‘Music practice rooms. I booked one out, just in case.’
Zed put his arm around my shoulder and led me out of the library, staring down Sheena and her gang who smirked at us. One look from him and they quickly found somewhere else to direct their gaze.
When we got to the room, he first checked it was empty, then pul ed me inside and shut the door.
‘That’s better.’ He backed me against it and leant against me. ‘Just let me hold you a moment. I’ve not had a chance just to touch you since those kil ers went for us.’
I let him hold me, feeling completely overwhelmed by his tenderness. There was a desperate edge to his embrace, perhaps we both knew that we were lucky to be breathing, let alone hugging each other.
‘Sky, I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you,’ he whispered, his hands playing in the hair that I had let hang loose about my face to hide the bruise.
‘Why? Is something going to happen? Have you seen something?’
‘I told you, I can’t tel people too much about the future. I might change it to be what none of us want if I do that.’
‘So I take it mine doesn’t look good?’
‘Sky, please, I don’t know. Don’t you think I’d act if I knew what would help? Al I know is I want you to be safe.’
It was so frustrating. These hints and half-spoken warnings were driving me crazy. Being a savant must real y stink.
‘Yeah, it does.’
‘You’re doing it again: reading my mind! Stop it.
It’s mine—private.’ I folded my arms across my chest and moved away from him.
‘I seem to be always apologizing to you, but I real y am sorry. I can read you more clearly than I can other people—it kind of leaks out of you into my head.’
‘And that’s supposed to make me feel better?’ My voice had a hysterical note.
‘No, it’s an explanation. You could learn to build shields, you know.’
‘What?’
‘Basic savant training. Living in a family of them, you soon learn to start shielding.’
‘But I’m not a savant.’
‘You are. And I think deep down you know it too.’
I fisted my hands in my hair. ‘Stop it. I don’t want to hear
this.’ You’re bad. Bad. Always making everyone unhappy. ‘No I’m not!’ I wasn’t talking to him any longer, but the whispers in my head.
‘Sky.’ Zed tugged at my fists, pul ing them away from my temples and drawing me towards him. His hands took up their slow caress again, running through the length of my hair, letting it fal back on my shoulders. ‘You’re beautiful. The furthest thing from bad that I’ve ever met.’
‘What do you see—what do you know about where I came from?’ I asked in a smal voice. ‘You’ve given hints. You know stuff about me that I don’t.’
I could hear a sigh rumble in his chest. ‘Nothing clear. Tel ing the past is more Uriel’s gift than mine.’
I gave a shuddering laugh. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way but I hope I don’t meet him.’
He swayed with me in his arms for the moment. It was like dancing without music, fal ing into the same rhythm.
‘You want to know why I didn’t cal you?’
I nodded.
‘I couldn’t. We were on lockdown. I’ve got some more bad news.’
‘What? Worse than some maniac being out to murder your family? I needed to know that you were al right. I needed to know you were al right.’
‘Victor put us on code red. It means we can’t communicate outside the immediate family.’
I couldn’t help wondering where that put me in his order of priorities. He’d claimed I was his soulfinder after al .
‘We don’t know who might be listening in to our cal s. I should’ve found a way to get a message to you but I was afraid to use telepathy.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s the bad news. We think they’ve got a savant on the assassin team. They shouldn’t have been able to get so close to us. Dad’s gift is to sense danger. He should have known they were out there unless they were shielded by a powerful savant. You can listen in on telepathy just as you can with speech if you have the gift. I didn’t want anything I did to tip them off about you.’
‘So it’s not just your family who can do telepathy?’
‘No, there are a number of us we know about—
and I guess many that we don’t. You can turn a gift to evil as easily as choose to use it for good. The temptation is there, particularly for those who don’t have the balance of a soulfinder.’ He rubbed his chin against my hair. ‘You’re my balance, Sky. I was already slipping before I met you. I can’t tel you what it means to me that you saved me from that grey existence.’
‘You were slipping?’
‘Yeah, big time. I’m not a nice person without you.
It was becoming pretty tempting to use my gift to get my way, no matter how unfair or what the cost to other people was.’ He grimaced, uncomfortable with what he was revealing about himself. ‘You’ve given me enough hope now to hold on until you’re ready to unlock your gift. Once that’s done, there’s no chance I’l ever return to what I was.’
‘But you’re not safe yet?’ I hadn’t realized I was holding him back. If something went wrong and he lost his balance, it would be my fault, wouldn’t it, for not being brave enough to examine what was inside me? ‘What should I do?’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing. You need time. I’m more worried about getting this right for you than I am about me.’
‘But I worry about you.’
‘Thanks, but let’s give you the space you need and deal with what we have to so we can keep you safe.’
Savant
assassins—could
this
real y
be
happening? The bul ets had been genuine enough—I didn’t doubt them. ‘You think this savant has turned bad?’
‘Yeah, he was working with the shooter. He might stil be listening in—we just don’t know. Telepathy over a distance is harder to channel to just the right person. We haven’t come up against this before. We should have anticipated this.’
I sensed he was being hard on himself, frustrated that he didn’t have al the answers for me. ‘Why should you have done? You’ve only just got dragged in to this through the witness thing. When the trial’s over, won’t the threat pass?’
‘Not exactly.’ He looked a bit guilty for a moment, alerting me to the fact he hadn’t been completely straight with me.
‘Not exactly!’
‘We aren’t just witnesses—we’re investigators. It’s not just the latest trial—my family have combined their gifts to put away hundreds over the years. It’s what we do.’
‘So that means you have more enemies?’
‘If they knew that we were behind their conviction
—but they are not supposed to find out. Our information is used to steer the authorities to find evidence that wil hold up in court. Our place isn’t on the witness stand but behind the scenes.’
The ful impact of what he was tel ing me took a while to set in. They were like a secret weapon for the law enforcers, up against evil day after day. ‘How do you do it?’
He shut his eyes briefly. ‘We work together—we see what happened.’
‘You see it? See al that awful stuff—the kil ings—
the crimes?’
‘If we ignored what happened, that’d be worse.
We’d share part of the guilt if we didn’t act to stop crimes when we can.’
‘But you suffer for it, don’t you?’
He shrugged. ‘What’s that compared to the good we can do?’
I realized then that the Benedicts were brave and dedicated, putting aside their own ambitions to use their savant skil s. They could be off seeking their soulfinders, but instead they risked everything to help victims of crime. But it also meant they would never be normal, never free to emerge from the shadows, stuck reliving the ugly scenes caused by the most vicious criminals. They had chosen the more difficult path; I didn’t have it in me to be so noble. My life had been lived too much in shadows. I couldn’t go back there—not even for Zed.