She didn’t let herself think about whether touching him at all was a particularly wise thing to do.
“Revik,” she said. “Listen to me. Please. I mean what I am saying… about her. About who and what you are truly reacting to. I understand that you are confused. I truly, truly do. I can see that your light is not helping you with this. I can see that you have been alone for far too long, that you feel abandoned down here. So much so, it is perhaps impossible for you to read any of what is occurring between us with any accuracy…”
Seeing anger rise to his eyes, she went on before he could interrupt.
“…I really do understand, brother, and I am not belittling your feelings, I promise you. But if you hear nothing else I say on this day, please hear me on this one point. This is not about me. I swear it is not. I can feel it all over your light…”
Tears rose unexpectedly to her eyes as she heard the truth in her own words.
“You miss her,” she said, her breath catching in her throat. “You miss her so terribly much, brother. It is difficult for me to even feel it, you miss her so much. It is a pain beyond any I’ve felt before… it hurts me and gives me hope and devastates me all at once.”
He met her gaze.
He didn’t move out from under her hand, but she felt him tensing under it, his light and skin reacting to her fingers clasping his arm.
He studied her eyes silently, and she felt that pain on him worsen.
“You’ve got to know your words mean jack-all to me right now,” he said, his voice harder again, despite the strain she heard underneath. “I’m barely hearing them, sister. All I can think about is dragging you back to my room and ripping that goddamned dress off you…”
His voice trailed off, even as he swallowed, closing his eyes longer than a blink.
Shaking his head, he raised his hand again, rubbing his eyes with the fingers attached to the arm she wasn’t touching.
“I’m sorry,” he said, gruff. “I really am. To you and your mate. Gods. I don’t know what the fuck is wrong with me––”
“Brother, I understand––”
“No,” he snapped, glaring at her. “You really don’t. Or you would have left by now.”
Kali didn’t take her hand off him, or move away.
She forced herself to stand there, even under the assault of his light, knowing it was enough that Uye might feel it by now, too.
“Brother Revik,” she said, softer. “Please. Please, try to hear me on this––”
“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head, once. He met her gaze. “I can’t hear you right now, do you understand? Take your fucking hand off me, sister. Now. Or I’ll do what I said. I fucking mean it. I fucking mean what I’m saying to you.”
She removed her fingers cautiously from his arm that time, stepping back.
She saw relief on his face, but not only relief.
She waited until his breathing had slowed once more, until that harder look had left his face, and the desperate edges of that wanting had waned somewhat in his light.
Then she took another breath.
“You must leave the Org,” she told him simply. “You must, Revik. Perhaps you even know this. Perhaps that is part of why you are so upset. Perhaps that is why your friends are reacting to you the way they are. Perhaps they can feel your knowing of this, at a deeper level than your conscious mind.”
He didn’t answer her.
“Brother, please––”
“Where would I even go?” he said, still not looking at her.
Kali swallowed, feeling his grief like a tangible force, strong enough that tears stung her eyes, forcing her to clasp her hands in front of her to keep from touching him.
“You know where to go, Revik,” she said, softer than a whisper.
Kali saw his jaw harden as he glared at her from where he stood.
Before she could think of what else to say to him, he turned away from her entirely. Without giving her another look, he crushed the hiri he’d been smoking under the toe of his combat boot, and began walking back to the road.
He didn’t so much as glance back in her direction.
Kali watched him go, only exhaling her held breath when he was a dozen yards away.
Still, watching him walk up that cobblestone street and back towards the center of town, for the first time, she was really afraid.
Eleven
Time to Go
KALI FOUGHT TO understand her own reactions, her own thoughts and feelings as she walked back to the Caravelle.
That fear continued to linger, overshadowing all the rest.
She felt Uye in that span of time, too, perhaps because of the dip and jerk in her own light, or perhaps because Uye could feel her more clearly now, outside the immediate cloud of Dehgoies’ light and that of the Rooks.
Uye was deeply worried, although she felt him trying to hide it.
After she told him what had transpired, he wanted her to come home.
He more or less demanded she come home.
He asked her very strongly, fighting to not make it a demand… then, a few seconds later, when they were still talking, and he was still reading her light… he asked her again.
She could feel him pulling on her still, even now.
She could feel the depth of his worry for her, and the realization brought a denser flood of guilt. She knew if she’d been in Uye’s position––watching him interact with a dangerous seer who worked for dark beings, if Uye’s life was in danger, if he’d just been openly threatened with sexual assault and worse––she wouldn’t be handling it half as well.
At this point, Kali knew he was right.
Leaving herself in range of Dehgoies’ volatile emotions and impulses threatened not only her, but her husband’s life, and their unborn child.
It was no longer about her, or even about her visions.
She had to leave Saigon. She had to protect her family.
