Closed Hearts (18 page)

Julian’s jaw worked. “That was not part of our agreement.”

“She’s key to the plan, and she needs to see it through. If you weren’t so soft, Julian, you’d see it my way.” Molloy’s voice turned grave. “And watch your back. She’ll betray you in a heartbeat. She left the last one bleeding in the desert to die. Don’t think she won’t do the same to you as soon as she has the chance. Don’t trust her.”

“It’s my business who I trust,” Julian said. “Right now, I’m not too fond of your methods, Mr. Molloy.”

“Whether you’re fond of them or not,” Molloy said, “she’ll not be getting her pet back until she finishes the job. A little extra motivation to keep her focused. You can thank me later, once your sister is free.”

My stomach knotted into an icy ball. I wanted to grab the phone from Julian and demand that Molloy release Raf immediately. The only thing that stopped me was knowing it would do absolutely no good and might trigger something worse. Molloy would be happy to kill Raf. More than happy, he would delight in making it painful. Julian briefly closed his eyes, then gave me a strained look that told me he knew it too.

My hands shook. “Julian, please…” My words were barely a whisper.
Please stop him. Please make him give Raf back to me.

Julian held his finger up and turned back to Molloy. “You will not hurt him.” It was a statement and a threat.

“Won’t harm a hair on his pretty head,” Molloy said. “As long as Kira does her part and brings my brother back out of that horror chamber of Kestrel’s.”

“Take care that you don’t,” Julian said very slowly. “Because if the reader is harmed, you will have me to answer to. Are we clear, Mr. Molloy?”

“Aye,” Molloy said. “Right as rain.”

The floating image of Molloy disappeared. My chest ached and I realized I had stopped breathing. I sucked in a quick breath.

Julian frowned at the now-blank phone, then looked to me. “Seems like we have some planning to do.”

“Can’t we just find Molloy?” I was unabashedly pleading with Julian as he eased next to me on the couch. “Force him to give Raf back? If you all helped me…” I looked around, hoping I had earned some goodwill in helping get the mages out of prison. Ava wrung her hands, and Sasha examined me with his dark eyes, like this was a test. Hinckley studied his fingernails.

“It’s not that we don’t want to help you, keeper.” Julian chose his words carefully, like he was treading a word minefield. “But we have no idea where Molloy is, and I don’t think he’s a patient man. In spite of his apparent lack of love for you, he’s not going to hurt your friend as long as he thinks you’ll return with his brother. If we go after Molloy, and he finds out…”

I sagged into the back of the couch. “He would have nothing to lose by killing Raf.”

“Precisely.” He paused. “The sooner we get in and out of Kestrel’s facility, the sooner we get your reader friend back.”

They were all staring at me now, waiting.

My stomach twisted in knots. Breaking into Kestrel’s facility was like rushing into a burning house to rescue Raf, and Julian didn’t even have to handle my protective instinct to get me to do it. Molloy did that just fine by glazing Raf’s eyes while we were on the phone. Thinking about that made a scream start to crawl up my throat, so I took a breath and locked that image of Raf away.

“Well.” I struggled to push up from the too-soft couch. “I guess we better do this.”

Julian’s lips drew into a tight line, but he rose up and crossed to a kitchen cabinet. Sasha stopped Julian as he drew out a flex scroll, and they exchanged a silent mental conversation. When Sasha let him go, Julian brought the scroll to the kitchen table, where he spread it out and tapped the corner. A map sprang to life and floated above it. Hinckley watched us with his feet propped up on the table.

“I think we should move our plans up,” Julian said, “given the urgency of our situation. Instead of waiting until Monday, I think we can do it today. There will be less city traffic on a Saturday, possibly less staff in the demens ward, and less chance for things to go wrong.”

