Aurora Burning (The Aurora Cycle #2)(81)

And then it stops. Just like that. I feel vertigo. Delirium. Every second I spend without more of that pain seems like a blessing from the Maker, and I pray for blackness, for sleep, for an end to it all. But then … then I feel a gentle hand touching my bare shoulder. Soft lips press against the burning skin of my forehead, cool as ice, relief washing over me like spring rain.

“You always did love being the hero,” someone says.

I open my eyes. Blink through the sting of sweat, all the world blurring. And I know I’m dreaming then. That I’ve lost consciousness, or maybe I’m dead, because the face I see in front of me can’t be real, can’t be real can’t

be

“… C-Cat?”

She smiles. Her dark hair is styled in the same undercut fauxhawk. The same phoenix tattoo is at her throat. The same pretty face, sharp chin, bow-shaped lips.

“Oh, Tyler,” Cat whispers, caressing my cheek. “My beautiful Tyler.”

I feel a sob, strangled, trying to bubble up and out of my bleeding throat. The relief I feel at seeing her, the tumbled crash of emotions, joy, love, disbelief, comfort, all of it threatens to just drag me under and drown me. It’s not too late, I realize. The way we ended it … all the things I should’ve said and done …

But then I realize she’s wearing the charcoal-gray GIA uniform, same as the others. That she has a mirrormask tucked under her arm. Glancing to my left, I realize the agent who stood there a moment ago is missing, and through the blur, through the haze, through the rising despair and anger and fear, I realize that she … she was the one who slipped the pain collar around my neck. And worse—worse than the pain they’ve put me through or the agony of seeing her again after I thought she was lost, worst of all is the moment when I focus on her eyes, fixed now on mine. Because the Cat I knew, the Cat I loved … that Cat’s eyes were brown.

This one’s are blue. Faintly luminous.

And her irises are shaped like flowers.

“No,” I breathe. “Oh no …”

“You don’t understand, Tyler.”

She’s …

I look at Princeps. Back at the thing wearing Cat. A wave of horror and fury washes over me, through me, drenching me to the bone.

“You’re one of them,” I whisper.

“I am them,” she murmurs, touching my bare chest, right over my breaking heart. “They are me. I am we, Tyler. All of us.”

“Maker,” I whisper. “Oh Maker, what have they done to you?”

She shakes her head and smiles, looks at me like I’m a child. “It’s warm in here, Ty. It’s wonderful. It’s full and it’s complete and it’s home. I’ve never been so loved or accepted. Never felt so real. I can’t wait for you to feel it, too.”

She leans forward, and the horror that washes over me as she presses her mouth to mine is just … indescribable. Her skin is cold, like a corpse’s. Her breath smells of earth and some cloying sweetness, and her lips still brush mine as she whispers.

“We can’t wait.”

She lowers her chin. Eyes glinting with menace.

“But you need to tell us where Aurora is going, Tyler.”

And I look into her eyes.

And I feel the tears spill out of my own.

“Tyler Jones,” I say. “Alpha. Aurora Legion, Squad 312.”

And the pain hits me again. And again. And again. It feels like forever. And though in the end I can’t even scream, in the end I lose any sense of who or what I am, I know that even if I knew where Auri and the others were, I’d never tell them now. Because as much as it hurts, as deep as it cuts, all this pain is nothing compared to the agony of the only thought I cling to.

My Cat’s gone.

She’s really gone.

And they took her from me.





22

THE ECHO


Aurora

I’m fighting to stay upright, winds ripping through me from every direction. The gale howls around me, snatching at my clothes, trying to push me off balance and send me tumbling helplessly toward the ground.

I’m maybe a hundred meters above the lush grass of the Echo, but I can’t see it beneath me. Instead, I’m shrouded by a silver mist that the windstorm constantly snatches apart, then rebuilds. The point of this test—a simple one, according to the Eshvaren—is to keep myself upright, controlling my position by means of mental strength alone. But it’s exhausting and terrifying, like drowning in honey.

The Eshvaren’s voice sounds in my mind.

You rely too much upon your physicality, it chides gently. You must focus your mental strength here.

Right, of course. Mental strength.

Even pausing to think about this creates a crack in my shield, and I’m smashed head over heels, my scream snatched away by the wind. I claw my way back to balance, arms flailing as I stabilize, adrenaline pumping through me as I fight to stay upright a few seconds more.

Then another gust of wind comes from my left, punching me in the ribs and knocking the breath out of me. As I gasp for air, my concentration flickers, and in an instant I’m plummeting, screaming, flapping my arms in a vain attempt to stop myself before I hit the ground. The green below me becomes visible through the cloudy haze, and then it’s vivid and alive, and rushing straight at my face. I crash into the earth like a comet, shattering the ground around me.