Allie's War Season Four

by JC Andrijeski

  Raddi was there, too, along with Neela, who’d been in that first rebellion, too.

  Varlan was invited for his actual sight-rank, but also due to the fact that he worked for the Rooks under Galaith.

  Dalejem was there, since (as Balidor explained), he’d known Revik’s light not long after Revik left the Rooks. He’d also known my light as a child.

  I wasn’t too thrilled about that one, but yeah, I got the logic.

  Then there were Kali and Uye, my “parents,” who also knew my light before it got mixed up with Revik’s. And of course Jon himself, who knew my light from way back, too, although he’d been a human for most of that time.

  Jon also knew Revik’s light. And Terian’s.

  The others in the room were a mixture of ex-rebels, Adhipan and Seven, with a heavier weighting towards Adhipan, probably so those Shadow resonances wouldn’t overwhelm the construct. They included: Loki, Delek, Garend, Kalgi, Anale, Chandre, Yumi, Rig, Hondo, Chinja, Poresh and Vikram. Dante was there, too, to run the computer end of things, meaning the capture of aleimic imprints. Jaden came along to help her.

  I knew Revik wasn’t too thrilled about Jaden being there, either.

  Truthfully, I wasn’t exactly overjoyed with his inclusion myself, but neither of us really wanted to be the ones to say no. I knew they had a shortage of humans in tech, and Vik told me Jaden had become Dante’s right hand guy for electronic conversions of Barrier scans.

  I also knew they wanted humans on the comps so they could free up Anale, Vik and Poresh to check us out with their aleimi.

  But yeah, it was awkward.

  I also found myself thinking I would have a little chat with Dante about training up more humans on the comp-squad besides my ex-boyfriend. While I was at it, I might also have a talk with her on the relative merits of Jaden as a boyfriend, since I’d seen her looking at him a little too long and hard over the past twenty or so minutes.

  Of course, Dante was too busy glaring at Loki right then for me to be able to even make eye-contact with her.

  I might have found that amusing under different circumstances, but at the moment, yeah, not so much. It didn’t help that Revik and Jaden had already engaged in a few brief staring contests across the rectangular-shaped room, even though they’d seated my ex- about as far away from Revik as they possibly could, at a small table covered in computer equipment in the far corner of the room. Jaden was the only one, in fact, who didn’t sit at the conference table with the rest of us. Even Dante squeezed in, sandwiched between Vikram and Yumi.

  Dante’s eyes remained locked mostly to her hand-held now... when she wasn’t giving the stink eye to her mother’s new boyfriend.

  I wished I knew what Jaden’s trip was.

  He still looked at Revik like he’d personally beaten up Jaden’s mother with a baseball bat. If he was going to glare at anyone, I wondered why he didn’t glare at me.

  After all, he knew me.

  Revik knew a lot more about Jaden, of course, from watching me all those years. I knew Revik didn’t like how Jaden treated me when we were together. I got the impression Jaden blamed Revik for things that had happened to me, too, but I also knew a lot of that was just a big fat excuse for both of them. I knew the whole thing was more complicated than I was pretending, but I couldn’t get past my overall annoyance that they couldn’t just get over it, especially since the me and Jaden thing felt about a million years ago to me now.

  Balidor cleared his throat, more delicately that time.

  “Esteemed Bridge?” he said. “Whenever you’re ready...?”

  I gave Revik a last glance. He smiled at me reassuringly, but I noticed that sharper, more wary look never left his eyes.

  I’d stalled as long as I could, I figured.

  I could feel the part of me that knew something was off, but didn’t want to know. I could feel how I didn’t want anyone telling us that what we were doing was wrong, or somehow part of Shadow’s evil plan. Truthfully, I kind of wanted to tell them all to piss off and leave us alone, that we deserved this––that whatever we were doing or feeling, it was none of their damned business.

  But I knew I couldn’t do any of those things.

  Realizing only then that I’d been holding my breath, I let it out in a slow exhale.

  As I did, I released the stranglehold I’d maintained over me and Revik’s light.

  I FELT THE difference pretty much at once.

  That was even before I started focusing on the specific pull in our light.

  Really, the difference happened almost at once, as soon as I lowered the wall I’d created around our aleimi. Honestly, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been blocking that intensity of light between us, or trying to manage it, I guess. My attempts to control it had increased as the pull itself gradually worsened. Now that we were admitting this even existed, I realized it had been worsening. Maybe it had been worsening since we’d left New York.

  But I couldn’t be certain about that, either. I knew it had worsened exponentially since my parents showed up and Revik and I had our big blowout.

  Within a few seconds of my letting go of the shield––less than that, maybe––pain swam liquidly up through my light.

  It happened so fast I couldn’t track it. There didn’t seem to be any in-between steps at all, simply “OFF” and then “ON.” Moreover, it didn’t seem to come from any particular place in my light or his––the pain and that feeling of pulling seemed to come from everywhere and no where all at once.

  So yeah, it hit me before I was ready for it.

  It also hit me with an intensity that sucked the breath from my lungs, even as I clenched Revik’s fingers where they wrapped around mine.

