Blood Moons (9 page)

"And why do you think that is?" he asked through clenched teeth.
"Look around you, woman. Rapists. Killers.

Psychopaths. One sick mind next to another in this place,
crammed together like sardines. Have you heard a single sick
thought since you got here?"
He spoke in her mind, knowing full well the guards had plenty of eavesdropping devices in the cells. There were video and audio feeds—not a moment in this prison went by unobserved.

Until now, their conversation might have seemed strange and random to the eavesdroppers, but they would find some way to rationalize it. It wasn't like the prison was filled with titillating discussions of classical literary works. Some craziness was expected. But if one word about telepathy escaped either him or Dara, it would all be over. They'd either spend the rest of their days as lab rats or sedated out of their heads until some judge somewhere decided to grant them a death sentence.

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The first option was a lot more likely. So Tristan carefully selected his words before he spoke, because both of their brains would get fried if he didn't.

Dara wouldn't look at him. He knew she hadn't even thought about it before; that she had simply assumed the thoughts she was hearing and seeing were just more of the usual. The fact that there was a distinct lack of
sickness
in them hadn't even registered in her mind. Until now he'd been willing to let her believe as much. But there came a point when ignorance turned into a hindrance.

"Who do you think has been shielding you from them?
You
certainly couldn't do it."
He leaned forward to stare her down.

"So here's the deal. Either you do as I tell you, when I tell you, or I cut you off and let you deal on your own. Consider carefully, Dara," he warned, "my way might be hard, but it's nothing compared to the alternative." Then, "Chess is not that hard to learn."

The thought of his threat alone terrified her into compliance despite everything, as he knew it would. Dara bit her lip and looked back at the chessboard. It was both the cover and the exercise. They were playing
through
each other. Tristan had the black pieces, but Dara played them, sending him the instructions on the next move telepathically, then moving the white pieces the way he told her to. It was getting progressively harder. Now, Dara had to focus and push past Tristan's shields to make herself heard and put up her own shields to turn down the volume of his voice in her head.

She squared her shoulders and contemplated the board.

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Assured she would finally cooperate, Tristan sat back down.

Dara sighed, resigned to another head-pounding day. She glanced wistfully at the white knight, rook, and three pawns neatly laid out beside the board. He was winning.

Something occurred to Dara. If she couldn't get through his shields, why not go around them? She pictured a closed door in her mind to represent his defenses. A good thief would have lock picks. Dara had nothing but her wits. There was nothing around the door except empty space, so she slipped around it as quickly and quietly as she could and thought him her next move.
"Queen to G5."

Tristan raised an eyebrow in surprise, but though his mouth twitched to smile, he shook his head and made the move she indicated. "Check," he announced.

"Mighty sneaky of you," she noted, not unduly proud of herself.

"Focus," he replied sternly, "it's your move."

Without any other warning, the attack shuddered through her shields.

They held.

Dara focused on not letting him through, even when he intensified the assault until her head felt as if it would implode. Her shields gave way slightly, but not enough to allow communication. She looked at the chessboard, not really seeing it as she massaged her temples again, pressing harder this time to alleviate the pain. The board was her way of grounding herself.

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Then a high-pitched sound pierced her mind and she jerked back on her bunk, hitting her head against the wall.

Her shields shattered, one and all, and she heard the next move.
"Knight to G5."

Dara straightened when the sound faded away and glared at Tristan. She leaned down to move the piece, taking the white queen off the board.

"Good one," he said, his mouth twitching.
"Quid pro quo,
lassie."
The smugness in his mind-voice made her glare. "I thought I had you there."

"Call it divine intervention. My muse kicked me hard this time." She dropped her gaze to the board again. It was either that or throw something at him. Her head was pounding and it was damned difficult to see her next move from the
other
side. She bit back a sigh, resting her chin on her knees. "Your move," she said, closing her eyes. It took a little effort, but she managed it. She looked through his eyes, a ghost in his mind, careful not to make a move or a sound to alert him to her presence. It was a double task—keeping hidden and still managing to do what she was there to do.

Tristan wasn't making it easy. He wasn't even looking at the chessboard, but a place just beyond it, making the pieces out of focus. Was he doing that spacing-out thing again?

The doorway zapped open, startling her. She jumped, both mentally and physically, and Tristan's gaze snapped up to lock with hers. His face was blank, but there was surprise in his eyes. "You—"

"Dara Frost." The man at the door was tall and lanky, his hair slicked back with either gel or grease. Dara didn't want to 81

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guess which. He wore a white coat and was reading something on his electronic notepad, not bothering to look up. "You are reporting to the med lab."

"For what?" she asked, frowning.

The man looked up at her, his dark eyes sharp but uninterested. "No questions. Follow me."

"She's busy," Tristan told him, using his most persuasive glare on the doc. If Dara were in the doctor's place, she would have backed down.

The doc didn't. "Not your call, buddy," he told Tristan flatly. "Miss Frost here is overdue for a physical."

"What physical? I don't need one."

The doctor speared her with his gaze. "Follow. Now. Or I'll call the guards."

"We'll finish the game later," Hunt told her at the same time as he spoke in her mind.
"Just relax. Keep your shields
up. Don't let them see what you know."

"All right." She nodded apprehensively and stood off her bunk. "No cheating."

The doctor turned impatiently and led the way down the catwalk to a corridor. There was an elevator at the end and they took it, going down. The man didn't say a word to her.

He didn't even look at her and Dara was grateful to be ignored. When the elevator door opened, they went down another corridor, this one sporting large glass windows that provided a view into the labs.

