“So where’s the trap?” asked Bomber, peering out at the lightening horizon. The hours wore away but never seemed to bother him. He didn’t grow bags under his eyes, didn’t lose an ounce of his alert tension, didn’t rest his eyes just for a moment. Every time Gina awoke from her fitful doze she found him sitting there, never moving, like a gargoyle watching for evil spirits.
“I don’t know, Simo– I mean, Jacob. Sorry.” A tight smile crossed Jezebel’s face. “I’ve gotten so used to calling you ‘Simon’ it’s hard to think of you as anything else.”
He shrugged and said, “Call me Simon if you like. One name’s as good as another.” A long pause. “I sure would like to have some clue where the bullets are gonna be comin’ from, though.”
Jezebel, too, gained a measure of Gina’s respect for her endless patience and level-headedness. “You’ll be the first to know, Simon,” she said.
“He’s just nervous,” teased Gina. Bomber obviously didn’t think very much of that. He craned his neck around to give her a dirty look, then resumed his watch. She patted him on the shoulder.
In the front, Jezebel cleared her throat as if preparing to ask a difficult question. “You know, Simon, there’s something the Colonel never told me,” she began. “How do you know him?”
Bomber hesitated. He didn’t make a noise until Gina squeezed his shoulder, at which point he slowly started to speak. “He used to be CO of the airbase where my copter squadron was stationed. We never spoke much before he left for a new command, until we were both roped into attendin’ some Virginia senator’s dinner, him as CO of his new base and me as stand-in for my squadron commander. We got to talkin’. Things went from there.”
“That’s interesting,” Jezebel murmured.
“Why?”
“‘Cause I know the Colonel’s only ever had one command, and it wasn’t an airbase.” She glanced at him. “When I met him, he was CO of the Marine base at Quantico. Combat Development Command and R&D, the whole shenanigans.” When Bomber didn’t respond, she asked, “Which branch of the service were you in again?”
He looked at her, eyes like gleaming daggers. “I suggest you be very careful about the next thing you say. You’re either callin’ me a liar or the Colonel. I won’t have anyone, not even you, disrespectin’ the memories of good people.”
“You’re not the only one who remembers the Colonel a bit funny, Simon. Let me tell you a story, before you do anything stupid.” She locked eyes with him and slowly stared him down. Gina didn’t know what to do, particularly with a driver taking her eyes off the road, but she decided that butting in now would do more harm than good. “I used to know a woman,” Jezebel continued, “someone a lot like you, boosted to the gills and cocky as hell. Friend of mine. She remembered being in an experimental Navy SEALs unit, specialising in infiltration and security hacking. Described the trials she did, the people she met, the training areas, everything in absolute detail.
“I didn’t know exactly what it was about the things she said that sounded funny, but one day I decided to go to the base where she was stationed, just to have a look. It was all there. The unit existed, the people and places checked out just like she said, and her name was on the roster. But I couldn’t find any transfer documents. Not at the base, not in the main system, there wasn’t a single shred of information about the time between the day she joined up and the day she was posted to that base.
“When I got back, I questioned her about her previous posts, and she told me this experimental unit was her first. Straight out of boot camp into an experimental SEALs unit. ‘Yeah, right,’ says I, even if there were mountains of paperwork to confirm it. So I checked the age on my friend’s file against her latest physical. Turned out she was at least two years older biologically than on paper. Of course, she was a loner, no friends or family from before the service who could tell us her actual birth date. That’s where my investigation ended.
“I asked the Colonel about it once. He told me it was classified, and ordered me never to investigate it again. It didn’t seem too important, so I let it rest.” She smiled at Bomber. “Ever since I met you, I’ve been hoping for the chance to ask you the same things. I’m betting something similar happened to you. Am I right?”
Bomber’s eyes had gone wide, his face pale and ashen. He breathed, “Jesus . . . It’s just like you said. First thing out of boot, I was dumped on this airbase, bein’ trained up as a pilot. They said I qualified for some kind of fast-track scheme. After that it was straight into the cockpit flyin’ test missions, goin’ to the docs every week for a new implant.”
A long sigh hissed out of Jezebel’s chest, as if years of tension were expelling themselves in relief. “I think the Army did something to you, Simon,” she said, her attention back on the road. “The same thing they did to my friend. If I’m right, two years of memories have gone missing inside that head of yours, and you’ve been conditioned to never realise they were even gone.”
