Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Auden gasped and peered closer.
“What is it?” Remi’s previously languid form was predator-ready.
“My mother’s private mainframe—remote access to it, anyway.” Auden’s heart was thunder in her chest. “I have no idea where it’s actually located, but I know it exists. My father mentioned it to me at some point.”
“Auden?” Remi’s big body sitting up next to her now, his arm braced behind her.
Making a listening sound, she frantically scanned the files that were opening out in front of her in a rapid-fire cascade. She was half-afraid they’d vanish as fast as they’d appeared.
“Are you sure you don’t know the physical location?”
She started to ask how would she, when she realized what she’d just done. Face going ice-cold then red-hot, she slumped back against his arm. “How do I know? How could any part of me know?”
She jolted forward a heartbeat later. “The answers might be in here. This is the heart of all her operations.”
“Could she have told you the access codes while you were impaired?”
“No,” Auden said at once. “This was her private archive. She’d rather have let it crumble to dust than allow anyone else inside.”
Her fingers moved on the screen, pulling out data, drilling through files. “What’s this? ‘Architect.’ ” She frowned. “It’s a sizeable subsection of the files.”
Remi whistled, the air of it brushing her cheek as his naked upper body curved slightly around her. “The Architect,” he said. “Arrows told me about that. Individual behind terrorism designed to destabilize the world and fracture the Trinity Accord.”
“Hmm.” Auden scanned the files before putting them aside.
“No surprise she was the Architect?”
“My mother loved power more than anything else in the world. Manipulation like that sounds right up her alley.” A sharp stab of pain in her temple, agony so visceral that it burst blood vessels in her eyes.
* * *
• • •
REMI smelled blood before he saw the first drop fall from Auden’s nose to the screen of the organizer.
Her face was frozen, gone blank, the metal in her scent beginning to deepen.
In transition.
Not permitting himself to second-guess his plans, he moved at leopard speed to the kit. Inside was his ace in the hole.
He was shoving it into her hand in a matter of a second or two.
Auden’s fingers spasmed to clench around the tiny knit cap.
Her body jerked an instant after that. “My baby.” A whisper. “I can feel her. So unformed, her thoughts more sensation than anything else. I feel Finn, too. Affection, care. Another person, the person who made this. Concentration. Cramped hands. Happiness. And I feel you. Wild protectiveness. A feral love.”
Remi’s heart squeezed. “You’re bleeding. I’m going to grab tissues from the bathroom.” He did so even as he spoke. “Here.”
She dabbed at her nose with her free hand, her other holding on to the knit cap so hard that a vein on the back of her hand throbbed. After she finally stopped bleeding, she went into the bathroom to clean up.
The woman who walked out of the bathroom was cool, calm, collected…and held that knit cap as if it was the most precious diamond in all the world. After lifting it to her mouth, she pressed a kiss to it, then held it out to him. “Just in case.”
He took it and knew he was breaking her heart in doing so, even if she had asked. “I’ll keep it safe.”
“I know.” Her trust was a punch to the heart, bringing him to his knees.
“What happened, little cat?”
“Rage formed of Silence,” she murmured. “An overwhelming sensation of cold beneath the rage, and I could swear it was directed at me for being inside the private archive.” Her eyes narrowed. “But I don’t care if the other me doesn’t want me looking.”
She sat down again, her face grim. “Let’s find out what I’m not meant to see.”
But though she spent hours in there, there was too much material to wade through to find anything—even when she tried using her own name as a search term. The only thing she was able to confirm was that Henry hadn’t known about the biograft. That didn’t alter what he’d done in giving her up, and she’d already accepted that the father she’d once loved had never existed.
She finally gave up at eleven, her eyes gritty, knowing she had to be up in four hours to access the basement.
* * *
• • •
THEY made their move at three in the morning, long after everything had gone quiet. Rina had already prowled the corridors in leopard form, and Auden could well imagine the reaction of anyone who ran across her during her patrol, those nightglow eyes a warning to the hindbrain.
The sentinel had told Remi that the staff had left the premises, with only Charisma Wai in the house. Last Rina had seen—ten minutes ago—the aide had been alone in her office. “Dr. Verhoeven’s still up, too—I did a quick sortie outside, spotted him inside his lab. But,” the sentinel had added, “I did just hear the back door open and close, so either Wai’s gone out or someone else has entered. Interval between open and close was too short for more than one person to come in or go out. You want me to do another sweep, make sure?”