I saw him looking at my clothes then, his eyes traveling lingeringly up to my hair. He completed his assessment and smiled again, raising the hiri to his lips.
“Casual fuckable,” he pronounced, taking a drag off the hiri, then picking some of the weed off his tongue. “...I like it. A little more Indian than I usually see you in...”
“Yeah,” I said neutrally. “They brought a bunch of clothes back from their last trip to Delhi. Ours were getting a little threadbare...”
“Will you take off the top?” he said.
I flinched a little, but his voice remained conversational, almost friendly.
“...It’s low cut, which I appreciate, love, I do...but it’s just making me want to see your tits.”
“Revik.” I looked at him for the first time, letting my eyes show my impatience. “This is going to get really old.”
He smiled at me, then glanced at the end of the hiri to make sure it was still lit.
“How about a blow job?” he said in the same tone. “Jon wouldn’t give me one, but now I’m almost glad I waited...I forgot how much I like your mouth, lover.”
I averted my eyes as he smiled at me again, his clear irises cold.
“Come on, baby,” he said, cajoling. “I’ll do you, if you do me. I know you’ve got to be hurting a bit, too...even if you are getting it from that Adhipan prick...”
When I only clicked at him in annoyance, he smiled wider, tilting his head back to look at the ceiling. He took another drag of the hiri.
“That bond thing is a bitch, isn’t it...?” he added. “I guess the racial compatibility thing is a bit of a nightmare at times, too. I know it was with Elise. There were times when I wanted to fuck her with the hard end anyway...so badly it took everything in my willpower not to go to seer prostitutes until I got it out of my system...”
I bit my lip, but didn’t lower my eyes.
His expression still thoughtful, he tilted his hand with the hiri, a seer’s shrug.
“...Still. She was pretty amazing, for a human. She could do things with her tongue that were absolutely unbelievable...” Letting his gaze drift back to me, he exhaled smoke. “...She let me do it to her in the ass, too, once she realized what I wanted. It was almost as good. Almost, but not quite...” He took another drag of the hiri, his voice growing lazy as he studied my face.
“How is he handling that? The fact that he just can’t quite give it to you, not like I can...? Does he whine about it? Or just go to prostitutes?”
“I have no idea,” I said, my voice bored.
Without looking up at him, I arranged my legs, sitting cross-legged on the mat and pulling out a bottle of water. I let my voice turn businesslike when I looked at him next.
“Revik, Jon told me that he talked to you about what I was going to try to do.”
“Did he?”
“Yeah. He did. I’d like to hear your take on it, if that’s all right.”
“What else did Jon tell you about our little chat?” Revik glanced over, his eyes cold once more as they appraised mine. “Did he tell you I gave him a hard-on?” He chuckled a little, exhaling another lungful of smoke. “He actually got me going there for a minute, too. Picturing him persuading little Dorje into letting him in here. Jon’s more devious than I gave him credit for...or a better fuck than I realized.” He let his eyes shift back to mine. “But I had him panting there for a minute, wife. I saw it in his eyes. Bet that pissed Dorje off...”
“Probably,” I said. “Look, can we get off this infantile crap? I don’t need you to cooperate with me, Revik...in fact, I don’t expect you to. But I wish you would. More than anything, I wish you would help me with this.”
He raised his head off the wall, staring at me. “Help you?”
“Yes,” I said, biting my lip. “I’m trying to help you. I would think you would want this...”
“That I’d want you toying with my mind? Implanting a bunch of garbage about ‘good’ and ‘evil’ and the right and wrong ways of keeping our race from being fucking annihilated? Is that what you think I’d want your help with, Allie?”
For the first time, I heard anger in his voice.
I kept the relief out of my light and off my face.
“Is that what you think I’ll be doing?” I said.
He gave a humorless laugh. “No, I thought you’d be rubbing my feet, telling me I was your one and only...what the hell else does ‘re-program’ mean, wife?”
