Storm echo, p.24
Storm Echo, page 24
“DNA matches profile on record. No Mercant link,” his partner said.
“That answers that question.”
“Are you sure we should dismiss the child’s claim?”
“Are you seriously suggesting that he might be a Mercant?”
“I’m just saying that I wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of the person who found a lost Mercant child and didn’t inform that family. It’s a simple administrative act to send through a data packet with the details of the child and a sample of his DNA.”
The man kept on talking, while the other, older one stared at Ivan with cold eyes. “As I said, the female’s record is thin at best—it could be total fiction, but we have no Mercant DNA on file, so we can’t do the comparison ourselves.”
The man with the cold eyes hesitated, then gave a short nod.
Living on the street, Ivan had long ago learned to understand power. Today he understood that the Mercants had power. They had made this man do something, change his decision, without ever being in the room.
Ivan hoped his mother hadn’t lied about being a Mercant. But he wasn’t afraid. The white blank remained. Until the man told him to get up onto his feet, that the body disposal team was on its way. That was when the white began to crack, cold blue flames burning their way to the center.
Ivan knew that if he allowed it to burn all the way through, he might go mad, might rage. So he fought the crumbling edges—but he didn’t fight his urge to reach for his mother’s hand and remove the ring she wore on her right ring finger.
“What are you doing?” the older man snapped.
Ivan put the ring into his pocket. “It’s mine.” His mother had told him it was his, that it was a family ring and it would pass on to him.
A piece of me to carry with you, baby boy. So you’ll know that I’m always with you.
“Leave it, Jin,” the other man said while Ivan listened to the memory of his mother’s voice. “It’s just cheap rubbish.”
Ignoring them, Ivan turned, looked at his mother, and said, “Good-bye, Mama.”
If she’d been alive, she’d have hugged him close, pressed kisses over his face. That was what she’d done in the good times between doses of her medicine. That was when he’d seen the sparkle in her eyes and the light in her face that made her so beautiful. Now and then, she’d be in such a good mood that she’d sing the spider song.
Spider, spider, my beautiful spider.
He’d asked her why she sang it and she’d said that sometimes, when she took her medicine, she saw an “astonishing” web glittering with fire. Ivan hadn’t liked the spider song, but he’d liked how happy she’d looked when she sang it. But those times had come less and less and less, until he couldn’t remember the last time his mother had been his mother.
He didn’t want his last memory of her to be of cold skin against his lips, against his body. So he didn’t kiss her good-bye, and he didn’t hug her good-bye. But he couldn’t leave her like that, on the floor, without care. Still ignoring the man who clearly wanted him gone, he went to the bed and got a pillow, then dragged off the thin blanket.
Jin made as if to grab Ivan by the shoulder, but the other man stopped him with a shake of his head. He must’ve telepathed Jin. Whatever he said, it made Jin walk out of the room and stand outside the door. The one who’d stayed behind watched as Ivan put a pillow under his mother’s head, then covered her up with the blanket.
“What will they do to my mama?” he asked.
“The Bureau will decide, but given that you’re claiming to be a Mercant—was your mother the Mercant or your father?”
“My mother.” Ivan didn’t know his father.
“In that case, it’s possible her body might be held in cold storage until the Mercant family either verifies your claim or repudiates it.”
He didn’t like to think of his mother in cold storage, and it made the blue fire burn the white even hotter. So before it could burn away altogether, before he could become like the man on the street corner who held his head and screamed at nothing, he took one last look at his mother, at how peaceful she seemed now, asleep on a pillow, and then he walked out of the motel room.
Chapter 37
Luc, the comm conference is up and running. Full encryption and authentication enabled. Ena Mercant will be dialing in in the next two minutes.
—Dorian Christensen, sentinel, to Lucas Hunter, alpha (8:30 a.m.)
TEARS ROLLED DOWN Soleil’s face, the image of a small boy standing up to those two heartless men over the body of his mother burned into her memories. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, touching her fingers to his jaw.
“It was a long time ago,” he said, and she saw in his eyes the same sepia distance she had from the memories of the deaths of her own parents.
But where she acknowledged that the loss still hurt, she knew he never would. “I’m glad you found your family. They obviously came for you.”
A slow lowering of his lashes, and when he raised them back up, his eyes were obsidian, eerie and lovely. “I was fourteen when I started to question the improbability of my grandmother losing one of her children, much less one of her grandchildren.
“If you knew her, Lei, you’d know that Ena Mercant never loses track of one of her own. The one time anything like that happened, she wasn’t responsible for the child, and she still had that child under her care in a matter of months.”
A frown. “But you said your mother was a security specialist, good with computronics.”
“Not good enough to escape the reach of my grandmother—the Mercant network would’ve been scanning constantly for her DNA, would’ve tagged her one of the many times she ended up in jail for low-level possession. They always take DNA during booking, add it to the main system.”
“Wait, wait.” Soleil held up a hand. “Where were you while she served her jail terms?”
“The terms were short and she wasn’t so deep into her addiction to the crystal flower by then—she managed to make arrangements with some trustworthy street people.”
