Through the Static (14 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Jinx had shown Aurelia the world of static in which he lived with his Three. She'd heard the eerie not-quite-silence, felt the restless anticipation. But it wasn't until that seemingly endless moment as she sat there, staring up at the door in the ceiling he had left her through, that she truly understood. Her ears roared, and time careened over a cliff, without her. An infinite fall.

Alone. In her heart and in her mind, she was alone.

And she was bound on the floor with a member of a Three standing over her, gun drawn.

Sound crashed back over her as the clock in her mind finally hit ground, shattering along with her sense of paralysis. She didn't have time to mourn. Not now. And for all that Jinx's abandonment was a gaping wound in her chest, she wasn't truly alone. She darted her eyes toward Isabel, then looked up at the man lording over them. Cepheus. He'd been one of the ones to pursue her into the forest after his Three had attacked her car, one of the ones she'd leveled with the EMP weapon in her locket. And from the looks of things, he hadn't forgotten it.

He bent to crouch before her, a good meter's worth of distance between his face and her foot. “Such a little thing, for all this trouble. For all this pain.” His brow furrowed. “You almost killed my man Orion, you know.”

She forced her shoulders to stay straight, her face expressionless. Internally, she was just waiting for him to strike.

But he surprised her. Extending his hand toward her mouth, he tilted his head. “You going to be a good girl if I take this off you?”

The diminutive made her chafe, but after considering for a second, she nodded.

“I won't hesitate to put it back. Not a peep.”

The sting of tape peeling back almost broke her resolve to earn his trust. She let out her breath in a rushing exhale through her mouth, stretching her jaw and wishing she could rub her hand over the raw skin around her lips.

“That's better.” Cepheus flashed her a hint of a smile, then balled up the tape and retreated across the room, retrieving one of the stools from the lab area. He hauled it back, positioning it against the wall opposite her and Isabel, between them and the door. And then, to her absolute shock, he leaned into the plaster, tipped his head back and stared off into nothingness.

Aurelia gaped. He wasn't being cruel or taunting. Didn't hurt them any more than he had to. Hell, he smiled.

Had she been wrong about everything when it came to Threes and their humanity?

She shook her head. It wasn't as if his lack of abject cruelty would do anything to help her now. He was still her captor and she was still stuck here while all her research was at risk. While the man she loved was bound by chains even tighter than her own. While the man she loved…wasn't that man at all. And wouldn't be again. Not unless she could set him free.

Unable to move at all with her body, Aurelia reached out with her mind, feeling for the shape of her jailor's. She'd studied Threes at length, learned all the ins and outs of their minds, but at each channel she tried to tap into, she was rebuffed, pushed back by new security protocols. Ones she'd never seen before. Apparently they'd learned something from her papers already.

Isabel shuffled beside her, louder than was necessary. Aurelia could have hit herself, if she'd had her hands free. Of course, it wasn't Cepheus's mind she should be entering. Keeping her gaze trained on the floor in front of her so as not to give herself away, she changed her focus, zeroing in on Isabel's matrix. Only Isabel had always had the highest security of anyone. There was never any chink in her armor. Except—

Except Isabel was
trying
to let Aurelia in. Aurelia homed in on the open channel deep in the other woman's matrix, heart thundering. After tunneling through three layers of pointedly ineffective security, she was almost there. But then a brick wall flew up in front of her in their shared mental space.

She chanced a glance at Isabel only to find the other woman staring straight at her.

“You know his name now,” Isabel whispered.

Oh, yes, she did.

And the wall in front of her was really a door.

Aurelia took the shape of the word
Jack
and twisted it into the encoding only she and Stan and Isabel knew, watching it become a key. And she inserted it into the lock of Isabel's mind.

Instantly, her thoughts were a whirl of questions.
“What happened? Are you all right?”

“I'll be fine,”
Aurelia assured her, even though she wasn't sure yet if that was true.
“They took him back. I knew I should have cut him loose.”
The confessions were pouring out of her now, a deep well of guilt overflowing.
“I could have prevented all of this.”