She stopped briefly at a French bakery to pick up some food, knowing she had a long flight ahead of her, and that it would be better to bring something easily portable, like a sandwich or some savory pastries than the type of food they served at her hotel.
She would perhaps eat at the hotel too, depending on what the airport told her about the next flight back to the United States.
In the end, she was too distracted and agitated to shop easily for food, or even to feel all that hungry. She lingered at the bakery counter long enough to purchase two beignets from the old Vietnamese woman who worked the counter, then ordered a cheese sandwich and some chocolate on impulse while the woman fried the pastries in front of her.
She tried to calm down as she stood there.
She fought to breathe, to clear her head.
Waiting while the woman made a fresh batch of the fried sweets helped.
Kali accepted a fresh cup of espresso while she leaned on the glass display case and watched the old woman cook, exchanging pleasantries back and forth with her as they each struggled to understand their differently accented versions of English. The espresso tasted good in the cool air of the morning, thick with dark, fine grounds and strong enough to make Kali wince at each sip until she got used to it.
She liked Vietnam, she decided.
She would have to visit after it had recovered from this horrible war.
She told the old woman that, and the flour-covered baker smiled, showing her a gap in her yellowing teeth. After that, their conversation grew warmer. They chatted about the weather, about the difference in the city with so few American troops, about the probable outcome for the war, about the impending demonstration.
In the end, despite her urgency to leave the country, to leave Dehgoies Revik and the Rooks behind, Kali herself found herself reluctant to leave the little bakery, even after she had been handed a greasy paper bag warm with the fresh beignets, followed by a second one with her chocolate and her cheese sandwich.
Even so, after she left the shop, she found herself hurrying
down the street to reach her hotel.
Once she’d pushed through the glass doors, maybe twenty minutes later, Kali passed by the Caravelle’s lobby registration desks with only a smile and wave, heading straight for her room. She would talk to them about food and checking out after she got ahold one of the airlines and determined the times for the next flights.
Her brief spell of calm in the bakery had completely evaporated by then.
She felt the urgency to leave, and to leave now.
By the time she boarded the elevator, she decided she wouldn’t even wait at the hotel for the next plane. Regardless of the time of the next flight, she would go to the airport as soon as she had finished packing her bag.
Depending on the time, she may not even eat breakfast here. She could simply eat the beignets at the airport, save the sandwich and chocolate for later, on the plane.
If she remained hungry, there would local food at the airport, or perhaps on a layover somewhere else. There might even be food on the plane itself, depending on her options for carriers and how long she ended up sitting in the terminal, waiting to depart.
Even so, her stomach cramped with hunger by the time she was walking down the corridor to her room on the ninth floor. By then, when she glimpsed the sun through the window, it appeared to be roughly at the eight o’clock position in the sky.
It was hard to believe so much time had passed since she’d first left the hotel.
Relief filled her as she saw her room’s door up ahead.
She would be all right.
She would pack, go to the airport, and she would leave, like Dehgoies said.
Uye was right. She had done what she came to do.
The rest was on Dehgoies now.
In the end, it was always up to him. She was here to nudge, but in the end, he would have to decide his own fate. She had to trust that he would remember who he was, that he would step up and be who he was meant to be. She had to trust he would deserve her daughter, that he would deserve his role in history… that he would do the right thing.
In any case, she could not be the one to help him with it.
It was too risky, given his mental state… and particularly his confusion about her.
She would have to find some other way to aid him, if he ended up needing it.
Maybe in another year or two, she could try again. She could even bring Uye with her next time. Dehgoies Revik would be older by then. He would be in a different country by then, and perhaps in circumstances that might better lend themselves to him hearing her.
Perhaps by then, he’d be less likely to be quite so high on drugs, too.
Maybe it would be better if he had another male to speak to, anyway. Maybe Uye would have more sympathy for Dehghoies next time, now that he’d glimpsed pieces of the young Rook’s light through hers… and now that Uye knew Dehgoies could be reached, even if the message got twisted and mangled slightly on its way through.
Kali had to hope they still had time.
Time for her to try again.
Perhaps she could find some way to leave him a message.
Perhaps she could even do it here, in Saigon. Perhaps before she left she could ask her new friend, the baker, to leave a note for Dehgoies at The Majestic, telling him how to contact her in the event he needed her help… or even just to talk.
It might help him to have someone on the outside.
Someone who wasn’t a Rook, who he could trust not to turn him in.
Thinking about this, she wished Uye had come with her this time, too, in spite of everything.
Clearly, Dehgoies Revik externalized elements of his own vulnerabilities onto women.
It made him both more open to women and less open to them––in that they seemed to inflame his aggression, yet Dehgoies also seemed to take their words, actions and his interactions with them more personally, thus allowing them under his infiltrator’s shield.
Having another male with her might have balanced that out some.
