Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Silence was a program instituted by our people from 1979 to the end of 2081. During the existence of that program, we, the Psy, conditioned all emotion out of ourselves and our children.

We believed that such conditioning would help our people control the side effects of our abilities. These side effects include minor to major mental instability, uncontrollable rage, and homicidal acts done without intent.

The aim of this essay is to discuss Silence in the context of the ongoing fragmentation and possible catastrophic collapse of the PsyNet. The question is whether Silence is the reason for the damage to the PsyNet—or if a return to Silence is the answer.

—Essay by Catalina NightStar (16), for Modern History module II

THE AIR WAS clean and icy in Auden's lungs, the steam from her heated nutrient drink a welcome balm against her face. Color caught her eye everywhere she looked, the forest ablaze in such brilliant hues as she'd never imagined.

A bump inside her, a sudden shocking reminder of the life within. Shifting her mug to a one-handed grip, she cradled her belly with the other, for the first time feeling as if she could show what she felt without it being used against her. "You're safe," she murmured to the child who shouldn't exist—but whom she would defend to her last breath.

No one would do to this child what had been done to her. Was still being done to her.

A rustle in the trees.

She jerked up her head…and wasn't the least surprised when the cat prowled out of the shadows, pure, taut power and languid motion. All she felt was a knee-trembling relief. He was real . She hadn't imagined him in the fragmented landscape that had been her mind until four weeks ago, when the last of the pieces had finally come together and stayed together.

"Which cat?" she found herself saying when he was close enough to hear her, her breath a puff of white in the air.

"Leopard." A rumble of a voice that rolled over her in a tactile brush.

She continued to cradle her stomach, even as her heart accelerated. She knew it was rude to stare as she was doing, but she'd lost a lot of her social filters during the years when she hadn't been present. "I thought I imagined you."

He held up his forearm, muscular and with visible veins. "Do you remember?"

Her gaze hooked on the streamlined black comm device.

Fingers gripping her upper arm, eyes that weren't human looking into hers.

"Did I read the device?" she asked. "I'm sorry, I have no memory of it."

Eyes narrowing, he dropped his arm. "You were pretty out of it that day. Medicated?"

"Something like that." Auden wished it was that simple, wished she'd just been sedated—because the truth was far worse.

Charisma had fought with her about her decision to come here, reminding her that she was in the most vulnerable state of her life, but Auden had needed time to think, to decide . She couldn't do that in Shoshanna's house, her mother's influence in every mind that worked there, embedded into the very walls of the building.

Part of Auden had expected Charisma to stop her—because whatever it might say on paper, the truth was that Auden wasn't in charge in that house. Neither was Hayward, Shoshanna's younger brother, and the supposed second-in-command. Auden still had no idea why Charisma had folded at last, but no doubt the older woman was playing a deep game.

Regardless, Auden had made it here.

Still, now she questioned her stubbornness. She had her reasons. Very good reasons. Deadly reasons. But as a result of her own decision, she was now face-to-face with a predator while all alone on a mountain, far from any source of help that could arrive fast enough to stop a leopard's strike.

It wasn't as if her psychometric ability could help her here—she'd heard that some Ps-Psy could turn what they read against a target, literally take violent energy and channel it, but she'd never seen a concrete example.

It sounded like a myth made up by young psychometrics to her. As far as she was concerned, Ps abilities were among the most passive in the Psy race. That she was a 9.4 didn't make any difference. Neither did the fact that she had a basic level of telepathy—a bare 2 on the Gradient.

Nothing enough to take on changeling shields should this leopard turn aggressive.

"You sure you should be up here alone?" His eyes, such a clear topaz, darkened. "Cubs have been known to come early." A nod at her belly.

Auden's spine stiffened. "I've been told that asking about a woman's pregnancy without invitation is a social faux pas among the emotional races."

He shrugged those big shoulders. "Usually. But these are exigent circumstances—specifically that you are an extremely pregnant woman in a cabin on my border. I'm going to feel responsible if anything goes wrong."

Auden didn't soften her stance.

Care, she'd come to learn, even true care, could be a front for terrible ugliness. Never would she have believed that her father would go along with her mutilation. He'd spoiled her as much as any child could be spoiled in Silence. In her secret heart, Auden had believed he loved her.

Yet he'd hurt her in a way brutal and permanent.

"I'm only just past the seven-month mark, with no indicators of a possible early birth."

The leopard's gaze flashed to that inhuman green-gold, making her skin prickle in warning. "Did Ms.Wai give you my comm code? Name's Remi."