“I don’t think I wanna hear any more of this,” said Bomber, his voice strained. Veins stood out in his face. Gina couldn’t tell if what came out of Bomber’s mouth was what he wanted to say or if something was making him say it. “Right now I think we should concentrate on getting to the airport alive.”
Jezebel nodded. “I actually agree. That’s why I’m warning you. By now Gabriel may know more about you than you do, and there’s no way we can get inside your head and pull out the info.” Then she glanced slyly over her shoulder, straight at Gina. “Unless there is.”
Gina shuddered and kept quiet. No one spoke as the outlying suburbs of Jefferson City started to rise up around them. Every village and town to the south had been abandoned, but here they saw people crossing the street without suits or anything, with only a faint glossy sheen to the houses to indicate radiation-proofing. It took a minute for Gina to realise that the tags everyone outside wore weren’t part of some weird fashion statement, but were actually radiation tags, just like the one pinned to her jacket. Somehow that seemed worse than the glittering domes and subways of Austin.
The tension built while they approached the airport. Soon Gina could see the airships coming in and taking off, people milling around inside the terminals. She counted the seconds until the anticipated attack.
They reached the airport car park without incident, which put everyone that little bit more on edge. One by one they emerged cautiously from the jeep like rabbits on a shooting range and headed for the terminal. They were all watching for the enemy, planning escape routes in case of emergency, trying to think tactically. Gina was starting to wish the ambush would just come so they could get it over with.
“We should be safe if we can make it to the airship,” whispered Jezebel. “Once we’re a couple thousand feet up, there isn’t a whole lot they can do.”
Gina smirked and said, “I’m looking forward to it.”
Meanwhile Bomber adjusted his belt, his trousers heavy with a hidden stealth gun and a ceramic vibroknife. Gina, too, had been offered her share of weaponry, but she’d begged off. The very idea of holding a gun was repulsive to her now. Her Mk5 was all she needed. Even if it got discovered, it wouldn’t mean too much trouble for Gina, as every commercial airship crew wore low-profile armour that no taser could get through.
The terminal doors slid open without complaint. They stepped through into the riot of duty-free shops and past the massive flight lists displayed on a cubical hologram as big as a house, and headed for the pass machines. An uneasy feeling built up in Gina’s stomach, a cold lump sitting in her belly, above and beyond her normal anxiety. She couldn’t find any reason for it, so she resolved to ignore it.
“This automated boarding pass service is brought to you by Yumito Virtualities,” said the familiar cartoon girl floating in front of the booth, pink dress waving in the holographic winds, stars and rainbows playing all around it. “Please show your credit card up to the scanner.” Jezebel flashed a small red card at the machine. The hologram assumed a thoughtful expression for a moment, then laughed and clapped its hands. “Success! Thank you, Mrs. Eleanor Kowalski, your boarding passes have been uploaded to your card. Thank you for using the Yumito Virtual Fun Experience, please enjoy and be happy!”
“Mrs. Eleanor Kowalski?” sniggered Bomber. Even he had to have a sense of humour.
“Fuck off,” Jezebel replied firmly.
At the main junction of gates was a long queue, directed by a group of holographic traffic wardens and instruction signs. There didn’t seem to be any actual human beings at work that Gina could see except the pair of hard-faced guards at the security gate, glaring down everyone in their line of sight.
One by one they held up their passports to the scanner and approached the gate, which happily buzzed everyone through.
The rest of their route was a long, escalator-assisted walk to the boarding gate. The walls were made almost entirely of bulletproof plexiglass so that travellers could see all across the airfield while still protected from most things. Outside, the tarmac blazed with the reflected light of the morning, the sun peeking just above the horizon. The low rumble of airship engines and chartered aeroplanes buzzed through the floor. Emergency exits lined the long hall on both sides, each receiving suspicious glances from Bomber and Jezebel, as if any of them might be harbouring the enemy.
Gina’s stomach only grew more restless along the way. It was a feeling she couldn’t quite place, a nameless dread that refused to completely materialise in her mind. She shivered. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and a throbbing ache crept into her brain. The next thing she knew, she was walking ahead of the others and still speeding up, for no reason that she could have explained.
“Gina, hold up!” Bomber called, but she barely heard him. The pounding in her head only grew more intense, cold sweat poured down her shivering face. The drumming between her ears sped up more and more until it seemed there was someone running at her shoulder, laughing like hell.
Rough hands grabbed her shoulders and turned her about. Her eyes cleared to see, and for a moment she saw eyes like burning embers, hair that shone gold with inner light, and the face of an angel. Her heart froze into a solid lump of ice. The image faded, but the terror did not.
