Shield of Winter

Chapter 53

Heroes are often the quietest people in a room, the ones least willing to lay claim to the title. These men and women simply go about doing what needs to be done without any expectation of gratitude or fame. It is in their nature to protect and to shield and to fight against darkness, whatever form it may take.

New York Signal

EXHAUSTED DOWN TO the bone, Ivy nonetheless put Rabbit on a leash during a mercifully peaceful afternoon, and she and Vasic took him out, their intended destination a Central Park clothed in sparkling white snow. It wasn’t fair to their pet to be cooped up now that he was back to his usual energetic self.

“It’s so quiet.” Ivy had quickly become used to the frantic energy and wild vitality of New York, but that vitality was nowhere in evidence today; people’s faces were strained and their eyes downcast. “How many have left the city, do you know?” she asked Vasic.

“A tiny percentage in comparison to the city’s population.”

“People have jobs, lives they can’t just leave,” she murmured, thinking aloud. “And word’s out that pretty much nowhere is safe.” Her parents’ region of the Net was holding strong at the moment, but Ivy continued to worry. “I wish I could cover my parents in my empathic shield and your great-grandfather, too.” She hadn’t yet met Zie Zen, but Vasic had told her a lot about the extraordinary man.

Vasic, dressed in his “civilian” clothes of jeans and leather-synth jacket—though the T-shirt wasn’t black today, but dark blue—put his arm around her waist, his fingers at her hip. “Neither of the three would thank us for abandoning hundreds of thousands to shield them, regardless of how much we might want to ensure their safety.”

Ivy sighed, having had that exact conversation with her parents. “Yes.” It took her a few seconds to realize her Arrow was stabilizing her using Tk as she walked on the icy sidewalk. Those sidewalks should’ve been cleared of snow early that morning, but systems were breaking down all over the world.

As were the systems in Vasic’s gauntlet. While he hadn’t been using its weapons capability since the command failure during the attack by Ming’s men, the program had come on spontaneously during an outbreak. He’d suffered a small overload in the fight to shut it down.

The burns had been minor and treated on-site. It didn’t matter—Ivy had felt her heart crack in two when she saw the wounds, though she’d fought not to let her panic and fear show. He’d known. He always knew. Holding her tucked against him, he’d told her that Aden had found a surgeon willing to attempt the risky operation to remove the critical malfunctioning components.

Only if we don’t hear back from Samuel Rain before time runs out, he’d told her. The surgeon is exceptional. She’s known to be a maverick with a reputation for accepting risky cases and coming through with flying colors, but she’s not Rain.

Ivy’s nerves were stretched to the breaking point at the sustained silence from Rain, but she agreed with Vasic’s choice. Her stomach a lump of ice, she knew there was a high risk the surgeon might kill him. Samuel Rain might as well . . . but if the engineer wasn’t brain damaged, the risk was lower.

That didn’t mean it wasn’t still unacceptably high.

Shoving that brutal truth to the back of her mind on this sunny afternoon when she was out for a walk with her man, she tugged his hand off her hip to lace their fingers together. “You should wear color,” she said when Rabbit, nimble and curious, paused to scrutinize the window display of a menswear shop. “With those gorgeous eyes, any vibrant shade would look good on you.”

He examined the display. “Would it please you if I wore color?”

Ivy’s heart flipped. “You please me by being you. I was just . . . flirting.” It was silly and awkward, and she wanted to try it with him. She wanted to try everything with him, couldn’t bear the thought of living in a world where Vasic wasn’t there to be her partner in exploration.

He didn’t speak again until they were deep in Central Park. “Why would you flirt with me?” he said as they walked along an otherwise deserted pathway enclosed on all sides by snow-dusted trees, the white carpet of it unbroken but for Rabbit’s paw prints in front of them. “I’m already yours.”

She stopped, unable to look at him because there was so much inside her for him that it terrified.

Breaking their handclasp, he closed his fingers over her nape, his thumb brushing her skin in a quiet caress. “I don’t know how to play games of courtship. I can learn if that’s what you need.”

Rabbit’s leash dropping from her hand, she swiveled to face him. “No, I want you to be you.” An Arrow who said what he meant and who didn’t speak except when he had something to say. “I want you to be you,” she repeated in a whisper, her hands clenched tight in his T-shirt. “I want to make mistakes with you, learn how to be in a relationship with you.”