Remi . She either hadn't known that or hadn't remembered it.

"If anything does happen," he continued, "we have a qualified doctor in the pack. He recently completed a unit on treating Psy patients, too."

Auden wondered why a changeling healer in an isolated pack would want to know how to treat Psy patients, but she had the feeling Remi wouldn't answer that particular question. "Is your full name Remington Denier? If so, I have your code."

Charisma had included that information as part of the packet for Auden's "time in the wilderness"—though Auden'd had no idea to whom it related until this moment, when the leopard nodded, but added, "Call me Remington at your own peril." Easy words, but his eyes were primal in their intensity.

The hairs rose on her arms, fear a frigid whisper on the back of her neck. "What?"

"You're not like when I first met you. If not medication, then what?"

Auden's blood ran cold. "I was recovering from a head injury," she said, the cover story one Charisma had devised for her. "I really shouldn't have come out, but I made a miscalculation as to my health status."

···

SHE was lying to him. Remi knew that as well as he knew that he'd been more than rude in his bluntness. But that was the thing with Psy who clung to Silence as so many of them did so close to the fall of the Protocol—you had to be in their face to get any kind of an answer.

Give them any wiggle room and they'd take it.

His leopard prowled against his skin, intrigued by the cub growing inside Auden. That was an alpha thing. The cat liked to keep an eye on the pregnant members of its pack. Apparently, the same feline had decided to extend its protectiveness to this non-packmate because she was alone while in a deeply vulnerable state.

"Auden Scott," Zaira had said when he'd asked the Arrows for intel, "is peculiarly little known for being the child of not one, but two Councilors. Political dynasty aside, she should be sitting on dual financial empires except that it appears Henry chose a different heir some years prior to his death. It's odd, because she was raised in his household, not Shoshanna's."

"Is she Shoshanna's official heir?"

A nod. "The two must've agreed on that, with Henry giving up rights for some unknown reason."

All that financial power and still, Auden remained a cipher, unknown and unseen. Per Zaira, even the squad hadn't been able to confirm her specific psychic ability, but if the rumors they'd picked up were right, then Auden Scott had no offensive capabilities.

"Possible high-Gradient psychometric," Zaira had said.

She'd been leaning back against a majestic sugar maple at the time, one booted foot braced on the distinctive bark of the trunk as she peeled an orange for a cub who'd handed it to her. She'd been using a razor-sharp throwing knife to do it.

Psychometric.

"Those are Psy who can pick up information from objects?" Remi had asked, to be certain.

"Yes. How much and the exact parameters of what they can pick up depends on the specific psychometric, but in general, it's considered an academic ability. A rare few are attached to search and rescue teams on the tracking end, but most work for museums and other institutions. Can't have been easy being born a psychometric in a family like the Scotts. They're known for aggressive telepaths."

And today here was this Ps-Psy, seven months pregnant in an inimical environment.

Remi was now responsible for her. It didn't matter if she told him she could look after herself. A human might call that overbearing male chauvinism, but a female alpha would've had the exact same reaction.

It was built into their DNA.

"You have enough food, nutrients for your stay?" he asked, a niggling sense of having missed something important gnawing at him.

Her expression didn't alter. She was giving a good impression of being a remote machine, when the woman who'd read his comm had done so with tears shimmering in her eyes. "Yes. If I need more, I can fly myself out anytime I please."

"Make sure you check the weather every single time, even if it looks clear." He wondered if he'd only gotten that glimpse of emotion on their first meeting due to her head injury— this woman with her frigid expression was a Scott, had to be the real Auden. "Mountains can be changeable as a rule."

"I appreciate the data." Those piercing eyes wouldn't look away from his in what at any other time he'd have taken as an act of dominance.

Today, he brushed it off, his leopard's protective instincts overwhelming any sense of aggression. "Stay safe."

He could feel her eyes between his shoulder blades until he was deep into the trees.

A shiver rocking him, he looked back once he was far enough into the forest that there was no way she could track him…to see her staring after him, her gaze along the exact line he'd taken. Just a Ps? He narrowed his eyes. Maybe. And maybe, she had more of a hunter's instincts than was public knowledge.

It wasn't until he was some distance away, the wind rushing past his body in a familiar cascade of rich earth, and the intoxicating "green" that was the forest no matter what the season that he realized what had been bothering him—her scent. It wasn't a muddy funhouse mirror anymore, was instead a lush complexity as enticing as a delicate caress across his bare skin.

Whatever had happened to Auden Scott, she was now out on the other side.