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“You really need to eat, mate of mine,” he said to her in the language of his grandmother. “I feel like dropping a fresh kill in front of you.” He could just imagine her reaction to that bloody show. “Trust me, to a falcon, that’s a declaration of true love.”

The drill shut off, the smell of bone in the air.

Then came the wet iron of blood. Too much blood. He jerked up his head. “She’s bleeding inside her skull?”

“Yes.” Czajka continued to work, her face set in grim lines behind the clear plas of her surgical mask. “But the pressure’s going down. No way to check her psychic status at this point, especially since she’s no longer in the PsyNet.”

The operation ended far sooner than he’d thought it would.

When he spoke to Dr. Czajka afterward, while Eleri was being hooked up to the systems in the surgical ICU, she took off the head cap she’d worn with her scrubs and threw it in the nearest biohazard bin.

“The real damage with reconditioned Js isn’t, despite the interference with their brains, physical.

“I know it’s what many of them believe, but their physical brains are, for the most part, in good shape. The major damage is psychic—and while that might not sound bad to a human or changeling, Psy are who we are because of our psychic abilities. Damage to that element damages our entire self.”

“No, I get it,” Adam said, recalling when Eleri had flamed out. “She said she felt unmoored without her abilities, as if she’d lost a critical organ or a limb.”

The doctor put her hands on her hips, her curls flat due to the surgical head cap. “Exactly. Unfortunately, with Js at the stage at which Eleri was prior to this incident, there’s almost nothing that can be done except for intricate shield rebuilding by empaths.

“It’s the shields that are the biggest problem because nothing else works without shields; their minds become open wounds. I’ve proven it can succeed with less reconditioned Psy—it’s not a perfect solution, but it can add at least a few years to their lives.”

A few years was nothing…and it was everything. “Why unfortunately?”

“Because Js at this stage won’t cooperate with Es. We’ve had zero successes so far.” The surgeon glanced through the glass wall of the ICU room. “I asked Bram why. He’s—”

“I know him.” The man would probably be in this hospital right now if he wasn’t in Raintree helping tear Hendricks’s place apart.

Per Dahlia, all three of Eleri’s closest friends—her family—had shown up.

Now Dr. Czajka said, “Bram told me that it’s because they can’t protect the Es at this point—anyone who goes in will become trapped within the sheer weight of psychopathic memories they carry. Eidetic psychopathic memories.”

She folded her arms. “The worst of it is that I can’t argue with him. Working with the low-level reconditioned Js was tough enough for the empaths. I don’t want to accept it, but I think he’s right—trying the technique on Js like Bram and Eleri would kill our Es.”

Walking closer to the large glass wall that fronted Eleri’s ICU room in the secure ward, she said, “The only reason Eleri and the others at the same stage are still around is because Sophia’s somehow managed to talk them into it—they want to die.” Flat words.

“I know.” Adam had been arguing with Eleri about the future all this time without ever listening to her—because he couldn’t bear to listen to her, couldn’t bear to imagine a future without her. But that time was over; Eleri needed him to face the truth, no matter if it broke his heart.

Stay, beloved mine. Stay just a little longer.

“This isn’t how their lives should end,” Dr. Czajka said. “Per Eleri’s file, she’s personally responsible for locating and stopping seven serial killers on her own, saving life after life. She’s a hero. They all are.”

“The shield is the most important thing?” Because while Adam would accept Eleri’s choice, even fight for it if it came down to that, it didn’t mean he was going to surrender to his J’s belief that she was out of options.

“Yes. Nothing else can begin to heal without it—and I’m certain Eleri no longer has any telepathic shields. Her PsyNet shields fell right before she died.” A glance at him. “Does it matter in your network?”

“No. She’s the only Psy in WindHaven.” No one could take advantage of his J while she was so exposed. “Can that help her in the long term?”

“No,” was the curt response. “She needs her telepathic shields to protect her brain against the psychic noise of the world. Like we all need our skin to protect the structures beneath; it’s non-negotiable.”

Adam’s fingers curled tight into his fist, his heart thudding hard and slow as his focus coalesced to a single point as he fought to think, find answers…

while knowing the best minds among the Psy had already been at the problem since the fall of Silence and failed in their quest. “Can she wake up without a shield?”

“Yes. But she’ll either have a seizure or fall unconscious again almost at once due to the overload.

” A penetrating glance. “Imagine walking into a room of a thousand people where everyone is screaming at you, then multiply that by the population of a city and you’ll have some idea of what Eleri will experience if she wakes.

There will never, ever be quiet in her mind—and each time she wakes, she’ll bruise her brain anew, wound on top of wound. ”

Unspoken was that even if pieces of Adam’s J had survived, the nightmare of waking would tear those pieces into so many tiny fragments that she’d be gone even if she breathed and her heart yet beat.