Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Blank eyes, the woman’s smile a painted-on facsimile that made the hairs on Theo’s nape prickle. “Sure, why not.”
Theo pressed her fingers to Yakov’s neck, holding her breath until she felt it—the uninterrupted beat of his heart. He was a bear, she reminded herself. Heavily muscled despite his compact frame, and difficult to kill.
“Now,” the woman said, “the weapon.”
Ensuring she kept her hands in view at all times so as not to trigger the threat, Theo removed the weapon from her boot and threw it across to land at the other woman’s own booted feet. She wore slimline black jeans and a black sweater with those lace-up boots, but it wasn’t her stark choice of clothing that interested Theo.
Blue eyes.
Fine flyaway blond hair that fell below her shoulders.
A heart-shaped face.
Cheekbones that were just a fraction too rounded to be striking.
The woman’s eerie smile deepened as she kicked Theo’s weapon into the bushes. “It’s uncanny, isn’t it? The resemblance. I have to admit I gasped the first time I saw you in your adult form.”
“We’re mirror images of each other.”
A crinkling of the woman’s eyes that might even have been real. “You’re being sweetly polite. I’m at least a decade your senior in looks. In reality, it’s fourteen years.”
Theo’s mind made the connection in a fury of neural fire. “Keja.” Marshall Hyde’s daughter, the one marked as dead on the family tree.
“Oh, that was faster than I expected. Well done.” She nudged the weapon up. “On your feet. Oh, and turn off, then throw away your phone, too. His as well. All that pesky tracking. I already took care of the system in your vehicle.”
Theo did as ordered, using the opportunity offered by getting Yakov’s phone out of his back pocket to once more feel the warmth of him. Alive, he’s alive, she told herself as she threw both phones into the trees before getting to her feet.
She couldn’t be emotional, couldn’t show how much it hurt her to just leave him. Because Yakov had a higher chance of survival if she did abandon him—he was tough enough to survive the weather even if the clouds burst, and Keja couldn’t shoot him again if he wasn’t in her line of sight.
That was when Keja lowered the weapon to her side, black against black, and said, “Nene?”
Theo’s heart kicked with bruising force as Janine walked out of the trees. Halting partway, she looked from Theo to Keja, back again. “Keke?” A child’s thin plea.
Despite the fact that her aunt had lowered her weapon, Theo didn’t make the mistake of launching an attack. Keja’s fingers gripped the sleek black device tight—tight enough that Theo’s minor Tk wouldn’t be able to dislodge it from her grasp.
Keja could lift it and shoot Theo faster than Theo could get to her.
Then there was Janine.
She shouldn’t be here, Theo said in a furious telepathic burst aimed at her aunt.
Keja’s gaze flickered only a fraction. No, but we all have to make sacrifices. To the other woman, she said, “Can you take the bear to our old house? He’s hurt.” Gentle, coaxing voice. “Theo and I will follow.”
“Yes, Keke. I like to teleport.” Walking over to Yakov, she put a hand on his shoulder . . . and was gone, Yakov with her.
Theo’s heart punched against her rib cage. “Who did you bury here, Keja?” she asked, knowing she had it right, that her aunt was behind the echoing emptiness of the facility.
“Staff.” A one-shouldered shrug. “Don’t tell me you feel sorry for them. I won’t believe you. Bastards tried to turn you into a puppet same as they did me. Only I got the first version of the treatment, with all the hard edges and jagged shards.”
Theo glanced over at the depressions in the ground. “All the staff?”
A curt nod. “Couple of different sites around the grounds. Janine helped me dig the holes. I told her it was for planting trees.”
That explained why the holes had been deep: telekinetic assistance from a Gradient 6.1.
But Keja wasn’t finished. “Considered keeping the lead doc alive, but bitch was too smart and stupidly loyal to our patriarch. And she tried to lock me up.” Eyes devoid of emotion. “Nene got me out, then I bashed the doc’s skull in.”
“Why did no one notice her mind vanishing from the Net?”
“Time of disruption, with Father blown up that same day. Everyone flapping around about a dead Councilor. No one was watching for a few isolated minds that ceased to exist one cold and rainy night.”
“I have to admit it,” Theo said, “your timing was sublime.”
A gleam in Keja’s eyes. “Another plus was that Father had made sure his staff had airtight PsyNet shields, there was no official payroll record on Marshall systems, and that their families had no idea of their work address.”