Soleil covered her mouth with her hand but didn’t interrupt. He understood her shock. Now that he was an adult, he could hardly imagine the scenario in which a mother would leave a vulnerable child with other junkies. He had to have been younger than three the first time around.
“No Mercant would ever make that choice,” he said. “It’s just not in their bloodline. I knew that, like I knew they’d never have lost track of me. So I went looking for the truth even though I didn’t want to find it. I wanted to be a Mercant more than anything, part of a family that is as much a pack as DarkRiver or StoneWater.”
He could still remember that day, every cold second of it. “I broke into closed medical records, confirmed that I have no Mercant DNA. None. It was another one of my mother’s grandiose lies.”
Soleil searched his face. “What happened?”
“I was so angry. My Silence has always been less than perfect due to my mother’s drug habit and how it impacted me in the womb. She also gave me small doses when I was a boy.”
“A heart full of fire,” Soleil whispered, spreading her fingers over that heart. “You told me in a dream. I saw it.”
He nodded, left it at that for now. He’d save the worst of it for last. “I confronted Grandmother and asked her why she’d lied.”
“What did she say?”
“That day,” he said, “for the first time, I came face-to-face not with my grandmother, but with Ena Mercant, the woman who scares powerful people in the PsyNet.” Her focus had been pure, her will granite.
“She told me that a small boy looked her in the eye and told her he was a Mercant. That boy, she said, had more courage in his bones than the grown men more than twice his size who’d escorted him to the meeting with her—and who couldn’t meet her gaze.”
A memory of a slender hand gripping the back of his neck, the hold not the least painful—but unbreakable in its sheer intensity. “Blood, she said, wasn’t the only way to be a Mercant.”
Then he spoke the rest of the words she’d said to him, the words carved on another part of his skin. “‘We are who we are because we treasure courage, treasure strength. Many of our best and brightest have come from outside the bloodline. You are a Mercant, Ivan. Never again say that you’re not—not unless you wish to deal with me.’”
He could hear each word in her voice, steely and cool and resolute. “Then she pulled me to her in an embrace I could’ve never expected—Grandmother doesn’t do physical contact. But that day, she held me above the crashing waves of the sea and she said, ‘You are one of mine, Ivan Mercant. Now and always.’”
Soleil’s eyes were no longer human. “I love her already.”
“I think the feeling will be mutual.” Soleil might be a healer, but she had within her the same fierce steel when it came to protecting her people.
“When can I meet her?” Soleil raised an eyebrow. “And yes, I’m asking to be introduced to your family.”
His gut clenched at the idea of a thing he’d never expected, never thought he’d deserve.
You deserve joy, Ivan. Hold on to her, on to the spark of joy inside your heart.
His desire to believe Arwen, to give Soleil what she wanted, was a violence inside him. But he hadn’t told her the whole truth yet, had saved the worst horror for last. And that horror didn’t permit happiness. Not now that it was awake.
So, for the second time, he told her about the spider that lived in his mind, formed of the poisonous deposits of Jax in his neural cells. Her answer was the same as in the forest, the cat inside him as determined to stay. But things had changed.
“I can’t control it anymore.” His voice was rough, raw. “Grandmother’s shield, the one she helped me create when I was nine and the power first activated, it’s fragmenting and I can’t put it back together. It crumbles every single time.”
Soleil narrowed those wild ocelot eyes. “What are you trying to tell me, Ivan Mercant?”
“Without that shield, I suck people dry—I take their psychic energy and then I take the physical energy that powers the mind. I take and take until there’s nothing left, until they’re husks devoid of mind or life.” While he didn’t gain access to his victims’ psychic abilities, his theft of their energies supercharged his own nasty ability. “I become a murderous monster. And my control is all but gone.”
Claws dug into his skin. “So, what’s the solution? Because I know you have a solution—and I’m certain I won’t like it.”
“The only way to handle it once it breaks out is for me to create a cage so powerful that it’ll effectively crush my mind.” The man Soleil knew as Ivan Mercant would be gone, buried as deep as if he lay in a grave.
“It’ll put me in a coma, where I’ve informed my neurologist that he is to organize experiments and observation. There’s no point in erasing myself when my brain could offer a way forward for another child born with the same neural defect, the same twisted ability. I’ll never come out of that coma and will eventually expire.”
Instead of crying or berating him, Soleil folded her arms across her chest. “And your grandmother has agreed to this ridiculous plan?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“Ha!” Soleil pointed at him. “Because you know she’d stop you. Well, same here.”
“Soleil, this isn’t something you can fix by willpower or medical techniques. The known children of Jax addicts all experience serious neurological issues that can’t be fixed.”
“Known children? What’s the sample size of the studies you’re referencing?”
“Eleven,” he said. “Not many Jax addicts manage to procreate.”
“Eleven?” She threw up her hands. “Maybe there’s a reason those eleven were chosen for the study. Maybe the others found ways to escape their pasts and are living big beautiful lives! Maybe their parent or parents gave them up for adoption and no one ever had reason to test them for Jax because they showed no ill effects!” Her chest heaved. “You ever think of that?”
