Daysider

possibility.”

She took several deep breaths to calm herself. “You suggested that Aegis might be working with the Council. Was that to trick me into admitting something you might find useful?”

“I said it was possible, not that I knew it to be a fact.”

“What other little white lies have you been telling me, Damon?”

He hesitated, and then met her gaze. “Those other hypothetical Council operatives I told you about when we met,” he said, “were sent to fire on us so that we would remain together.”

Now that the first shock was past, Alexia found that she felt very little, not even anger.

“Those people out there?” she said numbly, the faces of the slain Council agents still vivid in her mind.

“I don’t know. I was not told their names. But it seems...” He trailed off, bowing his head.

“Whoever did it,” Alexia said, “it worked.” Oh, how well it had worked. She swallowed, searching for words that could find their way through the vise clamping her throat. “I take it they weren’t supposed to actually kill us?”

Damon crouched to pick up the knife, testing the fingers connected to his broken wrist.

“I considered the possibility that the first shooter we encountered might be one of them.

Then, when we were attacked again, I initially thought it could be the same agent or agents. Until they nearly killed us and removed your patch. That was not in the plan.”

“I guess something went a little wrong.”

He continued to gaze at the knife, carefully brushing dirt off the blade with the pad of his fingertip. “Yes,” he said. “Very wrong.”

She knew then that he had no idea his confession had revealed much more to her than the mere facts of his orders. Oh, it must have been inconvenient for Damon when Michael had “refused” to join him and Alexia on their trek to the colony.

Had Damon been amused when he’d “saved her life” from the first shooter, whom he’d presumed to be one of his own? And what about the second attack? If he’d thought, even for a moment, that the ones who had tried to kill him and Alexia might be on his side, why hadn’t he warned her then?

“We are partners, Agent Fox,” he had said. “That makes us equals, does it not?”

How could they be? He had kept too much from her, vital information that could have helped her make the right decisions, might even have saved Michael somehow. She had believed Damon when she should have been most suspicious.

“Either the Colonists or the Expansionists attacked us to get the patch,” Damon continued, oblivious to her inner turmoil. “As you said, I made an unforgivable mistake in assuming that the Expansionists would not have their own covert agents and risk firefights between Opiri in the Zone. I fear they have already done incalculable damage.”

He feared, did he? Were any of his emotions real? Had all the feelings Damon had expressed for her since the theft of her patch, the intensity and sincerity of his lovemaking, been lies, as well?

“Yet you still have such utter faith that the Council didn’t decide it was more convenient to deter me and Michael by eliminating us outright...and blame it on somebody else?”

“You must trust me, Alexia—” She laughed. “Trust you?”

“Why would they send me if their purpose was to kill you and Michael?”

“Why did the Council send only one agent to stay with us? How could they not know that Expansionists agents weren’t loose in the Zone?” She shot him a withering look.

“None of this says much for your Council’s ability to gather intelligence and deal with unexpected contingencies. Or for yours.”

He glanced up at her, all earnestness and remorse. “What do you want me to say that has not already been said?” he asked. “That we are dispensable pawns in a game we cannot understand?”

“Aren’t we, Damon? Haven’t we always known that, you and I?”

“Yes,” he said heavily. “We are pawns, Alexia, one way or another. But I still have my duty, as you do. I must do it as best I can.”

“And so must I.”

“You will not return to the Enclave?”

The very fact that he had to ask that question again was testament to how little he knew her.

“You’d like to get rid of me, wouldn’t you? Maybe you didn’t kill Michael, but you’re glad he was cooperative enough to die.”

He jumped to his feet, the knife clenched in his fist. “So my honesty has led you to decide that I really would have harmed you or your partner to keep you away from the colony?”

She glared at him. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Have you forgotten that I know as well as the Expansionists do that Aegis would investigate your disappearance?”

“And that’s always been your motive, hasn’t it?”

“No,” he said in a very low voice. “I once said I would never harm you, and I swear by the Blood of the Sires that is still true.”

“Oaths. Promises.” Alexia turned away, feeling as though her bones had melted and her body was filled with air, ready to collapse like a balloon pricked by a pin. “They mean nothing.”

“You no longer believe...I care for you?”

“What do you think, Damon?”

For an endless span of time all she could hear was his breathing, harsh and heavy.

“I’m sorry, Alexia.”

Sorry. What idiot had thought up such an inadequate word? “Maybe it is time we parted ways. I’ll continue with my mission, and you can do whatever it is you think you need to.” She released a sharp, angry breath. “I guess that would be reporting what you’ve learned back to Erebus, since you won’t have me to worry about. That is, of course, unless you intend to stop me. Just be aware that I’ll try to kill you if you do.”

“Alexia.”

She wanted to hold her hands over her ears and babble like a child. “There’s nothing more to say.”

“There is. We have no idea how long the effects of my blood will continue to sustain your body. If you go it alone, you may find it suddenly betraying you.”

Alexia swung around to face him, eyes wide. “Are you actually suggesting we should do it again?” She nearly choked when she realized what she had just said. “Take your blood, I mean?”

The ghost of a smile crossed his shadowed face. “Surely you had already considered that possibility, Agent Fox,” he said.

Oh, yes. It had crossed her mind, and she’d quickly erased it again.

“Maybe the one time was enough,” she said quickly. “Maybe I’ll find the patch.”

“Alone?”

He was right, of course. The odds were incalculably against it. She didn’t know her way around this part of the Zone, and they were probably surrounded by enemy agents.

“There is no telling how long your current condition will last,” Damon said, pushing his advantage. “Are you as prepared to die as you were before?”

He was taunting her now. Somehow he knew that her life had become important to her again, something to be guarded and cherished.

“I’m prepared to take my chances,” she said, pulling her arms tight across her chest.

“Even though your mission may die along with you?”

As useless as it was, she longed to hit him again, smash his handsome nose and bloody his lip. But then she saw the healing gashes on his face, the wrist he still moved so gingerly, and was deeply ashamed.

“What do you want?” she asked, turning her back on him.

“I propose a truce.”

“Like the one you offered when we met?”

He cleared his throat. “I will not lie to you again.”