I had no idea I was so obvious; I have no desire to be pitied. Still, my heart begins to pound, my fears threatening to bleed beyond their enclosure even as gratitude expands in me like static, bristling under my skin. That familiar blade pierces me again and I can’t compartmentalize quickly enough; instead I retreat so far inside my mind I feel physically distant when Isay, tonelessly, “Nazeera is with her now. But thank you.”
Adam holds my gaze a beat longer; finally, he nods.
I once thought he was a brainless soldier.
I’d read him wrong, all those years ago. In fact, I couldn’t read him at all. His interior quiet was never as complete nor as deafening as Rosabelle’s; instead, his emotional cues came across as both vague and wooden, and I thought I had the latitude, as a result, to make the tragic assumption he was a garden-variety idiot. As it turns out, Adam has the uncommon ability to neutralize the preternatural powers of others—and he’d been unconsciously exercising a skill to shut me out. There was a time when he didn’t even know how to unlatch this armor; now he rarely bothers to hide his emotions from me. He calls itgrowth.
I call it loud.
“So,” Adam says, building toward a segue. He takes a breath as he returns his eyes to the interrogation. “You really think this girl is activating some kind of a shield?”
I step closer to the window, pulling up beside my brother. As my heart rate steadies, I feel the pager vibrate in my pocket, each buzz like a shot to the head. I glance at the notifications, scanning for emergencies and finding none for the moment. In my head I build the scaffolding for the work to come: I silently add things to my to-do list; draft responses to questions; sketch out solutions to problems; delegate responsibilities; attempt to anticipate the next pitfall. All this I’ll set aside to manage later.
Right now I give Adam a cursory glance.
I thought I was dressed casually today, forgoing mystandard uniform for a leather field jacket, slacks, and boots; but Adam redefines the wordcasual. He’s wearing a lightweight puffer jacket over an old hoodie and a pair of faded jeans, at least a day’s stubble shadowing his jaw. He could use a haircut. His sneakers are scuffed and worn, and he’s pulled his shoelaces so tightly the tongue and toe box are pinched, the sight of which so aggressively repulses me I have to force myself to look away. I spin my wedding ring around my finger. It costs me something to say nothing about his shoes.
Still, despite our outward differences, we share an uncanny moment of alignment: exhaling at the same time.
“I don’t know if it’s a shield,” I admit, returning my eyes to Rosabelle.
There’s a dim clang of metal as she sits up in her seat, her manacles knocking together, and Hugo, who’s sunk to the ground in defeat, looks up at the sound.
“Rosa,” says Hugo, his voice fraying as he repeats the same lines over and over. “Please.You have to believe me—I never would’ve left you. They forced me to leave you. Please, say something—”
I look at Adam, anchoring myself in the room.
“As you already know,” I say to him, “we discovered last week that the mercenary has the unprecedented ability to die at will. It’s possible she’s able to shut off her mind by extension. But logic would insist that were she capable of such a thing, she might’ve activated this power earlier.”
“And you don’t think she has?”
“I don’t know,” I say again, more quietly this time. “I’ve never had an issue sensing her emotions, which leads meto assume for the moment that this is some new kind of power—something we haven’t seen from her before.”
Adam nods, even as he frowns. “And you think I might be able to disarm her. You think it’s something she turns on and off.”
“I don’t know,” I say for the third time. “I’m not ready to commit to absolutes yet. If you find that you’re able to shut off her power, I might be able to understand its origins. I’m trying to determine whether this—whatever this is—is an internal power, activated from within, or an external power, generated remotely.”
“Remotely?” Adam raises his eyebrows. “Like, you think The Reestablishment might’ve turned off the chip in her brain?”
“The problem is, there is no chip in her brain,” I say, my mood darkening as I meet his eyes. “If there were, she’d be a lot easier to understand. All I know is thatthis”—I nod at the window—“is not her natural state. I know her to be capable of heightened emotion and brain activity, but her mind has been impenetrable since the moment of her incarceration. It’s like nothing I’ve ever encountered.”
“Really?” asks Adam, his surprise peaking. “Not even with me?”
I feel him throw up a shield between us to illustrate his point, and his shock quiets to a note of flat, anemic interest.
“No,” I say, returning my eyes to the inmate. “Not even with you.”
Rosabelle’s silence is so complete she might as well be dead.
She wears no expression despite having been recently united with her father after more than ten years of separation. Occasionally she shifts in her seat, her shackled hands clasped behind her, and the sounds of metal ring softly through the room. Each time this happens Hugo seizes with a visibly painful hope, practically holding his breath at the thought that she might finally speak, but in eight days, she hasn’t said a word. If it weren’t for the human blink of her eyes, the rise and fall of her chest, the occasional rearrangement of herself in her chair—she might be mistaken for a machine.
Or a ghost.
There’s something spectral about her. She’s surprisingly slight, lacking in substance and color. She’s almost porcelain white; her skin and hair leached of pigment. Even her eyes are desaturated—some kind of gray. Still, the pallor of her skin is secondary to the real issue, which is perceptible only in her presence: Rosabelle doesn’t seem to belong here. She emanates an otherworldly resonance, as if she might’ve died in birth but was sentenced to life.
Looking at her for too long makes me uncomfortable.
Looking at her for too long takes me to dark places. In her I see shades of myself, and I don’t like the comparison.