“It’s not realistic.” Too hopeful, too much a thing of raw want.
Soleil’s lips twitched, and then she was laughing—but it held a dangerous edge. Claws digging into his shoulders, she leaned in close. “You currently have a cat in residence in your head. I’ll eat that spider alive if I have to. Don’t you talk to me about realistic.”
That was when he saw the predator in her, the ocelot that could be a stealthy hunter, primal and deadly. She wasn’t rational right now, wouldn’t listen to reason. Aware he had very little time left, he didn’t push it. She’d be forced to face the truth when the time came—and by then, he’d find a way to make her promise to snap their bond.
His entire body went cold at the idea of her being linked to him when he shut down. If she’d been with him on the island, then the bond was deep enough to wrench her into the abyss with him. She’d fall where she stood, her mind locked in the cold dark with his own.
No. He would not allow that. “We’ll talk about this later,” he said, swallowing his dread at the thought of her light just blinking out from the world.
Still glaring at him, arms folded mutinously, she said, “I want your grandmother’s number.”
“No.”
“Scared that we’ll rip off your head together?”
Ivan might not have any knowledge of relationships, but he knew when he was being hunted, being driven into a corner where his stalker would pounce. “We’ll discuss this later,” he repeated. “Right now, I need to share what I learned on the island, see if there’s anything that can be done for those trapped minds.”
Soleil frowned, the black cloud of her hair sliding over her shoulder as she bent her head in thought. “You’re right, but you’re also being squirrelly. Never mind. I can be patient.”
Ivan had never in his life been described as “squirrelly.” Arwen would collapse in laughter if he heard. But Ivan would take it for now if it would get Soleil’s mind off the perilous track of getting in touch with his grandmother. Because he knew Ena; she’d agree with Soleil, would want to save him.
“You contact who you need to contact,” Soleil said right then, leaving the bed—and her position straddling him.
He immediately missed the warmth of her, the feel of her, her touch.
A glance at him, anger still sparking in those wild eyes, but she leaned in, cupped his cheek … and kissed him with ferocious possessiveness. “I’m still mad,” she said after she broke the kiss that had downed him more effectively than any punch. “You also need more food, more fuel—I love those cheekbones but they’re about to cut your skin.” She looked around his room. “Is there more food in the kitchenette?”
When he shook his head, she said, “Then I guess we’re going out to a restaurant.” The words were more a command than a suggestion. “I’ll give you a few minutes to get dressed, use that time to call the cubs and Abuela Yari. Meet you downstairs.” An instant later, she’d picked up her pink bag and was gone, this woman whose shattered body he’d picked up and carried in his arms once upon a time.
The roles had very definitely been reversed.
Rising, he had a one-minute shower because he’d sweated during that nightmare walk on the island. He also used the time to think about who he should contact about the situation on the island—this wasn’t a case of passing on intel to the family, who’d then share it. As the only one who’d stepped on the island, he’d need to handle this himself.
He was still thinking on the situation after he got out and changed into a pair of jeans and a black button-down shirt, over which he threw on the black blazer Arwen had gifted him. He wanted Soleil to see him how he could be, civilized and sophisticated. He wasn’t only the rough assassin who she’d always met.
Only when he was walking down the stairs after sending a quick message did he realize that he was severely overdressed. In his desire to impress her, he’d gotten it all wrong.
Chapter 38
Kaleb, I have information you need to know: in summary, I can get on that new PsyNet island. Are you aware of the current situation on the ground there?
—Message from Ivan Mercant to Kaleb Krychek (9:00 a.m.)
SOLEIL LOOKED UP, able to sense Ivan walking down the steps even though he was preternaturally silent for a Psy. You’d have thought he was a cat if you didn’t know better.
All the air punched out of her chest at first sight of him. His hair was damp and finger-combed, his body clad in jeans and a black shirt over which he’d thrown on a blazer. He wore the same boots as yesterday. Overall, he looked like he’d walked out of a fashion magazine.
And the way he looked at her …
She glanced away, then back. Furious though her cat was with him, she adored him, too, and that was never going to change. He was in her, Ivan Mercant, and she’d have it no other way.
And now she knew what he looked like under the clothes, too. She’d do anything to have a chance to kiss each and every tattoo, explore every single inch of that honed body.
Her thighs clenched.
Cheeks hot all over again, she went to open the door. And heard a slight rustle at her back. When she glanced over, she saw that he’d taken off his blazer and hung it over the newel post at the end of the staircase. Odd, but she could’ve almost said that there was a sense of discomfort about him.
“I liked the blazer,” she found herself saying.
He hesitated, looked at her as if trying to read the truth of her statement. But then he put it back on. Her heart thudded, something small and soft inside her getting stronger, more intense.
Be careful with him, little sister. He might look tough, but when strong men fall, they fall all the way. You’re his weakness.
A wave of tenderness stole her breath. He might be stubborn and arrogant in his belief that he knew the right answer to what he’d decided was an insurmountable problem, but he was also more vulnerable to her than she’d understood until this moment.
