"Maman!"
"No. You will lie still and let me kiss you because you scared me half to death, and you owe me."
30
YAAF
The afternoon round finally ended, and when Number Seven turned the Humvee onto the service road that ran along the outside of the perimeter wall, there was still plenty of time before sunset, unlike yesterday when things had dragged out, and by the time they were done it had been too late to visit Sullha.
Number One hadn't realized how dependent he had become on those visits until he'd missed one. It was like his day wasn't complete if he couldn't spend time with her.
The other seven absorbed his eagerness without comment and did nothing to disperse it, but he could feel their amusement leaking through the collective.
He had news for Sullha, the names they had been able to retrieve last night with Anita's help.
Turned out that before Anita had been abducted and brought to the island, she'd been a nurse in Russia, and she'd specialized in treating soldiers who suffered from something called post-traumatic stress disorder. She'd told them that memory gapswere common, and she'd used all kinds of tricks to coax their old names from them.
Not that he was going to tell Sullha about Anita's help. If he did that, he would have to do a lot of other explaining, and he wasn't ready to go there yet. Maybe not ever. He couldn't tell Sullha that he and the others did not avail themselves of Anita's services, and that her visits were a cover story to establish a pattern for when it was time to get her off the island.
Somewhere in that explanation, he would have to admit that he and the other seven no longer had any sexual interest.
Sullha wouldn't have judged him for that, but she would look at him differently, like he was less of a male because that part of him had been replaced by something else.
Number Seven parked the Humvee in the usual spot in the shade by the wall. The others would wait here while Number One was with Sullha, occupying their time by conducting conversations and debating inside the hive mind.
He climbed out and started toward the gate, his thrall expanding to cover the immortal guards standing outside.
One of them opened the gate, and they both turned their heads to the right, looking at the corner of the perimeter wall and letting him pass without registering that anything unusual was happening.
He walked through the enclosure while casting a wider thrall, the same he did every time, the collective feeding him power from their nearly endless reservoir. He was as good as invisible to every woman, child, and human guard whose eyes would just slide off him as if he wasn't there.
As he reached the playground, he stopped at the low gate and looked inside, searching for Sullha. He found her sitting on the same bench she always sat on while waiting for him.
Today she was actually reading a book, not just holding it. Her head was bent over it, her hair falling forward and hiding her face from him. He couldn't see if the book was the same one she had been carrying before or whether it was new.
When he walked up behind her, he saw that it was another tattered paperback from the enclosure's meager library, and she was so absorbed in her reading that she didn't feel his presence this time.
He looked at her bent head, her small hand on the open book, and something inside his chest squeezed in that inconvenient way that only happened around Sullha, especially when he watched her without her being aware of him.
The feeling seemed familiar, like an echo of something he'd forgotten, and then it suddenly clicked.
He'd felt this way before, when things between him and Sullha had changed, and their childhood friendship had morphed into something more. At least on his part. Sullha had remained oblivious to what was happening to him, and he'd preferred it that way.
It had been right before he'd been taken to the training camp, and then whatever he'd thought he felt had been beaten out of him along with everything else.
Now it was coming back, slowly, in pieces.
Standing behind Sullha, he had the absurd urge to lean down and kiss the top of her head, but then the collective sent him avivid depiction of her being terrified by his action, and the urge dissipated as if it had never arisen.
Instead, he lifted the thrall from her and slid onto the bench beside her.
Her head came up, her eyes focused on him, and she let out a long breath.
"I didn't feel you. You scared me."
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. What are you reading that is so captivating?"
"A murder on a train. The passengers are trying to figure out who the murderer is."