“Come on, wake up!” Bomber yelled in her face. “What’s wrong?”
“He’s here,” she whispered. She saw Bomber’s face go pale, and he went for his gun. He quickly wrestled it out of its hidden pocket and shouted for Jezebel to move, then grabbed Gina by the collar and hauled her along at a run.
Jezebel growled, “Move, move! Get to the ship, it’s our only chance!”
They dashed through the crowd at a reckless pace. Bomber used his shoulders and elbows to carve out a path, keeping the stealth pistol concealed in the crook of his arm. Jezebel covered the rear with her own half-concealed gun. For once, the lack of airport staff worked in their favour, and they made a run for the airship gate.
“Remember the panic button,” Jezebel said to Bomber as they charged down the empty straight. Gina could feel the rush of thought that accompanied the words. We can’t get caught with guns, Jezebel repeated to herself. She seemed to be repeating a phrase someone else had told her. If we’re cornered, just hit the button and the piece will melt to mud. That’s why they call it the panic button. If there’s reason to panic, hit the button.
Their desperate flight slowed down as they reached the gate. An airline attendant stood behind the small desk in a ridiculously short skirt and smiled at them, saying, “Good evening, sir, ladies. It’s a good thing you got here, you’re the last people to board today, we almost left without you.” She shrugged by way of apology. “May I see your boarding passes please?”
Jezebel held out the small red card, and the attendant passed a scanner over it. Then she smiled with renewed force. “Thank you, madam, everything seems to be in order. Please proceed up the boarding ramp and into the ship.”
The woman barely had time to finish before Bomber dragged Gina into the boarding tube and up the ramp, sheet metal clanking to their footsteps. The airship door was open and they stepped through it with barely-composed restraint.
Bomber and Jezebel breathed sighs of relief as the ship doors closed behind them. They’d escaped the trap. Another airline attendant greeted them as they came on board, and introduced them to a holographic talking bluebird which would lead them to their seats. Bomber and Jezebel exchanged glances, then shrugged and followed along.
Row after row of empty seats were passed by. The entire first class compartment was bare, but their tickets were business class, so they had no choice but to follow the bluebird into the next compartment. The pounding in Gina’s head reached fever pitch, as if someone had a battering ram at the gates of her mind and a serious determination to get in. She wanted to scream, but had no energy left with which to do it.
When they brushed through the cloth screen separating the compartments, Bomber stopped dead and clamped his hand back on his gun. Business class, too, was completely empty. Jezebel stared dumbfounded for a second until the horrific realisation came over her.
A hand brushed aside the screen to the economy class compartment, and Gabriel took a few lazy steps towards them with his casual body language and engaging smile.
“Welcome to Lowell Airlines,” he said. “I hope you have a pleasant flight.”
“It’s so nice to finally meet you,” Gabriel said. With only a split second to act Bomber raised his gun and fired. The shot rang out like thunder, but Gabriel’s smile never darkened. He just nodded at one of the airline attendants, who stepped in and politely took the gun from Bomber’s hand. There was no casing on the floor, and the magazine indicator still read the same number.
“So nice,” he continued, “now that we can dispense with the hostilities and get to know each other.” He walked past them into the first class compartment and draped himself across a chair. “Come on! Sit down, order the wine, leave your seatbelt off for all I care. It’s my ship, nobody’s going to complain.” As if to punctuate his words, the ship shuddered as it cast loose its moorings, and the large windows showed the airport dropping away below.
Bomber looked over to Jezebel. She stood like a statue, arms clamped to her side and her pistol pointed at the floor, held in white-knuckled fingers. He growled at her, “Jez, snap out of it! Shoot him!”
“I can’t,” she said. Her voice had a strange edge to it, like breaking glass. It didn’t take a telepath to know there was something deeply wrong.
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I can’t.” After a long pause, she lifted the gun in front of her, barrel pointed down. Then, with her free hand, she pressed the panic button. The weapon melted to brown ooze in her hands and blotted the airship carpet. “I can’t,” she finished.
Again, Gabriel smiled at them. “There’s no need to be shocked. She’s just remembering, it’s part of her instructions.” To Jezebel he added, “Ellen? Are you alright?”
Gina watched in horror as Jezebel jerked a nod and walked forward, took up a position at Gabriel’s side. She felt the rush of knowledge in Jezebel’s mind, words and images flooding back through a crack in the wall that had held them out. Days in a dark room, tied to a chair, naked and alone and frightened. Gabriel’s radiance every time he came into the room. Speaking with her about everything and nothing. By the time she walked out the door at his side, she loved him, a burning flame in her heart of hearts; white and pure and bright as the sun.
