Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138217 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 691(@200wpm)___ 553(@250wpm)___ 461(@300wpm)
“I don’t want you on this for the medical side of things,” Silver said. “Your partner has the necessary medical expertise.” Her frown was faint, but Yakov had been around his alpha’s mate long enough now that he could pick up on her micro facial expressions.
“My motivation for pulling you in,” she continued as he gave in to the damn cat and crouched down to risk life and limb in petting its sleek pelt, “is protection and your knowledge of how a major organization runs from the top down—you know every nook and cranny, see every option, and can be counted on to think of things another person wouldn’t.”
“Got it. You want brawn with brain,” Yakov said as the cat purred and pretended it liked him.
Hah! He wasn’t falling for that. Next thing you know the beast would be expecting fresh tuna from the local fishmonger.
Silver’s lips curved a fraction. “And a little slyness.”
Insulted, he said, “I’m a bear, not a cat.”
“But you can be subtle for a bear,” Silver pointed out. “And you’ll need to be with the Marshalls—even my grandmother isn’t sure of Pax’s overall motives. But as she says herself, she never liked the family when it was under Hyde’s rule, so she could be biased against his successor.”
“I trust your grandmother’s instincts.” He’d keep his guard up, make sure he wasn’t taken for a fool by a Psy who thought him a stupid lumbering bear. Though he might well put on the act to ensure that the Marshall involved underestimated him. “So what’s the deal with this particular Center?”
“It was hidden,” Silver told him as he rose from his crouch and they began to walk again.
The cat padded beside him.
“The only reason Pax unearthed it was that he noticed a subtle but constant drain on the family’s finances. Given the size of their coffers, it would’ve been easy to dismiss it as an accounting error—but Pax is too smart for that. He dug. And he discovered a Center that wasn’t on the list of Centers he’d already found, and one that was being funded by the family rather than turning a profit.”
Yakov fought off his instinctive revulsion at the idea of making money from torturing and maiming people. “They still do that? Make a profit, I mean?”
“They are now care facilities.” Silver’s jaw worked. “The people already rehabilitated . . . the vast majority of their families continue to reject them, would rather pay a fee for their long-term maintenance.
“The only good thing is that now, with empaths in charge of oversight, the care is the best—with enrichment a compulsory part of the service. Many human and changeling specialists with expertise in dealing with those like the rehabilitated work in the Centers these days. They’re . . . gentle in a way my race has forgotten how to be.”
“Not all of you, Siva.” He nudged her with his shoulder.
Silver didn’t soften, but neither did she put distance between them.
“None of the rehabilitated will ever come back, not when part of their neural structure was purposefully destroyed, but they can have far more fulfilling lives with an enrichment program than when they were left to vegetate.”
Yakov’s stomach clenched against the urge to throw up. “Your Council was flat-out evil.”
“Yes. Each and every one on the road to what we eventually became.” A pause. “Yet I won’t be a hypocrite. I wonder what path I would’ve walked had I not had Grandmother to guide me. What path she would’ve walked without the guidance she received. We all begin as children, pliable and defenseless.”
Neither one of them spoke again for several minutes.
Because Silver was right. Who would Yakov be had he not been raised by his parents and grandparents, his childhood awash in love and mischief? What if he’d been raised by a psychopath like Marshall Hyde?
The thought made his skin crawl. “Right,” he said, telling himself to shake it off, “so it’s Pax Marshall’s sister who’s coming to investigate the hidden Center on the outskirts of Moscow?”
Silver nodded. “Theodora Marshall has close to no footprint on the PsyNet. So much so that I’m sure it was done on purpose—especially given that she’s listed as a Gradient 2.7 Tk on the records I did manage to find; Marshall Hyde wouldn’t have wanted news of such a weak member of the family to get out. Quite frankly, I’m astonished he let her live.”
Yakov bared his teeth; he hated how the Psy ranked their family members. Especially when it didn’t have to be that way—he saw that with the Mercants. While they were a generally psychically powerful family, he’d met two of Silver’s relatives who were lower-Gradient—but who held high positions in the family due to their non-psychic skills.
And no one would ever say the Mercants were anything but a powerhouse.
Still, he couldn’t feel too sorry for this Theodora. She’d been raised in the same snake pit that had spawned Pax, was apt to be as ruthless. “Interesting that Pax is sending her for such a big job if she’s that low down in the pecking order.”