Cone of Silence

  Going from victim to hero is an agonizing road, but she learns control and skills on her path to vengeance.

  Maira had just gotten her first job, was getting ready to go to university, and was hoping for a bright future with a good job and a few kids. All of that crashed to a halt on the day her shop came under fire, and she was kidnapped to be tortured for months by a serial killer.

  Getting free of him was her first true accomplishment as a hero, and she nearly had to kill herself to save other lives. She survived, they survived, and she was given accelerated healing, which activated a gift that no one in her family had ever carried before.

  Listening to anyone, anywhere was a skill that got boring quickly. Talking into her target’s limbic system and having it reply to her was far more interesting. The mind couldn’t lie, and she used it to her advantage.

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  Cone of Silence

  Copyright © 2019 Viola Grace

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-2615-6

  Cover art by Angela Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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  Cone of Silence

  Team Eight: Origins Book 3

  By

  Viola Grace

  Chapter One

  Maira wiped the tabletop and then carried the cups and dishes to the kitchen for washing.

  Evin gave her a glance and jerked his chin toward the counter. “Drop it. How are things out there?”

  “Still wild. I never thought it would be this busy.”

  He chuckled. “You have only been here for two weeks. You haven’t even seen peak season for the coffee shop.”

  She chuckled, got an empty container, and went to clean more tables as quickly as she could. There was still a line outside the shop that was twenty people deep, and they wanted a place to sit for their breakfast coffee and pastry.

  Her job was to clear and scour the tables as quickly as she could, and she did her work without hesitation. No matter how nasty the remains of the meals were, she cleaned them off, kept her container neat, and the tables and chairs sparkled when she left.

  It was an endless rotation of dishes in and empty containers out, but eventually, they turned the tide.

  Everything was going well, but there were a few things that were odd about the morning. The outside was exceptionally still. The air was heavy, and it was driving part of the frenzy to get into safe places. There was also a man in the corner of the shop, sipping at his coffee and staring at her.

  The first few times she had noticed him staring at her, she had ignored it, but the direct eye contact with him was disconcerting. He was good looking. Striking even. His hands were elegant but too pale for her taste, and the long, rich green hair cascaded down his back. He didn’t look real.

  Maira went back into the kitchen, and she murmured to Evin. “That guy is still watching me. It isn’t right. It feels dangerous.”

  Evin frowned. “Do you want me to take over?”

  “Would you?” Hope rose in her chest.

  He looked at her and shook his head. “No. You have to learn to deal with the creeps.”

  She was about to tell him off when the building shook with the force of a nearby explosion.

  She looked at Evin. “Where is the nearest shelter?”

  “Two doors down the street, toward Main.”

  Maira nodded, and she ran to the front. “Everyone, evacuate to the nearest shelter.”

  The locals bolted, and anyone smart followed.

  The creepy guy was still nursing his coffee in the corner.

  “Sir, we need to find shelter. We don’t know which marauder has taken to smashing the buildings.”

  He smiled slightly and slipped on his gloves. “You are concerned about public safety?”

  She heard and felt another thud. She glanced over her shoulder and saw a tumbling cloud of dust. “Yes. Are you coming?”

  He looked at her with piercing blue eyes. “I will be with you all the way.”

  His voice took on a strange cadence, and Maira felt herself swaying. He got to his feet and caught her in his arms. Her body was paralyzed.

  A vehicle pulled up in front of the shop, and he left the building with her, tucked her into the car, and drove off.

  It was the beginning of a nightmare. She wished she had let him fucking die.

  All you will hear is my voice. All you will see is my face, and all you will feel is my touch.

  She twitched her arm as the effect of his voice wore off. He had captured and discarded two other girls while he had her, and both had simply disappeared when he got bored with them. Maira was, sadly, a toy that he didn’t tire of.

  She twitched again and flexed her fingers, lifting the hand that was finally moving under her own control.

  She could see the instrument on the tray nearby. She lifted her arm and flopped it over to the tray, carefully gripping the small pointed cylinder after several tries.

  She pulled it to her and breathed rapidly as she got up the nerve before she could talk herself out of it, and he could appear, she stabbed the probe into her ear until she screamed from the pain.

  She breathed in and out fast, pulled it out, and did the same on her left side.

  The roaring sound of the equipment was gone. The silence was her tool. Her body came back rapidly, but she had spent weeks prone and held by clamps in an upright position. Now, it was time to call for help.

  She didn’t know where she was. That was an issue. She knew that the com unit was a few rooms away, and she moved slowly, holding the wall, as she walked to where she remembered him holding her on his lap while he communicated with other villains of perverse nature.

