Page 3 of Echoes of War

Gone were the two best friends, the roomies that shared laughs and inside jokes. There were so many memories. Now wewere simply two strangers, with mutual interests who happened to trust each other. Allies.

Allies in war with history.

“Reina, talk to us. Where’s your mind going?” I moved to her side, cutting off Sloan’s view of her cousin.

Her head snapped toward me. “Give me a second, would you?”

Tomoe’s inky eyes found mine over Reina’s shoulder. On this, we had found common ground. She placed her hand on the upper portion of Reina’s back in comfort.

“Reina, the more brain power, the better. What is it?” Her raven-colored hair spilled in front of her face as she peered down, trying to meet Reina’s stare.

“My mom,” she mumbled in response. “When I was a kid, she gushed about some study. Dolphins, they were her favorite animal. They figured out dolphins could replicate advanced spoken language. Conversations. Similar to what we could do. It was groundbreaking, though I don’t remember hearing much of anything about it after … acoustic signals. They help with group coordination, ya know, hunting and traveling. The pitch and frequency vocalizations help them stay together or convey information about their intentions and movements to other pod members. Holy moly … the Pansies are communicating with each other through acoustic signals.”

Her eyes danced at the thought. The other Tinkerers murmured, pulling books down from the surrounding shelves and flipping pages. We all remained quiet, waiting to see if she had more to add. Reina shot across the room, grabbing a chalk board and jotting notes down.

Tomoe’s eyes went wide with annoyance, the red rims around them a clear indication that she wasn’t as okay as she pretended to be. “Okay, I’ll be the first to ask. What the hell does that mean?” She deadpanned.

“It means we’re screwed.” Reina said, emotion vapid in her voice.

There was no hesitation about what was discussed in front of Duluth. Information had flowed freely between our sides once we’d established the terms of us working together. Everything we’d known, they now knew, within reason.

The last few weeks had been spent trying to understand exactly how the Pansies were being made, how they differed from the ones this world had grown accustomed to. More importantly, how the hell Moe had power shared with Seth.

“They never lost the ability to form complex thoughts,” I added, “only needed the chance to evolve a new way of communicating.”

Just because their thoughts had turned primal, about survival, didn’t mean the ability to think and comprehend no longer existed. I explained to Sloan and her team the story my family had already heard.

My first fiancé, Xavier, had turned practically upon nuclear touchdown. The radiation only gave us mere moments together before changing my life forever. He’d gone Pansie, and I ran, only to have to kill him later to survive. It was during that fateful fight that I discovered my magic.

Flames had ignited in my palms in the flurry of panic, and I’d brought my hand down, intending to grab his shoulder and push him away. When Xavier glanced down at where my hands had touched him, then back at me, an expression of astonishment crossed over his face at his safety. My flames hadn’t burned him, because my magic only answered my desires. They would not burn those I did not intend to harm. But I did harm him that day. I drove a knife through his skull and started a new life. This life. And now I knew the truth.

That he’d still been in there.

Fucking hell.

This entire time, I’d been right. Years of people telling me I was crazy, trying to talk me down, and I had been right all along. The confirmation gave me no relief. I dusted my fingers over the tattoo that lay hidden beneath my wool sweater.

“Amaia …” Reina said, the distaste for my theory coming forward, ready to shut me down.

“Reina,” I hissed, “out there, when we’re off in the privacy of our own space, you can cut me off, you can ignore me. Hell, you can even cuss me out. But here, outside the four walls of your apartment, I am your general, and you will hear what I have to say before dismissing me.”

Reina’s eyes went hard, narrowing at Sloan, who smirked at the sternness of the command. A chill trickled down my spine. The resemblance between her and Seth at the moment was haunting. Alexiares cleared his throat, slicing through the tension in the room. He caught Sloan’s attention, now glaring in his direction, with a scoff.

“Problem, Sloan?” Alexiares bit out.

“We’re sharing the same oxygen,” she said with a taunting smile. “I think I’ll always have a problem with that,Bloodhound.”

Friendly fire had a better chance of taking one of the two out than our shared enemy. He was known throughout The Expanse as a bloodhound. The Bloodhound. Part of the reason The Expanse was never able to get a real footing or an ounce of stabilization was because every time someone competent was put in place, they mysteriously came up dead. Brutally mutilated type of dead.

Alexiares sniffed, a fake smile pulling across his angled face as he observed me, reading the words in my eyes.Not here, not now.

“Go on,” he suggested, proud of his efforts to give me the floor.

“What if all your father did was speed up evolution?” I asked Reina pointedly. “What if he merely enhanced what was already possible? Gave them the ability to vocalize what was already going on behind those soulless eyes.”

For once, I hoped I was mistaken. The evidence suggested otherwise.

What a bitter pill to swallow.

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