The Reckoning by Teyla Branton Read Free Book Online

became impossible to continue hiding that he wasn’t aging. It made sense that they would have sought each other out, both being Unbounded, but their supposed tragic “deaths” only a year apart made me wonder at what lurked behind the public story. Did she know that he had since been really and truly killed in the battle with the Emporium?
    Physically, Dimitri estimated the woman to be in her mid-thirties, and given that most Changes occur between the thirty-first and thirty-third birthdays and Unbounded age at two years for every hundred they live, she was probably over two hundred and fifty, give or take a couple decades. So perhaps Ritter’s contemporary. She had dark hair and a delicate face—beautiful by even Unbounded standards. No wonder mortals had been so taken with her during her short career.
    Cort had a tablet in his hands and was making notes with an electronic pen. “We’ve activated the one-way glass, so she won’t be able to see us. Oh, there she goes.”
    Her eyes opened. I knew they were blue because Dimitri had checked, though apparently in her professional life, she’d experimented with changing her eye color long before most people had ever heard of contacts. Her Unbounded connections, no doubt. It worried me that we could find no information on her. We’d contacted Kennedy’s Unbounded son in Europe where he worked with our Renegades, but he had no information for us. Though Junior had seen his father after his faked assassination and before his own pretend demise, they had never talked about the woman. He’d expressed doubt about her identity, and he might be right. After all, there were people all over the world who looked nearly identical.
    She’d soon be able to answer our question herself.
    Dimitri was talking to her softly, his voice coming to us through the speakers above our heads, telling her how we’d found her locked in a bomb shelter below an Emporium building used for imprisonment and experimentation. “You’ve been here two weeks,” he added. He’d shown the same kindness with me after my Change, and I still felt grateful for his quiet support that day.
    To the woman’s credit, she didn’t start crying or asking question we didn’t have the answers to. She accepted Dimitri’s help to sit up, letting the curequick-soaked blanket slide down, showing indifference to her nudity as many Unbounded did, even the most conservative ones. I felt sympathy for her. Only a short time ago, I’d been the one waking up in curequick and being stared at by the people who would become my new family.
    Her eyes went to Ava’s and back to Dimitri before she asked the year. At Dimitri’s response, she sucked in a quick breath. “Twenty years she had me there. Twenty years.” Anger tangled in each word.
    “She?” Ava asked.
    “Delia Vesey.”
    “Are you a member of the Emporium?” Neither Ava’s voice nor her gravestone eyes showed emotion, but I knew her well enough not to be fooled by the casual tone.
    The woman looked between Ava and Dimitri again and slowly shook her head back and forth. “After what they did to me? Not a chance.”
    “But you were.” Dimitri this time.
    “If you’re asking me if I ever believed in their goals, then, yes, I did. But as long as Delia Vesey controls the Triad, their stated goal of utopia for all Unbounded is nothing more than everyone bowing down to her.” Her laugh was low and evocative. “Please tell me you don’t work for her.”
    “We already said we freed you,” Dimitri answered.
    He continued talking to her, but my attention was distracted by Ava’s mental nudge. I let her in. Are you getting anything? she asked.
    No, and I’ve been trying since she opened her eyes. I can get inside her mind, and I see the sand stream, but I can’t understand any of the thoughts. It’s really odd.
    Her life force glows brightly. She’s not even trying to block. Why don’t you come in here and see if that makes a difference? Bring that robe