Memory tried to tear her hand from Amara’s grip.
The scientist hung on with vicious strength.
Memory couldn’t speak, not while caught in the center of the abyss, but she tried to wrench her hand away from the other woman a second time. Amara’s body came up out of the chair as she fought to hold on.
Two large male hands gripped Amara’s wrists, breaking the connection with brute force.
Amara sat back down, hard, not even seeming to notice Alexei’s looming presence. Her eyes were obsidian and fixed on Memory. “I want to own you,” she said breathlessly, then smiled with a brilliant delight that transformed her from striking to stunningly beautiful. “This is wonderful.”
As Memory shivered, Amara turned toward her twin. Following her gaze, Memory blinked. Her mind took a second to correct the hiccup at seeing two such identical faces in one glance. Ashaya Aleine wore her hair loosely pinned up with combs, curls escaping every which way, but hairstyles aside, the two were indistinguishable.
The same remarkable eyes—shards of blue coming in through the gray to touch the jet-black pupil—the same skin, the same bone structure. Yet Memory would never, ever mistake one for the other. Ashaya Aleine was whole, didn’t have the howling nothingness at the core of her soul.
“Amara?” the lovely woman whispered now, her gaze locked on her twin.
Smile lighting up her irises, Amara took her sister’s hands in her own. “It’s extraordinary,” she murmured, her fingers curling over Ashaya’s. Both had the blunt-cut nails of scientists, but on the back of Ashaya’s left hand was what appeared to be a temporary tattoo of a caped superhero.
“I understand love now,” Amara said in a voice that was no longer flat but rich, resonant. “I understand that I love you.” She raised one hand to Ashaya’s cheek. “The world feels deeper, more intense.”
“Amara.” A single tear rolled down Ashaya’s cheek.
At the same time, Sascha looked to Memory with wide eyes. “How can you say you aren’t an empath? I felt what you did, but I don’t understand it.” Wonder in every shaken word. “Not one of us has ever been able to penetrate Amara’s emotional psyche, much less go this deep.”
Memory didn’t protest when Alexei put his hand, warm and a little rough, around her nape again. She was so cold inside. “Amara.” She waited until the other woman turned to face her. “What is the most valuable thing you’ve gained from this interaction?”
She saw cunning flash in the other woman’s eyes. Renault, too, was a terrible liar in the immediate aftermath of a transfer. As if his psychopathic brain got a little drunk and had to take a few minutes to stabilize before it could think with ruthless clarity.
“Remember,” she said, “this is an experiment. As a scientist, you agreed to give me factual and correct data.”
Sighing, Amara broke physical contact with her sister to sit back in her seat, her hands on the arms. “The scientist in me is suddenly a weakness.” Despite her complaint, when she spoke, it was the truth. “I have gained a far subtler understanding of how to manipulate others, and I also find . . . pleasure in the act.”
Amara looked at her twin again. “I do feel love for you.” Wiping away Ashaya’s tears, she shook her head. “I don’t deserve your tears, sister-mine.” The piercing intimacy of the moment hurt, and Memory had the thought that for this one instant, Amara wasn’t attempting to manipulate anyone, least of all her twin.
Then the scientist sat back in her chair, though she continued to direct her words to her sister. “I understand love,” she reiterated. “I also understand how I can use that love to control others. I comprehend that I have a hold over you as your twin and that you’d have to be driven to the edge of death before you’d permit me to be executed.”
Amara took a deep breath, let it out with a shake of her head. “You feel you must watch over me because I’m damaged in a fundamental way. In a battle between the two of us, I know I’ll have the advantage because you have emotions and I do not.” A pause. “Well, I do now—but other than that, I remain who I’ve always been.”
“Do you feel the urge to kill?” Memory dug her nails into her own thigh.
Uncrossing her legs before crossing them the opposite way, Amara took time to consider that question. “No,” she said at last. “I’ve never been driven to kill for killing’s sake. It’s a waste of energy and resources. I have no problem with an experimental subject dying should it be necessary for the success of the experiment, but I am not driven to murder.”
Memory’s hand flexed out, her shoulders trembling. At least in this, she could forgive herself. She didn’t create serial killers. “Do you see?” she said to Sascha, as Alexei moved his thumb over her skin in a caress that made her want to curl into him and not emerge for hours.