Vasic stroked his thumb over her skin again, his hair gleaming blue-black in the ray of sunshine that pierced the canopy, his skin golden. “I’m used to working with plans, with blueprints,” he said, “but observation of the other races tells me life doesn’t come with a blueprint.” The Psy had attempted to change that, create rules, but all that had done was buy them a little time before the inevitable crash. “We have to make the plan ourselves.”

Ivy, his empath who’d wrenched him out of the gray numbness in which he’d existed and into a world of vibrant color, reached up to play her fingers through his hair. “Samuel Rain,” she said, determined fury in every word, “is going to come through. I will believe nothing else.”

Vasic had never been afraid of death, but now he fought the idea of it with every breath in his body. “I could kidnap him,” he said, his hands on her hips. “Force him to work on the gauntlet under threat of being left in a jungle full of his favorite primates.”

Ivy’s laugh was a little wet. “I don’t think anything could make that man do something he didn’t want to do.” A kiss so tender, it enslaved him.

“But,” she whispered against his lips, “if he doesn’t get back to us soon, I’m going to pay him a visit.” Her eyes glinted in readiness for battle. “Rain is about as brain damaged as I am, and it’s time he stopped playing games.”

“Woof!”

Vasic kissed her the way she’d kissed him, before releasing her from his hold. “I believe the other male in your life wants some attention.”

A smile in the copper eyes that had been raw with pain since his overload—pain she tried to hide from him but couldn’t, her face without shields—she turned to pick up the stick Rabbit had dropped at her feet. Unclipping the leash while she was hunkered down, she wrapped it loosely around her left hand and stood.

“Come on, Rabbit”—she threw the stick—“fetch!”

As Vasic watched her encourage their ecstatic pet, her delight music in the air, he said, “This wasn’t meant to be my future,” to the man who walked up to join him.

Aden had arrived in the city on a high-speed jet-chopper a half hour ago. Now, his partner stood with his gloved hands on either side of the tailored black winter coat he wore open over a suit of the same color, his shirt white. It was camouflage for an urban environment.

“Are you sorry for the change?”

“No.” Not far from them, Ivy lavished Rabbit with affectionate praise when he ran back with the stick. “I’ll never be sorry for Ivy.” He’d fight the world for her, and he’d battle like a gladiator against the results of his formerly self-destructive instincts. “There’s one more option we haven’t explored when it comes to the gauntlet.” It was something he’d realized during the outbreak this morning, when Dev Santos’s team had taken primary responsibility for ensuring calm. “The Forgotten have certain unusual gifts.”

“I already checked it out.” Aden’s eyes followed Ivy’s arm as she took the stick from Rabbit after a play fight and threw it again. “Their medical tech has gone in a different direction. Santos did say he might be able to assist using an ability about which he’d tell me nothing.”

Vasic braced himself for bad news. It could be nothing else if Aden hadn’t already shared it with him.

“He did a field test in the aftermath of the outbreak, while you were both in close proximity.” Aden glanced at him, shook his head. “Whatever his ability, he says it’s too rough yet to work with such complex computronics.”

Having processed the information as Aden gave it to him, Vasic moved on. Time was the one commodity he didn’t have. “Keep the surgeon on standby. I don’t know if the gauntlet is going to last the full eight weeks Bashir initially predicted.”

Aden didn’t argue with his order. “Have you told Ivy the risks?”

“Yes.” Vasic paused. All his life, he’d shared data with Aden almost automatically—his relationship with his empath, however, was new territory. Ivy, he said telepathically, will it break your trust if I talk to Aden about our relationship?

She shot him a look over her shoulder, eyes bright. No. I plan to complain about you to Jaya. Laughter in her mental voice as she turned back to watch their courageous little dog race toward her. Just don’t go into detail about how we make love. A pause, her body suddenly motionless. What exactly did you ask Judd Lauren? Only about the control issue or—

He sent me his research file on sex.

Vasic could see her turning red even from this distance. Her mental groan was mortified. I will never be able to look him in the eye again, she said, face in her hands. Fine, talk to Aden about it if he needs the information. I hope he does . . . I hope he finds what we have.

So did Vasic. “Ivy,” he said to the other man, “expects me to talk to her, and so I do. I’m learning not to keep secrets.”

Strands of Aden’s straight black hair slid across his forehead in an undemanding breeze that didn’t dislodge the snow from the branches above. “Is it difficult?”

“Sometimes.” Vasic didn’t always do the right thing, but with Ivy, that never meant rejection. She wanted to make mistakes with him, was forgiving of his own. “Being with her is the most complex, most fascinating operation of my life.”

