He sounded so beaten down, I had to hug him. He didn’t fight me either, leaning back against me as if he was exhausted and needed to rest. “We’ll get you through this,” I murmured. “Both of you.”

  “If I just...hadn’t been so angry with Urei. If you hadn’t told me about Matsin. It’s your fault, Jay.”

  “Yeah. Only, not. It’s the people who took him, not me.” I crouched and faced him. “Matsin and Urei are in love. It’s not a crime. And now you know Urei’s not sick at all. They have a chance to be happy.”

  “But he’s a cold and heartless money-grubbing bastard.”

  “Urei can read his mind. He already knows he’s a money-grubbing bastard. There’s more to Matsin than that.”

  “Thought you and he were broken up.”

  I stood. “We are. He’s been good to me and I let him down. I'm not going to ruin his chances with Urei because of that. Let me put the kettle on.”

  I fed him tea and cookies in our quiet apartment, the sounds of Mum and Matsin on their calls barely audible. Pel’s hand shook as he drank his tea. “Shouldn’t you call your office?” I said.

  “I left a message last night. Said I wouldn’t be in for the rest of the week because of a family emergency. I’ve given them so much of the time that should have been Urei’s. I can call some of that in.”

  “He’ll come home. I feel it in my bones.”

  “Another ‘talent’, Jay?”

  “I’ve always had good instincts. Maybe I'm not Matsin, but I’ve sure made some good choices in my life.”

  He seemed unconvinced, and to tell the truth, I was only babbling to try and cheer him up. It wasn’t working.

  Matsin emerged and served himself coffee without speaking to either of us. He needed sleep, but the bastard was too stubborn to be told. I hoped he wouldn’t collapse on us because we needed him.

  Mum came out not long after and headed for the teapot. “Right. It’s all happening. We’ve got taps on calls from that residence, we’re getting hold of plans for the house, and I’ve placed my people on surveillance.”

  Matsin, who’d been staring at her since she walked into the kitchen, suddenly jerked.

  “Matsin, what’s—” I started to ask.

  “So when did you go back to work for the ESF, Luiz?” Everybody froze. Mum stared at Matsin as if he’d sprouted feathers. “Come on, it’s obvious, isn’t it? Communications interception, access to confidential information such as plans, the strangely cooperative ex-workmate? You’re not ex-force at all, are you.”

  “How the hell did you know?” she whispered.

  “Mum?”

  Pel gripped my arm painfully hard to make me shut up as he stared at Matsin. “Explain.”

  “It suddenly occurred to me how strange this all is. As soon as I asked myself, is Luiz Fresiz working for the ESF, I got a probability of eighty-three percent. Now ninety-seven. Tell us the truth, Luiz. Who do you work for and exactly what are you planning to do for Urei?”

  “Mum, you better sit down.”

  She collapsed onto a chair. “You weren’t supposed to find out. You never would have except—”

  “We did,” Pel grated. “What kind of game are you playing with my brother’s life? Why have you been lying to us?”

  “I wasn’t, mostly.” He made a disgusted sound. “I wasn’t! I really did leave the ESF after Jes and Nev were killed. When I started up the security firm, made a success of it, I was approached and asked if I’d become a sleeper operative, passing on information, acting covertly as required. Not often but...not all the jobs I’ve been doing over the last few years have been for my company.”

  I blinked in shock. “You’re a spy.”

  “Um...yes, I guess that’s the best word for it.”

  “How does Urei fit into this?” Pel snapped.

  “He doesn’t! His kidnapping is nothing to do with the ESF and it’s true we’re trying to keep it quiet. Look,” she said as Pel sneered. “I work for the ESF but it’s a huge organisation, dozens of departments. Our department doesn’t use paranormals and doesn’t want them used. The history with them is so tainted and dangerous, we want to keep them out of the system as much as possible.”

  “You arranged for him to be drugged.”

  “Not me, I swear. But the ESF, yes. I didn't know he was a paranormal until after Jesevo mentioned his voices.”

  “You kept me a secret though, didn’t you?” I said, gut tight at my own mother betraying us—me—like this.

