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Prologue

THE FORGOTTEN

When the Psy Council proposed, in the year 1969, to instigate the Silence Protocol, a protocol that would wipe all ely insurmountable problem - a lack of racial uniformity

Unlike the cold, isolated Psy of today, the Psy then were an integral and entangled part of the fabric of the world They dreamed, they cried, and they loved Sometimes, as was only natural, those they loved came from a race other than their own

Psy s, married humans, bore children ofthe most virulent opponents of the Silence Protocol They understood what drove their brethren to denounce e their children to the h their ranks in an inexorable tide - but they also understood that in e and everyone they loved Forever

By the year 1973, the two factions were at an i to compromise and the Psy broke in two The ive their minds to the emotionless chill of absolute Silence

The fate of the minority, soeling mates, is not so clear Most believe they were eliminated by Council assassins Silence was too important - the Psy race’s last hope - to chance disruption by a rebellious few

There is also a rumor that the rebels died in a o rebels were the first patients of involuntary "rehabilitation" at the newly christened Center, their minds wiped, their personalities destroyed Since the Center’spatients would have co dawns over a hundred years later, in the year 2080, there is only one consensus: the rebels were neutralized in the most final way

The Psy Council does not allow dissent

Chapter 1

Talin McKade told herself that twenty-eight-year-old woht-year-old women who had seen and survived what she had - did not fear anything as si across the road and into a bar to pick up a man

Except, of course, this was no ordinary man And a bar was the last place she’d expected to find Clay, given what she had learned about him in the teeks since she’d first tracked him down It didn’t bode well that it had taken her that long to screw up the courage to come to him But she had had to be sure

What she had discovered was that the Clay she’d known, the tall, angry, powerful boy, had beco enforcer for the dominant leopard pack in San Francisco DarkRiver was extremely well respected, so Clay’s position spoke of trust and loyalty The last word stabbed a blade deep into her heart

Clay had always been loyal to her Even when she didn’t deserve it Sing, she shoved away theshe couldn’t allow theone This Clayshe didn’t know him All she kneas that he hadn’t had any run-ins with the law after being released from the juvenile facility where he had been incarcerated at the age of fourteen - for the brutal slaying of one Orrin Henderson

Talin’s hands cla wheel hite-knuckled force She could feel blood rising to flood her cheeks as her heart thudded in res that should have never been exposed to the air, flecking her as she cowered in the corner while Clay -

No!

She couldn’t think about that, couldn’t go there It was enough that the nightone bad - haunted her sleep night after night She would not surrender her daytihts caught her attention as another Enforce lot That made two arh they had all gotten out, none of the fouron, she stayed inside her Jeep, parked in the secondary lot on the other side of the wide street

Sweat trickled down her spine at the sight of the cop cars Her brain had learned young to associate their presence with violence Every instinct in her urged her to get the hell out But she had to wait, to see If Clay hadn’t changed, if he had groorseUncurling one hand froainst a sto despair He was her last hope

The bar door flew open at that second,out To her surprise, the cops si disapproving frowns at the ejected pair The two dazed young ain when two ers - eighteen or nineteen, from the looks of it All were obviously drunk as hell While the four lay there, probablyfor death, another male walked out on his oo feet He was older and even from this distance, she could feel his fury as he picked up two of the boys and threw them into the open bed of a parked truck, his pure blond hair waving in the early evening breeze

He said so gotten rid of the first two, the blond rabbed the other two boys by the scruffs of their necks and began to drag theravel that had to be sandpapering skin off the exposed parts of their bodies

Talin winced

Those unfortunate - and likely- boys would feel the bruises and cuts toain and she forgot everything and everyone but theover his shoulder and was dragging another in the same way the blond had