Rayne's Return (Hearts of ICARUS Book 3) Page 3

  Landor looked into her eyes, having learned in the past hour that they were truly the windows to her soul. He was surprised at how little she gave away with her facial expressions and body language. But it was all there in her eyes. Fear. Confusion. Exhaustion. And loneliness. Deep, abject loneliness unlike anything he’d ever witnessed before.

  “Don’t worry, Rayne,” he said. “We will not leave you alone and unguarded while you sleep. I promise.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Is there a chance that whoever took you before can do it again?” Ari asked, unable to stop the question from leaving his lips.

  “I don’t know,” she said wearily, trying not to be irritated. She’d already told them all that she remembered. Didn’t they believe her?

  “We’re sorry, Rayne, we don’t mean to press you,” Landor said. “You’re safe now. No one will find out you’re here if there’s any way for us to prevent it, and as long as no one knows you’re here, they can’t take you. Try to get some sleep.”

  Rayne knew that there was no such thing as safe, but her eyes closed as she was trying to form the words to say so. Landor’s t-shirt was soft against her skin, the bed was comfortable and warm, and she had hot food in her stomach, even if it was only broth. She didn’t know why those simple things felt like luxuries to her, but they did. All she wanted to do at the moment was relax and enjoy them.

  “This is so…startling,” Ari said softly a few minutes later, when they were certain she was asleep.

  “That’s an understatement,” Landor said. “If you’d asked me two hours ago whether time travel was possible I would have said absolutely not. But the proof is before us.”

  “I’m usually excited to come across new phenomena,” Con said. “But not this time. I don’t like this at all.”

  “I strongly suspect that the alternative would be waking up tomorrow to find that she was missing,” Ari said. “All things considered, this is better.”

  “I agree that having her here right now is better than what our future must have held in a different time,” Landor said, then shook his head. “That’s a difficult concept to comprehend. What troubles me is, if the future Rayne is here right now, then where is the Rayne we saw transport away before this one arrived?”

  “That’s a worrisome question,” Con said.

  “It is, and as far as I’m aware, there’s no answer to be had,” Landor said. “Unless, and until, Rayne regains her memory. With any luck she’ll be able to answer that question along with the other two or three hundred I have bouncing around in my head.”

  “Just to be clear, we’re not going to report this to ICARUS headquarters, right?” Ari asked.

  “Of course not,” Landor said. “For one thing, I promised Rayne that we wouldn’t tell anyone about her, other than her parents. For another, the investigation for spies on New Ugaztun is still ongoing, so their security isn’t to be trusted.”

  “Agreed,” Con and Ari said together.

  “Speaking of spies,” Ari said, “I think we should consider checking our crew for Controllers.”

  “You don’t think that warning was for the Ugaztun?” Con asked.

  “Maybe, maybe not, but with Rayne here, I don’t think we should take any chances.”

  “We’ll talk to Pip about it tomorrow,” Landor said. “Hopefully he’ll be able to come up with some method of performing that task that doesn’t involve too much time or fuss.”

  “I wish we knew how she was taken in the first place,” Ari said.

  “I think it happened when she transported to the Ugaztun earlier,” Landor said. “If memory serves, I believe the Xanti did something like that years ago.”

  “Yes, I think so too,” Con said. “I also remember reading that the Khun females held by the Nomen at the mine were starved, some of them to the point of death.”

  Landor nodded. “That’s right. They were.”

  “All of the Nomen were bald, as well,” Con added.

  “You think Nomen are responsible for what happened to Rayne?” Ari asked.

  “I have no idea who’s responsible,” Con replied. “I’m just pointing out similarities.”

  “The name she wrote on the shift was Doftle, not Nomen,” Landor reminded them.

  “True, but the Nomen are clones,” Con said. “That means someone made them.”

  “Ari, if you’ll remain here, with Rayne, I think Con and I need to go catch up on our reading.”

  “Reading?” Con asked.

  “Over the past few weeks several reports have been filed on the Nomen, the android, the liquid metal found on Garza, and the Khun,” Landor said. “We’ve skimmed most of them, but I think it’s time for us to sit down and read them carefully. There might be something there that will help us understand what happened to Rayne.”

  “Agreed,” Con said.

  “Wait,” Ari said, stopping them as they turned to leave. “I have a question.”

  “Yes?” Landor asked.

  “When we reached Rayne on the mesa I could scent her clearly. The entire area around her smelled like honeysuckle and fear.” He looked at his brothers questioningly, and they both nodded. “By the time we got her in here, her scent had vanished again.”

  “Yes, I noticed that as well,” Landor said. “It seems our theory that she shields her scent and emotions is correct.”

  “I agree, but my question is, did either of you have a sexual response to her scent before it went away? Because I didn’t.”

  “Neither did I,” Con said in a low voice.

  “Considering the shape she’s in, it would have been surprising if we had,” Landor said. “Our greater instinct at the moment is to care for her and protect her.” Con and Ari both relaxed a little at that. “When she gets better, I’m sure our responses to her will be all we expect them to be.”