  She kept her head moving, looking around for him and not finding him, she went to the com unit and contacted the team alert number, as she had been taught to in school.

  My name is Maira Ada Lefs. I am being held by Arcon Moring, I don’t know where I am. I need help. PS, I have deafened myself. I don’t know how much time I have.

  She sent the message and hoped that there was someone on dispatch to answer her.

  Maira Ada Lefs? Where did you disappear from?

  Cabric Coffee, just after ten in the morning, during some kind of bombing or marauder attack. He was in the sho—

  She felt a hand on her shoulder, spinning her around. She hit the enter key a moment before she was struck across the face. She slid her arm across the keyboard and closed the file as she went.

  When she slumped, he carried her back to the gel gurney that was her home.

  His lips were moving, but she couldn’t hear him. She wanted to laugh in triumph, but it was too early. If she exposed herself no
w, she was as good as dead. She simply let him arrange her, as he always did, and then, he left her to do something else, possibly to retrieve a new girl from wherever he had set her.

  He had another girl, and he set her on the other gurney, whispering to her and stroking her hair. It hurt Maira to have to wait, but thankfully, she didn’t wait long.

  She sat up when the team came through the door, and she gestured to the ears of the members as one ran toward Arcon and fell to the floor.

  The second hero fell, and Maira couldn’t stand it. She sprinted forward and grabbed the weapon of one of the downed team, and she fired three stun shots into the centre of her tormentor’s body. He fell back, away from his victim.

  She sat on the floor and cried. A hand touched her shoulder and shook her roughly. The person was speaking, but she couldn’t hear anything.

  She gestured to her ear and made a stabbing motion. The woman looked aghast. A quick com conversation and she was being wrapped in a sheet, as was the other woman, and they were being removed from the house of horrors that she had survived, mostly intact.

  This is our healer, Patches, and behind her is Overclock. We need to heal you, and this is the only way. Are you fine with that? Regenerating hearing is tricky.

  Maira nodded and smiled softly. It wasn’t just her ears that had taken damage, and healing her body might help when she woke up from the nightmares.

  She had gotten used to typing what she needed. There had been no time to learn any kind of communication for the hearing impaired.

  She gave them a thumbs-up, and Patches moved in. She was a Team Five member, and Overclock was Team Six. Maira had had nothing else to do but look up team stats while she waited for them to find a treatment for her self-inflicted damage.

  Patches held her ears, and a tingling warmth ran into Maira’s skull. It felt fairly pleasant until Overclock touched Patches and Maira’s brain was on fire.

  She probably screamed. She probably screamed a lot. The fire spread from her head through her body to every cut, scratch, and slit that had been inflicted on her person.

  Her body was covered with sweat, as was Patches’. Overclock looked remarkably and annoyingly fresh.

  Maira’s entire body was ringing.

  Patches nodded and sluggishly typed. Give it an hour. Your body’s healing has been kick-started. You should be hearing again soon.

  Maira could only look at her with bleary eyes and wipe the tears from her cheeks. She nodded slowly.

  Patches lowered the top of the med bed, and Maira closed her eyes and blocked out everything.

  The first sound came to her as a peculiar wowing. It got louder and softer as if her ears were tuning themselves.

  Maira’s eyes opened, and she sat up, but the sound disappeared.

  She lay back, and the wow appeared again, this time with the backdrop of chatter. “Oh my.”

  Somewhere that she couldn’t see, someone whispered, “Who said that?”

  “Um, me. I am in bed six.”

  “Impossible. That’s two floors under me. Where are you really? Stephania, is this you?”

  Maira blinked and looked around. She could hear more now, carts moving, shoes squeaking, and other voices talking softly.

  “Do you think she will recover?” Overclock’s voice was quiet.

  “After what she went through? She is going to need therapy for years.” Patches sounded tense.

  “How long was she missing?”

  “Seven months. The damage that was inflicted is going to haunt my dreams. I don’t know how she was able to move at all, let alone use the stunner on him.”

  Maira cleared her throat and said, “I had to.”

  Overclock whispered, “Did you hear that?”

  “It is me, Maira. I can hear you.” She held the sheets in her fingers and made fists.

  Patches whispered, “What do you mean? I don’t hear anything.”

  “Maira is speaking to me. Maira, are you sitting up?”

  “I am.”

  Overclock was getting at something. “Which item on the wall are you looking at?”

  “Um, the blood pressure monitor. Why?”

  “This is delightful. I am glad you can hear, but I am guessing that the healing went a little further.”

  Maira could hear shuffling, and then, she heard Patches whisper, “Hello?”

