"Keep me updated. If necessary, I can make the destruction of the new lab look like an unfortunate accident." It would require more planning and the cooperation of the pack, but it could be done.
A nod from the Ghost. "Do you ever wish to return to who you were?"
An unusual question, but the answer was easy. "No."
Brenna was in bed when he came to her quarters. Moving on silent feet, he paused to check that the security device on her door was functioning at an optimal level. He wouldn't rest easy until the killer had been caught - he'd already discarded twenty of Riley's original sixty suspects using pure logic, but his instincts told him he was close to running out of time.
Brenna opened her eyes when he entered her room. "You're back." She smiled sleepily at him from her nest in the blankets.
He sat on the edge. "I need to tell you something."
"I'm here." She scooted closer, but didn't touch.
He knew the distance had to tear at her changeling need for contact and the maleness in him raged against that - he was supposed to give her what she needed, not cause her pain. "I want to tell you where I go," he said, giving her another kind of intimacy, "and what I do when I disappear from the den." He began at the beginning - the fateful meeting on the PsyNet, a meeting he was sure had been engineered by the Ghost. But the other Psy had only found him because Judd had wished to be found.
"He'd been watching me, seen my subtle insubordination. I met Father Xavier Perez a year later." In a bar where he'd gone for data and Perez had gone to get blind drunk. But those were the priest's secrets. They had nothing to do with their work.
"Kindred souls." She was even closer, as if she couldn't stay away.
Neither could he, despite the fact that he could sense the cascade of fine blood vessels bursting and being repaired instantaneously inside his skull. His Tk-Cell abilities were keeping up with the damage. Just. "We, all three of us, want to protect the Psy from the biggest threat since Silence." Though Xavier Perez's motive remained a mystery, the man's loyalty was unquestionable. "Protocol I will lead to the destruction of the young - their minds will be cut into, their individual identities destroyed."
Brenna's hand curled around his, separated only by the blanket. He felt her warmth. It wasn't enough. He was starving for her, a clawing, almost animal hunger inside him.
"Judd - I smell blood." She jerked upright and reached to switch on a lamp.
He stopped her with his other hand. "It's just a nosebleed."
A small silence, then she pulled away from him. "No." A pained whisper. "It'll kill you if we don't stop being together."
He wiped away the blood with the sleeve of his turtleneck, able to tell it was dark and rich. "There is another option, as you once said. I have to disable the Protocol." And somehow keep from turning into an inadvertent murderer.
Chapter 38
The first body was found twenty-four hours after the Council meeting. The young male - who turned out to have been an inmate at a pre - Rehabilitation Center prior to his early and unexpected release - had died of massive neurological trauma.
Kaleb put down the report and turned to look at Nikita, who was staring out at the city of San Francisco. They were in the office area of her private penthouse, safe from prying eyes. "They're tying up the loose ends."
Nikita shook her head. "The autopsy showed a localized implosion in the segment of his brain that would have held the implant. It failed and destroyed itself in the process."
Kaleb wasn't so certain. "The timing's too convenient."
"Yes. There is that."
"Either way, it appears the problem is being buried."
"It doesn't matter." Nikita's voice was low, measured. "Ming has to have his suspicions if not outright proof. He'll withdraw his support of any further propositions on the part of the Scotts."
"Do you think they were foolish enough to have themselves implanted?"
"If the implants are indeed failing, we'll know the answer soon enough."
Kaleb nodded, looking out at the morning sun glittering off the water that edged this city. He couldn't help comparing it to his landlocked home. Two very disparate cities, but power felt the same whether here or there.
Chapter 39
Brenna's heart was a twisted knot of pain and fury when she ran into Hawke the next day. Damn the Council for putting that poison into Judd's brain. Touch and emotion were the cornerstone of who she was, but they were toxic to him. He'd left early this morning, saying he had to consider how to break the chains of Silence without becoming a danger to her or anyone else, but she was no longer sure that that was the right thing to do - what if the attempt proved lethal?
Hawke frowned when he saw her. "What's the matter?"