Julian mentally nudged the interactive map and it zoomed out to reveal a good fraction of the city and Lake Michigan. “According to Mr. Molloy, Kestrel’s facility is masquerading as a demens treatment facility downtown, near the lake.” He zoomed in again. “The Chicago Lakeshore Hospital is, in fact, a containment center for the demens, but our surveillance shows that Kestrel’s incorporated these three buildings into a compound.” Julian drew a red circle with his finger around the three buildings, then swiped it away. “There are no weapons detectors at the main gate, just a single mindreading guard, but there’s a shield in place, and the gate is controlled from the inside.”

“So how do we do this?” I asked. “Scale the wall?”

“In theory, you could climb the wall,” said Julian. “The disruptor field around the perimeter won’t conduct into your mind with a simple touch, but after a while the charge builds up and that makes it difficult to have long-term interactions with the wall without losing orientation.”

“Or throwing up,” Ava said. She scooted the map aside and placed two plates of sandwiches next to Julian and me. “Guess who got to test that part?”

“You volunteered!” said Julian.

Ava grinned. “I thought you guys were just being pansies.”

I contemplated the peanut butter and honey sandwich Ava had made for me. My stomach still twisted with the idea of Raf in Molloy’s hands, not to mention the thought of breaking into Kestrel’s facility. I decided not to chance lunch.

Julian ignored his sandwich as well. Hinckley leaned over to swipe it off his plate.

“In addition to the shield,” Julian said, “there’s an electrical field sitting on top of the wall like invisible razor wire. The compound is dressed up like a mental facility, but it’s definitely a prison. No, you’ll be going in the front gate.”

“Are you sure this is Kestrel’s facility?” I asked. “Because I’d rather not just go on Molloy’s word, if you don’t mind.”

Julian looked up from the map. “There’s not much love lost between you, is there?” he said. “What truly happened in that prison camp, keeper?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s between him and me.”

He fixed me with those unnerving clear blue eyes. “I’d rather know a bit more about it,” he said. “If you don’t mind.”

I crossed my arms, not really wanting to tell Julian the whole story, especially given that I had completely betrayed Molloy. So, keep it simple.

“I was trying to escape the camp. Molloy sent someone with me, a boy.” I stopped. I hadn’t talked about Simon in so long, I was surprised how the words seemed to stick in my throat. “He ran out to distract the guards and their sniper rifles, to give me a chance to escape. I made it, he didn’t. Molloy thinks it should have been the other way around. That’s all there is to it.” I unfolded my arms and pretended to study the map, so Julian wouldn’t see the tears welling up in my eyes. I cleared my throat. “Are we going to do this, or what?”

Julian placed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “Can I trust you, keeper?”

I met his stare, but looking up only caused the tears to race down my cheeks. “You should trust that I will do what it takes to get Raf back alive.”

Julian eased back and nodded.

I wiped my face. “Which brings me back to my point. How do we know Kestrel’s even in there? Or that he has Molloy’s brother?” That was the prize I had to get, to save Raf, and I was keeping my eye on it. Although Julian was right about getting the changelings out and making Kestrel pay for everything he had done. As long as I was going in anyway, that was unfinished business I needed to make right. I wasn’t so sure about letting the rest of the jackers go, but Julian was probably right about that too—no one deserved to be tormented by Kestrel’s needles.

“We have surveillance set up across the street, monitoring the entrance,” Julian said. “Hinckley will review the surveillance files to make sure he’s inside.” He nodded to Hinckley, who pointed to the half-eaten sandwich in his hand. Julian jerked his head to the back, and Hinckley reluctantly heaved himself up from the table and clumped toward the racks.

“Do we have any idea of the security on the inside?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Julian said. “The shield extends above the wall and keeps us from getting a good look inside. If it weren’t for that, Ava could peek on it from here, if she stretched.”

“Tried,” she called from the couch, where she and Sasha were eating their lunch.

“So we’re going in blind,” I said. “Fantastic. I don’t suppose you have more of those butterflies lying around? I promised myself if I ever broke into another jacker prison, I would bring more than just my wits. A dart gun would be even better.”

