Shards of Hope

Chapter 26

STILL GLUTTED ON the experience of stabbing the man on the beach to death, Blake stood at the window of the main training building and watched the teenagers in the compound. They were being led through an early morning martial arts routine by a twenty-five-year-old he’d previously approached about a partnership. She’d thought it would be an ordinary partnership, of course, and he hadn’t disabused her of that notion.

As it was, she’d turned him down because their fighting styles didn’t mesh.

He’d made a counterargument that their differences could complement one another but when she’d stood firm, he’d realized she was too dominant a personality to allow him to be the alpha in their partnership. He’d have to find someone else. Scanning the trainees almost desultorily, he considered other Arrows in their early twenties.

That was when his mind whispered—why not someone younger?

He had never before considered a younger accomplice, but as he watched the trainer move, the teens following in seamless formation, he realized it was the best possible option. He’d have both a partner with whom to share the kill, and a weaker, less confident individual he could control.

When he examined the teenagers more carefully, he found his eye caught by a brown-haired girl in the back row he didn’t recognize. That should’ve been impossible—like the majority of senior Arrows, he knew the juniors coming up, had taken the age group for training at various points in time.

Yet this girl flicked no mental switches.

Sliding out his portable organizer, he found the list of attendees at the session and eliminated them one by one until he was left with a seventeen-year-old girl who was a strong telepath, but who also had a notable ability in the rare illusion range.

The latter would be useful when it came to the abduction of victims. On the negative side, she also registered as stable and loyal to the squad.

Of course, he did, too, but he knew how to manipulate the tests. Did she?

He scanned several other files, all of teenagers who were old enough to be fully trained but young enough to mold to his specifications. But he kept coming back to the girl; she even looked like the female victims he preferred when he had a choice. Every other kind of victim was a mere snack—this specific type fed his hunger.

Brown haired, pale skinned, not slender, not overweight, with small breasts.

She was the one.

He just had to find a vulnerability, a crack.