  “Your ability has no practical application,” she said, avoiding my look. “I only suspected what Matsin was. I deliberately never asked him for proof or told anyone in the ESF about it.”

  “You have now, of course,” Matsin said, his voice frosty.

  “Deri won’t tell. If he tells, that’s another potential target to defend, to hide.”

  “So if the ESF know about Urei, why can’t we ask them for help?”

  “They don’t...not exactly. It’s complicated, Jesevo. There’s a small group of people involved in this and we have to keep it that way. They’ll help rescue Urei and keep his telepathy quiet and we can use this as a chance to scoop up the people involved without dragging his name into it. The more of the ESF who we have to pull in, the less chance we have of keeping Urei out of public attention.”

  “Luiz, I think you should pull in all the help you can get. Urei’s safety is more important than Urei’s privacy.”

  Pel snarled at Matsin for that but I got the feeling it was purely for the look of it.

  “Mum, what if we can’t rescue him with the people you’ve called in?”

  “Then we ask for more help.”

  “It might be too late by then, Luiz,” Matsin snapped. “You’re risking Urei’s life for political games. I insist you make this a proper, authorised operation.”

  “Not your decision, Matsin, sorry. Not even mine. Deri’s boss and mine are calling the shots.”

  “Fuck that.” Pel got to his feet. “I'm going back to that house, and I'm getting my brother out.”

  “And I’ll help,” Matsin said, going to his side. Pel glanced at him in clear surprise.

  “So will I.” I stood. “Mum, this is crap, I'm sorry.”

  Her face was stony. “I'm sorry too, Jesevo. Because if any of you go near that house without authorisation, you’ll be arrested. You won’t get Urei back without us, Pel. Our way, or not at all.”

  “Mum!”

  “Jesevo, do you honestly believe this is the first situation like this we’ve faced? The only thing that’s unusual about this is the lack of warning. Urei was off our radar completely. But he’s not the first telepath to be snatched for gain.”

  I still stood next to Pel, closer to him than to her. “How many of the others did you retrieve?”

  “Not nearly enough. We made mistakes before. The ESF is compromised.”

  I frowned. “Huh?”

  Matsin shifted easily. “She means, Jay, that she’s not the only spy in their organisation. This is why you have to keep it quiet, Luiz?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Too many operations have gone sour for it to be coincidence. The only successes we’ve had are when we’ve kept it strictly to our little group. Deri, me, my boss and three others. Boys, we need you with us. We can’t do it alone. Neither can you.”

  I turned to Matsin. “Is this true?” I hated questioning my own mother’s honesty like this but she’d lied to me for years. I couldn’t get my head around that yet.

  “There’s a seventy-six percent chance she’s telling the truth. There’s a ninety-five percent chance she’s hiding more.”

  “Mum?”

  I wanted her to deny it. She didn’t. Didn’t even apologise for lying. “Welcome to my world, hon. It’s my job. Been my job for a very long time. Even telling you what I have could get me fired, even sent to prison.”

  I didn’t want this. I didn’t want my mum to lie to me, to be the cause of her being in trouble or in danger. I didn’t want Pel’s eyes to fill with pain, or Matsin to be disappointed in me. This was my fault. All of it.

  “What do we have to do?” I whispered.

  “Right now? Wait. It’ll take Deri a good hour to come back with anything. I'm going to nap. Matsin, you should too.”

  “Take my room, Matsin. Mum, I’ll keep watch.”

  She nodded. “I’ll tell Deri. He’ll call you before he comes up. Don’t let another person in the apartment. And I mean, shoot if you have to.” I swallowed. I’d never fired a gun at anyone except on a film set. “Matsin, seriously. I need you rested.”

  He walked off without a word or a backwards glance. Mum went to kiss my cheek but I flinched. “Oh, Jesevo.”

  “I....” I bent and kissed her instead. “I wish I’d known.”

  “I wish you’d never had to. See you in an hour or so. Don’t wake him.”

  Pel walked over to the sofa, sat down and put his head in his hands. “If I’d known all this would come from trying to help a drugged out stranger....”

  “Hell, if I’d known, you think I’d have dragged you into this?”

