Bridge

by JC Andrijeski

  It made it hard to think, hard to do anything but cry until he couldn’t breathe anymore, coughing until he thought he’d die all over again.

  Wreg only held him, stroking his hair and arms and neck, massaging the muscles in his back and chest. He didn’t talk, but Jon felt him there; he felt his light with him, every second he managed to stay conscious.

  He couldn’t get the seer to leave.

  13

  NOT-ALLIE

  WHEN JON WOKE next, he felt hot, buried in skin and breath.

  He tried to move, and immediately got hit with pain––all kinds of pain that time, separation pain, pain in his lungs and throat, thirst pain, hunger pangs, pain in his bones, his joints, his feet, his fingers. His hand was coiled around a muscular forearm, his head resting on the bicep of the same arm. A different hand belonging to a different person clutched his fingers.

  A small hand.

  A hand that was so, so familiar.

  Jon’s eyes flipped open.

  He found himself staring at green eyes he knew, but didn’t know.

  She didn’t blink. She stared back at him, her narrow face utterly motionless.

  Jon couldn’t tear his eyes off her. Not just the familiarity of her, the reality of her, but whatever he could see in that face, in those eyes he knew but didn’t know. He fought to categorize the expression there, make it compute. Her eyes were open.

  Fuck, her eyes were open.

  He only realized he was holding his breath when his chest started to hurt for real. He forced air out through his mouth, nose and lungs.

  A voice rose from the other side of where she lay––soft, but loud in the silence.

  “It’s all right, Jon.”

  Jon’s gaze jerked up, away from where Allie stared at him. When he looked back down at her, her expression remained smooth, strangely curious, as if Jon were a species of animal she’d never seen before.

  “She won’t hurt you,” Revik added, rubbing his own, lightly-bearded face with one hand. His arm tightened around her as he said it, pulling her deeper against his body.

  Jon hadn’t even noticed Revik’s arm until then, but now he saw where it wrapped around Allie. His eyes traced the other man’s lean muscles from the tattooed band of writing around his bicep to the “H” tattoo on his forearm.

  It wasn’t the arm Jon lay on, though.

  That arm belonged to Wreg, who lay behind Jon’s back and to his left, his other arm wrapped loosely around Jon’s chest.

  Jon realized the four of them were all crammed into the same bed.

  “Hurt me…?” Jon said. He fought to get more air into his lungs, to get enough spit in his mouth to talk. “Hurt me…?” he said again.

  Revik made a vague gesture with his hand, not answering.

  Jon felt a pulse of grief off the other man, dense enough that he flinched deeper into Wreg’s bulk. He could feel the seer behind him waking up, too.

  “What are you… doing here?” Jon said finally.

  Revik gave him a wan smile, his clear eyes pulled off where he’d been gently tugging the hair out of Allie’s face. She was still staring at Jon with that unnerving blankness.

  “What the hell is wrong with her?” Jon said, hearing his voice catch that time.

  Revik frowned, his voice suddenly cold. “I’m grateful to you, Jon. I mean it. Really grateful. But watch your fucking mouth.”

  Jon swallowed, looking up at him.

  Seeing the warning stare in Revik’s eyes, he nodded, even as Allie began stroking Jon’s mutilated hand, her eyes focused sightlessly on his skin, studying the place where his thumb had been before Terian cut it off.

  “I just meant––” Jon began.

  “I know what you meant,” Revik said.

  Exhaling in a dense, but less-specific-feeling anger, Revik tightened his arm around Allie, pulling her closer to him again.

  “I’m sorry, Jon,” he murmured. “It’s been a tense few days.”

  Jon barely heard him.

  He watched Allie’s fingers as they continued to stroke his hand, then as they moved up his arm, as if feeling human skin for the first time. She traced the tattoos on Jon’s forearm, the Chinese writing he’d had there since high school, moving up towards his upper arm and chest before Revik reached over her, clasping her fingers in his.

  Gently, he pulled her hand off Jon.

  Allie frowned slightly, but all Jon saw in her expression was confusion as she glanced back at Revik’s face.