“I see that you’ve given Amara emotional depth.” The cardinal was frowning, the wonder not yet gone from her voice. “No other E has ever had any success with psychopathic personalities.”
“I agree with Sascha,” Amara said, putting her hands around her knee and falling into a tone that was cool and pragmatic. “This aspect of my psyche has never before been available to me. You’ve opened the doorway.”
Memory had to find the right question to make Amara reveal the truth. “By walking through that door,” she said to this intellectually gifted woman who was inhuman on an elemental level, “do you think you’ll become a better person? A person who doesn’t believe that it’s perfectly acceptable to dissect other individuals in the pursuit of scientific progress? A person who cares if her actions cause pain to others?”
Chapter 20
Twins* are a special case under Silence, the bond between them beyond emotion or a lack of it. Separating them at birth is never recommended. The psychological impact can be catastrophic, and has been known to lead to psychic collapse.
*See Coda 28 for information on triplets, quadruplets, and other multiples.
—Coda 27 to the Silence Protocol
AMARA TILTED HER head slightly to the side, a faint smile on her lips. “You’re very intelligent despite your emotion-centered abilities.” An edge of what might’ve been admiration in that smile. “The answer is no. I believe I can become better at faking empathy as a result of our contact, but I am simply an . . . enhanced version of who I was. No changes to the primary core of my personality.”
This time when Memory looked at Sascha, she saw dawning comprehension darken the cardinal’s expression. “You see,” she whispered. “I make them better monsters.”
Amara laughed and clapped her hands together. “Is this amusement?” she asked, her eyes dancing. “It is a fascinating emotion.”
Flushing, Memory said, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have called you a monster.” It had been an inexcusable lapse on her part—Amara, broken though she was, was no Renault.
Amara waved away her apology. “By any objective measure, I am a monster. An ordinary twin would not have drugged, then buried her claustrophobic sister alive in a shallow grave just to see how she would react when she woke.” A shrug of her shoulders at that horrific statement. “You are also correct in your assessment. If I am a monster, you have made me a better one.”
A sob caught in Ashaya’s throat. Raising one hand to her mouth, she looked to Memory with bruised eyes identical to Amara’s . . . yet so very different. “How long will the effect last?”
Memory frowned, realizing she couldn’t use Renault as a measure. Because of how deeply he’d broken into her mind and how long he’d had access to her, the effect lasted far longer in him now than it had back at the start, when he’d first begun to use her. “Given the time we were linked,” she said slowly, working through the various factors, “and the strength of Amara’s psychic abilities, it’ll most probably last three to four hours.”
Amara sighed. “I suppose owning you is out of the question,” she said with every appearance of seriousness. “I would keep you in a room where I could drink from you at will—I’d feed and water you, of course. Cruelty for its own sake serves no purpose.”
“Jesus.” Alexei’s rough voice, his body coming close enough that her shoulder brushed against him. “It’s like you’re a drug.”
Even though he hadn’t spoken to Amara, the scientist nodded. “The effect is very similar to what I’ve observed in addicts,” she confirmed. “Now that I’ve tasted Memory, I want more. Since I’ve only had a single hit however, I should be able to break the compulsion with ease.” Those extraordinary eyes locked on Memory. “I would suggest you not allow those like me to drink from you on a long-term basis, or you might find yourself considered prey.”
Memory laughed and it held no humor. “Trust me,” she said, “I know.”
Uncrossing her legs, Amara turned to her sister again. “Since this is a temporary effect,” she said, “and you are the most important individual in my existence, I would like to spend the time with you.”
Ashaya, face stark and terribly sad, looked once again to Memory. “Once she’s back to her normal state, will she be able to use the emotional knowledge she gains while with me in her current state?”
It was a smart question, and one for which Memory had a conclusive answer. “No. The knowledge gained becomes . . . colorless after the effect of the transfer fades. Amara will remember your interactions, but she’ll have the same emotional understanding of those interactions as she would’ve had prior to the transfer.”
Memory shaped her words with care, to offer what comfort she could. “To Amara, it will no longer make sense why she chose to spend this time with you rather than, for example, returning to her lab to run tests on herself.” That was why Renault had kept Memory all these years; he’d needed the constant renewal to continue his meteoric rise in the business world even as he gained infinitely more pleasure from his murders.