by Jade Kerrion
With directness she had not expected, he asked, "Why are you angry with me?"
She bit her tongue to hold back the scathing retort. "It doesn't matter."
He inhaled deeply. "I don't recall ever having met Maria or her family. Does this have anything to do with the memories I'm not supposed to have?"
She stared stonily ahead and kept her gaze on the road.
He seemed to accept her silence as agreement. "All right. We'll let it pass."
"Like you let everything else pass? Do you ever make a stand?"
"It's hard to make a stand when I can't remember what I'm supposed to make a stand for, or against," he said mildly.
"What about a stand for yourself?"
"Why?"
"Why?" she echoed incredulously, flashing him a quick sideway glance. "Why not? For starters, what were you planning to do with all the emotions you absorbed?"
"I absorbed them?"
"Didn't you know? Couldn't you tell?"
"No. Without memories, I can't differentiate between my own emotions and someone else's." He exhaled, a sound of relief. "Thank you," he murmured under his breath. The gratitude rang out clearly in spite of the quiet tone. "Thank you for telling me."
"Does it make a difference?"
"More than you can imagine. I was going mad wondering what could have happened to me to warrant feeling this way. But if I'd absorbed them from someone else, it...it makes it a little easier to bear."
"What were you planning to do with them?" she asked.
"I'll work through them. Release them if I can. If not, I'll bury them."
"What about returning them to the people you absorbed them from?"
"Why would I do that?"
She rolled her eyes. "Exactly, you've proven my point. You don't even make a stand for yourself."
"This has nothing to do with making a stand. I assume I absorbed the emotions for a reason, most likely because they weren't doing the then-owners any good."
"They're not doing you any good either."
He laughed softly. "I guess you're right." His expression was contemplative, his eyes darkening like shadows set against the night. "Absorbing emotions is the emotional equivalent of ripping memories, only the price paid by the empath is much higher. The telepath doesn't have to live with the ripped memories, but the empath has to live with the absorbed emotions. I wouldn't have made that decision lightly, which stands to reason that I wouldn't back away from it now. Even without memories."
"Even though you feel like hell."
"I'll be all right," Danyael said. He chucked sheepishly when he realized that he had reverted to his standard reply.
It took effort to suppress the smile. The last thing she wanted was to be charmed by him.
He turned his face away as if he had sensed her withdrawing. For a long moment, he gazed out of the window before asking, "Where are we going?"
"Away from New York City."
"Are we headed anywhere in particular?"
"We'll figure that out. People are looking for you, and they're not the sort to be easily deterred."
He did not seem overly alarmed. "If I can change enough of my appearance to not immediately draw their attention, my psychic shields will do the rest."
"What do your psychic shields do?"
"Which one? The inner or outer shield?"
She glanced briefly at him, her eyes narrowing thoughtfully. She knew her way around telepaths and telekinetics. Most of them could do much of the same things, though the range of their capabilities varied. Empaths were common too, but they were largely weak and ineffectual.
Among the alphas, however, empaths were the rarest. Alpha empaths who required double layers of psychic shielding were out of the scope of her experience. Xin's analogy of the caged tiger was disturbingly apt. Understand your enemy. "We need to talk."
* * *
Danyael and Zara stopped for an early dinner in a small restaurant close to an I-95 exit. In a quiet corner booth, they lingered over Chinese food and cups of jasmine tea. Zara began the conversation after they had taken a few bites of the food. "Tell me about your shields."
Danyael leaned back in his seat, grateful that he could manage a dinner of steamed rice and lightly seasoned vegetables. The rich aroma rising from Zara's meal tempted him, but he knew better than to push too far, too fast. "I use two layers of psychic shields. The external shields are usually up when I'm conscious. I adjust them to contain the effects of my emotions. If the shields slip, whatever I'm feeling at that time amplifies. The more powerful the emotion, the more extreme the impact on the people around me."
