Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
“But it’s expensive.” Lark read out the rates with a wince.
“Do it,” Remi said. “This is a critical need, and we currently have a buffer thanks to that bulk security job.”
“Or,” Theo murmured, “maybe you can pitch it as an article?” Arms folded behind his head, he frowned. “I mean, we just talked about how setting up a new pack isn’t something that happens on the regular. People might be interested in reading about that, and you can sneak in how we’re in the market for teachers.”
Rina was nodding. “It’ll probably gain more attention than a straight ad, too.”
“Worth a shot.” Lark shrugged. “I’ll figure out how to pitch an article and report back. Who’s gonna write it, though? I’m not a writer.”
“Vessie,” Angel suggested, naming a packmate who’d been a journalist before she retired.
Theo gave an enthusiastic thumbs-up to that. “I know she said she’s all about her grandcubs now, but have you heard that woman take down smartass juveniles with nothing but her tongue? I bet you she’d enjoy the challenge of getting us into Wild Woman.”
All five of them were in a good mood when they closed the meeting, but Remi wasn’t done. Once his sentinels had left, he made another call, asked another favor.
Aden replied after a short pause. “Zaira says yes.”
Then he added, “Remi, we don’t have any intel on the Scott compound—it’s locked up tight, and we haven’t prioritized it as the Scotts have been keeping their heads down since Shoshanna’s death, but one thing I can tell you is that it’s crawling with Scott loyalists. Watch your back.”
“I will.” More importantly, he’d be watching Auden’s back.
He’d tear out the throat of anyone who tried to lay so much as a finger on her.
Chapter 34
The tests are definitive: none of the drugs in the trial offer long-term amelioration of the problem. As psychic remedies have already been ruled out, only one option remains.
—Classified Report to the Psy Council by PsyMed: Pharmaceutical Development & Testing. Project Manager: Councilor Neiza Adelaja Defoe (circa 2016)
AUDEN WOKE FROM a deep sleep to find Liberty lying skin-to-skin with her, both of them covered with a blanket. She smiled, cuddling her baby to her with one hand. Liberty’s pulse was a faint butterfly against Auden, her skin fragile. “Finn?”
“Over here,” he said softly from his workstation on the other side of the room.
After kissing and cuddling her baby, she said, “Why am I not scared of you? Why do I not care that you touched me while I was asleep?” She would’ve expected to wake at even the gentlest contact.
The sound of wheels on tile, as Finn rolled over his office chair. “It’s because I’m a healer—same effect as empaths as far as we can figure. Must be our pheromones or something. Pretty noticeable effect from childhood—future healers tend to help people calm down even without trying.”
That made sense to her. “How else could you work with growly leopards.”
Chuckling, he took out a scanner to check on Liberty. “You got it.”
She watched him as he worked, took in the kindness and compassion. “You’re a brilliant healer,” she said, needing to vocalize it. “Not only in your skills, but in how you treat your patients. I feel privileged that you’re Liberty’s primary medical carer.”
A flush on Finn’s cheekbones, his smile a touch lopsided. “She’s a sweetheart, and her mama’s a fighter.” Leaf green eyes on hers. “Never forget that, Auden. Your baby is safe here because you made sure she would be safe. Don’t ever allow any other voices to make you forget.”
Auden swallowed. “I’m so afraid,” she whispered to this healer who had renewed her faith in the medical profession after Dr. Verhoeven had annihilated it. “That the voice that makes me forget will be my own.” A sharp, cold splinter who thought with manipulative pragmatism.
Finn’s frown was deep. “Bashir got me into multiple PsyMed databases. I’m digging deep to find you answers and a solution. Don’t you dare give up on me.”
Auden knew his hope was genuine, his intent pure, so she said, “Never.” But she also knew that a fragmented personality couldn’t be welded back together. Prior to Silence, people like her had either stumbled through a short life—or, if one personality was a violent one—were locked up in institutions.
After Silence, the affliction had “vanished.”
Auden wondered what this good doctor, this good healer, would say if she told him that her race had eliminated the problem by executing those with it. Should anyone look up individual names, all they’d find in the records was the unremarkable. Death by misadventure or by natural causes.
No acknowledgment of psychological illness.
Not even a hint of murder mandated.
And nothing to challenge the Council’s position of Silence being a resounding success.
The door opened on her dark thoughts, Remi walking in. And her entire being felt as if it had lit up from within. Her baby made a tiny movement at the same time. “She knows you’re here,” she said to Remi, as Finn rolled his chair back to his workstation.