Page 48 of Hide or Die

EIGHTEEN

Leona

I’D BROKEN my relationshipwith Kam. That realization had grown increasingly clear after our return, as the weeks rolled into months. The worst part was, I couldn’t quite put my finger on what had changed—only thatsomethinghad.

He was as sweet natured as always. As polite as always. As kind and compassionate as always. And yet, he was no longermy Kam. At first, I tried to broach the subject... to find out if there was something I needed to do, or not do, that would make everything all right again. He seemed bewildered by the idea that there was anything wrong in the first place.

It didn’t even feel as though he were trying to passive-aggressively punish me for saying no to the alphas. That simply wasn’t the way his brain worked. The two of us had just... changed. Something had shifted, and I didn’t like it. Not one bit.

Kameron Patel had been through hell while I was still living safely in my parents’ house, playing with Barbies and having sleepovers. He’d cut out large pieces of his own psyche in order to function through a childhood and adolescence that had been nothing short of unspeakable. I had the horrible sense that I was watching another piece of him drift away before my eyes, and it terrified me to contemplate how much more he might have left to lose before he would be nothing but an empty shell.

In the depths of night, alone in my ever-so-normal, beta-style bed, I thought maybe I should have said yes to Flynn, if only to make Kam happy. Or maybe Kam had been right and we should have run, with or without the alphas. We could be in Jamaica now, lying on the beach and sipping drinks with little umbrellas in them. We could be hidden safely away with my parents, far from the world that wanted to kill or enslave us.

These were not good thoughts to be having—especially not on the eve of the stripped-down summit that would pit my powers of persuasion against two powerful Committee chairmen, with the future of UFNA alphomic policy on the line. I needed my brain in the game and myodamaat my back—not the weight of this nagging guilt and uncertainty.

At least we would be on home territory this time. After the shitshow in Romania, these were to be bilateral talks between Prime Minister Fairbanks’ progressive administration and the Committee’s top two officials—Kostya Nikolayev and the head of the pan-American region, Enoch Sloane. On the table were several relatively minor policy debates, including expanding the roles of alphas in the military. But the centerpiece of the talks would revolve around the current alphomic extradition treaty.

The god-awful agreement—one that allowed accused alphas and omegas to be sent across international borders to face trial and execution by a Committee-led tribunal—was number one on my personal hit list. Challenging that law had been important to me for a long time, but it had soared straight to the top of my priorities after hearing Alex’s story.

I had a small arsenal of pre-approved concessions ready to deploy in the pursuit of my—of theadministration’s—goals. Some of them were innocuous. Some of them stuck in my craw. All of them could be valuable in negotiating for the bigger prizes.

If only I weren’t still an emotional wreck beneath my brittle veneer of professional competence.

It had been slightly more than two months since the kidnapping. Flynn hadn’t made good on his promise to court us further, and I suspected that was down to Alex’s influence. I’d quietly kept tabs on Jax’s recovery from afar, not trusting myself to visit him in person as he slowly recuperated from exposure to the experimental nerve agent. As of ten days ago, he’d returned to limited duty, though my contact indicated he was still suffering from frequent migraines and intermittent muscle weakness on his left side.

I’d been half-hoping and half-dreading that Beckett’s team might be present during the summit—either assigned to us, or to some other UFNA official. But Beckett was out sick at the moment. With Jax on light duty and their beta chief unavailable, there’d been no question of assigning the team to such a high-level function.

The meetings were to take place at the historic St. Paul Hotel in the heart of Old Montreal, not that I expected the grand surroundings to make much of an impression on the dour Committee leaders.

I’d watched Enoch Sloane and Kostya Nikolayev become notorious rivals over the course of the past few years, rising to power in the organization at roughly the same time but on different continents. They were both seriously terrifying bastards, but I was ready and willing to play them against each other if it would help me get what I wanted.

I would do this, no matter that the rest of my life had become a slow-rolling dumpster fire. Despite whatever wrong turn our personal relationship had taken, Kam and I would grasp the opportunity we’d been given, and we would turn it into real change for our people.

* * *

The morning of thesummit dawned chilly and gray. I’d been up since four, and Kam had joined me for final prep work over strong coffee at five-thirty.

“I still don’t like these concessions related to genetic testing,” he said, frowning at the notes I’d jotted the day before.

“I don’t like any of it,” I told him, shuffling papers. “But it’s like any battle. It’s best we have a fall-back position ready in case the enemy gets the upper hand.”

“I know,” he said, resigned. “I know.”

We arrived at the hotel an hour before the official start time and began circulating—getting a feel for the undercurrents swirling beneath the surface. Prime Minister Fairbanks and his wife made their entrance a few minutes before the first round of meetings were called to order. Tall, dark, and charismatic, Fairbanks delivered an opening speech carefully calculated to appeal to the news outlets, replete with easily digestible sound bites that reinforced his coalition government’s dedication to improving the lot of all UFNA residents, regardless of sex or gender.

“In conclusion,” he said, his deep voice rolling around the cavernous event space, “I hope that these meetings may function as an open exchange of ideas, ushering in a new era of cooperation and respect between the UFNA and the Committee.”

Respect, I thought, with heavy irony.Right. Somehow, I doubt that.

Polite applause ensued. The Prime Minister was bustled out immediately afterward, no doubt heading off to deal with the next item on his busy itinerary. Enoch Sloane rose to take the speaker’s lectern. I wondered if he and Nikolayev had flipped a coin to decide who got to play to the cameras by delivering the opening remarks.

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