The heat of their bodies drained away, and goose bumps spread over Holden’s skin. He blinked up at Six without speaking, waiting for this to be the joke of an awkward man who wasn’t too good at making funnies, but the punch line never came. Instead, a flash of horror crossed Six’s face as though he instantly regretted his confession.
“I need to shower.”
Six held up a hand but didn’t do anything with it. “Holden—”
“Can you move?”
Six’s hand dropped to his side, and his default expression returned. Dead eyes. Blank face. Tight mouth.
He shifted over and sat on the edge of the bed so stiffly it seemed he was the one who’d just been fucked within an inch of his life. Holden scooted off the bed and stood, turning away. Not wanting to see those loosely curled hands. The confession. Or the way the right words had blasted through Six’s mental shield and exposed the flood of affection that had been pouring out of him. It could have just been the endorphin rush of his first bang and Holden’s schmoopy words, but maybe it was also possible that he’d actually felt something more than an orgasm.
Holden shivered and swiftly walked from his bedroom to the narrow bathroom just down the hall. The heat wasn’t turned on, which could have explained his chills, but it was more likely the realization that he was surrounded by a conspiracy. Or in the middle of one? Actively participating in it? He had a lot of questions, but one thing was clear: he’d just had sex with someone who was basically a double fucking agent. Holden hadn’t felt any ulterior motives in that postorgasmic glow, but there had to be a reason Six had stayed at the Farm for all those years, and why he’d taken the job to spy on Holden, when it had nothing to do with devotion or obligation to the Comm.
Once in the shower, Holden tilted his head against the tiled wall and closed his eyes. The water was too hot and the steam was billowing too much for such a tiny space, but he needed Six’s touch to be scorched from his flesh along with the memory of that brief connection. Even with the other revelation hanging in the air like a storm cloud, one thing was clear—it was definitely possible to get inside of Six’s head.
“Holden.”
“Shit!” Holden jerked away from the wall and clapped his hand over his heart. “Don’t you fucking knock?”
Six stood on the other side of the shower door, mostly distorted by the steam and the bumpy texture of the glass.
“Can we talk?”
“About Ex-Comm? I’ll pass. I already know more than I want to know about that organization.”
“Someone told you about it?”
Holden began jerkily scrubbing himself. “Yes. I’m assuming, like the Community, that’s a no-no for Ex-Comm. First rule of Fight Club and such.”
“Wrong.”
Apparently they were back to monosyllable and pulling teeth.
“How am I wrong?” he asked impatiently. “Care to elaborate or do you want to drag this out while you scramble to escape the mess you just created by telling me that?”
“There’s no mess,” Six said. “Unless you tell your father.”
“Does my father even know what Ex-Comm is?”
“Yes.” A measured silence followed, as though Six was waiting for a reaction. When Holden just stared at him through the glass without comment, he said, “Your father goes out of his way to extinguish it every chance he gets. That’s not an exaggeration, it’s the truth. He is fixated on hunting down every member and taking them out, which doesn’t work because Ex-Comm is made up of different groups in different places, not one completely unified organization.” Six paused, weighing his words, and maybe wondering whether he was saying too much. “Now we can do this two ways—you come out on your own and listen to what I have to say, or I drag you out and make you listen.”
Holden twisted the faucet. It turned off with a loud squeal. “Are you threatening me?”
“No. I mean—” Six opened the shower door and squinted at him. At some point, he’d put on his boxers and T-shirt. “Are you being serious? I fucking hate your sarcastic shit all the time.”
“That wasn’t sarcasm.”
“Okay. Then no. I’m not threatening to hurt you. I wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Why not?” Holden demanded. “I’m the son of Richard Payne. A privileged bastard who has benefited from the exploitation of every Community member who signed the lifetime contract complete with membership fees and blind loyalty. That’s the foundation of Ex-Comm’s manifesto, isn’t it? That the Comm only exists to take advantage of people. Not help them.”
“Something like that, but you’re oversimplifying it to be a dick.”
Even in the middle of a wrenching conversation, there was something undeniably attractive about Six’s brutal honestly and steady gaze. Holden stepped out of the shower, naked and unashamed, and took note of the way that same gaze swept over his body. Once, then again. Oh yes—that attraction had been very real.