  His grip on me tightened, too.

  I felt him fighting not to block it and realized again that he’d been helping me control this thing. As both of us struggled not to fight it, I felt it bleeding through our lights like liquid fire. I felt both of us clench and unclench those blocks as it did, never holding any one of them for long, or consistently... or at the same time.

  The inconsistency alone was enough to open the floodgates.

  And yeah, all of that happened before I’d thought to actively start focusing on whatever it was. I was still fighting not to block it when the pain keened abruptly higher.

  In what felt like seconds, it was already bad enough that I found it difficult to think, to control my motor functions, or to sit still on the padded bench next to Revik. The pain continued to turn my limbs liquid, even as part of it grew into a hard knot in my chest. I fought to breathe, to remain silent, but I couldn’t regain control over my light. Everything hurt, and once I tried to open to that pain instead of control it, the emotions started to hit at me, too.

  Those emotions went towards Revik, first.

  Protection. Fear. A kind of numbing possessiveness, wound into a desire that tried to take over my mind, even as it amplified the rest of it.

  I fought not to react as those feelings worsened, but I knew I wasn’t succeeding.

  My mind kept returning perversely to how I remembered him looking in London, right after he’d escaped from Terian. I remembered how thin he’d been, how quiet, the cuts and burns and bruises and scars he’d tried to hide under the long-sleeved shirt and collar. He’d been afraid of me that day. I hadn’t known that at the time. I’d been too swallowed by my own fears to see his clearly, but I could see it now. He’d been so quiet, too––quiet even for him, although he’d managed to hide the thousand-yard stare better than Jon or Cass.

  Jon and Cass, who’d escaped that same hell with him.

  I felt Revik’s light react next to me.

  I didn’t know if it came from feeling what I felt, or hearing my thoughts or seeing what I saw. I knew he had his own thoughts there. I felt glimmers of San Francisco around that, as he let out a strained breath. The breath bordered on a gasp, even as his grip tightened painfully in mine, right before he released my hand, only to wrap his fingers
and palm around my thigh. He yanked me closer to him, and I felt that desperation in his grasp. It resonated with mine, but instead of reassuring me, it made that danger feel all the more real.

  Danger of what, I didn’t know exactly. I was afraid for him, though.

  He’d never felt safe to me, not since London.

  I would never feel safe to him again after what Cass had done.

  I felt him fighting to restrain his light even as I thought it... even as his more rational mind intervened, telling him to let go, to let this happen. Watching him struggle only made it harder to keep my hands off him... although if it was in protection or some twisted part of me that got off on his vulnerability and loss of control, I honestly couldn’t tell.

  We weren’t the only ones reacting by then.

  Meaning, I could already feel us affecting the group.

  I felt the room react around us in waves, seemingly more intensely once I noticed. I glanced away from Revik long enough to look at them, but I could barely see through the light that flared in my irises as my pain worsened. That light misted the room with a now-familiar green glow that forced me to rely on my aleimi alone.

  Even so, I couldn’t really see them.

  My light just wasn’t that interested in theirs, truthfully.

  Well, other than to keep them away from Revik.

  Once I noticed that, I saw myself doing that actively, too. I could feel the part of me that wanted to fight them off, that wanted them to leave us alone... or really, leave him alone. I felt their interest in his light and it angered me, but it frightened me, too.

  Next to me, Revik’s pain worsened, enough that I could feel him looking at me, his light wrapping into mine, his hands and arms wrapping around me, too. I felt the others in our light as well, but having them there only made the pain worse.

  The sensation brought up yet another irrational array of feelings in me, even apart from the sharper pangs of possessiveness, protection, embarrassment at letting them see either of us like this... anger at all of them for even asking it of us.

  Feeling pretty much ran away with my light.

  Feeling reminiscent of that time in D.C., of feeling strangers in his aleimi... people who shouldn’t be there, who weren’t welcome there. My anger turned violent when I thought about Dalejem being in the room, as well as other memories I thought I’d let go of, even if I’d never really forgotten them.

  Watching him screw Kat right in front of me on that bed.

  That cruise ship to Alaska, when Revik had been with that human woman to avoid being with me. He hadn’t even tried to hide it that time. He’d wanted me to know what he was doing. He’d wanted me to feel it while he was actually doing it.

  Next to me, Revik let out a low sound, gripping my leg tighter.

  I felt what might have been revulsion in him, snaking through his light. I realized he’d felt my memory from the ship... as well as my imaginings around Dalejem and what I’d actually seen when I opened that door in D.C. My pain worsened when I felt it mirrored in him, even as he pulled me closer on the bench, using both of his hands that time, tugging my leg up around him, wanting more contact with me, even through our clothes.

  The pain worsened after he slid his arms around me.

  Even in that, I felt him trying to reassure me with his light. Embarrassment lived there. Anger, too, as I felt him thinking about Beijing... then about Jaden... and then about what a goddamned hypocrite I was.

  A kind of horror washed over me when I remembered the others could feel this. Revik blew at my worries with his light, assuring me they hadn’t caused his embarrassment, that he didn’t care about that at all.

