An ingenious cheat.
One I’d known I had to hide from Rio.
I didn’t know how to answer, but Rio saw the truth anyway.
“You deceived me to accomplish this,” he said. “You knew I would not agree with such methods.”
I licked my lips, tried to speak. Rio—I’d seen what he’d done to people when trying to get information. Or even just to get his way—people shot, stabbed, carved up and flayed alive; there was a reason Checker and Arthur and Pilar didn’t want Rio around—heck, only months ago he’d threatened Checker’s life and then broken Pilar’s arm, and I’d had to extract the promise from him not to go after them again, ever, them or their families, not that I’d known at the time about Arthur’s, but the point was I’d had to make Rio give me that promise because it had been necessary. Malcolm’s body splayed in front of me again, his face half gone, killed by Rio to get to me.
“I know you think any sort of—of mind control—I know you think it’s unethical,” I got out. “But it’s not like Simon’s innocent; you know he’s not—”
“And that does not make what you did right.”
I was having some trouble standing. I pressed my hand against the doorknob to keep myself upright. “But you … Rio, you…”
He stood. “I would not aid someone like myself in an endeavor either.”
Less than an hour ago, I’d sat in the car hoping I could choose a morality my friends could live with. Never, in my entire remembered lifespan, would I have predicted Rio would be the one to walk out on me.
“Cas,” Rio said. “I have no wish for harm to come to you, nor to your friends. But I cannot continue with nor condone your choices here. We must part ways on this.”
“But you keep saying—this could be Pithica,” I got out desperately. “And this could be a lead. Don’t you want—”
“I shall follow my own leads,” Rio said. “Ones that were obtained by other methods. If it means a longer process, so be it.”
Other methods. Like torturing or massacring people. That was okay, but mind reading wasn’t. The gospel according to Rio.
“Be well, Cas, and repent,” Rio said to me. “I would prefer to see you again soon.”
He moved toward me. I lurched out of the way so he could let himself out the front door, and he was gone.
A laugh wanted to strangle me. Rio had seen me kill so many people—Rio had helped me kill so many people. But I read the mind of one morally ambiguous psychic, and he decided my methods had turned an ethical shade he could not abide. I wanted to race after him, to tear into him as a hypocrite, but I wasn’t even sure if he was one. The world had turned upside down.
I couldn’t even tell if he was angry with me or just gracefully bowing out. Who knew, I might walk into my next session with Simon and find Rio waiting for me there, just like always, his presence a comforting monitor so Simon didn’t do anything to me unasked.
Assuming Simon lived.
I’d lost Rio, I’d lost Simon, and we’d lost Oscar and all the evidence at the ranch. I still had a friend out there who needed me … or at least the shape of one. Plus, a bomber to find and possible psychics out to get us, nine people to protect, and with Arthur down, only one person with even basic capability in helping me defend them.
I briefly considered waking everyone and telling them to pack. But how securely would I need to plan to take us off the grid? It wouldn’t be as simple as just giving them a cash apartment anymore, would it? Not if Rio was right about Pithica. Plus, Rio had put a healthy dose of security on this house—at this point, without Rio’s help, transit might be more dangerous than staying put. What if Dawna had people watching, waiting for us to try to leave?
Or—maybe worse—what if Coach had stalked me here somehow, and was outside right now, skulking in the shadows? Usually I picked up people on my tail, but somewhere between the fatigue and mental fog, I’d failed to make him when he’d followed me the day before.
Rio had left the handheld for the security system on the foyer table. I picked it up and checked. Everything was humming along smoothly, and I was so exhausted that the thought of trying to move nine