“I’ll listen to what you have to say,” Holden said. “But keep in mind that it doesn’t mean I’ll trade one problematic group for another. I’m not here to take down the Community. All I want is to help my friends.”
“And what if you have to take it down in order to help them?”
“You’re going to need to explain that hypothetical.”
“It’s not a hypothetical. It is a fact.”
Holden’s gut twisted. “How?”
“Come back into the bedroom and I’ll tell you everything.”
It took over twenty minutes for Holden to sit still enough for Six to start talking. He made coffee, watched a few minutes of NY1, checked his messages, and then finally sat across from Six at the kitchen table. He noticed that Six had yet to touch the gourmet brew.
“Not up to your standards?”
“I don’t drink coffee.”
“Then why in the hell did you let me pour you a cup?”
“To be polite. It’s considered rude for a guest to turn down the offerings of their host.”
This was not the time to laugh, but Holden wanted to. Then he felt bad for being amused by Six’s social awkwardness. It wasn’t his fault he hadn’t been properly socialized and that he was literally unable to pick up on the motes of energy that most people used to read another’s mood.
Holden grabbed Six’s cup and slid it across the table to line up with his own. “I’ll drink it.”
“That’s a lot of coffee.”
“It’s five o’clock in the morning, and you’re about to make a keen effort to get me to betray my father.” Holden raised the cup to his lips. “Being alert has its benefits.”
Six leaned back in his chair with his thighs spread and hands locked together behind his head. With his hair down, body still flushed from sex, and the lack of clothing, he was devastatingly sexy. It was unfortunate this morning coffee wouldn’t result in rejuvenation leading to more sex.
“I don’t want you to betray your father.”
“No?”
“Unless you want to save your friends.”
Holden set his coffee cup down with a thunk. “I strongly advise you starting from the top if you expect me to take this conversation seriously. Right now it sounds like the plot of a Marvel movie. Or a dystopian novel. And regardless of my feelings on the way the Community is operating at the moment, I have a filial obligation to not plot against my father. It would take a lot for me to even consider hearing out anything along those lines.” When Six cocked his head in apparent confusion, Holden frowned. “Six, do you have parents?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t.” Six dropped his hands from behind his head to cross his arms over his chest. His shoulders hunched forward just slightly. “Is this the part where you demand to know my sad back story? Try to understand how I lost my way and joined Ex-Comm instead of embracing the nurturing psychic community your daddy founded?”
“Now who’s oversimplifying to be a dick?”
Six shrugged. “That’s what you’re doing, right? I may not feel your vibes, but you’re not the first to expect me to have a story just because I’m not the type of person they’re used to.”
“But you do have a story,” Holden said knowingly. “And I only know part of it. That you were picked up by Community Watch as a teenager, but you tried to rob the place and wound up having your life decided for you by a Community tribunal instead of the police.”
“The police wouldn’t have done the job the board wanted,” Six said. “I’d have gotten a month of juvie. Maybe. Your people abducted me. I didn’t agree to go to the Farm, but they took me there anyway. And they kept me for years.”
Holden’s hands curled into fists. “You didn’t agree to it?”
“No. And even if I had, I was fourteen with no parents and no one to rep me who actually gave a fuck about the choices I was making.” Six’s lip curled. That, and the glint of his eyes, was the only indication that he felt anything while retelling this story. “And they were a board of powerful psychics in charge of an organization who were telling me to go. I didn’t think I could say no. I didn’t know what they would do to me if I tried. So I went along with it, and I stayed because I had nowhere else to go. And I was scared. It was easy for them to get away with holding me there because they knew no one would be looking for me.”
“Where . . . Can I ask about your parents?”
“You can ask, but I don’t got any answers for you.” Six laughed humorlessly. “Someone told me they were crackheads who dumped me at a church, but there’s no real way to know. I grew up a ward of the state, and that got old real fast once my mental shield set in. I was strange and everyone knew it. And it was awful. The worst fucking thing for a kid in a situation like that is to be different. The ability to blend in is protection. It’s safer to be no one.”
Holden looked down at his coffee cup. The still black pool reminded him of Six’s eyes.
The board meeting where Six’s fate had been decided had been years and years ago, but Holden would never forget the impression it had left on his younger self. The Community acting as judge and jury, and them never once looking in the direction of the slim young boy with the darting black eyes who sat alone in a corner. If it had scared Holden, he had no idea how Six must have felt at the time.