At the very least, Dehgoies would have been less prone to sexualizing the connection shared by Uye and the Bridge.
Then again, he might also have been more prone to killing Uye in his confusion, out of jealousy, if nothing else.
Kali couldn’t help thinking that, to someone like Dehgoies, killing the messenger might well seem the simplest way to end his confusion––on a certain level, at least.
Sighing a bit, Kali clicked to herself, pushing all of it from her mind.
It was too late to second-guess such things.
She’d done the best she could, with what she’d been given.
It would have to be enough.
She smiled faintly as she let the decision to leave become solidly real in her mind.
She thought about getting on the plane. She thought about being home again.
She thought about this time of year in the Santa Cruz mountains.
It wouldn’t be fully cold yet, as winter remained a month or so away still, just as it did here. The leaves would have turned by now. It would still be warm most days, and beautiful, with gorgeous sunsets and dawns.
The ocean still held some of its summer heat.
It wouldn’t be hot like here, nor anywhere near as humid.
Blue skies would greet her instead, at least when it didn’t rain.
There would be very little fog as the summer ebbed, and possibly the occasional thunder storm, depending on the weather this year. She imagined her first night back in the cabin she shared with Uye. She thought about the wood fire and his cooking and what he would want to do with her afterwards… and just how long and intensely he would want to do it.
Thinking about his hands and mouth on her, she shivered in pain.
Thinking about his cock, about how he got whenever they were separated from one another even for a few days, she felt her separation pain abruptly worsen.
She missed him. She missed him dreadfully.
She missed him as a physical pain.
She’d known that, but the missing of his light, of his hands and skin and cock and smile, turned sharply acute once she truly let herself go there.
She tried to push the thought from her mind, at least until she could get herself and her luggage out of the hotel, but it wasn’t easy. Shoving back the separation pain still swimming through her light, she firmed her jaw as she fumbled with the key and lock to her room.
She had just managed to squeak the iron key sideways in the rusted lock and open the water-sweated door, when she felt a flicker of a foreign light in the room beyond.
Unfortunately, she felt it too late.
Twelve
Mentor
REVIK’S HEAD POUNDED, enough to make him sweat.
Well, sweat more, anyway.
It felt like a mallet slammed the back of his skull every few seconds, leaving a denser ache as soon as that sharper pain lessened.
He’d been sweating too much for the past few hours, even by Vietnam standards, even though he’d been walking around in the morning heat of the city for over two hours, without really knowing where he was going, or why.
He’d been sick since he left that green-eyed seer by the river, and not only because the drugs were wearing off and he’d used up the small paper packet he’d brought with him from the hotel.
Given that he’d left Raven and Terian in the suite at around three a.m., after not sleeping at all, he was having trouble focusing, too.
He’d known she moved to the Caravelle Hotel.
He’d tracked her down the day after he got back to Saigon, after that shipment fuck up outside that airstrip on the coast.
He’d known where she was, but he hadn’t gone to see her.
For the same reason, he found it strange that he’d left the Majestic when he did, and that he’d happened to be standing by the church across the street from the Caravelle Hotel when the green-eyed seer walked out its front doors in the middle of the night.
He’d followed her for hours before he�
��d thought about why, all the while worrying that Raven would come looking for him, that his friends would realize he was missing and try to follow his light. He even worried Terian might come, if he felt something wrong.
Both of them had been watching him like hawks lately.
But they never appeared.
He found himself wondering if the green-eyed seer had finally heeded his warning.
He found himself wondering if she had left the city yet.
A not-insignificant part of him hoped she hadn’t. That same part of him yearned to look for her with his light, to see for himself whether she had taken his threats seriously or not. If she had gone, then the issue was closed. He wouldn’t have to think about her again.
If she hadn’t left, however––
His tongue thickened, even as that ache in the back of his skull worsened.
He felt his cock harden as he continued to think about seeing her here again, maybe beside that pool at the Grand. Maybe wearing a bikini, like that human had been… or maybe just in another of those damned silk dresses that showed every curve and line of her body, with the embroidered fabric that matched the shocking green of her eyes.
He’d already halfway made up his mind to fuck her, if he came across her again.
He’d never raped a fellow seer in his life.
He’d never raped anyone before… not violently, anyway. He’d pushed humans here and there, but none who actively seemed to not want him. He’d generally done it to those who wanted him sexually, but who may have wanted him to court them for a while first, before opening their legs to him.
Revik didn’t court humans. Not anymore.
Once had been enough for him, when it came to humans.
But he wouldn’t be able to push the green-eyed female, not like he could a human, not even if he wanted to push that line and ignore the fact that she was mated. He’d even avoided doing that with humans, truthfully, although he’d been guilty of it, sure, especially out here, especially with mated humans who came on to him.
On the other hand, he’d warned her.
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