Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121389 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 486(@250wpm)___ 405(@300wpm)
“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.