  I cared, though.

  I cared what they knew about him. About us.

  Worse, I could feel the rest of them really in it now. They weren’t just watching us anymore, but feeling what we felt, listening to our thoughts, watching the same pictures. I felt some of them reacting more strongly to the two of us as part of those sensations, and that made my paranoia worse, until I found myself wrapped into Revik’s long arms, sitting in his lap, still fighting to block him from the rest of the room.

  I felt Balidor there, trying to calm my fears, Tarsi... even Kali... but I almost couldn’t make myself care about anything they tried to tell me, though.

  I fought with shame, too, around Beijing and the things I’d done there––even around my possessiveness and anger at Revik’s past––but I couldn’t seem to stop my reactions to those things, or the compulsion to try and expel them from our light.

  Within seconds, I found myself fighting an urge to use the telekinesis, too.

  The pain worsened the harder I fought it, until fear exploded over my light, blinding me. I remembered hitting out at Jon in the mess hall, and that fear worsened.

  Revik, I pled with him. Revik...don’t let me...

  You’re okay... his mind murmured. You’re okay, Allie. You won’t do anything bad. You don’t want to hurt them...

  It won’t matter. I’m not okay. I’m not...

  His light snaked through mine, turning harder. His pain worsened, blinding me.

  He leaned up then, bringing my mouth roughly down to his. He kissed me, his pain exploding somewhere in my chest as he lowered the shields he’d once more thrown over his light. I felt those shields waver, click open and shut, then fragment as he deepened the kiss, pulling me harder against him, so that I was astride him.

  I want to fuck... he told me, once he’d come up for air. His pain worsened as he pulled me harder up against him, arching to meet me. “I want to fuck again...” he murmured. Alyson, gods. I want your light so far inside me. I want you to hurt me when we fuck. I want you to hurt me for real, this time. I want you to keep me there, with you...

  I only half understood his words, but I felt the rest of it. Pain eclipsed my mind.

  I shook my head, gripping his black hair in both of my hands.

  We can’t... My thoughts fought to coalesce around that one thing, around the reasons I could feel living there, just out of reach. Revik... gods, baby... I love you. I love you so much, but we can’t. We have to stop...

  “No,” he said, kissing me again. Fuck them. They wanted to see this. Let them see it.

  For a long-feeling number of seconds, I forgot everything as we kissed.

  He put so much light in his tongue that I let go into him completely. I couldn’t care about any of it, or even make myself see the significance of the other lights I felt watching from around the room. Their presence there only made the compulsion stronger, made it more irrational and unwilling to compromise...

  That impulse to do the telekinesis came back.

  It grew strong enough to scare me.

  I couldn’t feel what I wanted to do with it, not precisely. I grew conscious of how out of control that part of me really was... or maybe how little control I had over it. I felt Revik pulling at me, giving me suggestions on how I could use it, but the aggression in my own light scared me. It scared me enough that I was pulling back again, out of his arms.

  Please, I begged him. Please... Revik, don’t..

  You won’t hurt them.

  I could. You know I could...

  But you won’t.

  Please, I begged again. Please. I could never live with myself...

  I felt Revik think about my words as he kissed me again. I felt the pain in him as my words grew real to him, as he imagined me unhappy from what I’d done. Through him, I saw a snapshot of the room after I’d lost control. Bones broken. Maybe someone hitting the wall hard enough, or in just the right way, that it did more than break bones...

  “Stop,” Revik said.

  His voice was low at first, a murmur against my neck.

  When my pain worsened, he gripped me tighter, holding me against him. I saw images flicker through his mind, of us together... of me with other people. That pain I felt in him worsened. Pain from China. The pain he’d felt when I’d been in China. What he’d seen, how badly it ha
d hurt. What he’d imagined.

  “Stop,” he said, his voice denser that time, harder. “Stop this... now.”

  I felt lights around the room react, sparking off his, bouncing off both of us. I felt fear in some of them, fear at that intensity building in the structures above his head. I felt a part of me back off from that same intensity, even as it tugged at similar structures in my light.

  His pain grew unbearable...

  “Stop,” he growled. “Fucking STOP IT! NOW!”

  A sharp pop! exploded overhead.

  I opened my eyes.

  More of those pops made me flinch, blinking and wincing against him.

  Overhead, the lights dangling over the table exploded, one by one.

  They just... exploded.

  Pieces of glass... powder, really... rained down on the metal conference table. I felt flinches and gasps from other lights, heard surprised cries and sharper pained sounds from around the table. I smelled smoke, what might have been burning hair and skin...

  Something nicked the side of my neck, hard enough that it jerked me out.

  The reality of physical pain flicked a switch on some older reflex, one that lived somewhere beyond that need to be with him. Whatever that something was, it cleared my head. Well, it didn’t clear it, exactly... but it brought me back to the general vicinity of the room.

  And yeah, it did clear it just a little.

  I threw a cloak reflexively back over our light. In the process, I slammed the rest of them out of our space. I felt the charged flare of Revik’s aleimi as I did, the heat that rose in both of us, trying to take over our lights once we were finally alone.