Something scrabbled at the back of Holden’s neck. Invisible feelings trying to grab him by the scruff and pull him away from this conversation and the inevitable crush of sympathy that would lead to Holden staying still, dropping the wise-guy routine, and hearing Six out. But he ignored it and took another swig from his cooling coffee.
Maybe this was dangerous territory, and maybe he should have shut this down and walked away, but everything was ringing true. What they’d done had been abduction. They’d made sure that Sixtus Rossi had vanished from the Earth by keeping him holed up on the Farm for over a decade.
“Why did they want you out of the way?”
“Because I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.”
The tingle of knotting nerves that had started in the bed exploded into a full-on creep crawl through his body. Goose bumps spread over him.
“In the CW?”
Six nodded slowly. “I ran away from my group home at twelve. Left with a friend. Meadow.” Six looked down at the table as he combed a hand through his hair. “Meadow was a telepath. To this day, she’s the most talented telepath I’ve ever met. And believe me, I’ve met a lot. We sensed something in each other right off the bat, which is why we were so close. Partners in crime on the run from the system that was likely going to crush us if we stayed in it long enough.” He gathered his hair together and tied it in a loose knot. “We never got dragged back to the group home, but we met someone who told us about a safe place for psy kids.”
“Who did you meet? Where?”
“There you go with those questions again. That’s what always made you so dangerous to the board. And to your father.” Six’s eyes flashed up at Holden. “We were at a youth center in SoHo. There were Community plants there. Counselors who vetted psy kids and directed them toward the CW.”
Holden frowned. There was something uncomfortable about that. Something . . . predatory.
“Yeah, you get it.” Six nodded, and the last remnants of his hesitation vanished. “So we went to the CW, and they mostly ignored me and zeroed in on Meadow. They said she was amazing. Incredible. Had so much potential that they wanted her to go to a special camp for special people just like her so she could learn how to really explore her talent. I wasn’t invited.” He flashed a tight smile. “They took her to the Farm, and I didn’t hear a thing about her for months. And nobody would give me answers. So, I decided to look into it myself.”
“The robbery wasn’t a robbery,” Holden said. “You were looking for information about Meadow.”
“You got it. I found information on her, among other things.” That humorless laugh sounded again, ominous and chilly in the silent kitchen. “Just because folks are big-time psychics, doesn’t mean they had smarts about computer security back in the late nineties. All the information was right there on your father’s computer. All it took was a few keystrokes to find files with Meadow’s name.”
Holden stood and began to pace. He knew Six was watching him, but he couldn’t keep still any longer. This thing was building and building, and he had no idea where it was going anymore. He had already wrapped his mind around a psychic vampire who’d been twisted by the obscene hierarchy of the Community. But now . . .
“At the time there was a directory of everyone in the Community. They categorized us by psychic power and then ranked us by utility. Those with the highest utility were vetted for the Farm, where they’d undergo evaluations and realignment, and be taught to become devoted staff of the Community.”
“I don’t get that. Realignment is meant for people who’ve lost focus. Why would they realign people just because they’re extremely talented?”
“Do you think everyone’s realignment looked like yours?”
“I—” Did he think everyone got private tutors and gourmet meals? Absolutely not. “Even so . . . it doesn’t make sense. The purpose of realignment is like . . . it’s supposed to be so people can check themselves and relearn the principles of the Community. The goals and rules.”
“Holden, you’re repeating this bullshit because you want to believe it. It doesn’t make it true.”
“Fine. Then what’s the truth?”
Six placed both of his hands on the table, palms down, with his fingertips pressing against the flimsy wood. “Your mother has experienced the real version of realignment.”
“My mo—” Holden broke off as the sound of her shrill voice rang in his ears along with the robotic defenses of his father. He stopped pacing and put a palm against the wall, steadying himself. “It’s brainwashing.”
“Correct. A more suitable term would be ‘reprogramming.’”
“Jesus God.” Holden inhaled sharply but couldn’t seem to catch the breath he didn’t remember losing. He leaned heavily against the wall. “Is it reversible?”
“I don’t know, but some people are resistant to it.”
“Like you,” Holden said.
“And your brother.”
Holden slid down the wall until his ass met the floor. He’d known all along that Chase was at the Farm, but now . . . “Do you think they’re trying to reprogram him?”