  “Hello, Patches. How are you doing?”

  “I can hear you!”

  “And I can hear you. Where did Overclock go?”

  “Overclock, she is asking where you went.”

  “I switched places with Patches. You seem to have come out of this with a bit of talent.”

  There was the sound of scuffling feet, and Maira sat in silence until they wandered into her room.

  “What is going on?”

  Patches smiled. “Congratulations on recovering your hearing.”

  “Um, thank you. No, really, thank you. But why can I hear a woman two floors above me?”

  Overclock blushed a little. “We needed to heal your hearing before your body finished the job, so when I powered Patches, her skills ran through you and opened every option that your genes possessed.”

  Maira frowned. “How do I make it stop?”

  Patches shook her head. “You are healed. It won’t stop. Whatever is going on, it is permanent.”

  Maira blinked and looked up. The voice was gone, but further on, she could hear footsteps and casual work conversations. She lowered her head and looked around the room. She could hear people in every direction that she looked, as well as having normal audio capabilities.

  “What is going on?”

  Patches smiled apologetically and patted her on the leg. “We are going to have to do some experimentation, but you are now one of the gifted.”

  Maira was horrified. Arcon had been gifted, and he had gone mad. What was going to happen to her?

  Chapter Two

  Four years later, she was living alone in a valley and focusing on her work with art restoration. It was the best thing to happen to her aside for her brief marriage, which ended in tragedy.

  Maira carefully moved slivers of paint back into position and set them under the microscope.

  She flicked her glance up and said to her visitor, “I don’t want to go. I don’t like using it.”

  Investigator Jianik nodded. “I understand, but we need your assistance.”

  Maira got to her feet and left her workspace. She hated getting mad in front of the ancient works.

  She poured herself a soothing cup of tea with a sedative as part of the mix. Since she had been found, her nerves were screaming in panic in random bursts, and she kept hearing the words in her head, All you will hear is my voice.

  “No. No!” She slammed her hands down on the counter. “I had him. I testified, he was locked away, and someone let him out. They let him out!”

  The investigator came in and kept behind her. “He escaped. There is a difference.”

  She looked at Jianik. “Do you know what I was threatened with during the trial? My family can’t even come within a continent of me. They were asked to change their names! They didn’t but the fact that it came up is horrifying.”

  “I know, and we are all sorry that it came to that, but this mission has nothing to do with him. There is traffic in gifted young women, and we need to stop it. The contact point is at an art gallery, and we have your cover story already set up.”

  Maira stared. “You just brushed aside my objections.”

  “I did. This is a time-sensitive mission. We have provided you with all the tools you need to do your work to keep yourself occupied. You have a therapist who visits, and you can seek out companionship in the nearby towns when you like. With the proper coding, you can speak to your family. This has all been provided so that you can lead as normal a life as is possible with your condition.”

  Maira grunted. “That wasn’t given to me, that wa
s earned by standing up to one of the most prolific serial killers of the last five decades. Do you know what he promised to do to me?”

  “Are you afraid of him?” Inspector Jianik asked.

  Maira saw the blades in her mind and felt the pain in her memories. Rage began to simmer. “No. I am not, but I want to keep my weapons, and that is difficult in an art gallery or museum.”

  Jianik nodded. “I have something to help there.” She reached into the pouch at her waist and pulled out two bands.

  “What are those?”

  “Fist stunners. They wrap around your knuckles, and if you strike, they discharge with enough force to throw an adult male back into the wall.”

  “I don’t want to have to get that close.”

  Jianik pulled a small item out of her pouch, and she rolled it between her fingers. “This is a mode of transport, not a weapon. You can trigger the cycle and ride away, using your stunners as you go.”

  “Is that a cycle?”

  “It is a prototype, so be careful with it. Do you ride?”

  Maira enjoyed the thought of an escape route. “I will learn.”

  Jianik extended her hand. “You are in?”

  “How long do I have?”

  “Three days to prepare for the mission and to wrap yourself in your identity of Mara Den Hav.”

  Maira took the small round ball of metal, and she examined it. “How do I activate it?”

  “You throw it to the ground. I would recommend trying it outside.”

  Maira was startled into a chuckle. She added it to her tally. Twenty-two moments of amusement since the last day in the café.

  She walked out to her front porch and stood on her walkway. She looked at the black and silver marble, and she threw it toward the paving blocks. The ball struck, and tendrils of silver shot out, weaving into a cycle that rested on a kickstand in her yard.

  She straddled it, and a palm print was flashing, so she pressed her hand to it. “Auto drive engaged. Hang on, Mara.”