"What was Tai doing with you anyway?" she asked when he remained silent.

"Tai makes a good student. But when did I become a teacher?"

"You're a lieutenant, a big brother to the young ones."

"Ah." That made sense. "They trust me."

"Yes."

"I could damage them."

"But you won't."

Such faith for a renegade from the Net. "It's time."

She understood at once. "Here?" They were in a very small clearing between towering redwoods. "It's dark."

"It's as good a place as any. And there's no need for light where I'm going." He took a seat on a fallen log after brushing off the snow and Brenna sat beside him. "I might not respond if you call me. Don't panic."

"I won't." Her voice trembled. She took a deep breath. "I won't." Far stronger this time.

"You also have to be prepared for the possibility that this might not work, that we'll have to separate permanently."

Her skin paled. "It'll work."

"This time stubbornness won't do it," he said, attempting to be gentle but knowing he sounded harsh. "It's lasted so long because of how solid it is. The conditioning reprograms the most fundamental aspects of our brains. To break full Silence is one thing - but to make use of an isolated aspect of it as I intend to, might be another altogether." What he didn't want to tell her was that the attempt could prove fatal. But he would not lie to her. "If I do it wrong, I could trigger the most extreme level of dissonance."

"Are you telling me you could die?"

"Yes."

Her face twisted. "You can't die. You're mine."

"I have no intention of doing anything wrong and every intention of surviving." He was an Arrow, and for the first time, that might be a good thing. "I was trained to circumvent and use pain to my own advantage. Trust me."

Swallowing, she nodded. "I know I can't help, but - "

"You can help." It was something he'd realized during the calm fostered by teaching Tai. "After putting Andrew's heart back together, I recovered far quicker than I should have in terms of physical strength. I think it was because of you."

"How?"

"I don't know." There was no bond, but she reached him in ways no one else ever had. "If you ever find your true mate," he said, "I won't allow you freedom." He didn't have such goodness in him.

She scowled. "I'm a one-Psy woman."

Satisfied with the acceptance, he nodded. "Keep in physical contact with me."

She blanched. "It hurts you when I touch."

"Because I'm conditioned to see it as a danger. It is one - touch anchors me to you, which threatens to break Silence."

Swallowing, she nodded and clasped her hand over his shoulder. "The first thing I'm going to do after you come back is pet you all over for as long as I want. Promise you'll let me."

"Promise." With that sensual goal as his guiding light, he closed his eyes and went deep into his mind. Deeper than he'd ever before gone. What he saw threatened to shake his confidence in his ability to use the Protocol to his advantage.

Chapter 45

He had never realized how far the talons of Silence had dug into his brain. Removing them felt like picking out thorns one at a time. But the strangest thing was that, though he was operating exclusively on the psychic plane, he could feel Brenna beside him, her hand having moved to close over his forearm, an anchor that kept him centered.

Extraordinary.

The outer ring of conditioning was deceptively easy to unravel. Deceptive because midway through, he realized it was linked to the dissonance loop - on a level that would cause unconsciousness. He stopped, retraced his steps, and found the embedded triggers. Disarming them was eerily similar to taking apart a thousand tiny explosive devices. Good thing he'd been trained for just that. Of course, this was a little different. One mistake and he'd cause an implosion in his brain. So he wouldn't make mistakes.

By the time he finished, he had a new respect for the programming process. They'd done a hell of a job on him. There had been not one but six Black Keys built into the initial layer, contingencies upon contingencies. If he hadn't been as skilled as he was, he could have activated any one of them several times over.

It made him wonder about Sascha and Faith. Sascha was easy to explain - Silence had never "taken" with her. Her ability had simply run so counter to it as to make conditioning impossible. But Faith had been under and, from what he could understand, had shattered Silence during a major emotional storm. She'd never mentioned aggressive factors such as Black Keys and psychic grenades meant to shut down the body and mind.

Those facts bolstered his earlier theory - that the programming was altered to suit the needs of each individual child. He'd required extremely severe controls because of his Tk-Cell abilities. He couldn't fault his trainers for that. But he had a suspicion that those controls had been further strengthened because of his future as an Arrow. They hadn't wanted to lose their best assassin.