"Do you ever drop them deliberately?"
"Sometimes. If I'm controlling the emotions of a large group of people, I drop them to get the desired effect, but I need precise control over whatever it is I'm feeling at that time. I can't afford to make mistakes when the external shields are down."
"And they're down when you're sleeping?"
"They can be. Preferably they should be; otherwise the sleep isn't particularly restful, but I can keep them up if I have to, like I did in the car most of today. Like most psychic shields, they keep telepaths from probing my thoughts and protect me from psychic attacks."
"And what about the repulsive effect."
"You know about that?"
"Yeah, personal experience."
"Ah." His smile was wistful, almost sad. "It's something I learned to do. It started out as self-defense. Now it's a habit to counteract the inconveniences that come with being an alpha empath."
"What sorts of inconveniences?"
"The attention of others."
"Does this repulsive effect work on everyone?"
"Unless they're shielded, yes."
"So how much of what people feel about you is real?"
"Real?" He chuckled softly. "Very little. If they would have liked me, they're indifferent to me. If they might have been neutral, they dislike me. It goes downhill from there."
"And if they hate you?"
How many levels of meaning did she weave into that single question? He looked up, counted to three, and met her gaze. His voice was steady, the tone one of quiet resignation. "If they hate me, there is usually a good reason for it. The psychic shields provide the icing on the cake."
"But why do you do that?"
"Because I don't want attention. I'd rather be ignored. There's a lower price to be paid for living in the shadows compared to the spotlight."
"You don't have to convince me." Zara's smile bore no inkling of humor.
The hatred that pulsed steadily from her faltered, and he caught a glimpse of understanding, even sympathy. He stared at her. She knew. The pity she felt for him was strong enough to momentarily overcome her hatred. It could only mean that she had personally witnessed the effect he had on the crowd while his shields were down, while his empathic powers ran rampant.
"Did..." A single word tore from his lips, and he looked away sharply. Terrified memories rose to choke him, and for a few petrifying moments, he was once again a too-beautiful child struggling to understand and survive the brutal abuse triggered by his unchecked empathic powers. How could he even ask the question?
She made it easy for him, reaching out to slip her hands over his. "It's okay. You were protected when your shields were down. Nothing happened."
Beneath the cold sheen of her hatred was an instinctively generous heart. He wondered why she worked so hard to conceal it. The tightness lodged in his chest unwound slowly. Her touch was as much a balm as her words, calming him, steadying him.
Not the first time it had happened, he reminded himself. Her touch had helped him regain control the day before when panic and terror slipped past his exhausted shields outside the car rental office. I have to be careful. I'm starting to need her.
He inhaled deeply, calling upon his training to pull the carefully constructed equilibrium back in place. It took several moments. It took several moments longer to acknowledge the quiet ache he f
elt when she pulled her hands away from his. He could still feel the phantom warmth of her touch. It was rare, precious to be touched with kindness, to be touched without any ulterior motives other than to provide comfort.
But she's not for me. He knew better than to need what he could not have.
For a few minutes, they ate in silence. He chewed slowly on small portions of rice and vegetables. His violent nausea had subsided enough to permit it. In a few days, barring additional complications, he might feel normal again for the first time in two years. It would be a welcome change; normality had been in short supply ever since he started working at the free clinic in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
"Tell me about your other psychic shield." Zara interrupted his thoughts, yanking him back to the conversation.
"There's not much to tell. My internal shield is built into my psyche and is always up, even when I'm asleep or unconscious. It requires deliberate effort to lower it."
"Why do you need two layers of shielding?"
He met her gaze for the required three seconds before looking away. "There were some...rough moments in my childhood. The inner shields block the emotions related to those memories and allow me to function without being distracted by them or having to deal with them daily."
"So, one shield blocks old emotions, and the other current ones?"
"That's close enough. The inner shield blocks emotions that for whatever reason I couldn't work through and release. Think of it as a dam."