I kept my eyes level with his. “It’s not re-programming...I won’t be implanting anything, Revik. That’s not what this is.”
He shook his head, clicking loudly. “Sure. You’ll just give them access...then they’ll go in and fuck with my light...”
“Jon told me you were afraid.”
“Afraid?” Revik turned, staring at me. After the faintest pause, he laughed, giving me an incredulous look. “Afraid of what? That you might see something about my past? I offered that to you, Alyson! Back when I thought you were my wife, I offered to let you see anything about me or my past that you wanted...”
“This is different. You know it’s different. This is about the things they helped you not to see. The things the Dreng helped you cope with...protected you from.”
He gave another disbelieving laugh.
“You are so full of shit,” he said, exhaling smoke as he shook his head. “I can’t believe they turned you into a zealot so fast. How did they do it, Allie? Was Balidor’s dick really that good? The woman I married didn’t believe in any of this crap. Gods, Dreng, prophecies...old religions and their rigid, absolutist moral codes. You didn’t even have a particularly rigid definition of right and wrong, as I recall. You had all of the theological sophistication of a twelve-year-old, of course...and never really knew what the hell you were talking about. But I at least respected you had your own mind...”
“This isn’t about believing anything, Revik,” I said. I bit my lip, feeling my cheeks flush, in spite of myself. “You know it’s not.”
“Really? Then what is it about? What exactly is it that made you decide to use my own goddamned marital bond against me...that you’d let them use that to get to me...”
“I’m trying to help you,” I said. “I’m trying to find some way to give you back your own life, the freedom to make up your own mind about – ”
“Freedom.” He let out a harsh laugh, holding up his chained wrists. “You want to talk to me about freedom, love? Seriously?”
“They can’t save you, Revik. They can’t.”
“Who can’t?”
“The Dreng.”
“Jesus Christ, Alyson.” He shook his head, his voice holding disbelief again. “If you could just hear yourself. I honestly can’t believe this. I really can’t...” His clear eyes met mine. “I almost feel sorry for you, wife...”
“They’re not helping you, Revik.” I bit my lip again, trying to keep the reaction off my face, out of my light. “If you don’t face this now, you’ll have to face it later. And the more you live in their light, depending on them, the worse it’s going to be...”
He rolled his eyes, seer fashion.
“So you’re going to save me. The waitress from San Francisco.”
“Revik, I’m not saying that, either. I’m trying to – ”
“I don’t depend on anyone, wife.”
I just looked at him for a moment, feeling my chest tighten at his expression.
“Really?” I said. “You don’t?”
“No.” He looked at me, his eyes hard. “I don’t. And don’t pretend you weren’t there, in the mountains with me. Or that you weren’t side by side with me for the Registry job. I can forgive Jon for this crap...he wasn’t there. But are you seriously going to look me in the eye and tell me I wasn’t running things there? That I was manipulated into doing that...?” His mouth quirked in a humorless smile. “Come on, love. Tell me. I’m dying to hear you explain that...or were you too busy playing GI Joe with my people to remember?”
&
nbsp; “I don’t have to explain anything,” I said, not dropping my gaze. “I remember you there. I remember you perfectly.”
“And?”
“And?” I gave a seer’s shrug, placing my hands on my knees. “Yeah, you were in charge. Absolutely. They would have followed you to their deaths.”
He gave me a faintly surprised look. “So?”
“So,” I said, feeling my jaw harden. “How have you been feeling for the last few weeks, Revik?”
His mouth curled into a frown, even as he averted his gaze, taking another drag off the hiri.
Seeing the dismissive look on his face, I felt my own jaw harden.
“Come on,” I said. “Tell me. Are you feeling like the mighty Sword now? Because I gotta tell you, I don’t see the man I knew at the rebel base. I don’t see Wreg’s friend. I don’t see someone capable of leading other seers at all...”
He exhaled smoke, his eyes on the ceiling, his face unmoving.
Biting my lip again, I tried to read his expression, couldn’t.