  “And what happens after?” he said, looking up and glaring with red, tired eyes. “Will Urei have to be under guard for the rest of his life? How long until the next one and the next one? I’d take him and leave the country except I suppose this idiocy will follow him.”

  “One good thing,” I said. “No more drugs, I guess.” That earned me a filthy look. “Look, it’s done. We can’t change the past. How is crapping at me helping?”

  “I can’t do anything else, can I? I’ve never felt more useless in my life.”

  “Must suck to find out that there’s something you can’t do. I mean...you’re good at so many things.”

  “There’s plenty I can’t do. You know the worst thing, almost? For years and years I’ve watched Urei struggle with those bloody drugs, knowing he hated them and how they messed up his art and his thinking, and to find out he never even needed them at all? Who can give him those years back? The art he could have created, the peace he could have had. Do you know what his life was like before he came to live with us? Horrific, utterly horrific. His father killed his mother and nearly beat Urei to death. But we’ve abused him even worse than that.”

  “Not you,” I said, sitting down at the other end of the sofa.

  “No,” he said. “You and your mother and her bloody employer.”

  “I didn’t know anything about it.”

  “No, but she protected you when I couldn't protect him. I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “You know what I think? I think when we get him home, you’ll forgive yourself, us, everything. This is crap, Pel. Self-pitying, pointless, hurtful crap. Stop it. I'm not the enemy and neither is Mum. What is with you and the need to set yourself against the world?”

  He almost laughed. “I suppose it’s my training as a lawyer. Needing to fight so hard to win every case, I forget I don’t need an adversarial system in my own life.”

  “High school graduate here. What does that mean?”

  “It means...you’re right. I'm being an idiot. I'm just so...if only she’d let me go back and talk to him.”

  I thought about the problem and had an idea. “How far are we here from there? Three kilometres? Maybe you could try. She said some telepaths can hear for a long way.”

  He stared at me as if I’d spoken gibberish. “Try it,” I said. He’d had too many shocks. Wasn’t thinking clearly.

  “All right.”

  He frowned, clearly concentrating. I concentrated too—the little weirdo might hear me as easily as Pel after all. No idea what I was doing, of course. I just tried to hold a picture of Urei in my mind and yelled at him, like he was in the room.

  Who’s that?

  I nearly jumped out of my skin, looking around for who’d spoken.

  Somebody there? Can you help me? Where’s Pel?

  Urei? It’s Jay. Pel’s next to me, in my mum’s apartment. Can’t you hear him?

  No. Jay, I'm scared. When are you getting me out of here?

  Hold on.

  I nudged Pel. “I'm talking to him now.”

  “What? But I can’t hear him at all. How come—”

  “No idea. Hang on.” I grabbed his hand and sat as close as I could to him. “Try now.”

  Again he concentrated. “Yes! But how does that work?”

  “Do I look like an expert on this shit?” Urei, Pel can talk to you if I'm next to him. We’re putting together a rescue.

  Can you hurry? Cos I don’t like it here. I feel like I'm going crazy again.

  You’re not. You weren’t crazy and you’re not now. Urei, how many people are in the house with you? Tell me what you can sense.

  I mimed writing on paper at Pel and he got up and fetched a notepad and pen from the kitchen. I kept on at Urei to tell me what he knew, more as a way to distract him as anything else, but as I scribbled notes, it became clear that he could give us a real edge in getting inside and hauling him out. The main problem was that some of the people holding him were foreign so he had trouble deciphering their thoughts, and others were so twisted and unpleasant that it distressed Urei to get into their minds. It’s all right, I told him as I realised he was getting all worked up, we’ve got enough. Talk to Pel, stay calm.

  So long as I sat right next to Pel, he could talk to his brother. If I even moved away for a second or two, the connection dropped out. Maybe it was to do with my weird talent. Not exactly useful in everyday life.

  Matsin wandered out an hour or so later, and when he realised what we were doing, insisted on sandwiching me between him and Pel, using me as an amplifier and with as little thought for my wellbeing as if I was his personal communicator. I kept taking notes when Pel or Urei passed on anything of use, but other than that, I couldn’t even get up for a piss—which, by the way, wasn’t a theoretical problem either. Neither of them wanted Urei left alone for a second. That just wasn’t going to be practical in the long term.