Julian’s grin grew wide. “We definitely have weapons for you, keeper.” He strolled to a low kitchen cabinet. Instead of pots and pans, it was stocked with guns, all shiny, black, and dangerous-looking. He brought back a flat paper box, which he gently set on the table, and a miniature gun that he placed in my hand.

“You’re kidding, right?” It was surprisingly heavy.

“It’s a fast-acting dart gun with four rounds, effective at more than one hundred meters,” he said. “You should be able to keep it hidden under your clothes, unless you’re patted down. Or did you want a more deadly weapon?”

It felt cold and plenty deadly in my hand. Anything more and I wasn’t sure I would be able to pull the trigger. “I think I can take Kestrel with a dart gun.” With a twinge, I realized I was looking forward to shooting him again.

“If you can get a shot,” Julian said quietly, “that will work. But if not, I have a present I’ve saved just for Kestrel.” He lifted the lid of the slender box to show me three tiny, silver bullets inside. The metal of the bullets looked wrinkled and delicate, almost like foil.

“You want me to shoot Kestrel with aluminum-foil bullets?”

A mischievous smile snuck onto Julian’s face. “These aren’t bullets.” I poked a finger into the box to see if they were as flimsy as they looked, but Julian slid it out of reach. “I wouldn’t touch, if I were you. They’re not that sensitive, but I wouldn’t like to waste one blowing up our minds.”

“What?” I snatched my hand away. “Are they miniature bombs?”

“I call them thought grenades,” he said. “They’re not bombs, except to the unfortunate jackers who happen to be in their path.”

“They only work on jackers?”

He nodded. “They have the same technology that the butterflies do, only they emit an electromagnetic pulse that wipes the mind of any jacker caught in its wave.”

I leaned back.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s just temporary and they have to be crushed to be activated.”

“Crushed?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound like a very good grenade. I mean, won’t it blow up the mind of the person crushing it?”

“Yes,” he said, leveling a stare at me. “Unless, of course, you’re a reader. Or a jacker whose mind is impenetrable to normal jacker mind fields.”

I gulped.

“The plan is for you to get close to Kestrel and use this on him,” Julian said. “It’s a weapon he wouldn’t expect, even if you’re caught. And you alone will be unaffected by it.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Anna tested one and said that she was able to endure it.”

“Endure it?”

“It’s not without side effects.” He shrugged. “I only have three, and those were very expensive to obtain, so I’d rather not test it again. Plus, we don’t have time for you to recover if we’re going to get this operation done quickly.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t sure if not testing the thought grenades was a good thing or a bad thing, but I wasn’t exactly eager to try them out.

“You’ll have to get close to Kestrel before you use it on him.”

“Will it hurt?” I asked. “Kestrel, I mean. Will the thought grenade hurt him? I kind of want it to.”

“Yes, it hurts,” Julian said with a laugh. “But not enough for what Kestrel deserves. Which is why I want Sasha to have a few minutes alone with him.” Julian slid a look to Sasha, who met his stare from the couch and nodded.

How long would it take Sasha? A minute? Two? Then the Kestrel that I knew and loathed would be gone. Not dead, just… gone. My skin prickled with the idea, even though there was no doubt Kestrel deserved it.

“So, how do I get in?” I asked.

“Hinckley will make you a badge.” Julian tapped the flex scroll and it popped up an image of a girl who looked like him. She had the same creamy brown skin, and her blue eyes were unmistakably Julian’s. Her face was framed with a badge stamped
Chicago Lakeshore Hospital
. “Anna planned to be our Trojan horse, but you’ll take her place.”

“I still can’t believe you were going to send your sister in there.”

“It was actually her plan.” His eyes lit up. “She hacked the facial thermography system at the gate, but she knew that navigating the security inside would be difficult without reliable intelligence. Which is why she planned on getting caught.”

“What?” Getting caught was
not
part of my plan.

“That way she could get close to Kestrel.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I don’t plan to get caught.”