Add on GoodreadsTip #1: Don't get on her bad side. Tip #2: There's no good side.
Her name is Silence. If she was ever known by any other name, she doesn't remember.
She is a killer. If she was ever anything else, she doesn't remember.
She has an owner. If she was ever free…well, that she does remember. She was free and then somebody gave her to a madman to pay a debt that wasn't hers. She's his toy, his pet…and his trained killer. She kills at his whim or she dies.
She has a target. Her so-called owner…the man who makes her life a living hell. If she could kill anybody in the universe, it would be him. But he holds her life in his hands.
And she has a wish—to find a man she barely remembers. A man she knows she once loved. The man who betrayed her and stole away her freedom.
With one final target between her and the tantalizing promise of freedom, she moves in for the kill. There's one problem. There's something strangely familiar about her mark. Something that echoes in the void where love used to live.
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Whatever canny insight the Ariste of Aris possessed, sometimes I think my handler possessed it too.
He hadn’t known when I’d attack, but somebody had been watching, waiting. And they knew I hadn’t acted. Maybe the old Ariste had made some sort of change in his final acts that had alerted the son.
If he’d been the one to request my…services, then that would definitely make my keeper reach out.
That would definitely make him reach out.
However it had happened, my keeper had been forewarned.
I knew it because the simple little compound where I lived was being watched.
They were good.
I was better.
My first warning was the lack of noise. I’d chosen a place where the night creatures made their own music and the silence of the night was its own alarm.
My second warning was the odd, dark little shadows that were part of the normal landscape. I knew each and every one, and tonight, they were just slightly larger than they should be.
My third warning was the one that had me tensing, the nerves in me ratcheting up, while blood thundered and crashed in my ears.
The shock of gold hair was mostly hidden under a tight black cap, but the hot, heavy night must have been getting to him. He’d just tugged it off, swiped at the sweat before settling it back into place. That movement there was what had given him away.
Garner.
They’d sent him in.
Fuck. My keeper’s brother and one of his hands. He sent Garner out when he wanted to cause pain. Garner enjoyed causing pain. He enjoyed it a little too much. He wasn’t particularly patient though, and that sometimes played in my favor.
Not getting me tonight, my friend. Backing away, I pulled out my nightspecs and checked my surroundings.
The red blurs around me gave me their heat signatures. Garner, human like me, was the strongest. They’d brought Dahm too, a reptilian monster who could rip my arms from my body without blinking. His heat signature was harder to make out, a vague, monstrous shadow that blended with the night.
Of all the men Garner had brought with him, Dahm was the deadliest.
He was the one I’d have to be careful of. He was the farthest from me, but he could move the quickest and he’d catch my scent trail easily if the wind changed.
One wrong move and he’d hear me.
One wrong move and he’d see me.
One wrong move and it was all over.
My best bet would be to move along the path nearest me and get to the cliffs. I had some of my emergency supplies there and I could recoup, plan my next step there.
Assuming my keeper let me live through the night.
Sweat beaded at the base of my neck as I began the slow, tedious journey, watching the colorful dots in front of me, waiting to see if they moved.
It might be best if he simply annihilated that biotrace, crushing my lower brain and killing me, all over in one simple step.
It took most of the night, but I got away.
Once I reached the cliffs, I located my cache and then settled in to get some rest.
They weren’t on my trail.
If they had been, they would have followed me and I’d have already been on my way, gagged and bound, to my keeper.
I’d once wondered why he didn’t just have some sort of locator device embedded in the bioseal, but I’d figured that out quickly enough. If it could be used to trace me, then it could be traced back to him as well. Considering the jobs I did, he wouldn’t risk anything that would be so easily tracked back to him.
Stars forbid he dirty his hands in such a fashion.
That’s why he had us, after all.
Us.
His pets. His toys.
His personal army of trained thieves and killers.
His slaves.
I have no memory of how I came to be…this.
My earliest memories are twisted and dull, little more than flashes. I can’t even call them mine—they feel more like a story somebody told me long ago, one I can barely remember. The few things that do feel real, that do feel like mine, I can’t even call them memories, really. Just…fragments. Echoes. There are images of a world that isn’t this one—someplace green and lush, where the air was thick with flowers.
I can recall screams and shouts. Then pain.
Always pain.
That is one thing that is a constant in my life even now.
While I’m hardly a child, I can claim no true memories up until ten years ago. I was told I’d misbehaved. When I emerged from a fogged, pain-filled stupor, those insubstantial memories were all I had, and my keeper smiled at me as a health intern bustled around me.
“Are you going to continue to cause me trouble, pet?” he’d asked.
Apparently, I’ve never been a very good little slave.
My life has never been mine.
I belonged to my handler.
My keeper.
My owner.
My own personal demon.
He controlled the choices I made in life, even if he did let me live off on my own, pretending that I was my own person.
He chose my jobs, he provided my clothing, my shelter and my food. I could always refuse the clothing, shelter and food, but then I’d end up back on my knees while he took his time reminding me of his claim on me.
So I took the jobs, the clothing, the shelter, the food.
The one thing he couldn’t control were my thoughts. He’d tried that and it had nearly killed me. The bioseal buried in my brain matter might be keyed into my thoughts and memories and emotions, but he couldn’t change my thoughts, memories, emotions. He could just punish me when those little acts of rebellion displeased him.
I had one escape from him, and only one.
I had a decision to make—either take that escape or take a chance that this botanist could do something about the bioseal. I needed to decide. But first, I had to get some rest. I was running on nerves and adrenaline and if I didn’t recharge soon, I’d regret it.
I checked the defenses around the perimeter of the cave and then checked the sec system I’d set up high on the outer cliffs. Nobody around the perimeter. I was safe. They hadn’t followed.
I stretched out on the floor and closed my eyes.
Dreams started to tug at me almost the moment I did.
I went willingly.
Sometimes, when I slept, I almost remembered…something.