  “Not now, baby,” he said softly, kissing the hand he’d pulled off Jon. “Touch me, if you want to touch someone. You can touch me all you want.”

  She seemed to understand that.

  Winding her body around backwards, as fluid as a snake, she slid her hand immediately under Revik’s T-shirt, and began stroking his chest and ribs. Jon saw pain tighten Revik’s face briefly, but he didn’t try to stop her.

  Watching her, Jon felt sick again.

  “She needs to touch a lot,” Revik explained. A faint embarrassment tinged his voice when he added, “It’s not a big deal. If she does anything… inappropriate… just stop her. She might not get it, but she won’t be angry.”

  Jon swallowed, unsure how to react to that, even after his mind turned it over.

  “Did I do that?” he said.

  He spoke before he knew he intended to, his voice a whisper.

  Revik’s eyes sharpened, darting from Allie’s face to his. “No,” he said. “Jesus.” He exhaled, and that time, some of the anger left his face. “Well… yes. But it’s an improvement, Jon. Believe me. It’s a big fucking improvement over how she was before.”

  “What’s wrong with her?” Jon said again.

  Revik gave a humorless laugh. “What’s wrong with her? She’s a fucking wire junkie, Jon.”

  Jon stared at him, then looked at Allie. “What? No.” He shook his head, understanding even though he didn’t want to. “No way. You can’t be––”

  “We can’t cut her off,” Revik said, his voice holding an overt warning. “We can’t, Jon. It would kill her. Balidor’s looking into ways of tapering it.”

  That sick feeling in Jon’s chest worsened. “You’re… you’re letting her…”

  “Jon,” Revik warned. He met Jon’s gaze, tightening his arm around her. “Stop. Not in front of her.”

  He reached down in time to stop her hand as it began roaming below his belt. She slipped her fingers from his briefly, trying to undo the metal buckle, but Revik stopped her again, murmuring against her ear too quietly for Jon to hear.

  Glaring at Jon again once he’d finished speaking to her, he held her against him, his light exuding an overt protectiveness.

  “We’ll talk about it later, okay?” he said, his voice still warning.

  Jon nodded, but that sick feeling didn’t dissipate.

  He wanted to stop staring, to wipe the look he knew he probably wore off his face. As he watched his sister grope her husband, he couldn’t, though. He knew he was pissing Revik off, but he couldn’t seem to make himself care about that, either. He jerked his eyes off her finally when Revik smacked him pointedly with his light.

  Glancing around at the rest of the bed, then down at Wreg’s arm before he looked around the room, Jon felt his puzzlement return, for a different reason that time.

  “What are you doing in here?” he said finally.

  Revik gave another humorless laugh. “Trying to save your life, brother.”

  “By you and Allie sleeping here?” Jon said, still confused.

  “Yes,” Revik said, sighing.

  He caressed the hair back from Allie’s neck, closing his eyes briefly as her hand continued to massage his chest under his shirt.

  “She still has the healing ability, Jon,” Revik said. “Balidor thought… well, we thought Wreg could use a hand.”

  Smiling wryly, he kissed Allie’s temple, squeezing her against his chest before he added,

  “Honestly, I wasn’t sure it would work
. But as soon as we got her in here, she seemed to know exactly what to do. I didn’t have to tell her anything. She cleaned you out, Jon. Like, all of your aleimi, all of it. Jesus… unbelievably fast. Wreg barely made a dent in you in four days, and she got most of that shit out of you in a few hours.”

  Jon stared at him, watching Revik’s hands as they stroked Allie’s long, dark hair. His pale fingers wove absently through the loose curls, combing through them tenderly.

  “How?” Jon said, still watching them, morbidly fascinated in spite of himself.

  Revik shrugged. “I don’t know. She just… knew. How to do it, I mean. Wreg and I had to stop her once.” His eyes grew uncomfortable. “To give her a fix, I mean. She can’t go very long yet, not without getting really upset. But once she was… better… she went right back to working on your light. It was unbelievable, really.”

  Affection filled his voice as he finished, what had to be love, even as he tightened his hands on his wife, caressing her face when she looked up at him.

