“And that’s a bad thing?” he asked, arching a brow.
Slight catch of breath, as though surprised, then, “When you want to live to see another day, yeah, it’s a bad thing. She’ll kill you without blinking, without hesitating, and probably laugh while she’s doing it.”
“She’s not that bad.”
“Says the man who hasn’t seen everything she’s capable of.” Mia ran her tongue over her teeth. “I’ve seen her do things that would make your skin crawl.”
“Drop it, okay?” He wouldn’t share Mishka’s secrets, wouldn’t tell anyone why she acted the way she did. They’d pity her, and Jaxon thought he knew Mishka well enough to know that she’d prefer their fury over their sorrow. “You find out anything about your Arcadian-human halflings?” he asked, changing the subject.
Mia was determined to track those like herself, part human, part alien, and help them if needed. She’d spent most her life feeling different, disconnected from everything and everyone, and scared of her differences. She hated the thought of others suffering as she had.
She shrugged and allowed the subject change. “I’ve got a few leads.”
“And your brother?” Dare, Mia’s much-loved and fully human half brother, had been thought dead for years, murdered by aliens. Come to find out he’d been saved from another species of aliens, taken and used by Mia’s Arcadian mother, who had hoped to one day trade him for Mia.
“Same old, same old. He’s alive, he’s hiding from me, and hates me.” She shrugged again, expression curtained by hurt. A hurt she quickly hid. “I’ve tracked him twice and both times he ran from me without saying a word.” There was a heavy pause. “Le’Ace is bad for you, you know?”
“I’m headed to sector twelve,” he said, ignoring that last bit. “Jack’s allowing me to interview the newest woman inside her cell, rather than from a partition. I have orders not to kill.” He was babbling, he knew, but it kept Mia quiet.
“Way to ignore the question.”
Quiet for a little while, at least. “Drop it.”
“So it’s okay to pry information out of me but I can’t pry it out of you.”
“That’s right.” He stacked the folders on his desk. Didn’t need to, but wanted his hands busy. “If there’s anything new to learn about the Schön, I’ll learn it.”
Rather than leave, Mia strode deeper into the small office and dropped into the chair in front of his desk. Determination pulsed from her. “First, I’m going to tell you a little story.”
Sighing, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “This can’t wait?”
“No. Now shut it and listen.” Stretching out her legs, she slid down the chair, propped the back of her head on the back, and stared up at the ceiling. “Once upon a time—” she began.
He groaned.
She continued without reservation. “There were two teenage girls. Both had daddy issues. One spent a lot of time in a locked closet, alone and afraid, until finally running away from home at the age of sixteen. One was taken from home when she confessed to being raped by her own father.”
Just then he realized she was telling a story about herself. He knew a little about Mia’s past, about the abuse and isolation she had endured at her father’s hands, and knew she’d run away to escape it.
“These two girls never should have met, but they were both recruited to join a special boot camp. They became roommates, helped each other study and train. They soon learned they were to become A.I.R. agents.”
She glanced at him, and he nodded to let her know he was listening.
“For several months, the world was finally a happy place for both girls. They had purpose, friends, and safety. Or so they thought. One day, one of them was taken from the camp for actual field training. She showed the most promise.”
Mia, he thought.
“There, she met a very cute otherworlder boy. Like any girl would when charmed, she developed a crush on him and the two stayed in secret contact.”
Dread tightened his stomach.
“What she didn’t know was that the otherworlder was using her, pumping her for information about the camp and A.I.R. When the truth was learned, the girl’s instructor was sent to deliver punishment. Everyone thought the girl would be whipped or maybe even have her memory wiped and sent from the camp. But this instructor busted into her room, raised a pyre-gun, and fired.”
Not Mia, then.
Mia’s gaze fell back to Jaxon, hard, distant. “Elise died in my arms.”
To hold a dying friend, to know there was nothing to be done, was torture. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mia, I am. But I don’t understand what this has to do with Mishka.”
“Don’t you?” Mia’s voice rose an octave. “She killed Elise. She held that gun, her face devoid of emotion, and she squeezed the trigger while I begged her not to. Afterward, she walked away as if she’d merely come inside the room to invite us to dinner.”
Again he frowned. “She would have been a child, like you.”
“No. She was an adult.”
“That’s impossible.” His brow furrowed in confusion, and Mishka’s flawless face flashed inside his mind. Unlined skin, youthful blush. “Mishka can’t be more than thirty. If that.”
Mia popped her jaw. “She’s older than you think. A lot older.”
“Impossible,” he said again. “If she were thirty when you were in school, she would be forty or fifty now.”
“She was an instructor at the school several years before my arrival.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Had to be someone else who shot your friend, someone who looked just like her.”
“She’s a machine. She ages differently. Look at Kyrin. He’s hundreds of years old and he looks like he’s in his prime.”
“No,” was all Jaxon said. He didn’t know what else to say.
Mia shrugged as if she didn’t care whether he believed her or not, but the action was stiff. “Just think about what I said.”
He found that he could think of nothing else. If it had been Mishka, would he care?
She wouldn’t have delivered that deathblow because she’d wanted to; she would have been ordered. That he knew without asking. Most likely she’d been torn up inside, had probably sobbed afterward, had probably seen that girl’s dying face in her mind a thousand times in her dreams.