I hardened my voice. “...I watched the tapes, Revik. Every session. Every conversation someone’s tried to have with you since you got here. I don’t care how angry you are...I don’t care how wronged you feel. Anger doesn’t explain what I’ve seen.”
Giving me a bare glance, he only shook his head again, smiling faintly. While I watched, he leaned his head back against the wall, blowing smoke rings with his lips and tongue.
“How long did you practice this speech, love?” he said.
Watching him, I felt a kind of tiredness fall over me. The posturing in my voice dropped in the same instant. Swallowing, I shook my head, clicking softly.
“Look, Revik,” I said, softer. “I know you think you’re holding your own with me in this conversation. I know you do. Maybe you even think that you’re ‘beating’ me in some way, with the condescending jabs, or the fact that you can hurt me with Elise...” Feeling a pain briefly close my chest, I waited for it to pass before I added, “...But you’re not winning, Revik. You’re not winning because there’s no way to win. You can hurt me all you want, but it won’t do anything. And it only convinces me I’m right. You’re not him anymore. You’re not the Sword...if you ever were. The Sword wouldn’t have needed to talk to me like this. He’d probably be trying to negotiate with me right now. At the very least, he’d be more worried about his own people than his damned ego...or who his wife slept with while she was trying to get him out...”
He turned at that, his eyes sparking with anger as they focused on me.
“Yeah,” I said. “You heard me. This stuff isn’t real, Revik.”
He averted his gaze back to the wall, his expression flat once more.
“So?” I said. “Are you going to explain that, Revik?”
He exhaled in a sigh, his voice openly bored.
“Explain what, my dear?”
Fighting the anger that wanted to rise, I rested my hands back on my knees. Eventually I swallowed it again and shrugged, my voice level.
“Well, how about explaining why I’ve seen you sitting in here alone, talking to people who aren’t here. Explain how you seem catatonic half the time, when you’re not acting like a rabid animal. Explain how your light looks broken to me, even now, as I look at you. And then tell me again how you’re not dependent on them.”
For an instant, I thought I had reached him.
His jaw hardened as he stared at the far wall, ashing the hiri on the green tile floor. Then he seemed to bring whatever I saw wavering and jerking in his light under control. I saw him wince as the collar kicked in when he did it. But he kept his expression motionless.
Shaking his head, he only clicked at me, taking another drag of the hiri.
“You know,” I said. “Right now, you’re an awful lot like Terian, Revik.”
I bit my lip once more, but the more I thought about it, the more true it felt.
“...You really are. I don’t mean Feigran. I mean Terian...the guy who held me captive in D.C. It’s amazing the similarities...”
“You would know,” he said sweetly. “...You fucked us both.”
“Yeah,” I said. “He would have said that, too, Revik.”
His eyes changed. I watched them grow cold, then slowly darken.
I flinched from that look. I couldn’t help it.
“So let’s talk about it, then,” he said softly. “That is, if you’re done insulting me, wife?”
I swallowed, giving a seer’s hard nod.
“Fine.” I looked back into those empty eyes. “Let’s talk.”
“So this is your premise then?” He took another drag of the hiri, his voice conversational. “That I’m...what...possessed? Or just compromised in some way?”
“More the latter,” I said. “You’re always going to be vulnerable to them, Revik. Always. Unless you deal with this, you’re going to either be stuck with them, or someone’s going to have to put you down.”
“Put me down?” He smiled.
“Yeah,” I said seriously. “And I really don’t want that person to be me.”
Giving another disbelieving laugh, he looked away.
I watched him smoke in silence. As he did, that cold, glassy stare climbed the walls of the room, as if measuring them.
“How about we just settle this thing right now?” he said finally. “Unchain me, love. I’ll break your pretty neck, and then we’ll both be done for this world. Wouldn’t that be simpler? Less of a time suck, too, for all of our friends out there...”
I managed to hold his gaze when he turned. Looking at what lived there, I felt something in my stomach grow cold.
