Part 11 (2/2)

With each breath came another piece of reason. Both his PsyNet and personal s.h.i.+elding, he saw when he checked on them, were over half-gone. They hadn't collapsed-they had exploded one by one, going outward from his core. Not a fatal failure, three of his outer s.h.i.+elds holding firm . . . but close. Closer than he'd come since he was a child.

A few more minutes and his abilities would've gone rogue.

”This is dangerous.” Sahara came to stand beside him, but she didn't attempt to touch, leaving enough distance between them to prevent accidental contact. ”For both of us.”

Already rebuilding his s.h.i.+elds, Kaleb reached out to grip the iron bars, his arms spread wide. ”You were never at risk.” The obsidian s.h.i.+eld he'd placed around her was impregnable.

That very impermeability was the reason he couldn't go obsidian himself. It would leave him cut off from the data streams of the Net, a deadly blindness. Now, his renewed s.h.i.+elds fractured before reaching maximum strength, Sahara's proximity problematic. Fixing an isolated location in his mind, he said, ”I'll return in an hour,” and teleported out.

SAHARA didn't attempt to stop Kaleb, the glitter of gla.s.s when she turned to look into the living room proof enough of why he needed to distance himself from her. Staring at the sunlight as it was refracted by the shards, creating beauty out of destruction, she leaned her back against the iron bars that encircled the terrace.

”You were never at risk.”

”Wasn't I?” she whispered, thinking of the madness of her surrender. Even after recognizing how far he walked in the darkness, even after hearing the chill inhumanity in his voice, even after seeing the calculation in his gaze before he kissed her, she had given in to the rage of need that lived inside her.

And in him.

Kaleb may have begun the kiss with a calculated motive-but he had been her partner in the madness by the end, his body as aroused as her own, his mind as enslaved as hers. Fingers trembling, she pushed back her hair and took a seat on the lounger, her eyes trained on the smooth wooden planks that made up the terrace. It wasn't healthy, this obsessive need she had for Kaleb, not when her trust in him was born of a past she couldn't consciously remember.

Even more, when she didn't know who she was, who she'd become.

She was still there when Kaleb returned, walking onto the terrace through the doors of his study. It was clear he'd showered, was.h.i.+ng off the blood and sweat both. His hair was in place, his suit pants a crisp black, the same color as the silk tie at his throat, a fresh white s.h.i.+rt covering his upper body. He hadn't folded back the sleeves as he often did at home. Instead, cuff links glinted at his wrists.

The mask was back in place.

”I've organized damage repair,” he said to her, sliding his hands into the pockets of his pants. ”I'll need to relocate you for a few hours tomorrow to give the human crew time to get the work done.”

Sahara, her body in a kind of shock at the rawness of what had pa.s.sed, tried to find some hint of the same in Kaleb and failed. ”Aren't you afraid they'll sell information about your home?”

”No.” It was said with the brutal confidence of a man who knew he scared people far more than could be alleviated by any monetary incentive.

The tiny hairs on her arms rose in s.h.i.+vering warning, though the sun shone overhead. ”I can't think here,” she said, the glinting shards of gla.s.s continuing to catch her eye, the bars around the terrace suddenly stifling. ”The beach. Will you take me to the beach?”

She kicked off her shoes the instant they arrived at the isolated stretch of water, the endless horizon unlocking the chains around her ribs. Sucking in gulps of the sea air, she rolled up her jeans and waded into the shallows, her thoughts calming and settling with each lap of the waves against her s.h.i.+ns. It was a long time later, her decision made, that she came to sit beside him on the sun-warmed sand, taking care to make certain their bodies didn't touch.

As she'd learned in the house, the ice that encased Kaleb wasn't indestructible. And if he crashed through it again, she'd fall with him. Regardless of her reasoned, rational thoughts, one thing she'd accepted as she stood in the water: Kaleb was an addiction so visceral, she could never hope to control it. Not while the past that connected them remained a smudged mirage.

”I want to ask you for something,” she said quietly. ”But first, I need you to tell me what's happening in the PsyNet.” It was critical she have that information if she was to enter the psychic network on her own in the near future.

KALEB had been primed to deal with the fallout from his significant loss of control, but this was one question he hadn't expected. However, he didn't even consider s.h.i.+elding her from the truth. Sahara's strength was indisputable-she had survived seven years of captivity and, before that, she'd survived a monster and his apprentice.

”It's being attacked on two fronts,” he said, the walls of his mind scrolling with images of a chipped blade as it sank into soft feminine flesh. ”Pure Psy is the first and obvious aggressor, but the more dangerous one, long term, is a disease that's causing the psychic fabric of the Net to rot and die.”

Seeing her interest, he gave her the full details, before adding, ”In a Psy host, infection leads to mental degradation, including outbreaks of violence and, eventually, death.”

