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)
Then had come a protocol that put chains around all that chaotic power. Silence might have crushed and murdered millions, but it had worked for those like Pax who would’ve otherwise burned up in the conflagration of their abilities. Then Silence had fallen . . . and there was no putting the genie back in the bottle, no way to reinitiate Silence once Scarab Syndrome took hold.
Doctor Maia Ndiaye, one of the lead medics on the Scarab team, had framed it thus: “Once a susceptible Psy enters the Scarab state, it is a permanent shift. Literal alterations to pathways in the brain that mean the subject is no longer capable of initiating Silence on any level.”
In short, her brother’s vast power had become a voracious monster lurking in the back of his brain.
Theo’s stomach lurched at the idea of Pax vanishing from her mind. Because that was what no one in their family had ever understood: their grandfather might have separated Pax and Theo on the physical level, but even Councilor Marshall Hyde had never quite managed a clean break on the psychic.
Pax had saved her life time after time.
Theo would do anything to save his. With that in mind, she picked up the bracelet she’d manufactured using knowledge gained in her prior job as a medical-device technician who moved tiny components using her very limited telekinetic abilities.
Made of two pieces of dull metal polished to an unexceptional smoothness except for the intricate pattern she’d hand-carved in the center, the bracelet was designed to clip over her wrist. She’d been careful to ensure that it mimicked a popular low-price comm device, complete with a tiny screen.
Snapping it shut on her wrist, she checked that it was fully charged.
One hundred percent.
Good. The shock it was designed to send into her system would hurt.
Satisfied, she finished dressing in preparation for meeting Pax. Her brother needed her to handle something for him. No matter how much she’d prefer to vanish into the murkiest of shadows, she couldn’t.
She had debts to pay.
Blood debts.
It still took all her willpower to drive through the imposing metal gates of the Marshall estate just outside Toronto. The blades of grass on the lawns on either side of the driveway were clipped to a precise length, the asphalt itself clean of anything as mundane as moss or dirt.
The two-hundred-year-old marble fountain in front of the house lay silent, but it, too, was pristine. As were the box hedges by the wide front steps. As if the gardener in charge walked around with a ruler in his back pocket.
There were no flowers.
Parking her small vehicle in the circular area at the top of the drive, she ignored the imposing bulk of the estate house of traditional red brick and walked around one of the wings to the green area beyond. If she’d ever experienced true freedom in this place, it had been in the small wilderness beyond the back lawns.
For a moment, as she stood in the silence behind the house, staring out at the green, she could almost hear the sound of her and Pax’s mingled laughter as they chased each other into the trees.
“Theo.”
Unsurprised that her brother had found her so fast, she touched the deep and glossy green leaf of the decorative plant that bordered the path that now cut the lawn in two. “It’s changed a lot.” She hadn’t been back to the family residence for . . . a long time.
“Yes, I suppose so.” A glance over the manicured green with eyes as blue and as cold as her own—neither one of them understood warmth. “I try not to spend much time here.”
She didn’t need to ask why; she knew. The grand old place full of antiques and an endless warren of rooms at their backs wasn’t a home. It held too much poison and dripped too much treachery. “Why did you bring me here?”
“Because you own half of it.”
Theo snorted; she didn’t pretend to be Silent around Pax. He had an excellent idea of exactly how “good” she was at the protocol that had conditioned emotion out of Psy for over a century. “Pax, I know full well that Grandfather left everything to you.” After Theo’s place on the Gradient of Psy power was confirmed, Marshall Hyde had never even publicly acknowledged that he had a granddaughter.
Privately . . . in the darkest shadows, it had been another matter.
He’d had quite the use for Theo there.
“And,” she added before Pax could speak, “I hope to hell you’re not about to saddle me with any of it. You know the entire vicious lot of our ‘beloved’ family would be out for me with knives sharpened.” They had no idea what Theo could do, no reason to believe that she was the more deadly twin—but that didn’t mean she wanted to spend her life looking over her shoulder.