Earlier, while waiting for Jinx to come around, Aurelia had told Isabel about her debate with herself and about what she'd decided.

“Shh. You did what you thought was right. You weren't even sure if you could set him free. Not safely.”
Isabel was right. Of course she was right.

It didn't ease the lump in her throat.
“But they have him. He never wanted to go back to them. He wanted to be free.”

“He wanted to be bound to you.”

Aurelia looked Isabel in the eye.
“How can you be so calm?”

Isabel's gaze was fierce.
“Because he was stolen from under my nose once. And I'll die before I let it happen again.”

They had so much else to talk about. So much to figure out about how to make this right. But for a moment, Aurelia couldn't help herself. Looking away, she asked,
“He's why, isn't he? I always wondered why. Why you live the way you do.”

“He's why,”
Isabel confirmed. A crackle of static spread across the channel between them.
“He's why I've done everything I have.”

They didn't have to speak to understand that he was the reason they would do whatever they had to, now.

But Aurelia couldn't let the guilt go. Not yet.
“I'm so sorry. You just got him back…”

“And I'll get him back again.”
Her eyes grew distant.
“He's not the son I raised, but that man is in there somewhere. I know it. And we're going to find him.”

“You seem so sure.”

“I have to be.”

Aurelia had ideas for how they could get him back, but each was more terrifying than the last.

Could she, even? Could she let Jinx in that way?

She turned to Isabel, her chest aching with the pain and fear of opening—of letting down the walls she'd spent years constructing. And it was so fitting, that Isabel would be the one she had to ask. After all, she was the one who had taught Aurelia to never let anyone get close to her again.

“Do you trust him?”

As if already knowing what Aurelia was about to propose, Isabel gave a soft, sad smile.
“I think the question is, do you?”

Except it wasn't a question. It wasn't really one at all.

Glancing at Cepheus and listening for any signs of conversation from above, Aurelia sighed.
“This isn't going to be easy. I can't get into anyone's head. And we can't overpower him.”

“No. No, we can't.”
Moving as if to try to scratch her upper back, Isabel shifted forward, leaning deeply away from the wall. At just that moment, the locket around her neck fell out from under the collar of her shirt, and Isabel smirked.
“But the other question is, do you trust
me
?”

Aurelia led up to it in a hundred different ways. She squirmed, wriggling inside her bonds, idly testing knots she knew were secure. Darting her gaze from Cepheus's motionless form to the lab table where her equipment was still laid out and back again, she transcribed her intentions. Isabel, for her part, played her hand equally well. She sat there, near-catatonic. Seemingly indifferent to everything.

Finally, Aurelia cleared her throat. Only once Cepheus glanced over did she speak, though, in tones that were quiet and respectful. “Excuse me.”

The man's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he regarded her, but he let her continue.

“All our equipment is still out. I had delicate experiments running. Please, I just need to clean them up. Put the enzymes into refrigeration.”

He raised one eyebrow. “They've been sitting out for an hour already.”

“I know.” She shifted, projecting anxiety. “I didn't think we'd be sitting here so long. Honestly, I thought we'd be dead by now. But if we're going to live, I'd like my experiments to survive this, too.”

Glancing at the lab bench and back, he asked, “What kinds of experiments?”

The best lie was always half truth. “Since we had Jinx captive, we wanted to look in his head. See how neuro-inhibitors affected his link.”

Just the word neuro-inhibitor had Cepheus sitting up straighter. They were notoriously unstable at room temperatures, and several classes of them were known to interrupt psychic links. With wide eyes trained on her, he tilted his head to the side and raised one finger, his gaze growing distant. The silence dragged on to the point where Aurelia was starting to sweat. But then his attention refocused on them. He straightened his neck and dropped his arm.

His posture radiating tension, he said, “You'll tell me what needs to be done.”

