Rage woke in the depths of Delgado’s bones.He pushed it down.He had tothink.
But the fuzziness of the tranquilizer was still on him, and the thought that Jilssen was here, that Jilssen had been trying to get Rowan into a telem rig—maybe one tuned to broadcast her location—that Jilssen had been stalking her through Headquarters, blinded him momentarily.
The thought that Jilssen might have used his clearance to turn the security grid off was almost as bad.
A boot in his ribs.“Stay still, Delgado,” a gruff male voice warned him.He placed the voice—up above him, crouched over.
Delreached.
The man stumbled backward as Del’s mental fingers struck, curved into his brain.He could have squeezed the man’s mind for information, but instead he simply burst all the locks and smashed through, vandalizing.
Shouts.The metal floor tipping.Delgado found another mind, curiously unprotected, and forced his way in like a battering ram.The first man was screaming, clawing at his own eyes.The second stumbled toward Delgado, compelled, ready to cut his bonds and set him loose.
If he hadn’t been so slow, so fuzzy from the tranquilizer, it might have worked.
Something jabbed into his arm.Del twisted, trying to strike out, and went limp, a terrible slow creeping fire invading his body.
“Now.”Jilssen’s voice, hot and rancid in his ear.“I’ve wanted to do that forsolong.”
It was Zed.He would know that feeling anywhere, the slow fire taking over muscle and nerves, the languor, the utter lethargic incapableness.
Fight it, fight it.But with what?He’d kicked the habit once and almost gone mad, had no illusions about doing it again.
Rowan.
The sight of her running on the track, pale hair a banner on the breeze she made, lips moving silently with the song in her headphones.The quick intelligence in wide green eyes.The feel of her skin against his fingertips, her sleeping curled against him, barely even breathing, trusting him to keep her safe.Shuddering, arched beneath him, her mind open to his.
Her last despairing cry.
Did they know she could cure a Zed addiction?Did Jilssen know?
He gave himself one more moment to remember her face, then gathered everything together, hurrying, hurrying.
He locked his memories of her away while he could, pushing them deep into the most guarded recesses of his brain.Then he slammed the door, closing away the sight of her face in the hard, cold, secret part of himself—and before the Zed could reach his head and shut him down, he did the only thing he could.
Hepushedone last time, arching and screaming as the compulsion turned inward, tearing through his own brain, a feedback squeal of nerves and neurons pressed too far.
Then he passed out, before the drug could find his aching brain.
When he reached consciousness, it was to fuzzy white light.Too white, too bright, sterile.
Del opened one eye.Then the other.Braced himself.
Sigma has me.
The door whooshed open.They must have been waiting for him to show waking patterns.
Delgado blinked.
The man was tall, white-haired, and in a white linen suit.The face was familiar—Del had, after all, seen it in his nightmares for years.Bland and middle-aged, a regular nose, dead dark eyes, hair in a white buzz-cut.
“Well, well.”Colonel Anton tilted his head slightly.“Agent Breaker.What a pleasant reunion.You’ve done a little bit of damage, old son.”Kindly, an avuncular tone as he limped into the room, leaning heavily on the cane.Freshly-polished shoes squeaked against the whiteness.
An IV pole loomed right next to Delgado.The slow, creeping fire of Zed slid through his fingers, up his arms.He blinked, trying to remember… what?
For a moment he had it—a flash of green eyes, something.
Then it was gone.He stared at Anton, willing himself to remain perfectly still.If the man tried to use telepathy on him, the feedback would be excruciating.
