Unforgettable (Talented Saga #6) (25 page)

“
I know it’s hard, Tals,
but you need to take your emotions out of the equation.”

Along with his words, Erik sent calm,
tranquil thoughts meant to cool my temper like a light breeze on a
scorching summer day.

“
Look at the situation
through a dispassionate lens,”
he
continued.
“You’ll see that this is our
only option. Believe me, I hate the thought of leaving anyone
behind just as much as you do. But you can’t buy every single
person that comes up for auction without drawing a lot of unwanted
attention, which would defeat the purpose of going in undercover.
I’m not even sure that you’ll be able to buy all of the Created
without arousing suspicion.

“
Just do me a favor, Tals.
Instead of focusing on the ‘leaving-people-behind-part’, try to
think of it like this: by rescuing the Created, you are going to
save
everyone
in
the long run.”

“
So the ends justify the
means, is that what you’re saying?”
I sent
back warily.

On principle, I hated that argument.
It was one of Mac’s favorites. In fact, it was the philosophy on
which he based every ethically-unsound decision he’d
made.

“
In this case, they really
do, Tals,”
Erik replied, cringing when
Mac’s name popped into my head.

“
Talia?” Victoria prompted.
Her impatience was showing, but she still sounded concerned, in
deference to the tough situation she was laying out for me.
Victoria truly seemed to understand how difficult it was for me to
agree with the council’s decision. “I need to know you’re onboard
with us. That you will do things this way, not because it’s right,
but because it’s necessary. Do we have an
understanding?”

“
Yes, Victoria,” I said,
with a heavy sigh.

Relief was evident in her voice when
she spoke again.

“
Good. The invitations that
correspond to each of your false identities are on the way now.
Meet with Agent Canary and her team, finalize as many details as
possible, and stay close to your communicator. Erik, I will see you
shortly at the briefing. If you haven’t looked at your own comm
unit lately, we are having a tactical meeting in the conference
room in forty minutes.”

“
Got it,” Erik replied.
“I’ll be there.”

Victoria ended the communication
without another word.

Even though I knew that we needed to
get moving, I leaned my head against Erik’s bare shoulder. He ran
his hand up and down my arm to ward off the chill Victoria’s orders
had left. We stayed like that for a long time, cuddled together on
a ridiculous four-poster bed from another century, lost in our own
thoughts and upcoming duties.

“
We should get dressed, go
wake the others,” Erik finally said in a gentle voice.

“
I don’t like this, Erik,”
I whispered, needing to give voice to my protest one last time.
“It’s not right. Leaving the Talented behind is not
right.”

Even though we’d already been over
this, Erik indulged my need to vent. Getting it all out of my
system before I met up with the others was imperative. One of my
strongest gifts was the ability to project my thoughts and feelings
onto others. It was something that I did without ever intending to.
My emotions were, literally, infectious. Especially when I felt
something strongly, like the guilt and dread and rage I was
experiencing just then.

“
I agree with you, Tals,”
Erik soothed, rubbing small circles at the small of my back. “But
they will try to make more Talents out of normal humans. Most won’t
be able to handle it. A lot of them won’t survive the
transition.”

“
I guess,” I grumbled.
“It’s a bad sign when you’re the reasonable one.”

Erik scoffed, though I felt his relief
when I seemed to accept the reality of the situation.

“
You wound me, Tals.
Reasonable is my middle name.”

I tilted my head and trailed kisses up
Erik’s neck. He closed his eyes and groaned softly. When my mouth
was right next to his ear, I whispered softly.

“
Get over it, Erik
Reasonable Kelley.”

Erik laughed, the sound deep and rich
in his chest and I wanted to stay there, in that carefree moment,
forever. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t have chosen to, even if it was an
option. I had work to do. Kenly needed me. The other Created
captives needed me.

I kissed Erik on the soft spot right
behind his ear, something I knew he liked.

“
Don’t start something you
can’t finish,” he warned, pulling me onto his lap.

“
Well, in that case, this
is your last kiss,” I said and brushed my lips across his. “I need
a shower.”

Untangling myself from both Erik and
the sheets, I climbed out of bed and headed towards the
bathroom.

“
Want company?”
Erik sent from the bed, a colorful sequence of
contortionist-worthy maneuvers accompanying his offer.

I turned and shot him a wry smile over
my shoulder.

“
You’re not that
flexible.”

Erik’s reflexes were so fast that I
never even saw the pillow until it bounced off of my nose. Using
telekinesis, I returned fire, drowning Erik in a sea of decorative
pillows.

“
Tease!” he called out,
voice muffled by the mountain of fluff.

“
You love it,” I shot back
and felt, rather than saw, Erik’s grin.

AN IMPRESSIVE
BREAKFAST
spread was already on the side
serving table when I arrived in the formal dining room twenty
minutes later. Erik was on his way to the conference room, and a
silly, sappy part of me missed him already. Agent Canary sat alone
at the massive dining table, shoveling fried tomatoes drenched in
hollandaise into her mouth and reviewing the latest intel on her
communicator.

“
Morning, Lyons,” she
greeted me, and then washed down her latest forkful of culinary
delights with a large glass of cranberry juice.

“
Good morning, Agent
Canary,” I replied, swiping a strawberry muffin from the serving
table.