Supporting herself on a chair arm, Jezebel took a deep breath and shook the thoughts out of her head. He offered her a glass of water, but she waved it away. She was still pale but a little colour was returning to her cheeks. She said, “The remembering’s . . . a lot to take in.”
“I know,” he said. He spared her a quick pat on the arm, then returned his attention to Gina, knowing what she’d just seen. He stared at her with wonder plain on his face. When he opened his mouth, though, he was still speaking to Jezebel. “Wait outside, please. Take Simon with you. Gina and I have a lot to talk about, in private.”
She started to move towards Bomber, but he immediately fell into a fighting stance, ready to kill with his bare hands if necessary. He rasped, “Come near me and I’ll break your neck. Any of you. Same for Gina, you’re not touchin’ her.”
“Be quiet.” Gabriel looked at him with those blazing eyes, and Bomber fell silent. “You seem to be under some very mistaken impressions, Simon, like the one about you having a choice in what happens here. Nobody’s going to die on this boat, understand? Nobody. Unless you want to take the shortest route from here to the ground without a parachute.”
Through an effort of will, Gina swallowed her fear, uncrossed her arms and laid a shivering hand on Bomber’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ll be alright,” she said softly.
He seemed outraged by the suggestion that he’d abandon her. “But–“
“It won’t do anyone any good if you get killed on my account,” she pointed out. The reality finally dawned on him, and he hung his head. Gina worked up a brave smile and tried desperately to think of what to do now. The only thing she could think of came on a whim — she suddenly threw her arms around him and planted her lips on his. They were warm where hers were cold. She crushed him to her, held on with all her strength, and a little bit of life seeped back into her through him.
It lasted as long as it could. Finally they broke away, and Bomber allowed himself to be led of the room.
“Alone at last,” Gabriel murmured when Bomber had gone. “So much to talk about. I hardly know where to start.”
“Maybe you should strip me and tie me to a chair first,” she replied, teeth bared and venom in her voice. “Or have some goons beat me. Or call in the fucking Feds!”
Gabriel’s eyes held a slight twinge of guilt. He glanced out the window and said, “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Don’t patronise me.”
“Sorry.” He sighed, then met her eyes once more. “When you’re in my position, morality becomes a luxury you can’t afford to indulge very much. I’ve had to do some pretty questionable things in the past because there was no other way to get what I needed. If it makes you feel any better, I left the men who beat your friend to the Feds. Onounu, that was her name. I liked her.” His lips twisted into a sad little half-smile.
“Oddly enough it doesn’t,” she said. Then, firmly, “You can’t do to me what you did to them.”
He almost jumped out of his chair and exclaimed, “It’s not like that!” Crossing over to her, he took her hands in his and stared down into her, his eyes like pools of molten steel. It was hard to resist feeling sympathy for him then, but Gina held on to the bitter strength inside her. He continued, “I didn’t force them. Whatever Ellen feels for me, it’s something she built up herself. Onounu was the same. They just care.”
She let out a long breath. “You manipulate them. Everyone you meet. You don’t think you do, but that’s what it is. You twist people to your own ends.” She paused, bit her lip. “Even me.”
Surprisingly he let go of her hands, and instead she felt a soothing hand reaching into her mind, as if caressing it. Every hair on her body stood upright, every cell shivered with joy down to her very core. “You know better,” he whispered.
“Is this what you did to her?” Gina asked, her voice hoarse, and jerked her head towards the doorway where Jezebel and Bomber had gone. “Do you fuck her as well?”
“No,” he murmured, almost shyly. “I wouldn’t . . . I’ve never . . .”
She sank into his arms.
“Open your eyes,” his voice echoed. When she did, her senses reacted with confusion and nausea — a moment ago she had been standing on an airship carpet breathing dry, filtered air. Now she felt fresh sand curling between her toes, sea wind on her face, dark waves lapping against a shore somewhere in the night. Overwhelming dizziness brought her to her knees, about to be violently ill, but then she felt a soft touch in her mind soothing everything away.
“You’ll get used to it eventually,” Gabriel said, helped her gently to her feet. “Your mind’s still too attached to your body. When you stop thinking physically, it starts coming easier.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Gina coughed back. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and took stock of her surroundings. At first everything seemed unfamiliar, but then she recognised the wooden chairs and table, candles burning in the darkness and stars dancing across the sky like fireflies. This was where she met him alone for the first time, in her dreams.
