Page 30 of Into Darkness (Night Prowler 6)
Eyes sparkling, he looked at her a beat. “Sounds interesting.”
Her smile slowly faded. She exhaled a heavy sigh. “She’s more like her mother than I ever would have guessed, knowing her twin. Hope has that same rebellious streak as her mother, that same fearlessness. Yet she’s much more . . .” she searched for a word, inspecting her singed sleeve. “I don’t know. Fragile, maybe. Sensitive. Jenna was always so self-contained. So self-assured. Hope seems like the kind of girl who could slay a dragon to save a village if she had to, but would cry herself to sleep later, wondering if the beast had a family who would mourn.”
Beckett lowered his brows. “So she’s manic-depressive.”
“Oh, for God’s sake!” Morgan threw up her hands. “She’s disoriented, is what she is! As you would be, too, if you were shot and collared and woke up in a strange place with strange people. So do me a favor when you meet her: be kind.” She turned to leave.
Beckett’s voice climbed a notch. “Shot?”
Without turning, Morgan said over her shoulder, “Believe me, pet, that’s the least terrible thing that’s happened to that poor girl recently.”
She headed toward the Assembly room, leaving the normally sunny Beckett behind to brood.
Lu stared at Magnus with the kind of silence one reserves for funerals, and discussions with medical professionals about that large, inoperable tumor they’ve just discovered in your brain.
“My mother is alive,” she repeated disbelievingly. Magnus nodded, watching her warily, it seemed, for any unusual outbursts. Like a giant ball of fire, for instance. But she felt nothing but that pervasive, numbing shock. She wondered if that was her brain’s defense mechanism, deciding quickly that she preferred numbness to howling fits. At least it was less embarrassing.
A godmother. A sister. And now a mother—all alive.
“When do I meet her?”
Magnus hesitated. “She’s not here.”
“Where is she, then? Can I go to her?”
More awkward silence. Then: “The thing is . . . we don’t know exactly where your mother is.” He added firmly, “But she’s definitely alive.”
Lu blinked at him, more confused than ever. “How do you know she’s alive if you don’t know where she is?”
“Because of Honor’s Gift.”
When she just waited him out, he added, “Telepathy.”
“They . . . talk to one another? Like that?”
When he nodded, nausea made her stomach lurch, and she covered her mouth with her hand. She’d been blocking Honor for years, blocking everyone’s thoughts for years because she’d learned the only way to survive was to shut the world out, to act “normal.” The probability that she’d also inadvertently been blocking her own mother made her feel sick. She shook her head, trying to clear it enough to make sense of what he was telling her.
“So does that mean she doesn’t want Honor to know where she is, or . . .”
Anger flickered across his features, darkening his eyes, thinning his lips, and suddenly she knew exactly what it meant.
Horrified, Lu breathed, “She’s a prisoner!”
His expression was a tortured mix of grief, guilt, and fury. He looked away, as if he couldn’t meet her eyes, and she took his silence as affirmation.
All the stories she’d ever heard about how Abs were abused in government-run detention centers slammed into her head and became a whirling vortex of horror inside her skull. She whispered, “For how long?”
He seemed reluctant to answer, and she thought his teeth were in danger of shattering with all the grinding of his jaw.
“Magnus—how long?”
“Since the Flash.”
Oh dear God. For decades, her mother had been locked up, probably experimented on, probably tortured—
Lu squeezed shut her eyes, forcing herself to remain calm though all she wanted to do was succumb to the sobs trapped inside her chest. She saw the Grand Minister’s face just before she threw up her hands at the Hospice, remembered the words he’d said that she’d been so convinced were lies.
And you can meet your mother—you’d like that wouldn’t you? To meet your birth mother? She’s missed you so much.
