from the world.
Memory’s heart ached for the woman she’d never met.
“But even Alice only knows bits and pieces,” Sascha added.
Pushing her braid behind her shoulder, the cardinal put both forearms on the table. “Apparently Es of subdesignation sigma never actually used their abilities. It was considered too dangerous.”
Memory had finished her sandwich without realizing it. She took an absent sip of what she’d assumed was coffee. It wasn’t. It was sweet and creamy and melted her bones. “What is this?”
“Hot chocolate. Food for the soul. I also brought cookies.”
“I understand why Es like me wouldn’t want to use their abilities,” Memory said after inhaling three oatmeal raisin cookies. “I’m only alive because Renault realized my long-term utility. Most psychopaths would drain the E to death at first contact.”
“It means previous sigmas didn’t have the ability to cut off the transfer from their end.” Sascha put down her half-eaten cookie, her brow furrowing. “Or, more likely, since the Es blocked their own abilities because of bad historical precedent, the question never came up.”
“Is it doable?”
“My mother can seed mental viruses and even she agrees I’m the best shield builder in or out of the Net.” A fleeting emotion on Sascha’s face, too complicated to label. “We’re going to build you a shield so formidable that you can slam it down mid-transfer, slicing the feed in two.”
“Then I’m ready.” Alexei would keep. Next time the two of them met, Memory was going to metaphorically singe off his fur.
Chapter 28
Dear Aunt Rita,
My wolf friend has suddenly begun to bring me random gifts of food. It started off innocently enough—a piece of candy here, a sandwich there when I forgot my lunch at home. But two days ago, he left a box of out-of-season white peaches at my door. Then yesterday, he turned up with an entire trifle along with a can of whipped cream. What does this mean?
Sincerely,
Confused Human
Dear Confused Human,
Sit down, dear. I have some news for you.
—From the October 2078 issue of Wild Woman magazine: “Skin Privileges, Style & Primal Sophistication”
MEMORY’S PLAN TO sear off Alexei’s fur hit a snag out of the gate: the damn wolf was suddenly never around when she had free hours in her intensive training schedule. Oh, she knew he kept an eye on the compound, could taste him in the air, but he was avoiding her.
It didn’t take much work for her to find his comm code. Three days after their last encounter, she was standing in front of the comm, about to call him, when she thought about what she was doing. Was Sascha right? Had she imprinted on Alexei because he’d pulled her to freedom?
Every cell in her body rebelled against that idea.
“But that’s not enough,” she said aloud. “You have to prove it to yourself and to him.” Otherwise, she might cause her wounded wolf even more pain, and that was unacceptable.
Clenching her jaw, she deleted his comm code from her system, then strode outside, off into the trees. When a black-clad form appeared a short distance from her without warning, a phantom she hadn’t detected with her empathic senses, she froze.
Her mouth went dry.
Yuri, that was his name. A man with rough-hewn features and strands of silver in his chestnut hair, his jaw always clean-shaven in the morning but dark with shadow by the end of his shift. A tiny detail that had made him seem more approachable to her, but she’d never actually spoken to him. And now, alone in the trees with him, she saw only the deadly assassin who was part of the Arrow squad.
“You’re aware of the perimeter limits?” His voice was ice—not because of the nothingness, but because of Silence. In his late forties, Yuri was the oldest Arrow in the security team, had spent too long under the Protocol to emerge unscathed.
“Yes.” She rubbed her hands down her sweatshirt-covered arms.
“I apologize. I am causing you discomfort.” He began to fade into the trees.
“No,” Memory blurted out, infuriated by her reaction to this man who had done nothing to hurt her. “I’m just not used to many people yet.” All the myriad personalities, all the different levels of lingering Silence.
“I felt the same,” Yuri said unexpectedly, his hands behind his back. “But now I have a family, and it is good.” A moment of eye contact, his irises a dark hazel against weathered skin that didn’t hold a tan but was marked by tiny lines at the corners of his eyes—and what appeared to be a