Page 117 of Primal Mirror

Remi snorted. “Auden’s more likely to have given power of attorney to a random person on the street.” His leopard prowled against his skin. “I think it’s time the Scotts learned that she isn’t alone anymore. And that her friends know the family doesn’t have the codes to the system with Charisma dead. Fuckers have to be panicking.”

Turned out Remi had snapped Ms. Wai’s neck when he’d thrown her against that wall. He felt fine about that. There wouldn’t be any consequences, either, not with Lomax and Verhoeven having undergone judicially mandated telepathic scans that confirmed Remi had acted in self-defense against an armed Wai.

The Scotts had also disavowed any knowledge of the medical staff and their “unauthorized” medical experimentation on their former CEO, and they were, at present, confined to a prison holding facility designed for Psy.

Everyone else at the compound at the time of the incident had also fared much the same. The Scotts cleaning up their mess by claiming ignorance of the entire operation; he’d heard they were pinning it all on Charisma Wai, not that they had any idea of the entirety of what had taken place.

It amazed him the games the assholes continued to play while their lives hung in the balance. An exhausted Aden had visited him here, told him the crippled status of the PsyNet as they sat side by side on hard plas chairs in the hallway. “It’s going to fail any day now,” he’d said. “Liberty will survive—she’ll be pulled into the RainFire changeling network through your bond with her.”

“The squad?” he’d asked the man who was an alpha with the attendant heart; it’d crush him to be unable to protect his pack, all these wounded Arrows who looked to him for hope.

“We have a statistically unbalanced number of high-Gradients. We’ll survive in a small private network, as will others. None of us have given up on finding a solution, but the clock is close to midnight now.

“If the worst does happen, even with the highest possible number of projected survivors, including the stable island held by Ivan Mercant, it’ll only equal a single-digit percentage of our current population.”

“What can RainFire do? Just tell us, and we’ll do it.”

“You’re already doing everything you can for a population of your small size—you can’t take any further load,” Aden had explained. “My people have bonded with yours. The emotional ties will further strengthen our local network. We may end up having to move closer to you and ask for you to initiate blood bonds to help with the integrity of it. It might be uncomfortable, but it shouldn’t hurt your pack.”

“Consider it done,” Remi had said without hesitation.

The leader of the squad had stared at the floor, his shoulders slumped and his hands hanging between his knees. “And your home territory, it’s far from where millions of Psy will die in a matter of days. Our children deserve not to grow up in a graveyard.”

Too bad his brave, loving, little cat’s family was full of cockroaches who’d probably survive the biggest loss of life the world had ever seen. The horror of it was something Remi’s brain struggled to comprehend.

So for today, for this minute, he focused on a wrong he could put right, a piece of the world he could fix.

“Where is this Hayward Scott?” he asked Angel.

“Moved into the compound with his people a couple of hours ago, soon as the authorities cleared it.”

Those authorities hadn’t been from Enforcement but from an arm of the Ruling Coalition set up to deal with the crimes of the powerful. Each member of the team was both strong on the psychic plane and—crucially—underwent regular sessions with empaths to ensure they remained uncorrupted and devoted to their task of justice.

But the team had to follow its own ethical rules.

The Scotts were about to learn that Remi’s ethics were those of a predator who understood honor as well as it understood violence.

* * *

• • •

HAVING something concrete to do gave him focus and energy. He left Rina with Auden when he went on the op with Angel.

Just the two of them, because this was about stealth.

He could’ve initiated legal proceedings, but that would take too long, and he wanted the Scotts to be afraid. From how they were acting, given the oncoming collapse of the PsyNet, they clearly thought they had an exit strategy figured. No need for fear.

That was about to change.

The Scotts were about to gain a close, private understanding of the emotion. He especially wanted them to be afraid of Auden so they’d stop treating her as a commodity they could use and discard.

Most of all, he wanted to punish them for making her afraid for so long.

Auden could make the final call about what she wanted to do when she woke, but he wasn’t about to let them steal that choice from her as they’d already stolen so many others. “Ready?” he said to Angel in the depths of the night.

He could only see his friend because of his night vision—they stood a significant distance from the security lights around the compound. While Remi was dressed in black, complete with a mask that covered all of his face but for his eyes, Angel wore the stripes of a tiger.

Now he rumbled a growl of acknowledgment, and they moved.

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