“I don’t always remember the actual nightmares,” I said. “Just the terror of them when I wake up. Knowing I was helpless or hurt or both.”
“You don’t like feeling helpless.”
“Does anyone?”
He didn’t answer, just watched me with liquid eyes, so I told him. I told him everything, from my childhood to my torture and eventual rescue by the Rangers. Delphi’s psychic shields that helped me at first and then nearly destroyed me when I lost my powers. My fantastic foster parents, accepting myself, embracing my blue. I even told him about William and my irrational dislike of Dahlia. He listened, nodding along without comment, his emotions plain on his face and in his lovely gray eyes.
He just listened. I finally got it all out with tears streaming down my cheeks, and he held me for a while.
“This can’t last, can it?” I asked after I’d calmed and mentally regrouped.
“What’s that?”
“You and me.”
He didn’t answer right away, and I was too nervous to look at his face. “Would you want it to last if it could?” he finally asked.
He kissed the top of my head. “I can’t promise anything to you, Renee, because I don’t have anything to promise. Only that I will do my damnedest to not become one more person who hurts you.”
“Ditto.” It was all I could think to say.
Someone knocked hard, a familiar cadence. I heaved a sigh, then heaved my bones off the bed to unlock the door. Teresa stormed inside, her entire body tensed for a fight. She barely batted an eyelash at Derek’s presence as she shut the door and put her hands on her hips.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Teresa blinked, clearly thrown by my opening volley. “I—For what?”
“Slipping up with Ethan. I was mad, and I wasn’t thinking.”
Some of her anger physically evaporated, leaving her looking less tense and more . . . tired. “Dr. Kinsey and I wanted to break the news differently, but Ethan and Aaron know now, and there’s no changing it. Mostly they’re pissed at us for keeping them in the dark.”
“It wasn’t my place to tell them, but I’m not sorry they know.”
“Truthfully, neither am I. They can discuss what to do as a family.”
“You mean decide which one of them dies? Noah or Dahlia?”
Teresa flinched. “Something like that.” She looked so young right then. Hell, she was young. She’d be twenty-six next month, and yet the weight of the world sat heavily on her shoulders. The burden was more than one woman should ever have to bear alone.
“How’s Bethany?” Derek asked.
“No change,” she said, this time to both of us. “Dr. Kinsey doesn’t expect there to be, but he’s having her results reviewed by several specialists.” She swallowed hard, then rubbed her eyes. “Maddie’s doing well, and the other kids are resting. They’ve all given us composites of what Uncle looks like and Marco combined them in the system, so we now know who we’re looking for.”
“That’s huge!” A small flare of hope lit up inside of me.
“It’s a good breakthrough. We needed that. Marco was convinced he’d seen the face somewhere before, so he’s playing with the de-aging program and running different pictures through the facial recognition software. With any luck . . .”
“We’ll get a hit.”
“I hope so.”
I squeezed her shoulders and smiled. “We will, T. We’ll find the motherfucker who stole those kids, and he’ll answer for what he’s done.” I meant that with all my heart. Meant it as much for Derek as I meant it for Bethany, Landon, Sasha, Maddie, Tate, Nicolas, Rick, and Barry. For Louis and Summer, most of all.
“I should go check on Landon,” Derek said.
He tried to slip past us, and I couldn’t let him walk out like a dirty secret. I tugged him to a stop, then planted a quick kiss on his lips. It was as much a thank-you as a silent declaration to our audience of one. He smiled, winked, then left.
Teresa glanced around the bedroom, giving my messy bed a long look, before raising an eyebrow at me. “You and Thatcher, huh?” The question was calm, almost amused, with no judgment clinging to the words.
“He doesn’t see my scars,” I said.
She accepted the explanation without comment. “Your battle in Philadelphia is making national news. No one has connected us to it. It’s being called Meta-on-Meta violence.”
I snorted. “So clever.”
Her phone rang. “Yeah, Marco.” Pause. “Get everyone together. Five minutes.”
“Does he have a hit on Uncle?” I asked before she could put her phone away.
“Not yet. Rita McNally wants an immediate conference call with all the Alpha leaders. She has some information for us.”
Information from Agent McNally was always taken seriously. She’d been our ally since we were kids, and she’d stuck by us since our reactivation in January, no matter what the government threw our way. The only Alpha leader who didn’t attend the emergency conference call was Aaron, who wasn’t budging from the infirmary for the time being. Ethan was there, though, glaring at the table in lieu of anyone in particular.
Marco activated the nearest screen as soon as we were settled, and McNally’s perfectly coifed face appeared. She seemed extra-stressed and a little pale. She wasn’t handing down good news today.
“Thank you, everyone, for assembling so quickly,” she said. “Marco, I’ve sent a file over to your terminal, which you should be receiving as we speak. It’s the only image I was able to find from security footage at our former ATF offices in Burbank.”
“Security footage of what?” Teresa asked.
“The man who came to us sixteen years ago and gave us the Warden. The man we only ever knew as O’Bannen.”
The world slowed down a moment. The Warden was a man-made device, powered by two telepathic Metas, that had removed our powers fifteen years ago during the final days of the Meta War. Until January, no one outside of a select few knew of the Warden’s existence. McNally and her late partner, Alexander Grayson, had admitted their part in maintaining the Warden over the years. She told us a man named O’Bannen had given it to them, claiming he worked for the Virginia branch of Weatherfield Research and Development. Later, no R&D company would claim the man, and they’d been unable to track him down for further questioning. He’d disappeared entirely.
“I was under the impression no images of the man existed,” Teresa said.
“As was I,” McNally replied. “Until I dug into the right system.” Her way of saying she’d done something she shouldn’t have, which meant she had a good reason for wanting to get a picture of this O’Bannen character.
It connected in my brain an instant before the second screen lit up with side-by-side images. One was the composite drawing of Uncle. The second was an enhanced security photo of O’Bannen. The similarities were too numerous to be coincidental.
“When Marco sent me your composite, I remembered O’Bannen,” McNally said. “I believe the man you call Uncle is the same person.”
The conference room felt silent while we all digested that tidbit. The news was both shocking and perfectly reasonable, like the corner piece of a puzzle we’d forgotten we were missing. Following up on O’Bannen and the people who created the Warden had fallen by the wayside, trampled over by so many other dire issues and crises. Now it was staring us in the face and laughing at us.
“How certain are you?” Gage asked.
“As certain as I can be with a sketch,” she replied.
“It makes sense,” Teresa said, her voice hollow and cold. “You told us O’Bannen claimed to work for