  Mum came out twenty minutes later and did a double-take at the three of us perched like birds on a wire. “Talking to Urei,” I said. “Made some notes. Guys, if you don’t let me use the loo, I'm going to have an accident.” I started to get up but two pairs of hands held me down. “Seriously.”

  “Pel, Matsin, let him be.”

  I made my escape before my prophecy came true, and by the time I returned, Pel had filled Mum in and she’d started to make sense of my notes.

  Something caught her attention, her eyes widening. She swore under her breath as she pulled out her communicator. “Deri, we’ve got information on a live one. Better bring the team over.”

  “Mum?”

  “Jay, sit down,” Matsin ordered. “Urei needs us.”

  “Okay.” I squeezed in between them again, and the two of them went back to their internal conversations. “Mum?”

  “Can’t talk about it yet, hon.”

  She had me worried. Pel caught it from me. “Is Urei in danger? More danger?”

  “I just said I can’t talk about it, Pel. This isn’t a kid’s playground. Concentrate on keeping Urei calm, and Jesevo, keep taking notes. Pel, when Deri gets here, he’ll want to talk to Urei. Make sure he knows.”

  She went off to make more private calls, telling me to keep my pistol ready. When had our home become a fortress? I felt like Pel had, wanting none of this to have happened. If I’d not gone to that club, if Lindz hadn’t pushed that pill down my throat, if I hadn’t invited Pel to the film set out of injured pride....

  “I need a break,” I said after twenty minutes. “Tell Urei to take five. Or ten.”

  “If you need coffee,” Pel offered.

  “I need a break.” I pulled away from them and stalked into the kitchen, slammed the kettle under the tap and filled it. My mum was a spy, a friend had been kidnapped and I was supposed to shoot anyone who walked in our front door and looked funny. This wasn’t my life.

  I jumped as I heard footsteps behind me. “Shit, Pel.”

  He held up his hands to indicate harmlessness. “What’s wrong?”

  “What the fuck do you care? This is all my fault, remember?”

  Matsin walked out, off to the bathroom or somewhere. Didn’t care. I was tired of his attitude too.

  Pel looked at me. “It’s partly mine too, if I'm honest. I handled things badly with Urei.”

  “Yeah. But I introduced them.” I put my hands on the sink and looked up at the ceiling, stretching the kinks in my spine. It wasn’t even noon yet. Felt more like midnight.

  I jumped again as Pel put his hand on my shoulder. “Listen...I want to apologise. I’ve been...overly harsh.”

  “Yeah, you have. But it’s okay. If someone had Mum tied up in their house I wouldn't be too bloody diplomatic either.”

  “No. But before too.”

  “Yeah. Talk about it later, Pel. I feel like I'm about to snap in half.”

  He let his hand drop from my shoulder but not before he gave it a little squeeze. That little gesture did more than a litre of coffee would have done to bring me back to sharpness.

  Mum came out of the bedroom, gun in one hand, communicator in the other. “Deri’s in the lift. Jesevo, take position.”

  “They’re your own people.”

  She gave me a look as if to say “How naïve of you”. I pulled out my pistol and had it ready. Pel moved silently into the hallway, out of the line of sight of the door.

  Deri didn’t seem to find it odd Mum was pointing a gun in his general direction, nor did the man and woman behind him. Mum locked the door behind them. Pel and Matsin came up next to me.

  “Everyone, you know Deri. This is Matar,” she said, nodding to the young, moon-faced woman, “and Chesel. Sit down please.”

  She ran through my notes with her people, occasionally referring to her datascreen, and Deri’s ear pricked up as she said the name, “Walan.”

  “Who’s he?” I couldn’t help but asking.

  Deri glanced at my mother who nodded, then he answered. “A big fish. Very big fish. If Mister Ges is of interest to him, then we might be able to reel him in. Luiz, we’ve intercepted some interesting communications.”

  He spoke to her and the others, and then asked me to help him talk to Urei. The process of calming Urei down had to start all over because even the short period without word from any of us had left him terrified.