And it was one he knew would only grow more intricate with time. “Some would say this is the punishment for my crimes,” he said into the quiet broken by Rabbit’s excited bark as he ran for the stick again. “To be given happiness only to have my own choices steal it from me.”

His friend looked at him. “Is that what you believe?”

“No.” Once he might have. No longer. Because to do so would be to believe Ivy was being punished, too—and his Ivy had done nothing to deserve the pain that made her cry in her sleep.

Each tear was a drop of acid directly on his soul.

“The recent media coverage of you,” Aden said into the silence that had fallen between them. “Can you handle it?”

“It doesn’t concern me.” Vasic didn’t need to be underground, not like those of his brethren whose lives would be placed at risk should those men and women be identified as members of the squad.

“No.” Aden reached down to pick up Rabbit’s stick when the dog raced over to drop it at his feet. “Can you handle being the public face of the squad?” Throwing the stick past Ivy, he dusted the snow off his hands.

Vasic stared at his partner, Aden’s words making no sense. “We don’t have a public profile, and if we did, you’re the best one to take that position.”

“The decision is now out of our hands.” Taking a thin datapad from his pocket, he passed it to Vasic just as Ivy returned to them.

She leaned against his side to look at the screen, her cheeks glowing and a panting Rabbit resting at her feet. Every inch of Vasic’s body was sensitized to her presence, her warmth seeping into his cells to ease the ice-cold places inside him, the soft curve of her breast pressed against his upper arm. With any other woman, it would’ve been an intrusion. With Ivy, it felt natural . . . normal.

Shifting his arm, he wrapped it around her shoulders.

“That’s an incredible photo.”

He followed the copper and gold of her gaze to see that the image on the datapad was of him. He had a baby cradled against his chest and a hand shoved out behind him as he held off two of the infected armed with broken glass bottles. Blood dripped from his temple where he’d taken a hit at some point, and his T-shirt was torn, the gauntlet visible because he’d taken off his jacket to wrap the infant in it, having caught her as she was thrown off a third-story balcony in an act of insane violence.

“What do you see when you see that photo?” Aden asked, his question directed at Ivy.

“Vasic being the strong, extraordinary man he is.” She rose on tiptoe, and Vasic angled his head down. Her lips brushed over his jaw.

Aden took in the interaction, wondered if his partner had any comprehension of just how far he’d come. “If you didn’t feel positive emotions toward him already,” he said to the woman who was Vasic’s, “what would you see?”

Ivy focused on the image again, frowned. “I’d see the same. A strong man protecting the vulnerable.”

“That is what the wider population sees as well.” Tapping the datapad, he brought up the hereto hidden headline: “A Silent Hero.”

There was more, the feature article illustrated not only with that first image, but with several others of Vasic taken during the recent outbreaks—as well as a photograph from when he’d rendered assistance after a bomb blast masterminded by Pure Psy in Copenhagen and another from the group’s attack in Geneva.

Vasic was wearing his Arrow uniform in both those photos.

“The media has connected you to the squad,” Aden said, “and by doing that, they’ve given the squad a face, a name.”

“We don’t play for the media, Aden. Even if that’s to change, I’m the last person you should put in that position.”

Ivy spread her hand on Vasic’s chest, her smile rueful. “I adore him,” she said to Aden, “but he’s right. Vasic’s not exactly the chatty media type.” Her eyes danced. “In fact, I’m not sure he knows how to chat at all.”

Vasic squeezed her. “I’m going to find a manual.”

Bursting out in laughter at what seemed a reasonable statement to Aden, Ivy tried to speak, gave up. “Sorry,” she said almost a minute later, her voice still tremulous with laughter and inexplicable tears rolling down her face. “Your partner has a sly sense of humor.”

I didn’t know you had a sense of humor.

I appear to be growing one. Vasic shifted back to vocal speech after using his thumb to wipe away Ivy’s tears. “The media. Why?”

“We need to adapt,” Aden said in an echo of the promise the entire squad had made when Silence was about to fall.

To adapt. To survive.

“The squad has always been a shadow in the Net,” he continued, “the whip used to terrify the population. Right now, people are in shock, but sooner or later, if we survive this infection, things will come to an equilibrium.” Aden met eyes of copper ringed with gold, then those of cool gray. “When that happens, people will seek someone to blame.” The psychology of it was clear-cut. “We’re a big target.”

“No one can touch us,” Vasic replied.

“No, but they can touch those who are our own.” Aden looked deliberately at Ivy.