Page 98 of Darkness Bound (Night Prowler 5)
Relief, warm and thorough. Success! “And where have you been for the past twenty-four hours?”
Silence. A blank, eerie stare. Then, “Nowhere.”
“Oh bollocks!” muttered Morgan. “Jacqueline, do not suppress your memory. Access it. Think. Now: Where have you been for the past twenty-four hours?”
Jacqueline blinked. “Nowhere. But I . . .”
“Yes?”
“But . . . it was nice there. I felt safe.” Some emotion flickered across her face, there then gone. “I felt free. But that’s all. There isn’t anything else.”
Morgan closed her eyes and bowed her head. She whispered, “Remember your mother.”
Like a robot: “I don’t have a mother.”
Morgan’s throat was closing. It was becoming hard to breathe. “Remember your father.”
“I don’t have a father.”
It wasn’t working. Whatever had happened to her memory was beyond the reaches of Morgan’s Gift. She’d failed.
Or have I?
A chill ran up Morgan’s spine. She lifted her head and stared at Jacqueline.
She’d trained since childhood to control her Gift, to be careful around others, careful not to touch, not to think any thoughts that might hurt someone. Because she had so much power, she had to be more vigilant than anyone else. She had to use her Gift sparingly, and only for good.
For good.
Sitting here with this woman at this moment, Morgan had the opportunity to do more good in one fell swoop than she could in her entire life.
The words were right there. So beautiful, so terrible, they burned like acid on her tongue.
You love the Ikati. Humans and Ikati should coexist in peace. You rescind everything you said in that article. You will work for peace between our races for the rest of your days.
Her hands began to shake. All she had to do was say it, and it would be so. Everything they’d wanted by bringing her here could come true.
“But it would be a lie,” she whispered to herself. A voice inside her head whispered back, And it would save lives.
“You are happy and comfortable. Stay seated in this spot,” she directed Jacqueline. She released her hands and began to pace in a circle around the room, debating with herself, as Jacqueline sat blank and docile as a lamb, waiting.
Morgan saw the future stretched out bright as a new penny before her, all the possibilities for good shining like stars in the sky. She didn’t know why this hadn’t occurred to her before, possibly because she’d been so vigilant for so many years, so trained to limit her Gift, but this could be a miracle for them. She could visit every single major politician and religious figure in the world, and Suggest they love Ikati, too. She could simply walk through crowds, touching people as she passed, murmuring words of peace and brotherhood. She could transform the human race.
Morgan stood looking out over the rainforest through drapes that lifted and fell with the slight breeze, slipping against her legs. She thought, I could change the world.
Aloud she murmured, “Hitler thought the same thing.”
So did Caesar. So did a lot of other lunatics with visions of grandeur and perverted ideas about how people should live, and who gets to be in charge of that.
“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” A certain Lord Acton said that, back in the nineteenth century, and Morgan had to admit she agreed with him.
She could change the world . . . but it would all be a lie. And only minutes ago, she’d made Jacqueline a promise. I give you my word that the only thing I will Suggest will be for you to remember your past.
Her hand went to her hip, to the place she’d had tattooed with the words “Live Free Or Die.” It was her personal motto, because she held freedom as dear as hope. A life without those two things was simply not worth living.
And therein was her answer.
She couldn’t take away even a single person’s free will. To do so would make her no better than the other monsters throughout history, no matter how noble she thought the cause.