“So it wasn’t just my imagination,” she breathed. “You were really there.”
He nodded. “I’ve always found it easier to speak here. It’s so much richer, it has more meaning.” A slight grin brightened his face. “And there’s the fact that I couldn’t find you at the time. It would’ve been easier if we’d been together. From so far away, I could only get in touch with you once or twice, it’s a bit draining.”
A hundred questions boiled in Gina’s mind, all trying to come out at once. “How do you do it?” she blurted. “What is this place, and how do you change it the way you do?”
“I’ve studied it for years, but I’m still not sure I have all the answers. It’s like a shared dream. Anything you can dream, it can happen here.” He demonstrated by waving his arm, and a trail of coloured sparks appeared following his hand. “See? You just go into the part of you that dreams and . . . connect. Pick up the phone and dial,” he chuckled. “It’s not that simple, of course, but there’s no other way to explain it.”
A spark of excitement burned in Gina’s mind, mixed with wonder and disbelief. She breathed the air, felt the stars tickling against her skin, and knew that she wanted this. On a whim she grabbed his hands and pulled him along, running through the sand, and she giggled, “Can I do what you do?”
“Of course! Just think about what you want to do and do it!” he called at her.
“Well, I want to fly!”
No sooner had she said the words and concentrated on her desire to fly than her feet left the ground, running higher and higher onto thin air. She let out a squeal of childlike joy and soared. Gabriel let go of her and flew up in front, offering his hand to her for a dance. Instead of taking it, she laughed and launched herself into him, kissing him passionately as they tumbled toward the ground. He hardly protested. At the bottom of their arc, they ploughed into the ground with a spray of sand but no pain, and she rolled on top of him.
“How do you ever leave this place?” she gasped, breathing hard with excitement. “Why would you want to?”
When he looked into her eyes she knew she’d touched on a nerve, but it didn’t diminish her curiosity. Finally he breathed deep and said, “It’s hard sometimes, but in the end it’s meaningless if there’s no one there to share it.”
“I bet you have, though.” She poked a finger at his chest. “You can’t tell me there hasn’t been a girl you’ve done this with. Probably done a lot more, as well.”
He didn’t answer. Instead his brow furrowed and his eyes started to glow, and Gina sat back to watch, and she opened her mouth to ask what he was up to–
She screamed aloud as a bolt of pure sexual pleasure shot into her body. It was too much, a complete overload to her senses, and the pleasure quickly turned into white-hot agony lancing up and down her body. Her vision went red, her ears rang, and every breath of wind across her skin was like a raw and painful orgasm. She collapsed on top of him, panting and paralysed.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Even the vibrations of his voice sent her into spasms, and she would’ve begged him to stop if any noise had come out of her throat. After a moment he realised what was going on. “Oh, you’re being physical again. Here.” Again the soothing touch was there, smoothing away her hypersensitivity until she simply drifted on an ocean of pleasant sensations.
She was still panting when she finally recovered. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she rasped. “Ever heard of being gentle?”
“I was holding back,” he said deadpan. “That was nothing.”
Unimpressed with his attitude and her body raging with hormones, she grabbed him by his collar, pushed him down onto the sand and focused everything she had on him. Every ounce of her willpower focused into a single spot. He gasped from the explosion of ecstasy, shuddering all over — she could feel echoes of his emotions bouncing back through her, like a warm body pressed against her skin, but only coming through in waves.
“How was that?” she asked him.
He tried to hide his shivers behind a smile. “Not bad. We can work with that.”
Lowering her mouth down to his ear, she murmured, “I think I prefer the real thing.”
Gina disentangled herself and started putting her clothes back on. The airship was warm and cosy, but she felt strangely vulnerable in the nude. Fabric rustled as Gabriel sat up behind her. A hand cupped her breast and lips teased her neck, but she shrugged him off, then ran a playful hand through his hair to keep from giving the wrong impression. Sex while flying high on Spice was pretty intense, but what she’d just experienced made everything else pale in comparison.
“Not ever?” she said.
“First time.” He seemed uncomfortable to admit it, but strangely unembarrassed. “It’s never seemed right before. The dreams were always enough. Less . . . physical.”
“It’s just a body. Nothing to be ashamed of.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then broke into a smile. “Do you know how long I’ve wished for you?” he murmured. “Someone who can do even half of what I do. Someone who understands.”
