Page 24 of Storm Echo

A DarkRiver cat—a white-blond male—who’d run over with a blanket gave Soleil a nod that said he saw her, knew her, and would deal with her later. He covered mother and baby in the warmth of the blanket, while Soleil took care of the afterbirth. She placed it in a large biohazard bag from the kit in lieu of anything else, never taking her attention off her patients.

Zoula was rocking her baby, a new light in her face. “She’s alive.” A shaken whisper. “Thank you. Oh, thank you.”

“You did all the work, Mama,” Soleil said, exhaling in quiet relief when an ambulance screamed into the street. It stopped right next to them—thanks to the waving arms of the man who’d given up his jacket.

Soleil waited only until Zoula and her baby were both in the ambulance before she moved on to assist other injured.

Whatever had happened, it was still going on.

And the stranger with the obsidian eyes continued to kneel there, his muscles locked but his eyes scanning the area. Gasps of life followed his attention. That black gaze locked with Soleil’s for a fleeting instant, a shock of blazing power and cold control … and from her cat, a possessive swipe.

Then he was gone, leaving her cat bad-tempered and the human side of her shockingly aware of him in a way she hadn’t been aware ofanythingsince her waking. Her breath stuck in her throat, her cat grumpy at not being able to touch him.

Mine, it snarled.Mine.

Glaring at her own cat—who stuck up its tailandits nose in haughty defiance—she ran toward a changeling couple who were attempting to assist an elderly Psy. All the while, no matter where she was on the street, no matter if she was facing him or had her back to him, she could pinpoint the location of the stranger.

As if inside her was a homing beacon attuned only and perfectly to him.

To a Psy with eyes as black as night.

Chapter 12

With all the collapses of late, all the fractures, the PsyNet is going to tear apart regardless. Better to do it in a controlled fashion.

—Payal Rao, Anchor Representative on the Psy Ruling Coalition & CEO of the Rao Conglomerate (16 June 2083)

KALEB HAD BECOME used to dealing with Net ruptures.

The tears had increased in frequency and destructiveness ever since the rise of the Scarabs—powerful, out-of-control Psy who were a byproduct of the fall of Silence. Because the Silence protocol hadworkedfor a minority of the Psy race, the rules and attendant shielding mandated by it creating a wall around their minds that had helped contain their chaotic power.

Prior to Silence, these same Psy would’ve imploded as children, burning up in the inferno of their abilities. But Silence had allowed them to grow to adulthood. And these adult Scarabs were viciously powerful—and on the road to death. The vast majority of Psy minds weren’t built to process that much psychic energy, would crash and burn under the weight of it.

But the Scarabs could cause—and were causing—massive damage on the way to self-destruction.

Now this.

“This isn’t a rupture,” he said to the cloaked mind that stood next to him on the starlit black of the PsyNet. Aden Kai, leader of the Arrow Squad, had responded at the same time as Kaleb—because this break was nothing normal.

“Agreed.” Aden’s presence was a calm ocean in the chaos. “We can’t seal this.”

“No.” It would be the first time the two of them made no attempt to fix a breach. “We save those who we can, reduce the Net lesion where possible.” He’d already been doing so even as they spoke, as had Aden.

Now, decision made, they split off in different directions. He could see multiple other strong minds in his vicinity, could tell the untrained ones from the trained. It didn’t matter. Power was power and as the untrained were set on assisting minds to hold on to the Net, they could do no harm.

He targeted his own energy—the brutal energy of a dual cardinal—into sealing the “frayed” edge of the PsyNet. He didn’t know how the system would work with that massive black space beyond. The PsyNet had always been a single contiguous network, one that spanned the globe. Today, an entire piece had torn off into an island.

And the moat around that island was growing.

A moat.

That was when he realized the PsyNet remained a contiguous entity—it was already redirecting itself to flow around the island. The PsyNet would surround that island, but the two parts were no longer connected. The blackness that separated them was full of nothing—and it was growing.

That was when he saw it.

A mind flashing bright on the other side—on the edge of the island—before it vanished.

A Scarab burning up in their own power.

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