“Maybe. I saw when they brought him in, but he was kept isolated this time around.” Six got to his feet and took measured steps over to where Holden had slid to the floor. There was a moment where indecision appeared to consume him, evident in hands that rose before once again falling to his sides, and the way his mouth opened and closed before he spoke again. “Years ago when I first went to the Farm, your brother was still there. Jasper was continuously . . . working on him. Studying him. And then trying to program him to become a devoted Community member, but he was resistant. Even though he’d grown up in that place, his mind was open enough for him to see it all for what it was. They tried other means of controlling him, like leeching some of his abilities away. They thought that was what finally caused the reprogramming to take effect, but in reality—”
“He was just faking it so they’d stop . . . torturing him.” Holden was nauseated. Psychic vampires or leeches or whatever they were called had never been a myth or a legend. The Community had known about them. The Community used them. Used them on Chase and who knew how many others. Maybe Lia had been right about the other disappearances. It was entirely possible Beck hadn’t been behind all of them. In fact, it was entirely possible that Beck hadn’t acted on her own. At this point, the unlikely and the awful were all possible. “My God.”
“Are you okay?”
Holden clenched his fingers in his hair, but it did nothing to stop his racing mind and pounding heart. “How could I have never known?”
“Because you didn’t work on the Farm around people who were unable to psy fuck you into forgetting everything you’d seen.” Six crouched on the floor beside Holden. He put a tentative hand on his shoulder. “I worked out pretty quickly that it was better to pretend their brainwashing had worked on me, so they trusted me to be a good little cyborg for them. And along the way, I met someone from Ex-Comm right before she was reprogrammed.”
“Who?”
Six’s gaze cut away. “I’d rather not say.”
Holden searched his face intently. “Do Hale and Kyger know, or is this my father’s operation?”
“In all my years of working at the Farm, I’ve never once seen the other founders there. It was only your father. He would talk about his vision for the Community—a place where powerful psy children were born, bred, and groomed to become influential members of society, whether that was as celebrities, musicians, socialites, or politicians. He saw the potential in psychic powers to shape things in a way that would make the Community, and him, a powerful force.”
“My father actually made that statement?”
Six nodded. “Not all in one go, but over time. He talked to me a lot even though I didn’t always talk back. He trusted me.”
Holden shook his head in disbelief. “My father doesn’t trust anyone. Not even me.”
“Because you ask too many questions,” Six repeated. “You’re too smart. Too thoughtful. And people like your father consider that threatening. They want you to accept his truth and not wonder what else is missing from the equation.”
“And he thought you had done that. That you’d been one hundred percent reprogrammed over time?” Holden leaned forward, brow wrinkling. “But why would they think that when you’re completely shielded from psychic manipulation?”
“Because you don’t need psychic powers to reprogram someone.” A shadow crossed Six’s face, and his gaze slanted away. “I do believe they have dreamwalkers and telepaths who might work on people who go in for realignment, and go for a subtle approach, but that’s not what happens to people like me. Or Chase. Or your mother. We’re too shielded from psychic invasions, so they try the old-fashioned approach.”
Holden felt sick, but he didn’t interrupt.
“Sensory deprivation, starvation, repeated questioning by different people or people in masks once you’re confused and delusional. Exploiting your weaknesses, finding your guilt, and then making you believe that they’ll help you get out of there if only you would stop being so difficult. And when they’ve defeated you, and have gotten you to say what they want you to say, they make you repeat it until it becomes real to you.”
“My God . . .”
Holden wanted to close his eyes or cover his ears, but he didn’t. He stared into the bottomless pools of Six’s eyes.
“They also use drugs. Psy suppressants and sedatives to keep people calm and stop them from utilizing their own gifts.”
“Do psy suppressants prevent a psychic from using his shield?”
Six shook his head. “No. A mental shield isn’t an extrasensory gift. It’s just a way of protecting yourself and finding strength within yourself.”
“Except for you,” Holden said. “That’s different.”
“Right. I was born with some kind of psychic immunity.”
It was all so wild. So fucking farfetched that Holden wanted to say it wasn’t true. That it couldn’t be true. That there was no way there was so much evil lurking in the heart of the Community that had been his home.
“Who is the Ex-Comm person you met at the Comm?” he pressed again. “I want to know who else has known about my father.”
