would shake his head. 'Too hot.'

When I wanted to go out too close to dawn, he would say, 'Too late.'

When I wanted to go with him to patrol Sai's area he would say, 'Too dangerous.'

I'd always felt as if I was always too something! That must have been the extent of our dialogue for years, but he didn't seem to mind and neither did I. I cared even less now. When he shattered the parking lot upon his arrival, I knew I had far underestimated his love for me.

His mental voice was so clear at this proximity. I stood there staring at him as though he was a dream. I had taken his presence in my mind and in my life for granted. I never thought I would go months, never mind years, without it, but I had. Having it resonate there once again was like light after dark, like love after war.

"Hello, little runt," He said.

Nim spoke! He actually talked to me! There was so much I'd never had the chance to openly say to him. There was so much I wanted him to know, and yet I couldn't voice any of it. My throat was closed up tightly; I swallowed but found no relief, and so I stood there choking on my emotions. I just looking at him until I finally held my arms out and open much like the bowlegged toddler I hadn't been in decades.

My big brother closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around me. I could have cried. The last twelve hours had been hellish. I had felt alone and being his arms was like being wrapped in a warm blanket. He hugged me so tightly it hurt. I didn't care. I could breathe later, but this was the only time I had to feel as if I was a part of my family again. My reunion with my brother was soon interrupted by Cas. He was mumbling to himself and gasping at intervals.

"Vampire… in the sun…" He whispered. "I should go over there and touch him…he wouldn't even notice. I would be totally cool about it and just say, 'hey'."

We both turned to look at him because he was failing at being covert. Cas looked like a deer caught in headlights. His mouth was hanging open, and for a faery he looked totally undignified. Nim looked at me and I knew him well enough to know his thoughts, 'Kill or not'.

"Cas," I called. "Dial it down!"

"I'm being creepy," He said as if he was shocked he'd been found out.

"Yup," I replied.

"I'll go back to the car."

"Thanks," I said. "I appreciate it."

Caspian literally walked backward. He never took his eyes from Nim as he went. I heard the car door open and close but somehow I knew he was still staring. Just as I expected, Nim didn't ask. Once Cas was back in the car, for Nim he faded out of existence. That, too, was no surprise.

"What is the matter?"

Instead of telling him, he let me show him. Nim opened his mind to me. It was a great of show of trust and one that I no longer felt I deserved. He gave it to me all the same. I relaxed and let the past twenty-four hours run through my mind. The note that was left with Chari's body was the most pressing thing. Nim listened, and when I was finished he looked no different, not that I expected a different reaction. He was the rock enduring the sands of time.

"His name is Matthew Ward. He killed your mother."

From my Nim I always received nothing less than the truth, nothing colored by any emotion but simply the truth as it was, ugly. Seeing my mother through his unbiased eyes made me wonder what her true test in life was. Why hadn't she just given me to Fintan just as she had left her full human baby to his father? The answer was simple. She wanted to have it all. It didn't matter that she didn't want the prize, she wanted to win them.

That was why she had dared to reengage on a deal with a Faery even if he had made her irresistible. Someone like her wouldn't be able to pass up besting him. The only way to do that would be to steal the child he'd believed would have been special. I was her most prized possession in a way; her ultimate 'Fuck you' to a Supe that no doubt thought to use her in turn. Except I was a prize she couldn't handle or wanted.

The memories shifted. Nim was in a dark, dank warehouse. He was looking at Matthew Ward. He was a young man then, and everything about him was refined and privileged. From his haircut to his clothes, and even the way he attempted to take control of the situation where he found himself after he had killed a woman, all spoke loudly of his station in life. The details of this particular memory were perfectly preserved.

"If you are religious, start praying," Heidi urged the young Mr. Ward. "For nothing but Divine Providence can change the horrid fate awaiting you."

Lined across on the other side of the room were vampires whom I'd never seen before and was certain I never wanted to meet. They varied in ages, but there was a singularly lustful and viciousness to their postures that told me where this was going. My father passed his judgment and it was vicious.