“You want to handle those chemicals?”

“You think we trust you to?”

They sat there, at an impasse. Aurelia barely breathed, crossing her fingers behind her back and silently praying he'd come to the conclusion they hoped he would.

Finally, after another tilt of his head and a squinting of his eyes, he shifted his gaze to Isabel. “You.”

Isabel kept staring forward, unreacting until he prompted her again. When she did lift her head, it was with dull, glazed eyes. “Me?”

So much rode on this moment. On the years Isabel had spent all but off the grid, staying quiet and lying low. Surrounded with security designed to keep anyone from knowing what she was doing and trusting no one. Now Aurelia had to trust her.

“You know about the experiment she was running.”

Isabel shrugged. “The basics.”

“Then you can clean it up.” He rose at the same time he gestured to Isabel. “Stand. And you.” He pointed at Aurelia. “Don't even think about moving.”

Aurelia didn't, though the bubble of anxious excitement in her chest was threatening to burst. Isabel struggled to rise to her feet without the use of her arms, but once she was up, she crossed the distance over to Cepheus without hesitation or eagerness. Her entire being radiated calm. Cepheus untied her wrists with one hand, the other still clenched tight around the handle of his weapon, the muzzle trained on Aurelia, just in case it wasn't clear which one of them he believed to be the threat. Just like they wanted it.

His eyes darting back and forth between the two of them, he gestured with his gun hand toward the lab area. “Go on, then.”

Isabel cast one look back at Aurelia before heading toward the scattered array of vials and syringes and wires spread out across the table. After swallowing hard, Aurelia started giving her superfluous instructions, explaining the procedures Isabel herself had taught her. Isabel went about the work methodically, her hands always in plain view. The entire time, Aurelia was watching carefully, looking for the slightest hint of the signal she was waiting for.

When it came, she was ready.

Isabel dropped a pen. Before it hit the ground, Aurelia had her shields cranked up to high, and she watched without breathing as Isabel took her locket between her forefinger and thumb. Squeezed.

And nothing happened.

Isabel blinked, and Aurelia stared, uncertain what was wrong. She hadn't been ready for this. But then Isabel was in motion, her hand closing around the base of the clunky, ancient microscope on the edge of the lab table. At the same moment, Aurelia laughed out loud, unable to contain her shock. Cepheus's gaze whipped to hers, and Isabel took one lunging step forward before heaving the microscope at his head, connecting with the back of his skull with a
thunk
that reverberated through the room.

Cepheus's knees crunched on the concrete, and Aurelia remembered herself. Reached out. Exploiting the moment of vulnerability, she raced the man's rising tide of unconsciousness, followed one circuit pathway after another into the heart of his mind where she set up a temporary outpost. A ghost in the darkness making the shell look occupied. It wouldn't fool the members of his Three for long, but it would buy them time. Time to get upstairs and get to Jinx. To save him. And to maybe save themselves.

But then Aurelia looked up through Cepheus's eyes to see Isabel standing over him, a scalpel in hand and murder in her eyes. Aurelia barely had to time to anchor the base she'd made inside his matrix before she was back in her own mind, screaming, “No!”

Isabel paused, scalpel pressing to the man's throat. “You know it better than I do. Take out one and we take out the Three.”

“No,” Aurelia gasped. It was irrational how the very idea of it made her skin crawl. “We can't.”

“They have my boy.”

The words clawed at Aurelia's throat, and her eyes stung as she looked at Cepheus's form, laid out and helpless on the floor. He was a person. A man. “What if that
was
your boy?”

Isabel froze. “He's not.”

“But he's someone's. All the stories we were told about who they were…they were lies. He was someone's someone.” The emotion rose even hotter in her chest. Just a few days ago, she would have killed him without hesitation. She would have killed Jinx. “We can't. Not unless it's a last resort.”

Narrowing her gaze, Isabel lifted the blade, putting an inch between steel and skin. “What do you propose?”