  “Good,” Ari said, relieved. Then another thought occurred to him. “When are we going to…,” he paused, glanced at the sleeping figure, then looked back at his brothers and lowered his voice. “When are we going to tell her those things that she doesn’t appear to remember?”

  “Soon,” Landor said.

  “I suppose there’s no way around it,” Con said with a sigh, earning surprised looks from Landor and Ari. “We hurt her feelings. I hurt her feelings. I’m not looking forward to doing that again.”

  “It wasn’t just you, Con, it was all three of us,” Landor said. “As much as I hate the idea of hurting her again, we can’t lie to her, either.”

  “I know,” Con agreed.

  “But,” Landor added, “I don’t think it’s something she needs to deal with right now. When the time is right, we’ll know.”

  “As long as we don’t wait too long,” Con said. “The longer we wait, the more difficult it’ll be for us all.”

  They fell silent as Rayne shifted in her sleep, then watched for a few moments to be sure she hadn’t awakened. After a few moments they relaxed and Ari turned to his brothers. “Give me a moment to get the first aid kit from the bathroom.” They nodded and he hurried away at blurring speed. A couple of seconds later he returned with the kit in his hands. “Go on, now. I won’t leave Rayne alone for a single moment, I promise.”

  Chapter 2

  360 Days in the Future

  Rayne was drifting somewhere deep within her mind, floating just above a sea of black despair, and below full awareness. It would be so easy to just let go and sink down into the cold, dark depths of her mind, releasing reality and sanity altogether. And yet, every time she thought about giving up, the faces of three men appeared in her mind. Three men with black hair and striking eyes that she barely knew and would probably never see again. They gazed at her in absolute silence, but their eyes begged her to hang on, to be patient, to wait just a little longer. She’d tried countless times, but she could never bring herself to deny them no matter how much they’d hurt her. This time was no different.

  There they were, exactly as they’d been th
e last time she’d seen them. Ari with that stray curl falling over his forehead no matter how many times he pushed it back. Con with his solemn green eyes and a crease in his brow, his hair pulled back in a low ponytail. And Landor, twisting the heavy golden ring on his finger, his violet eyes fixed on her unwaveringly.

  As an adult she’d only seen them that one time on the mesa, in the dark, on Garza, and she’d been more preoccupied with their conversation than their appearance. Because of that, she strongly suspected that she’d manufactured all of those details about them in her own mind, but there was no way to be sure.

  After a time, the images faded, as they always did once the urge to give up had passed. After a few moments she turned her attention to the music she’d been working on for what seemed like forever. There was something about the crescendo that she wasn’t quite satisfied with yet.

  “Are you awake Tanjelia Dracon?”

  Rayne’s eyes flew open, her heart going from a calm beat to a thundering gallop in an instant. It wasn’t the strange voice so much as the fact that it had spoken her sister’s name that fully awakened her. The idea of the little blue thugs getting their hands on one of her sisters was absolutely terrifying.

  She looked from side to side as best she could from her prone position, seeing nothing but the same array of monitors and machines around her that had been her only view for so long that it was sometimes difficult to remember a time when they weren’t there. She tried to move even though she knew perfectly well that, except for her eyes and facial muscles, nothing would respond. Finally, she reached out with her senses, searching for Tani while at the same time hoping she wouldn’t find her.

  “Whom do you seek?” the voice asked, startling her again. This time she realized that the unfamiliar voice with its unfamiliar accent was in her mind, not her ears.

  Rayne had always been able to feel her sisters, but she’d never communicated using only her mind before. Her parents communicated that way when they were in their alter-forms, and most male-sets did as well, but she had no idea how it was done. She concentrated, trying to think her words in the same way she’d speak them. “Who are you?” she asked.

  “My true name would be impossible for you to pronounce,” the voice replied. “You may, however, call me Wolef.” Rayne was surprised and pleased with her success, but still wary.

  “Where are you?”

  “In the Facility, of course,” Wolef replied. “Like you, I’m a prisoner here. I must say that I was somewhat saddened to find one who is honored by all dragons in this place.”

  Rayne relaxed. Her sister hadn’t been abducted after all. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Wolef, but I’m not Tanjelia. My name is Rayne. Tani’s my sister.”

  “Are you certain?” he asked. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten yourself during your long…stay…here. It wouldn’t be the first time such a thing has happened.”

  If Rayne could have smiled around her feeding tube, she would have. “Yes, I’m certain. Except for the color of our eyes, my sisters and I are identical triplets, but we are definitely different people.”

  “I see,” Wolef said. “Well, this is disheartening, I daresay.”

  “But you just said you were sad when you thought I was Tani,” she pointed out.

  “Dragons are extremely intelligent beings, and therefore capable of more than one emotion at a time,” he said stiffly.

  “I apologize, Wolef,” Rayne said, hiding her surprise at learning that a dragon was a fellow prisoner. “I meant no offense.”

  “Your apology is accepted,” he said. “I’m aware that Tanjelia has a psychic ability. Are you as alike in that aspect as you are in your brain waves? And if so, will you share its nature with me?”

  Rayne hesitated. In the first two weeks of her imprisonment the short blue people who’d abducted her had used every means their devious, sadistic, ruthless minds could come up with in their attempts to force her to shift. Once they’d accepted that she couldn’t shift, they’d turned their attention toward getting her to reveal her psychic ability. It took two more hellish weeks for them to concede defeat on that subject as well.