Expressive, her face hid nothing as she worked through the ramifications. ”It's us,” she said, her intelligence as acute as it had always been. ”The Net is created out of the minds of our race, and we're broken on a fundamental level.” Sadness lingered in the midnight blue. ”If it's a Netwide problem, it must be manifesting in more subtle ways even in areas that appear free of infection.”

She had understood in a single minute what others had not seen after months of exposure, even people who should know better. ”There are those who are becoming more and more innocent”-almost childlike-”while others are turning twisted and dark to the extent that their future rampages will eclipse the insanity and serial killing that made Silence seem the better choice.”

Sahara hugged her arms around her raised knees. ”That's bad, but not as bad as what the infection is doing to the psychic fabric of the Net.”

Kaleb said nothing, his attention on the scent of her hair as the wind swept the strands across her face and over his arm.

”If the rot creates enough points of weakness,” she whispered, ”the Net will fragment and eventually collapse. Everyone will die.”

”It won't fragment, won't collapse.” If it did, Sahara would die and that was unacceptable. ”I have the power to ensure it maintains its integrity.”

Sahara had already begun to understand what drove Kaleb. ”You plan to seize total control.” She knew she should be horrified-Kaleb was an avatar of darkness, in no way the right man to trust with the fate of an entire people. But she couldn't argue with his reasoning; his power was vast. He might be the only one capable of saving their race from the day of reckoning coming ever nearer with every infection, every inch of rot. ”What will you do with it?”

”That has yet to be decided.”

Beads of cold sweat rolled down her spine, and suddenly the declaration of possession she'd taken as a sign of an obsession that could entomb them both in black ice was something else altogether. ”That's why you want me, isn't it?” she said, her pain so deep, it had no name, no ending. ”You know what I can do.”

Kaleb stared out over the water, his profile limned by the sun. ”I've always known what you could do.” Had been aware of the vast potential locked within her slender frame since she was a child. ”I won't use you or hurt you.” The promise was one he'd made long ago, one she could no longer remember . . . though she'd kept her own promise.

Sahara had no comprehension of the power she wielded, of the empires he'd destroy for her, the blood he'd spill. All she saw was the monster he'd become. ”I would never hurt you.” Every man had a breaking point, and Sahara was his-and though he knew his declaration to be the wrong move on the chessboard, her trust in him wavering, he could no longer stand the wariness of her.

Sahara's eyes were of infinite depth when she looked at him, the clarity of her gaze seeming to strip away the mask until she saw the ugly truth of his becoming. ”I want to go home,” she said, ”to Tahoe. To my father.”

Every muscle in his body went rigid. ”I've told you, you belong to me.” She was the only person in the world who did, and he would never surrender his claim.

Not unless and until she did the one thing that would forever separate them.

”You also promised me you'd never hurt me.” It was a quiet reminder of the vow he'd just remade. ”This-us-I'm being subsumed in it.” Acrid fear, the line of her jaw taut as she turned her gaze to the water. ”I can't become who I'm meant to be in your shadow. I'm afraid of waking up one day and finding there's nothing left inside me but this furious need for you that wrenches away my sanity.”

The cold void in him, the part that spoke to the DarkMind and found satisfaction in Tatiana's terror, saw in her confession-in the memory of the way she'd held him to her, both of them out of control-a submission that gave him the power to bend her to his will. If he held her long enough, Sahara would be his in every way. But even the part that was the void, merciless and without conscience, knew one thing: the woman who remained would no longer be Sahara, her murder a quiet suffocation.

”There is no guarantee NightStar will be safe for you,” he said, the waves cras.h.i.+ng to sh.o.r.e with increasing force as his telekinesis threatened to slip its bonds. ”You had your suspicions about what they did to Faith.”

”My father, I remember him now.” She blinked against the spray of a wave that slammed to the sand with enough force to reach them both. ”He's not just a name, was never just a genetic donor. He would've missed me.”

Seeing the flecks of water on his s.h.i.+rt, Kaleb was reminded of the shards of gla.s.s that carpeted the living room. ”Your father is Silent.” As he spoke, he switched on the dissonance at the highest level, wracking his body with a nerve-shredding pain that he bore in expressionless quiet. He could not risk losing lethal control while Sahara sat next to him, asking to walk away. The pain itself did nothing to halt the Tk-no, it was simply a reminder that he could never, ever let go.

If he struck out and ended her, he would become a nightmare in truth.

”He might be Silent,” Sahara said, her mind filled with images of a big man who had picked her up and dusted her off after countless childhood accidents, ”but I was more to him than a biological legacy.” In front of her, the waves remained aggressive but no longer violent, and she knew the Tk beside her had found the black ice again. Pa.s.sionate anger bubbled below her skin, her hatred directed at the very remoteness that might make him open to reason.

”My father treated me with care”-she tightened her grip around her own wrists to stop from reaching for Kaleb-”even when my only known gift was backsight at a level far below my standing on the Gradient. He never once made me feel as if I were a disappointment. My whole life, I knew I was important to him.”

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