  Watching the two of them, Jon could only feel sick. Sick with worry, sick with a kind of dread at the flat look in her eyes. He should feel like Revik obviously did. Relieved. Happy. Overjoyed to have her back, in some form at least.

  Somehow, though, seeing her awake and broken made it all so much worse––

  “She’s not broken, Jon,” Revik said.

  Jon looked up, and saw Revik’s eyes on his, cold as ice.

  “I mean it, Jon,” Revik said, his voice an open threat. “Watch your fucking mind right now. And your mouth. I don’t care who you are, I really don’t.”

  Jon nodded, swallowing.

  Without thinking, he reached out, rubbing Allie’s back, maybe partly in apology. Allie turned towards him when he did it, frowning at him in puzzlement. Jon swore he saw a faint flicker of hurt there, a kind of lost look in her jade green eyes.

  He hoped like hell he was imagining it.

  The depth there that he remembered, that clarity and light, it was just gone.

  “She can fucking hear you,” Revik muttered, glaring at him again. “Jesus. Pretend you give a shit. She maybe can’t understand everything right now, but, gods––”

  Jon couldn’t bear it though, and cut him off.

  “––I’m sorry, man. I’m really fucking sorry.”

  Hearing Revik’s words belatedly, the grief he’d been fighting worsened, turning into a pressure around his ribs and heart. Remembering what he’d been thinking just then only made it worse. His throat tightened painfully. The ache in his chest sharpened when he looked up and realized Revik was close to tears.

  “Gods, man. I’m sorry––”

  “She’s still your sister.”

  “I know, man. I’m sorry.”

  “Show some fucking respect.”

  Jon nodded, closing his eyes.

  He wanted to crawl into a hole. He almost wished they’d just let him die. Instead, he made himself watch, feeling more helpless than he ever had in his life as Revik pulled her hands off him again, murmuring softly against her ear and neck and kissing her as he placed her hands carefully back on his arms and upper body.

  Jon forced his eyes off them a few seconds later, when the pain on Revik worsened. The tall seer pulled her tighter against him, until she was almost lying on him, but even then, more than pain, Jon felt grief on the male seer, a kind of crippling sadness.

  If anything, the pain felt like a welcome distraction, maybe for both of them.

  Even as he thought it, he realized he could feel Wreg’s mind again, too. The ex-Rebel’s light moved differently than it had a few moments before; his muscles exuded more tension where they pressed against Jon’s shoulder, back and legs.

  Wreg was awake. He’d been listening to them talk.

  Jon wasn’t sure how he felt about that, either.

  Truthfully, he couldn’t remember ever feeling so confused and completely messed up in the head as he did at that particular moment, with Wreg laying behind him and Allie and Revik jammed up against the two of them on the same bed.

  Somewhere in that pause, he felt Revik come to a decision.

  “You feel all right?” he asked Jon. His voice was cautious, but still held that warier edge. “You need to eat something, Jon. Like, now. In the next hour, anyway.”

  Jon nodded. Again, anything to distract him from… this.

  “Yeah,” he said.

  Revik shifted his weight so he was half sitting up, bringing Allie with him. He leaned over to the bedside table on his other side, gripping Allie with his free arm and bringing her with him as he stretched out his hand. He fumbled something off the antique table that turned out to be a headset. Jon watched Revik fit it in his ear.

  Revik’s eyes closed briefly right before he spoke, probably from Allie pressing her face against his neck.

  “Yeah,” he said, glancing down and smiling at her, pausing to caress her face. “Yeah, bring something for Jon. And for brother Wreg,” he added, glancing behind Jon. From the look on Revik’s face, Wreg’s eyes must be open. “I’m coming down in a few, so I’ll need Yumi in Allie’s room.” A pause, then he nodded. “Fine. Neela, then. Just make sure she knows the rules. I need a few hours of work-only time.”

  Someone on the other end answered him.

  Revik nodded, his expression clearing.