“It’s irrelevant. My original point was that if I’d never met that person, I’d be in the dark just like you.”
“Somehow I doubt it.” Holden braced his hands against his eyes, wincing, before dropping them again. “For a cyborg, you’re good at trying to comfort people.”
“Heh. I do okay when I make an effort.”
Holden shrugged off Six’s hand. “And why are you making an effort with me? Why did you even take this job, Sixtus? Something tells me my father didn’t handpick you from the Farm and put you here.”
“You’re right about that. I was standing by during a board meeting, heard the discussion about the problem with Evolution, and volunteered. Said I wanted to get off the Farm for a change.”
“Why?”
Six hesitated, then he pressed his lips together and nodded, as if reassuring himself. “Because you were at the tribunal the day I was sent to the Farm. And when they were done discussing my fate, I heard you ask your father if I would be okay. Literally the only human in the room, maybe even in the whole goddamn city, who gave a shit about my state of mind.”
Holden started, eyes opening wide. “You saw me?”
“Yeah, I saw you. Even as a kid, I noticed those big hazel eyes with the golden flecks. And how sad they were for me.” Six’s mouth jerked to the side in a not-quite smile. It was so strained Holden wondered if Six was forcing it just to make the situation less tense and alarming. “I didn’t have a lot to hang on to in the next few years, but I always remembered that. I remembered you. Your pretty face and concerned psy-kid eyes. Your grief . . . for me. Even if you forgot about me later, which I figured you had, you’d cared in that moment.”
“I cared,” Holden said softly. “I thought about you for weeks. And I still remember it like it was yesterday.”
“Why?” Six shook his head, but the guardedness was out of his eyes and he looked open again. “I always wondered why you’d said anything at all. I was nothing, and you were everything.”
“You were a kid my age who was being tried like an adult,” Holden said sharply. “They talked about you like you were an asset, not a person. It was the first time the Community scared me. I never forgot that moment. Or you.”
“And I never forgot you.” Six wet his lips, hands curling into loose fists. “And sometimes, when I was alone and waiting for the next person to question me for hours while I stood in the middle of a blank white room with my stomach trying to eat itself, your face and the worry in your voice were the only positive memory I could muster. Because you gave a fuck, and also because . . . it was the first time I’d felt connected to someone. I’d never even had that kind of connection with Meadow.”
Holden’s heart throbbed before climbing to his throat. “When you say you felt connected . . .”
“For the first time, I felt someone else.” Six reached up to brush his fingers along Holden’s cheek, then down to his jaw. “I felt your sadness. Your fear. Your concern. I have no idea why I felt it with you and not Meadow or anyone else in the world up until then—fuck, up until now—but the spark was there. And that spark got me through a lot.”
Holden closed his eyes for a moment, taking deep breaths and trying to push down the building urge to pull Six close to him. To kiss him. Be one with him. Because there wasn’t time for that now. And he couldn’t believe everything Six said. Especially when he’d hidden all this since stepping foot inside of Evolution. And Holden still had no idea if this was all a game. Clever words used to convince a mark.
“You’re why I took this assignment,” Six said roughly. “Something was cooking and your name was all over it.”
“But it’s been years,” Holden said, voice pitched low. “You expect me to believe you held on to some speck of intrigue or gratitude for all this time?”
“You don’t have to believe me, but it’s true.” Six touched Holden’s shoulder again, gentler this time. “I always wondered if you’d grown up to be just another brain-dead Community drone, but from what I heard, you still had remnants of the kid who asked the wrong questions and noticed the things no one else gave a fuck about. So I took the job.”
Holden laughed, but it was tinged with disbelief. “Are you sure it’s not because you want Richard Payne’s son to join Ex-Comm? I’d make a fabulous resource. Unfortunately, I’m not ready to indict my father before confronting him head-on.”
Six’s entire demeanor closed off. His face shuttered, spine snapping straight as he got to his feet in one fluid motion and took a step back. Whatever he’d been trying to forge with Holden was over. All it had taken was a single sentence.
“If you go to your father, you’ll regret it.”
“Why?”
“Because he doesn’t give a fuck about you, Holden. You may be his son, but you’re just another empath in a big crowd of empaths. You don’t stand out. You’re not Chase.”
If Six had shut down, Holden became a wall of ice.
“We’ll see about that.”