Chapter 14
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The coffee boiled uneasily in Rowan’s stomach as she followed Delgado.
The house was pretty, she supposed, furnished in a kind of impersonal pseudo-Victorian style.
There were some silk plants, but nothing living, and the entire place felt cold and unlived-in despite the overstuffed chairs and attempts at softening with artful drapes and dim light.
In the middle of this, he was the only halfway familiar thing, and oddly enough, it was comforting to have him stalking down the hall in before her, his broad shoulders held absolutely straight and his dark hair precise and neat. Rowan took a deep breath and tried to square her own shoulders.
She was barefoot, her arm hurt, and even though she had probably slept for hours she was still exhausted. She lagged behind, until he looked back over his shoulder and stopped. “Sorry. I forgot, you must be tired.”
“I feel like I’m walking through syrup.” She caught up with him and paused to catch her breath. “This is so strange.”
“It takes a while to get used to.” He glanced at the carpet, as if reminding himself where he was.
“When I got to my first Society safehouse, I couldn’t grasp the freedom bit.
I thought I had to ask permission to do anything.
It took me a long time to figure out I could do what I wanted and I wouldn’t be sent in for punishment. ”
“Punishment?” That doesn’t sound good.
“They don’t do that here.” His jaw set and his eyes glittered.
“Where were you before?” She took a deep breath and looked up at him.
He still wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was examining some spot over her shoulder with a great deal of interest. She glanced back.
There was nothing there but a blank piece of paneled wall.
When she looked back at him, he was looking at the floor again, his eyes hidden.
His mouth was still drawn into a tight line.
Hilary would like him. She has a thing for bad boys.
Then, with a terrible jolt, she remembered Hilary was dead. Her mind returned to that fact, picking at it like a scab. In the confusion of last night, she hadn’t even seen Hilary. A lump rose in her throat, tears pricking hotly behind her eyes.
“I was a Sig,” he said quietly. “So I know. They got me from the Marines and hooked me on Zed. Then they trained me.”
“Zed?”
“A drug. It doesn’t interfere with psionic ability, but it’s extremely addictive and breaks down resistance to electroshock conditioning.”
“Electroshock?” Her jaw dropped. “But that’s—”
“They used a combination of Zed and electroshock as well as physical torture on me. I was resistant, and they wanted what I could do.” He was pale. Was he sweating?
“What can you do?” Fascinated, Rowan moved closer. The hallway was deserted, the air dead and quiet. A scarred faux-marble bust of Octavius in a niche looked over his shoulder.
“A variant of touch telepathy. I can crack a mind like a bank vault and take what I need.” He shrugged. “Useful for intelligence-gathering, especially after Sigma trained me to use it effectively.”
“So why did you leave?” Rowan crossed her arms, cupping her elbows in her hands. The look on his face, flat and unemotional, and the absence of inflection in his voice all screamed trauma to her professional senses.
“Every time they sent me out, I lost a little of my soul.” He stared at the floor. “My handler—they mostly pair psionics with a handler, sort of like a baby-sitter—was a sadistic son of a bitch, played me like a fiddle. He went too far one day.”
“What did he do?” Rowan pitched her voice low, but it was the wrong question. He slanted her an indecipherable look, some life coming back into his face. But he was still pale, and sweat dampened his forehead.
“I’d rather not talk about it. I’ll walk a little slower.” But he didn’t move, and finally looked directly at her. “So I know all about Sigma. Personal experience. I hate the thought of them getting their filthy hands on yo—on anyone else.”
“They sound pretty bad,” Rowan agreed. “They killed my father. Why?”
“I suppose they thought he would be in the way. A psionic with your power… If you had any family left alive, you might have tried to escape to rejoin them, or he might have caused problems by looking for you. Killing your father would neutralize both scenarios. Your friend Hilary was incidental damage—they couldn’t leave any witnesses.
” He shrugged, muscle moving under the T-shirt.
For a moment she was vaguely afraid of how much taller he was—her arm twinged again, reminding her.
She suspected this man could hurt her worse than the man in the parking lot had.
Far worse, and quicker.
“Because they didn’t get me at the Shop’N’Save?” God. What a horrible thing to think.
He was so still she wanted to check him for pulse and respiration. “Maybe. Well, almost certainly. I’m sorry.”
“If they’d kidnapped me then, would my father still be alive?”
“Unless he made trouble,” Delgado replied.
Rowan absorbed this.
“Rowan—” He was about to apologize again, she could tell.
“No,” she said. “Don’t. It’s not your fault.” She took a deep breath and reached up, touched her fingertips to his shoulder.
If she’d thought he was still before, he was absolutely motionless now. He stared at her from under half-lowered eyelids, his dark eyes no longer flat and shuttered but raw and open, begging to be touched. Soothed, just like the patients at the hospital.
But if she did that, they would know she was a freak. And they would… what?
What would happen then?
He was telling the truth. She knew he was; that deep, undeniable knowledge rising from that calm instinctive place that had never let her down. And he was in pain. Just like the patients she worked with. “Justin.” She licked her lips, nervous. “What else did they do to you?”
“We should go find Henderson.” He stepped away; her hand slid from his shoulder. “We’re leaving here in less than twelve hours, so there’s probably chaos down in the comm room. Just stick close to me, okay?”
Rowan nodded. “Okay.” He doesn’t want to be helped. Just like Benny.
The thought of her patients made her heart hurt even more. If he was right, she would never see them again. And she’d been so close to a breakthrough with Siegfried.
I can’t go home. I can’t go to work. I can’t do anything. Rowan’s throat closed. “Justin?”
He froze again, looking down the hall instead of at her.
“Thank you,” she said. “For saving me.”
That earned her a genuine, if somewhat shocked, smile. The smile transformed his face from a harsh mystery into… Well, she found herself smiling back. The expression felt odd on her face, her cheeks aching from crying so much.
“Anytime, Rowan,” he said. “Let’s go. I want you to meet the others. Maybe you’ll find out we’re not all so scary.”
“I don’t think you’re scary.” She followed him down the hall again. He walked a little more slowly, frequently glancing back to see if she was still there.
“Well, then,” he said, and nothing else.