A happy, cosseted pet, just like the others.
Maya shivered. “After Birgitte told me that most data couriers break under the strain eventually, I always figured everything they told us was true, more or less. They wanted to preserve our usefulness for as long as possible, and what’s the point of teaching us things that will just clutter up our brain and use it up that much faster?”
Exhaling shakily, she admitted the thing Nina knew, the thing that lurked in silence between them every time Maya came downstairs with shadows beneath her eyes from another sleepless night. “I’ve been holding on so tight. Walking this damn tightrope … Trying not to burn out, trying to stay in control. But I want to live, Nina. And sometimes it feels like holding it all in hurts more than the world ever could.”
“Ah. You know, there’s something Knox told me—about when we met.” Nina shifted position, crossing her legs and taking Maya’s hand in hers. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he’s a terrible liar. Just abysmal.”
Maya fought a smile. “I think we’ve all noticed.”
“Exactly. But he still had to convince us to walk into a trap. He said Rafe coached him, and his biggest piece of advice was to lie with the truth.” Nina squeezed her hand. “Misrepresentation, Maya. For you, control likely is super important. But there’s more than one way to have control over yourself and over your abilities.”
Maya gripped Nina’s hand like a lifeline. Rely on the things you know to be true.
She knew Birgitte was a skilled, efficient liar.
She knew Birgitte would have done anything to protect her rebellion. Not needlessly or cruelly. She had been neither of those things. But ruthless? Willing to sacrifice her own happiness and well-being, and Maya’s, if it advanced her goal?
In a heartbeat.
Maya knew some nights she climbed into bed and dug furrows into her palms with her fingernails as the ghosts of other people’s words chased themselves around the inside of her skull in an incoherent Möbius strip of overlapping voices.
She knew some nights a listless nervousness drove her from bed in search of anything that would soothe that intangible itch inside her head. She’d pick up tasks and discard them, unable to focus long enough to find a cure for her restlessness.
She knew that it wasn’t getting better. But it wasn’t getting worse, either. And if being out in the Big Bad World was going to crack her head like an egg, wouldn’t it have happened by now?
That, she didn’t know.
“I have to throw it all out, don’t I?” She glanced at Nina. “Everything the TechCorps told me. Everything Birgitte told me. All of it.”
“Not all of what they told you is false,” Nina answered matter-of-factly. “But it’s all unreliable. Every goddamn word.”
It was almost as freeing as the moment in the warehouse. Maya tilted her head back and closed her eyes. “So … I guess I just start flexing my brain and see what happens, huh?”
“And remember—” Nina’s hand closed around hers again. “We’re all here for you, no matter what.”
“You always are.” Maya smiled gently. “And speaking of no matter what … How’s Knox doing? Did y’all get Mace settled in?”
“He’s next door, in a secure place. Knox is staying over there with him tonight.”
Maya trusted that Conall had blocked any potential signals from trackers, but she couldn’t stop from shifting nervously as her gaze drifted back to the Hill. In one of those shining buildings, Tobias Richter was sitting at his desk, no doubt gleeful at the knowledge he’d unleashed the cruelest weapon imaginable on the man who had escaped his grasp.
“Just answer the question, Marjorie, and this will all stop.”
Ice trickled down her spine as Maya scrambled to fill her mind with the music from Convergence. Or some nice, vacant FlowMac Pop. Anything but his voice.
When that didn’t work, she grasped for a distraction. “Does he seem … okay? Mace, I mean. Because he was their medic, right? A TechCorps-trained doctor. And if anyone can help Gray…”
“Honestly?” Nina exhaled sharply. “I don’t know yet. We have no idea what he’s been through, but he was almost certainly tortured. He may never be okay again. But I have to hope. For Knox’s sake.”
Wrong distraction. The memory surged like a rogue wave threatening to sweep her under. Rope bit into the already-raw skin at her wrists. Crueler than the plastic zip ties somehow as the rough abrasion pushed her toward sensory overload. She tasted blood. Just a little—Richter hadn’t dared do more than backhand her once, barely hard enough to split her lip. But the metallic scent of it overwhelmed her. Not her blood.
His.
Maya stumbled to her feet, locking her hands around the metal railing on the walkway. It bit into her palms, grounding her. She dragged in a breath, as deep as she could, and there was no blood, no sterile air cooled by the air-conditioning. Just a muggy Atlanta night, the air perfumed by the honeysuckle climbing up alongside the kudzu.
Nina didn’t touch her, but Maya could feel the hand hovering just shy of her back. “Maya?”
Another breath. A third. Maya managed to form words. “Are you up for some late-night training?”
A hesitation, then Nina relented. “Sure. Pick your poison.”
Maya pushed upright and managed a smile. “Hand-to-hand. Rafe’s taught me some new tricks. I might surprise you.”
Nina’s smile was readier, brighter. “I welcome the challenge.”
She needed to move. Sweat. She needed to feel strong enough to face any ghosts that showed up. After all, Tobias Richter was the monster from her nightmares …
But he was just a man. A human. No special abilities, no inherent strength. Take him off the Hill, where he had power, and he was just another bully.
And she wasn’t a scared little girl anymore.
TECHCORPS INTERNAL EXECUTIVE COMMUNICATION
From: JOHNSON, J
To: RICHTER, T
Date: 2066–07–03
Why the hell did you let Skovgaard lay four fucking years of paper trail on this guy? Your tamed killer snapped, and now we have an entire Protectorate squad that was massacred by one of their own, two dozen civilian bodies to explain, and the VP of R&D is burying her favorite grandson tomorrow.
Someone is going down for this. You’d best decide quickly who it’s going to be.
From: RICHTER, T
To: JOHNSON, J
Date: 2066–07–03
It’s being taken care of.
THIRTEEN
Mace was in the kitchen.
More precisely, he was sitting at the ladies’ dining table, a steaming mug in front of him. Gray paused in the back doorway, struck by how fucking normal a picture he presented.
Nothing had been normal about Mace since his miraculous return from the dead. He wouldn’t sleep in the warehouse, barracks-style, with the rest of the Devils. He’d insisted on being separated, so Knox had given him the one private room they’d already finished. It had been meant for Knox, but seeing as how he spent most of his nights in Nina’s bed, he’d been more than willing to give it up.
He’d drawn the line at locking Mace in, however. And no amount of argument from their recently resurrected medic had been able to change his mind on that subject.