"A Pandora's Box, more like," she retorted. "And what happens when the internal shields drop?"
He sensed that she had asked the question deliberately. Looking up sharply, he met her cool gaze and answered just as carefully. "They don't. They dropped once when I was younger, when I couldn't control what I was doing, and I...killed someone." The guilt was still vivid, a slashing red wound across his psyche. "I swore I'd never do it again."
"Why?"
"I am a doctor and an empathic healer. I am trained, in every possible way, to extend life, not to take it away." He met her gaze steadily. "I can't, and won't, kill."
"Not even when it's necessary? When it's the only way?"
"Killing is never the only way. There's always a choice."
She shook her head, wavering between amusement and disgust. "God, you are naïve."
"Death is easy. It's living that's difficult." He leaned forward, his dark eyes intense. "You're a mercenary. I'm a doctor. Let's agree that we're unlikely ever to agree on this point and move on."
"That's not the point. What I need to know is whether I can count on you in a fight."
"What will I be fighting? Humans, mutants, or abominations?" he asked and glanced pointedly at the television screen mounted on the wall behind Zara.
She twisted around in her seat. "How long has that been going on?" she demanded, chagrin flashing over her face as she watched the closed-captioned text from the news broadcast flow steadily across the screen.
"Long enough for me to figure out what major world event happened during those two lost days in my memories." Willpower kept his voice cool in spite of the anger and scathing disbelief boiling beneath the surface. He looked up at the television. How much of it had he seen in person? The initial attack of the lab creatures---abominations---on the emergency personnel who first arrived on scene at Pioneer Labs? Had he seen humans fighting and killing clones and in vitros? Had he met Galahad? "How exactly were you planning to keep this from me? How am I not supposed to catch wind of this at all? Have you lost your mind?"
"I'm not the one who authorized the memory wipe," she snapped at him. "Nor am I the one who so meekly agreed not to pursue the lost memories." She sneered, and he knew she had bitten back a verbal insult.
"What is so wrong with what happened that the world can know about it, and I cannot?"
Frustration overflowed and spilled from her. He saw her clench her hands into fists, perhaps to keep from striking him. "There are details in the story, nuances in there that your---" She caught herself. "Some people were very insistent that you do not remember."
Your...your what? Enemies? Friends? Or worse...family? Fear curled into a knot, settling deep into the pit of his stomach as he compelled himself to ask, "What else do I need to know, Zara?"
She met his gaze, the gleam in her eyes challenging, even mocking. Guilt suffused her, briefly overcoming her hatred of him, but her expression remained impressively steady. "There is nothing else you need to know."
She was lying---he knew it---and the truth would not be easily coaxed. Stubbornness coalesced into a hardened carapace about her.
What happened to me? What is she doing, and why?
As if she were privy to his thoughts, her lush lips curled into a smirk. The questions rang in the vaults of his mind, endlessly, unanswered.
There were no answers, but he still had choices. He would leave. He was stuck without resources in a godforsaken town in the vastness of America, but he would swallow his pride, call Lucien, and beg for help.
He pulled away, but she reached out, her hand gliding smoothly over his, fitting easily together as she wrapped her fingers around his. He looked at their joined hands. Her elegantly tapered fingers and perfect manicure juxtaposed against his subtly misshapen left hand. Beauty and the beast, in more ways than one. Bitterness, unusually potent because it was so rare, rose up in his throat, and he swallowed hard against it.
"I will keep you safe; I swear it," she said simply.
Her emotions confirmed that she meant it, so he stayed.
* * *
They agreed to call it an early night. He had planned to sleep in the car, but she surprised him with a room key when she returned from the reception of the small roadside motel. "I'm in the adjacent room," she told him, leading the way toward the second floor of a poorly maintained building. "Make sure you unlock the separating door. I don't want to have to break it down to get to you in an emergency." She slid her card key into a room door on the cracked cement balcony that ran the length of the building.
