"I expected a corpse. No one survives outside the PsyNet."
Sascha gave a tight smile. "How did you know my designation?"
"Whispers in the PsyNet. It's not like you tried to hide it."
"No." She knew there was something very wrong with Amara, but it was eerie how very sane she seemed on the surface. "Why did you come after Ashaya?"
"She's mine." Flat, implacable.
Sascha saw a chink. "You'd never hurt her."
Silence, as if the question was too stupid to answer.
"She's yours, so if you hurt her," Sascha said, "it'll hurt you."
A glimmer of interest. "You're quite smart."
And Amara was a complete narcissist. "Dorian is Ashaya's," she said. "If you hurt him, it'll hurt her."
A blank stare. "She's mine."
Sascha had been straining to sense even a hint of emotion from Amara, but all she got were faint echoes whenever Ashaya was mentioned. She didn't know how to deal with this woman. Her gift lay in emotion - how was she supposed to reach someone who had none? She'd had a short conversation on the topic with Judd before heading over here.
"Maybe you should talk to her," she'd suggested to the face on the communications screen. "You're better with the darker aspects of our abilities."
"Sascha, I can break open her mind and I can kill her." Judd had shrugged. "Pick."
"Can't you talk to her some way? Understand her?"
Judd's lips had curved. "I'm a bad son of a bitch, but I have emotions despite all indications to the contrary. So we're not going to be able to swap sociopathic bullshit."
Sascha had found herself blushing. "Sorry. I know that. Your love for Brenna... it's so beautiful, I wish you could see it as I do."
"I do see it." His eyes had lit from within. "But I can only go so far with someone outside my circle. You want my professional opinion - Amara Aleine needs to die. It's blind luck she was born with a passive ability. If she'd been a powerful telepath or telekinetic, she'd be another Enrique." A pause. "Knowing that's got to be hell on Dorian."
Which was the reason why Sascha sat here, facing this woman who repelled her with her emptiness. "What's your plan?" she asked. "What do you intend to do if you succeed in killing Dorian?"
"I'll go back to my experiments and Ashaya will return to hers."
Sascha glimpsed the flickers of intelligence and knew Amara was seeing the flaws in her own answer. Good. "That's an impossible goal. Ashaya can't return to her previous life now that she's defied the Council so openly."
"Not if she retracts her statements."
"Do you really believe that?" A sense of quiet menace crawled over Sascha's skin as she spoke, and she wondered why she was so afraid. This woman hadn't yet killed anyone, nor was she violent in general. Perhaps, she thought, it was a simple case of her gift reacting negatively to someone who was so much the antithesis of everything she was.
"We both know," she said when Amara remained mute, "that she's made herself too public a figure. The Council would rehabilitate her in a heartbeat. Otherwise, she'd become a magnet for rebel activity."
"Then we'll go rogue." A shrug. "We can still do our work."
"True," she agreed. "Do you think that will be enough for Ashaya? Is she a creature of solitude?"
Amara's eyes stared into Sascha's, as if she was searching for something. "You're like me."
"I'm nothing like you." Sascha couldn't withhold her shock.
"You steal other people's emotions like some vulture or vampire, and then you use them up. It's what makes you so good at pretending. Inside, you're like me."
Sascha had faced down a Psy butcher who'd killed without remorse, but she couldn't continue speaking to Amara Aleine, couldn't stand to listen to her sly whispers. Getting up, she walked out. Lucas came after her as she strode toward the woods. "I am not an emotional vampire!"