"These men here," My father declared. "They will redefine your definition of rape, degradation, and brutality. They will desecrate your soul. When you are nothing but a broken, tattered shell begging for death, you will then be delivered safely home where you will carry the memories of your crime and punishment for the rest of your days."

I didn't see what was done to him because Nim didn't but I saw the aftermath…I had to gulp in several breaths to keep my stomach from wrenching. What had once been a preppy pretty boy was a grotesque creature covered almost head to toe in bandages.

'No glamour was used to erase the details of his crime or his punishment,' Nim clarified, but I already knew that, and even if he hadn't told me I would have known it because Matthew was still alive and had seen my face somewhere in Florida. Now he was out to get me at any cost. Thoughts of a damned creature were all I could see. I was cursed. I wasn't conceived out of love or even a drunken night. I was a pawn to be used. In that moment, I felt the emptiness and despair of it.

Then Nim made me see myself as he did. I saw the bowlegged little child whose hair accounted for most of her weight. I saw my little hands and feet as he had, and to him I was always be that child, the one he had found shivering in thick shrubs.

"Thank you," I told him.

I knew he had to get back soon and I had to do the same. "I love you, Nim."

He brushed his knuckles across my cheek and I leaned into them wishing that was the only thing that would make the world all right.

'Come home, Shy.'

The thought was sent softly but the emotion behind it was stronger than anything I'd ever felt from Nim. I choked on my tears.

"I want to," I said aloud. "I wish I could, Nim."

'I do not believe Father is truly angry with you anymore. Your mind mirrors his but it is I who reflect his heart. Both are rigid.'

He flashed an ingrained lesson into my mind. The words had been said so many times that the only thing that was distinctive was the voice and the words of our father, not the different instances.

'Actions have reactions,' my dad had drilled into me, into all of us… 'Act only when you have accepted the repercussions of your actions.'

"You remember?" Nim asked.

I nodded. "Yes."

'He is your father, your King, and you deliberately disobeyed him; presumably because you have accepted the consequences of your actions. He punished you because he felt he must. We all know this."

I didn't. I'd never even thought of it that way but Nim and I could be seen as the extremes of my father's temperament. Nim loved and when he did, it was forever. It wasn't that my father didn't see anything in us other than our uses. He cared so much and he put everything he had into all of us so we were the best at whatever we excelled in. Yet he could be just as harsh because as inherent as his love was, his approval wasn't as free, and I was always starved for it. He pushed so hard that sometimes that was all you could see, not why he was pushing.

"Be that as it may… I know he wants you home. You are his only daughter and his youngest.

"Father respects strength," I replied. "And he thinks me weak." Worthless.

It took a few months after being exiled to realize and accept that my dad didn't hate me. I'd been pissed at my brothers enough to know that anger wasn't enough to wash away love or give way to hate. Sometimes I let myself fantasize about just going back home and walking into my father's office in Vegas. He wouldn't kill me. I might have a chance at making him reconsider. Ultimately what I had said to Nim was true. Felipe De Castro respected power.

If I went running home to Daddy, especially because I needed his help, I would spend the rest of my life defending my marriage. As much as I wanted to go home, as much as I missed my father, my family, and my own lab, I needed to make my father see I was at peace with the decision I'd made regardless of what it had cost me. Standing here close enough to smell the familiar scent of my brother and close enough to touch his skin, I made my choice. I stepped back with my heart heavy and breaking but my soul at peace.

"I love you, Nim." I told him once more. "I'm sorry."

With my mental abilities I'd connected Nim with the rest of the family. Now he was back as he was, ever alone. If there was no one else that deserved an apology for my defection, he did. In accordance with his usual style he didn't speak.

He nodded as he backed away and then took off the same way he'd come. I watched him go and felt as if I'd been ripped apart from everything I'd loved all over again. It hurt more because life at home was being intruded upon. It was all the more reason to make Matthew Ward pay. He had succeeded in hurting me twice. He was a dead man.