She stopped dressing with her shirt halfway down her torso and smiled back at him. It was kind-of sweet, in a way. “I wish I did. There’s so much I don’t know about you, I’m not even sure who you really are.”
“Sometimes I don’t really know myself.”
“Now you’re evading the point,” she countered in a teasing tone.
“Sharp as a razor, that’s another thing I like about you,” he laughed. “So many questions rolling around in that head of yours. Which one would you like me to answer first?”
Leaning in, she stroked his ear and basked in the reverberated pleasure she felt in him. “You went to so much trouble to get us here. For what?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he said. “For this. For you. You don’t realise how amazing you really are, Gina.” For a moment he hesitated, as if he was afraid of how she might respond to what he had to say. Finally he plunged on, “Remember the first time we met? You just sat down and opened the door. I didn’t sense it at first, and that was surprising enough, but when I found you in my head . . . I tried to kill you. I put everything I had into crushing that little mind until it broke, but you wouldn’t break. You survived it. Managed to get up and walk, even. No one else has ever done that. As a result I became . . . fascinated with you.”
She snorted, “Some stalker.”
“Glad I made a good impression.” He put on a disgusted sneer, but couldn’t keep a straight face for long. “Do I really put you off that much?”
She sighed, “Listen, I like you. Despite everything, I like you disturbingly much, and I’m not sure what that says about me or you. But how could I ever trust you?” He started to protest, but she placed a finger against his lips and kissed him to shut him up. Then, “Let’s take stock here. You admit you’ve tried to kill me at least once. You keep appearing in my dreams and confusing me until I don’t know who I can trust. You’re not on good terms with any of my friends, barring the ones you’ve brutalised or gotten killed.” She swallowed a sudden lump in her throat. “Do I need to go on?”
“That does put me in sort of a bad light, doesn’t it?” he muttered, rubbing his chin, and she nodded.
“So let’s just leave things where they are for now, and we’ll see how it goes, okay?” After a moment of pregnant silence, eyes locked together in mutual understanding, Gina just burst into laughter. “God, I sound like I’m dumping you.”
He couldn’t help but laugh with her, blurting out, “And you aren’t?”
“Ask yourself,” she replied and pulled her shirt back off before lunging at him again.
The hours flew like seconds. When they separated again, every inch of Gina’s skin dripped with sweat. Her body still shivered with residual endorphins, past the point of exhaustion yet walking on clouds at the same time. She blinked at the last rays of the afternoon touching her face through the giant bay windows. Only then did she realise how long they’d been on the airship, and she scrambled for her clothes.
“I need to talk to Bomber,” she said urgently. “He doesn’t do well in a trap, and right now he wants nothing more than to kill you. You’ll have to drop us off somewhere.”
He started to laugh, but his mirth died as he caught her expression. “You’re not joking.”
“No.”
“Then be serious, Gina. Your friend has a grudge against me, he’s got contacts, and he knows entirely too much. What you know about me is yours, I give it to you freely, but I can’t have him running around with information that could potentially ruin my entire operation.”
Anger churned in her stomach at the implication in his voice. She jumped to her feet and glared down at him with steel in her eyes, made only slightly less intimidating by the fact she was dressed only in a button-up shirt and a pair of panties. She said, “Kill him and you’ll never get what you want.”
Gabriel rose calmly and spoke in a level, matter-of-fact tone. “Do you have any idea how much damage you two have done already? Any at all?” he asked. “Eight of my men are dead. I’ve had to torch half a dozen places just to keep anyone else from retracing your steps, and I don’t know how many dozens of lives that cost. Do you know how that eats at me?” Instead of waiting for a response, he closed his eyes and channelled the emotion into her, a wrenching in her gut like knives of guilt and remorse dancing in her belly. She staggered back in horror, clutching her stomach, but the next moment Gabriel’s arms were around her and the feeling melted away. “Listen,” he sighed, softening somewhat, “I don’t want to kill anyone. I really don’t. What can I do, though? Keep him locked up forever?”
A thought occurred to her then, a glimmer of hope, questionable as it was. “Can you take the memories out of his head, like you did with Jez?” she asked. “Lock it away so it never comes back?”
“I . . . maybe.” He seemed to consider the idea for a moment. “It wouldn’t be perfect. There’s a lot of strong emotion under his surface, there’d always be a risk of him accidentally breaking through.”
“Please?” she whispered, pressing herself in a little bit closer. Although she’d never openly admit to it, she knew a few things about manipulation herself.
“I’ll need your help,” he said, and after a moment’s hesitation, she nodded. For Bomber’s sake.