Danyael stepped into his room and smiled wryly. Not quite the Ritz-Carlton, he thought. He unlocked but did not open the separating door and slid his backpack off his shoulders as he glanced around the motel room. It had a musty smell and reeked faintly of old cigarette smoke. The upholstery on the single armchair matched the curtain and the bedspread; they were faded and about ten years out of date. Fortunately the bathroom was clean, though tiny. He rapped his elbows on the wall once or twice as he showered beneath a miserly spray of water.
There were no sounds from Zara's room when he settled down for the night. Was she all right? He caught himself and damned himself for wondering, for caring. Her emotions toward him were oddly confused, even unsettled at times, but they meant nothing. She hated him, he was certain of that much.
Forcing her out of his mind, he lay down on the bed. The mattress sank with his weight; the bedsprings had long since lost their tensile strength, but the bed was flat, and he was too tired to care about the finer points of comfort. The loud hum of the radiator provided the distraction he needed. He focused on the sound as he slowly dropped his psychic shields and tried to keep his muscles from clenching reflexively. The tension would only make the pain harder to work through.
The process was rarely that bad. On a normal day, he felt minimal discomfort from raising or dropping his shields, but he had not had a normal day since he lost two days of memories. Unchecked by his shields, the pain of his emotions once again rose up to engulf him. He pressed his hands against his stomach. The pressure helped contain the nausea that threatened to bring up his dinner.
Listen...listen.
He closed his eyes. Listened. The sounds of the cranky radiator pounded through his skull, a blinding white noise that obliterated thought and dragged his exhausted mind and body past the pain down into a deep sleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The radiator, long past its expected useful life, hummed loudly through the small motel room. The sounds
masked the furtive activity outside as men gathered around room 207. The drawn curtains blocked out the swirling red and blue lights. Within the room, a young man slept deeply, trapped by a weary mind and exhausted body.
The door burst open.
Shouted commands degenerated into agonized screams, tearing the sleep from Danyael's mind.
He sat upright in bed. Instinct and training drew psychic shields over his mind and emotions, even though the effort plowed through him like knives stabbing into his brain.
His first glimpse of the dark blue uniforms assuaged his fears---cops---and then he recalled with a flash of panic the conversation that he had overheard between Zara and Xin. There was a warrant out for his arrest.
The separating door opened, and Zara, sinuous grace in motion, threw herself between him and the four cops. She tossed something small at him. He snatched it out of the air---car keys.
The cops, reeling from exposure to an unshielded alpha empath, were unprepared for her, but even if they had been, it would have been no contest. She disarmed one with a subtle twist of her wrist and slammed the butt of his own pistol on the back of his skull, knocking him unconscious. She was already taking on the second cop when Danyael grabbed his backpack off the floor and ran from the hotel room, racing down the balcony toward the stairs
The sound of heavy feet pounded toward him. He skidded to a stop. Four more police officers turned around the corner and came up the stairs. "You there! Freeze!"
He blasted fear in their direction. The expressions of confident competence drained from their faces. They cringed, crying in panic as they stumbled over each other, fleeing from him. Nevertheless, they blocked his exit.
Danyael turned and raced to the edge of the balcony. Without hesitation, he swung his legs over the railings and dropped several feet to the ground, landing in a crouch. The impact shot pain through his feet and up his spine. Gritting his teeth, he ran to the car. He turned the key in the ignition, and the engine purred obediently to life. A sharp glance over his shoulder confirmed that the way was clear. He slammed the car into reverse and stopped it beneath the balcony.
He looked through the open window and saw Zara fighting her way out of the room. She spun and slammed her elbow into a cop's throat. The cop whimpered and slumped to the floor. Glancing around quickly, she saw what Danyael's empathic senses confirmed. They were safe, though safety was transient. Some of the cops stirred as they struggled to shake off their pain and disorientation.