“
Talk to Walburton?” Agent
Canary asked.

Catherine Canary was a simple, no
nonsense woman. She didn’t wear makeup, ever. Her everyday clothes
were a casual version of her work clothes. Her heels never exceeded
a half-inch, the black leather always perfectly polished. Her pale
blonde hair, cut short in a pixie-style, looked exactly the same
every day. I often wondered if she paid daily visits to the salon
on Eden for a trim, or if her hair simply didn’t grow. All in all,
she personified minimalism.

Even more so than her appearance,
Catherine’s austere personality really came through in the way she
spoke—using the absolute fewest words possible to get her point
across. Next to her, even the shyest person seemed like a
chatterbox.

“
I spoke to Victoria about
half an hour ago,” I replied, sliding into a chair across the table
from Catherine. “You?”

Agent Canary shook her head and poured
coffee from a steel carafe into her mug. The rich, bitter aroma
made my mouth water and my fingers twitch with the need for a
caffeine fix. Catherine held out the carafe in my direction, thin
eyebrows arched in a silent question.

“
Yes, please. Thank you,” I
said, and she poured steaming liquid into another mug for me.
Adding copious amounts of cream and three heaping spoonfuls of raw
sugar, I savored the first sip of the concoction.
Delicious.

“
How do you want to run
this briefing?” I asked my co-manager, peeling the paper back on my
muffin

“
Run through blueprints.
Cover legend quizzes. You?”

It always took my brain a minute to
process the meaning behind her words.

“
Yeah, that sounds good to
me. Did you get the surveillance footage from the drones? That will
be very useful, I think.”

Catherine nodded, which I took to mean
that she both had received the footage and agreed it was
useful.

The other members of our respective
teams began to trickle in just then. Blurry eyed and half awake,
they piled food on to plates before joining Catherine and me at the
table. Few besides Catherine appeared actually to have an appetite,
myself included. There was a long period of awkward quiet as people
pushed the meals around while we waited for everyone to arrive.
Instead of consuming my muffin, I pinched off small pieces and
rolled the sweet bread between my thumb and forefinger until it
formed a ball. By the time my first cup of coffee was gone, there
were enough tiny dough balls to form a frowny face. While neither a
productive use of my time nor a mature act, the food picture did
accurately reflect my mood.

Penny and Brand were the last to turn
up. My best friend was incredibly skilled at masking her emotions
internally, but her bloodshot eyes and reddened nose told me that
she was upset. Absently, she sat in the chair next to mine and
stared straight ahead, pupils dilated and unfocused. Careful not to
startle her, I put a gentle hand on Penny’s shoulder. My touch went
unanswered.

“
Penny? You okay?”
I sent warily.

No reply.

“
Now that everyone is here,
Lyons and I want you to study your cover identities and learn
everything about them…”

Canary was still talking, but Penny
had my full attention.

Brand set rye toast and
eggs down in front of her, then claimed the chair on Penny’s other
side. I caught his eye and raised my brows, as if to ask,
“What’s going on?”
Had
it been anyone besides Brand I would have spoken inside his head,
but Penny’s boyfriend and I didn’t have that type of relationship.
Numerous times in our acquaintance Brand had strictly forbid me
from ever invading his mind. As if that was enough to stop me from
taking an occasional peek.

“
She had a rough night,”
Brand mumbled under his breath, voice pitched low for my ears
only.

“
What happened?” I asked,
matching Brand’s quiet tone.

All around us, the agents were busy
quizzing each other on their cover legends and going over all
points of ingress and egress from the auction house. No one was
eavesdropping on our conversation.

“
Night terrors. She had an
episode around midnight. I gave her a sedative, but it didn’t seem
to help,” Brand replied, green eyes clouded with
concern.

Penny’s “episodes” were distressing to
watch. Lapsing into a catatonic state, she became unresponsive and
rocked back and forth in place, as if under a spell. Tears poured
down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem to notice. Sometimes she’d
scrunch up her face like she was in pain. Or open her mouth to
scream, but no sound came out. Other times, her body would contort
into awkward, uncomfortable looking positions that she was
incapable of performing under ordinary circumstances. It was all
after-effects of the torture, her mind reliving the
trauma.

Thankfully, Penny never remembered the
episodes. I’d searched her mind to make sure that was actually the
case, and she hadn’t simply repressed the too-painful memories.
From the moment an episode began to the moment it ended was a black
hole in the timeline of Penny’s life.

Brand and I almost never agreed on
anything, if only because neither of us was willing to admit the
other was right on even the most trivial of matters. Except when it
came to Penny. Brand loved my best friend just as much as I did,
albeit in a different way. His protectiveness over her mirrored my
own.

So when Brand said, “I think it would
be best if Penny stays here today,” I readily agreed.

“
No,” Penny said, her
protest weak and whispered. She cleared her throat, and in a
stronger voice added, “I am fine. Last night wasn’t my first
episode, and it won’t be the last. I can get through
this.”

Pale hand trembling slightly, she
reached for her water glass.

I met Brand’s gaze, anticipating a
fight. He wasn’t the biggest proponent of Penny joining UNITED, and
had tried to talk her out of accepting the job offer from the
beginning. But Penny was nearly as stubborn as I was. She’d ignored
Brand’s warning that the adrenaline of the missions might cause her
health to decline faster.