They passed five of them. The first two rooms held prisoners seated in odd chairs while doctors stood at their sides and wrote something down. The next two were empty, 82

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immaculately clean and sparkling white. The last one was being cleaned of blood.

Dara looked away hastily, shutting out the sight of it. She resisted the urge to glean information out of the doctor's mind. He'd seen her look inside and was probably thinking both the real explanation and a fake one he'd have rehearsed for just this type of situation—when a prisoner saw something she shouldn't have. People did that often—thought of the things they couldn't say, reminding themselves of the secrets they had to keep.

There was no trace of a body in that lab, so it was probably nothing. But her heart was racing and it was becoming difficult to keep her breathing even. It wasn't nothing.
Something
had happened in there. She didn't want to know what it was, but in this case, not knowing was worse than finding out.

Before she could convince herself to try it, the doctor opened a door and waved her inside. Dara hesitated but one look at the man told her it would be better if she didn't piss him off. She went inside.

He didn't follow her. Instead, the door closed behind her and she was left inside the lab with no supervision or instructions. She wiped her moist palms on her thighs.

"Dara Frost?"

Dara faced the woman at the lighted keyboard to her right.

She was a slight woman, not small, just thin. Her hair was as blonde as Dara's was black and her features were elfin rather than elegant. There was a mischievous spark in her blue eyes that was muted by her glasses and a great deal of 83

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professionalism. She approached Dara with an outstretched hand. "I'm Dr. Amelia Chase," she said with a friendly enough smile.

Still apprehensive, Dara shook the offered hand carefully.

"Why am I here?"

"Please," the doctor said, indicating the chair. "Have a seat; I'll explain everything."

Dara sat, placing her hands on the armrests. They didn't feel right. Everything in the lab looked shiny and new, gleaming clean, but the texture of the armrests was strange.

She pressed her fingers into the material and felt along the grooves. But as soon as she recognized the shape, she snatched her hands away. They were handprints, pressed into the tough material with an incredible force.

Some of her fear must have shown in her face, because the doctor smiled at her reassuringly. "There's no need to worry. This is just a routine physical for our records."

"I already had a physical," Dara told her. "I was scanned just after they sentenced me back on Prime Gama." The public outcry had been too great to hold the trial on Earth.

They'd removed the proceedings from the public's eye and any sympathy votes Dara might have received. Prime Gama was mainly a military base, so anything and everything they did there was apathetic and efficient. She'd been out of there and on her way to New Alaska in a matter of days.

"I know," Dr. Chase replied easily. She made no move to begin the physical while she spoke, giving Dara her full attention. It made her feel like a child, but it was better than having things done to her body without her consent. "But we 84

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don't exactly trust the bureaucrats on Prime Gama. There's a saying among us MDs: if you want practice, go to Earth. If you want the appearance of practice, go to Prime Gama." She grinned then, but Dara didn't get the joke.

"Never mind," the doctor said. "I suppose it's a medical thing. We have better machines here. More precision and accuracy. That's why we examine each person when they arrive."

Dara frowned. The doctor was only telling her half the truth. If what she'd just told her was true, then Dara should have been brought in for a physical a week ago. Facilities as well run as this one did not have such long delays.

The woman seemed to realize that her lie was not very believable—she half-rolled her eyes and shoved her hands into her coat pockets. "The point is, we want to make sure the records we received are accurate. You'd be surprised at the mistakes we've found in the past. One of the men came in with results that said he was genetically a whale at the time the scan was performed. This is just a precaution."

Seeing Dara was not about to say anything, Dr. Chase smiled and went to her computer screen, tapping on it several times to bring up a three-dimensional image of Dara in midair. The likeness was projected between the two of them.

It rotated and changed, displaying the different structures and organs of her body. "Here we go," Dr. Chase said distractedly, looking at the computer screen and not the scan.

Her fingers moved rapidly over two keyboards and she looked at two different screens as she typed.

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Hurry, hurry, hurry. Before it saves.
The stray thought slipped past Dara's shields. "What are you doing?" she asked.

"Modifying the scale and precision of the image," the woman said, sounding as if she had memorized the response from a manual. "Every body is different, so the gradient has to be adjusted."

Dara frowned, getting a sense that the doctor's mind was multitasking.

An alarm beeped and they looked at the scan in unison.

There was a flashing light where her uterus was. Dr. Chase tapped on the screen a couple of times and the scan zoomed in on the area, zeroing in on her ovaries, which now flashed red.

"What's going on?"

The doctor typed in some formulas, then came to Dara and pushed a button on the back of her chair. It shifted and stretched out while it rose, creating a gurney. Another keypad came hovering toward them from the corner of the lab and stopped in front of the doctor. "I'm sure it's nothing. But I still need to check to make sure."

"Make sure of what?"

Dr. Chase spoke as she typed one-handed, passing the keypad over Dara's abdomen. "The chemicals are all in balance, so that's not the problem. Your hormones are working fine..."

"But?" Dara prompted impatiently. The image was still flashing red close by and it frightened her. Was something wrong? She didn't feel anything wrong—and shouldn't she 86

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know these things? Women knew when they were sick, didn't they? "Doctor?"

"I'm afraid there is nothing I can do," Dr. Chase said and pushed the keypad away, allowing it to hover back to its place. She set the seat upright again so that they were face-to-face. "There are no eggs in your ovaries."

Dara reeled. "W-what? How is that possible? Are you sure?" Her head spinning, she grasped the armrests again and this time, her fingers slipped into the large grooves without hesitation. She suddenly wished she could sense something of the person who had made them. In a moment of weakness, she let her shields drop.