  “Good. Tell her I want her to check in with me every half-hour. I don’t care what I’m doing.” Pausing to kiss Allie’s cheek, he nodded. “Yeah. Fine. Perfect. Tell them to prep the chair, too. Yeah. Another paired run.”

  Revik clicked off, still stroking Allie’s back as he refocused on Jon’s face.

  His clear irises shifted slightly out of focus, and Jon realized Revik was scanning him, looking over his light with clinical-feeling flicks and probes of his aleimi. The Elaerian clicked out moments later, his eyes sharpening as he continued to stroke Allie’s back.

  Jon saw a satisfied look flash briefly in his eyes.

  Then his expression turned grim.

  “Cass is in New York,” he said, his gaze unwavering.

  The Elaerian waited for his words to penetrate.

  In that long-feeling pause, Jon felt his whole body tense. He opened his mouth to speak, but Revik cut him off before he could.

  “I’m going,” he said. “Soon.” He glanced down at Allie, his expression briefly pained as he caressed her neck and face. “The timing isn’t great, but I’m not waiting.”

  “But, Allie––” Jon began.

  “She stays here. With Wreg and ‘Dori.”

  Jon could only stare at him, unable to speak.

  “You should come, too,” Revik added, his voice unchanging. “With me, I mean.”

  Behind him, Jon felt Wreg stiffen.

  Every muscle in the man’s body seemed to clench in the same set of seconds. While it threw Jon briefly, it didn’t tear his attention off Revik’s face. He studied Revik for a long moment, trying to read behind what he could see. He did his best to ignore the anger he felt seeping out of the light and skin of the man holding him around the chest.

  This wasn’t about Wreg.

  Anyway, he could never be with Wreg, the way things were now.

  Pain left the seer behind him, along with a grief that cut Jon’s breath.

  Clenching his jaw, Jon didn’t take his eyes off Revik’s face. He watched the male Elaerian study him just as closely. He really wanted Jon to come. He didn’t much care what Wreg thought, when it came down to it. This wasn’t about Wreg for him, either.

  It hit Jon then, just what this was about for Revik.

  This was about family.

  Staring up at Revik’s angular face, and those glass-sharp, clear irises, something else occurred to Jon. Revik fully intended to go forward with his plans. He was still going after Cass. He was still going after Shadow, Feigran, and Ditrini.

  He was going after his child.

  Allie’s child.

  “Yes,” Jon found himself saying. “
I’ll come with you, Revik. Of course.”

  The man behind him gripped him tighter.

  Jon felt it, but didn’t take his eyes off Revik’s face.

  Revik looked only at Jon at first, his expression unchanging. Then, after another pause, he nodded, and Jon saw a flicker of gratitude touch his clear eyes. He reached over briefly to clasp Jon’s arm, sending a warm pulse through his skin.

  Letting him go an instant later, Revik stared down at the foot of the bed, coiling both arms more tightly around Allie’s back. Jon just watched, numb, as his brother-in-law wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand, right before Revik nodded again, seemingly to himself that time, staring off without seeing anything in front of him.

  Studying the other man’s angular face, Jon realized something else.

  This was about family for him, too.

  14

  VOICES IN MY HEAD

  TARSI WALKED IN without preamble, and certainly without knocking.

  She stared around a room filled with computer terminals.

  The rik’ali dentus things looked about as old as the ones they’d used back before she retired from the Adhipan. Glancing around at the dead-looking screens, she realized only a moment later that the power had gone out again.

  No wonder she’d felt an overwhelming desire to take the stairs.

  She’d thought it had been for the exercise.

  Harumphing a little in the back of her throat, she aimed another stare around the room.

  She could feel the seer she’d come to see. She knew she was in there, somewhere, but Tarsi’s physical eyes weren’t what they used to be. They were definitely less sharp than her light these days, a fact that annoyed more than saddened her.

  Everybody gets old. Well, the lucky ones did.

  Before Tarsi could locate the female seer on her own, Anale moved, raising her head.

  Once she saw who stood there, she paled, then came abruptly to her feet, bowing and holding up her fingers in respect. The ancient, paper magazine she’d been reading by candlelight got shoved hastily onto the nearest console.