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Ackmeyer blinked rapidly, gave a vague shake of his head. "You are free to feel however you wish. Since the attack occurred at my home, I assume this has to do with me, not the woman."
"A brilliant observation," Kellan snarled. "Care to venture a guess as to why you now find yourself sitting in front of me in a locked, mold-riddled cell inside this rebel bunker?"
Ackmeyer slowly met his gaze, but a tremble shook his scrawny body. "I suspect you plan to either ransom me or kill me."
"I'm not looking to get rich off the blood of another man," Kellan replied coolly. "Are you?"
"No." Ackmeyer's answer was instant, filled with conviction. "No, I would never do that. Life is precious - "
Kellan's coarse scoff cut his words short. "So long as that life doesn't belong to one of the Breed, right?"
He knew his eyes were on fire. The amber heat of his contempt for this human's destructive genius was bleeding into his vision, turning his world red as he glared through the thick metal cage - the meager barrier that separated Kellan from lashing out at the scientist with fists and fangs.
Ackmeyer saw that threat full and real now. He backed farther into the cell, realizing if only just in that moment exactly what he was dealing with here. "I-I don't know what you're talking about, I swear!"
"No?" Kellan's voice was a gravel-filled snarl. "I have evidence to prove otherwise."
The human shook his head frantically. "You're mistaken! I'm a man of science. I respect all life as the natural miracle it is."
Kellan gave a dark chuckle. "Even an abomination like me, like my kind?"
"Y-yes," Ackmeyer sputtered, then suddenly realized what he'd said. "I mean no! That's not what I was trying to say, I - I just mean to say that there is something very wrong here. Whatever offense you think I've committed against you, I swear I'm innocent. There's been some kind of mistake. A terrible mistake . . ."
As much as he wanted to dismiss the human's protests as the desperate denials of a cold, profiteering killer, something unsettling began to unfurl within Kellan's gut. Something that put him on the edge of a deeply disturbing realization.
That something was an earnestness that made him peer at Jeremy Ackmeyer a bit closer, searching for some trace of the lie he was certain had to be there.
With a flick of his mind's power, Kellan released the lock on the barred door of the cell and mentally pushed the metal grate open. Ackmeyer cowered, scuttling back toward the far wall until his rail-thin spine was up against the mold-streaked concrete blocks. Kellan strode inside the dank cell, crowding the human. Moving forward until he loomed over him.
"You want to know why you're here?" He stared down at Ackmeyer, seeing the young man's face take on a hot amber glow in the blaze of Kellan's irises. "It's because of the Breed-killing ultraviolet technology you created."
Ackmeyer shook his head, his voice evidently gone mute with fear now.
"You're here because that UV tech was used to ash a Darkhaven civilian on the street a few months ago. Liquid sunlight, just the kind of equalizer your species would kill to have." Kellan kept talking, ignoring the tears that sprang into the human's widened eyes. "Are you going to stand there and deny that you had any part in this?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Have I discovered a means of harnessing UV light and converting it to liquid? Yes. It's one of several prototypes I've been working on under my Morningstar project. But none of my data or models has been released to the public. And they're all light-bringing technologies, not weapons. The project's chief purpose is to benefit the planet, to revolutionize energy consumption - "
"They used to say the same thing about nuclear power." Kellan growled. "I don't have time for bullshit. Who'd you sell the tech to?"
"No one!" Ackmeyer dissolved into a shaking, hiccupping lump on the floor of the cell. "It's not even out of testing yet. And besides, I've never sold any of my work for profit. I've certainly never created anything with the purpose of inflicting harm on someone. If anyone claims they have it - if someone has used my work, as you say - they must've stolen it. You have to believe me! You have to trust me when I tell you that I've done nothing wrong!"
No, he didn't have to believe him. Nor did he have to trust.
Kellan had a much more reliable tool at his disposal than ordinary intuition.
He reached out and palmed Ackmeyer's trembling skull.
The jolt of understanding came swiftly, irrefutably.
Kellan's Breed talent stripped through the human's intentions, drilling straight to the core of truth hidden deep within Jeremy Ackmeyer's soul. All Kellan found was honesty, the purest of motivations. The absence of any guilt whatsoever.
Holy hell.
Kellan drew his hand back as if burned. The realization sank in like bitter acid, corrosive and impossible to scrape off now that it had touched him.
Jeremy Ackmeyer had been telling him the truth. He had no idea his work had been used as a weapon for assassination against the Breed.
Kellan had ordered the kidnapping of an honest, innocent man.