“Go on,” he said, softer. “Ask me if I mean it, love. Ask me.”
“So it’s a suicide pact, then?” I said, fighting my voice level. “We’re to that already?”
“I might be okay with that. Yeah. If the alternative is having to sit here for the next however-many years, listening to you talk to me about myself...”
“Pretty sad, that you’d prefer that to my help.”
“I’d prefer to be the sex slave of a human leper to your help, wife.”
Biting my lip, I fought back my anger before I answered.
“So that’s it, then. You want to do this the hard way?”
He gave a low laugh, shaking his head. “Gods, just kill me, will you? One more cliché and I think I might bite open my own wrist...” He faced me with another cold stare. “What I want, wife, is for you to come over here so I can beat you to death with my bare hands...since that seems like the only thing that might actually shut you up...”
Feeling my breath stop, I didn’t move.
I just sat there for a long moment, my eyes closed.
Then I stood up.
My heart jerked in odd, sideways leaps in my chest. My whole body tensed as I regained my feet...but I did it anyway, sent the signal I’d programmed to the organics through the headset they’d given me. I could only hope Balidor wouldn’t notice, at least not right away.
From the silence in my headset, I had to assume nothing showed up on their board.
Taking another forced breath, I walked directly up to the line around where Revik sat.
“You want to kill me, Revik?” I said.
He smiled up at me, his eyes those of a stranger.
“No, love. I want to make love by a fireplace and then cuddle, tell each other our secrets...”
I felt my face tighten.
We’d done something not dissimilar to that once. I’d almost forgotten that Revik at times, in the long months that had passed since he’d changed back into Syrimne. Looking at him now, I saw him again. I saw the Revik I’d met in San Francisco, the one I’d woken up next to in Seattle. The one I’d laughed with and become friends with and fallen in love with on the ship. I saw the one I’d married, really married, in that cabin in the mountains.
Still looking at that Revik, I stepped over the line Balidor had drawn around him on the floor, the one that dict
ated a safe distance from the range of his chains.
As I did, I heard an explosion of static as the audio came to life from the headset.
Balidor’s voice broke over the line, as if he’d grabbed the mic away from someone.
“Alyson.” His voice was a command, but I heard the harshness underneath. “Step back. Right now! Step the fuck back!”
“No,” I told him.
“Alyson! I will break the damned door down, if you – ”
I tore off the headset, tossing it behind me to the floor.
Taking another step, so that I stood right in front of Revik, almost close enough to touch, I held out my hands, almost a seer question.
I just stood there, my legs slightly apart, my arms at my sides. I braced myself, knowing it wouldn’t do any good.
“You want to kill me, Revik?” I said. “So kill me.”
He moved so quickly, I didn’t even have time to tense.
“WHAT IS SHE doing, what is she doing...” Jon muttered under his breath.
He gripped his own upper arms. Tensing, he watched Allie walk calmly to the very edge of the circle drawn on the floor around Revik.
Looking at the expression on her face, he felt something in his stomach go cold.
They’d had the audio playing over the whole staging area outside the tank, cranked up so that her and Revik’s voices could be heard, even if they whispered.
Jon doubted he’d missed a word since she’d entered.
He’d listened to their exchange with a mixture of horror and disbelief. He’d actually been impressed at Allie’s ability to keep her cool, when all was said and done. Revik had thrown his ex-wife at her, talked to her like she was a prostitute, threatened to kill her, told her she was brainwashed, told her she was stupid, laughed at her when she tried to be honest with him. Jon could tell, just from some of her reactions, that he was hitting more personal buttons with her, too...likely things Jon himself didn’t know enough about to pick up on.
He did pick up on a few though.
He knew Allie was insecure about her intelligence, especially compared to Revik’s. He’d already jabbed at that button a few times, mostly by rolling his eyes at every other word she said when she was trying the hardest to talk to him. The Elise thing was a low blow too, given how sensitive Allie had been about the fact that he’d been married before.
Allie's War Season Two Page 66