  She’d discovered a few things about herself during that time, the most important being that she was much tougher than she’d ever imagined. She’d always thought of herself as the weak sister, and in some ways, she was. But that didn’t change the fact that the harder they tried to force information from her, the stronger her determination to resist became.

  The question at the moment was whether or not this was a trick. Her intuition told her that Wolef was to be trusted, but the little blue thugs were awfully clever.

  “You are wise not to trust too easily,” Wolef said before she’d made up her mind. “Would you object to telling me instead whether or not your ability, whatever it might be, would be useful to you if you’re given the opportunity to escape?”

  “Escape?” she asked, shocked. She hadn’t even considered escape in so long that the word seemed almost alien to her. Rescue, yes. She constantly hoped and prayed for rescue. But escape was impossible.

  “Yes, escape,” Wolef replied. “I know that you’ve been here for one Standard year, so I assume that your physical condition is not optimal at this time, though your mental state appears to be surprisingly good. What I don’t know is if your condition is so bad that it precludes an attempt altogether, or if it can be worked around.”

  “I’ve been here for a year?”

  “Almost, yes,” he said. “Three hundred and sixty of your “standard days,” to be exact. You didn’t know that?”

  “I lost track a long time ago. A year. It feels like it’s been so much longer, and at the same time, it’s hard to believe I’ve lived like this that long.”

  “I know exactly what you mean,” Wolef said. “So will it?”

  “Will what?” she asked, confused.

  “Will your psychic ability aid you in an escape attempt?” he asked with just a hint of impatience.

  Rayne thought about that for a moment. It would still give away a lot to answer that question, but after spending what she now knew was eleven months on her back, unable to move, attached to machines that did everything but allow her the luxury of true unconsciousness, she had little to lose. “Yes, Wolef, my ability would help a very great deal.”

  “Oh, that is excellent news, indeed,” Wolef said. “Just a couple questions more, if you don’t mind.”

  “I have a dinner date this evening, but my activity calendar appears to be clear until then.”

  “Ah, humor,” Wolef said. “I haven’t experienced humor in a very long time, but it’s a good sign, I warrant. Yes, yes, a very good sign. It is my understanding that Tanjelia is a woman of great honor. Are you alike in that manner as well?”

  “I’d like to think so, yes,” Rayne replied, trying not to be insulted.

  “If you swear an oath, will you keep your word, no matter the difficulty in doing so?”

  It took a lot more effort not to be offended this time. “I’m not the warrior my sister is, but if I give my word I will keep it or die trying.”

  “Very good, yes, very good indeed,” Wolef said, sounding quite pleased. “We shall proceed.”

  “Proceed with what?”

  “Planning your escape, of course,” he replied. “What else?”

  The nice thing about communicating with thoughts, Rayne decided, was that it required her to think carefully about each word before speaking them in her mind. It took longer, but it prevented her from saying things that might not have been received well. In this case, she had to rethink her response several times before deciding not to respond to his last question at all.

  “You probably don’t know this, Wolef, but they keep me drugged with a paralytic agent. I can move my eyes, but that’s about it. Just between us, I’ve been working on a really good glare for a long time now, but I think I should save it just in case things get really desperate.” She heard Wolef chuckle in her mind, and tried to send him a smil
e back.

  “Yes, I know about the paralytics,” Wolef said. “I also know that tomorrow you’ll be removed from the machines you’ve been connected to for all these months, and placed in a cell not far from the one I currently occupy.” Rayne was so startled by that bit of news that for a long moment her mind went blank. “Rayne?”

  “Do you know why they’re moving me?”

  “From what I overheard it’s because their experiments have succeeded,” he replied. “I don’t know what experiments they were referring to, however. Do you?”

  “No, I don’t,” she said. “I know they’ve been performing experiments on me, of course. There’s no missing that, and believe me, I’ve tried. I just don’t know the purpose of any of them.”

  “Do you want to know?”

  Rayne thought about that. Whatever the little blue thugs were up to, it wasn’t good. If she had no hope of stopping them, she might have chosen not to torture herself with the knowledge. But if she could escape, if there was even a chance, then she needed to know as much about what they were doing, and why, as possible. “Yes, I want to know.”

  “Then I’ll try to find out,” Wolef said. “In the meantime, remember not to cause any trouble when they move you. They’ll keep you in case they need you again, so there’s no need to worry that they’ll kill you. But if you’re uncooperative they’ll put you back on the machines, and if that happens, escape will be impossible.”

  “Death would be better than this,” Rayne said.

  “You wish to die?”

  “No, I don’t wish to die,” Rayne said. “I just want to be able to live.”

  “In that case, I believe that we can help each other gain what we want most.”

  “What is it that you want most, Wolef?”

  “Unlike you, I do wish to die.”

  Rayne had no idea how to respond to that. Asking him why he wanted to die seemed too personal, and every other comment that came to mind could be seen as judgmental. If there was even the slightest chance he really could help her escape, the last thing she wanted to do was offend him.