“My shields are impregnable.” Sophia looked at the Councilor, suddenly aware that she had more of a capacity to understand this powerful woman than most. The darkness in her recognized the same in Nikita. “What’s happening?”

“Change.” Nikita rose to her feet, walked to the plate-glass wall that looked out over the city. “But change takes time, and always claims victims.”

Sophia wouldn’t ever again be a victim. “I will never like you,” she said to the Councilor’s back. “But I will never lie to you either. I think you could do with an advisor who’s not afraid of you.”

“Normal Psy do not feel.”

Sophia said nothing. Not on that. “I’ve thought and thought about why you might’ve asked for me on this assignment, and I can only come up with one answer.” And it was an answer beyond Silence, an answer to do with mothers and daughters, redemption and forgiveness. “But I can’t make myself believe it. Not of you.”

Nikita took five long minutes to respond. “Pick up the standard employment contract on your way out. And Ms. Russo?”

“Yes?”

“You should be scared of me.”

“Perhaps.” Sophia rose. “But once you’ve seen what I have, once you’ve lived in the abyss for that long, fear becomes nothing but another cage.” Then she walked out and into the arms of a cop who waited only until they’d closed the door to his apartment behind them before crushing her into his arms and taking her mouth in a kiss that demanded.

She felt the lingering pain in him, the heavy sorrow of all those families, and gave him what he needed. Everything.

He ripped open her jacket, shoved up her skirt with rough, hungry hands that licked fire across her skin. “Stop me, Sophie.” A harsh whisper. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“It’s okay.” She pushed off his own shirt, baring the sleekly muscular beauty of his chest. “I missed you until I couldn’t breathe. Come inside me.”

Her panties were torn off her, his fingers urgent as he tested her slickness. Lifting a leg, she wrapped it around his hip. He swore, lowered the zipper on his pants, and then the hot, hard heat of him was thrusting into her, pinning her against the wall. She cried out, holding on, holding him tight.

The pleasure was a firestorm that erased the pain, wiped away the sorrow, left her limp, his face buried in her neck as that muscular back gleamed with perspiration. “Hello, my Max,” she whispered.

“Hello, my sweet, sexy Sophie.”

Later that day, after they’d spent most of it tangled up skin to skin, sleeping and loving and holding each other, Sophia took a deep breath. “I did some in-depth investigation of my new shields while you were away—I think I know their origin.”

Her cop stroked her hair off her face, his expression intent. “Tell me.”

“Part of this is because I’m an anchor, but part of it is because my mind is . . . unique.” It had survived by doing the extraordinary. “You know about the NetMind?”

“I’ve heard rumors it’s some kind of psychic entity that organizes the Net.”

“Yes. The thing is, there’s a DarkMind, too.” She’d searched, dug deep to find confirmation of her suspicions. “It’s made up of all the emotions my race has rejected, and it’s so angry, so scared, and so very, very lonely. I think . . . it’s also a little insane.”

Max didn’t ask what others might have. He asked only the critical question. “This DarkMind is protecting you?”

“They both are in a sense.” She took a shaky breath, swallowed. “At first I thought my shields were a psychic extension of the Net, that for some reason, the Twin-Minds had decided to look after me, but while that made sense with my Net shields, it didn’t explain my telepathic protections—those have to come from within. Then I realized it’s me.” She hesitated.

“It’s okay, sweetheart.” A kiss on her forehead, arms that held her close. “No matter what, you’re still my Sophie, still my J.”

Her heart settled, quiet, content. “I am a living, breathing extension of the Net, Max.” The tendrils snaked through her mind, fine threads, and not the dark alone. The light was there, too, simply less obvious to the casual eye. “I’m not just an anchor any longer—I’ve become some kind of a focus.”

Two hours later, she shared the truth about her shields with Sascha Duncan over a secure comm link. The empath’s face held no rejection, only concern. “But Sophie, the Net is going mad. If it’s inside you on that level . . .”

“There’s hope, Sascha.” A blinding, beautiful hope. “As the Net passes through my anchor point, the light and the dark come together if only for a fraction of a second.”

Comprehension dawned in a fracture of color in Sascha’s cardinal eyes. “And for that instant, they’re sane?”