The worst danger appeared on the third level - lines of conditioning tied directly to his ability to kill with a stray thought. After examining them for several minutes, he opened his eyes. Brenna's concerned face was the first thing he saw.

"What is it?" Her hand clenched on his arm.

"This is where I have to choose which parts of Silence to delete and which to leave functional. Too much and the dissonance will keep trying to disable me. Too little and I'll eliminate the safety systems that stop me from killing by accident." As he had killed eight-year-old Paul, a name he'd never forget, a face that would haunt his dreams forever.

"Why don't you take a break?" Brenna stroked his hair off his forehead in that habit she had. "You were under for an hour."

He allowed himself to touch her cheek with his knuckles. "No. It's better if I do it all at once. If I delay, some of the embedded protocols may reinitiate."

She rubbed back against his touch. "All right. Do what you have to do. But remember - if you kill yourself you'll be in big trouble."

Nodding, he closed his eyes and returned to his mind. And found a hidden reservoir of emotion. The conditioning was anchored in guilt, fear, protectiveness, and a fierce desire to keep people safe. They'd used his own emotions to chain him. Part of him appreciated the efficiency, but another part was so incredibly angry, it was a chill across his soul.

However, he didn't have time for anger. Not today. Calming his mind again, he began to unlace the threads of control. Step by slow step. It felt like hours passed. Then suddenly he was at the center point, where a choice had to be made. Reason clashed with his need to be free. He needed the warning system, but he didn't need it crippling him. He undid the entire structure.

It took as long as it took. But finally, it was done. His Psy powers were now free of any restraint. But it wasn't a freedom that was good. As Tai had to learn discipline over his physical strength, Judd had to maintain it over his psychic abilities. The only difference was that Judd couldn't afford any mistakes.

It took him a long time to find a solution and, once again, it was his training as an Arrow that came to his aid. "I'm setting a trip wire," he said out loud, knowing in his bones that Brenna was terrified for him.

"What will activate it?"

"It'll snap my ability shut if I attempt to use it to kill." For anything short of a killing rage, he'd have to rely on his skills at regulating emotion. That, he could do.

A small pause. "Won't that disadvantage you?"

"No. I can reverse the tripped wire in a split second, and my other abilities will continue to function during that time."

"A split second."

He recalled the way she'd kissed him to stop him from ending Dieter's life. "That's all I need." A moment's clarity to make the decision to kill rather than being held hostage to his dark gift.

No, he thought, it wasn't wholly dark. It had helped save Andrew's life - there was a way it could be utilized for good. Pre-Silence Tk-Cells, trapped by their out-of-control emotions, had never learned that. And post-Silence Tk-Cells had never been given the chance to be anything but sanctioned killers. But now he had that chance, that choice. "It'll work."

"Then do it." A statement of loyalty, of togetherness, of such complete trust that he felt it inside his mind. Mentally frowning at the impossibility, he finished laying the psychic trip wire. That done, he went even deeper, to the place where the conditioning was a hard shell around his emotional core, segregating that part of him. The shields were fragmented but holding. He put a psychic hand on the first one.

A shock wave of excruciating pain shot through his body.

Then Brenna cried out.

Gritting his teeth, he opened his eyes to see her face gone white. "Brenna?"

"Oh, God, Judd." She squeezed his hand. "I felt the...shadow of that, an echo. If what I felt was diluted, how are you still conscious?"

"Why did you feel it?" Protective instincts roared to life. "We aren't mated."

Her shattered eyes went wide. "Are you sure?"

His heart actually stopped for a second, he wanted so much for her to belong to him on the most irrevocable level. "I guess we'll find out." He went back into the minefield of his consciousness, throwing a shield around Brenna at the same time. But he knew that that would only mute the impact, not stop it altogether, not when he didn't know the origin of the link that connected them.

He spent several minutes looking at the emotional blocks. "I have to destroy them. No subtlety. A total wipeout."

"What will it do to you?"

The real question was - what would it do to her? He could weather just about anything except her hurt. "There'll be pain."