“Yes.” Her throat locked. “I may be the sole anchor who can give them that peace. And that’s not right.” Because outside of the tiny oasis of her mind, the Net was going inexorably mad, a dark rot seeping through its very fabric—parts of the PsyNet were already dead, places where neither the DarkMind nor the NetMind could go.

Sascha’s own eyes shone wet. “No, they should’ve never been split in two, but their sentience is formed and shaped by the Net. They can’t, won’t merge until Silence falls.”

And that, they both knew, might take an eternity . . . and a war that could devastate their world. “Things are changing,” Sophia whispered, holding the empath’s gaze. The NetMind loved Sascha. The DarkMind knew the empath could give them something, but it didn’t know how to shape its request, how to even convey its painful need. “You’ve felt it.”

“Yes.” A solemn gaze, but it held hope, the determination of a Psy willing to fight for her people. “Are you sure you’re safe, Sophia?” So much care, the empath’s huge heart there in the timbre of her voice, in every part of her.

At that moment, Sophia understood some of what the crippled, voiceless DarkMind was trying to tell her, understood that the Es had to be reawakened if the Net was to survive.

“I understand why it does what it does,” Sascha continued, sorrow erasing the stars in her eyes, “but the Dark-Mind’s need for vengeance has pushed it to spawn terrible crimes.”

Sophia wrapped her arms around Max’s waist, laying her ear against the solid pulse of his heartbeat, the warmth of him her own personal anchor. “In my mind, they’re one.” They were whole. As she was finally whole.

“They balance each other.” Sascha’s voice turned soft, thoughtful. “Yes, of course.”

“And . . . I accept the DarkMind,” Sophia said, hiding nothing of who she was, the darkness that had shaped her. “It has no need to scream, no need to fight to be known, to be remembered.” She would never shut it away, never force it to be Silent.

Just like her cop had never asked her to be anything but what she was—a flawed, scarred J. Lifting her head, she reached up and pressed a kiss over that scar on his cheek, uncaring of their audience. Thanking him. Adoring him.

“I know,” he whispered, his arms holding her tight. “I know, baby.”

It was all she needed to hear.

EPILOGUE

I’m sorry, Max. Please don’t be mad. I just can’t be here anymore.

—Handwritten note from River Shannon to Max Shannon

Sophia had never felt more content than she did at that moment, lying in the loose circle of Max’s arms as they sat in bed watching the entertainment screen. The show wasn’t important—it was background. But the warmth of Max, the scent of him, the knowledge that no one could ever steal this from her now . . . it was an almost vicious happiness.

Max rubbed his chin on her hair. “I can tell when you’re thinking.”

“Are you sure you’re not Psy?” A kiss pressed to the golden-brown skin under her cheek. He was only wearing a pair of boxers, while she’d pulled on a tank top and a pair of pajama bottoms with dancing penguins on them.

Max’s fingers massaged the back of her neck in an absent caress. “One hundred percent primitive human.”

Tapping her fist against the hardness of his bare abdomen, she reached up to press a kiss against his jaw. “I like you primitive.”

He took her mouth, stole her breath. And when he released her, he said, “I knew you wanted me for my body.”

“That and your salary.” Smiling, she tumbled him onto the sheets until she straddled him, her elbows braced on either side of his head. “Are you going to take the job Nikita offered?”

“It gives me hives to think about working for a Councilor.” He scowled, his hands shaping over her hips. Lower. “But then I think about all the secrets I could learn, all the other cops I could help with the contacts I’d make, the access I’d have.”

Sophia shivered at the way he stroked her, decided she’d have to get him in front of a mirror today. The fantasy was driving her to delirium. “I’ve already sold my soul”—that got her a grin, and she had to kiss his dimple then—“so I have little credibility, but Nikita seems to be better than some.”

“Not saying much.”

“No.” She ran one hand down over his chest, loving the fact that she could adore him at her leisure, without worry, without fear. As long as nothing leaked out into the Net, no one would come hunting—not in Nikita’s territory. “Max, do you mind that we have to continue to be careful?” Whatever change was happening, it was a slow, secret thing.

“I almost lost you to total rehabilitation,” he said, his tone somber. “Compared to that, a little discretion is nothing. And”—a Max smile—“you know it turns me on when you’re all prim and proper in public. I just want to take you home and strip you naked, teach you wicked, wicked things.” Possessive hands shaping her flesh with sensual intent.