Shield (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #2): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

“Your husband?” she said. “Really…?”

  I could hear the glee in her voice. It only angered me.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We’re married. So not… you know… dating.”

  “Where is he now?” the woman said, smiling conspiratorially again. “Aren’t seers known for their pathological protectiveness towards their mates?”

  I glanced at Terian.

  The amber eyes held a warning, even as he touched my shoulder with one hand, a gesture probably meant to appear reassuring.

  “Yeah,” I said. I looked at the woman, then past her, at the VR image of Revik’s face. “Yeah. I guess we are.”

  I WATCHED AS Terian shook hands with the reporter, Donna.

  I stood there like a pet dog waiting outside a coffee shop for its owner. I felt a little sick watching her flirt with him, touching his arm more than a few times as she leaned up next to him, pressing her likely-fake boobs into his side.

  Her eyes kept darting to me, though, too, as if trying to dissect me where I stood. Her gaze was overt, and overly intimate. She took liberties as she looked over my body, as if memorizing it for later cataloguing.

  She probably assumed Terian and I were sleeping together.

  Hell, most of the civilized world probably did, especially after that broadcast, but that hadn’t exactly been accidental either.

  I saw the speculation in the female newscaster’s eyes, and for once, found myself glad of the collar. At least I didn’t have to listen to what this vile woman was thinking.

  I avoided her eyes while Terian finished with the news crews and walked back in my direction. Smiling at me in an almost friendly way, he motioned for the guards to lead me out of the Oval Office.

  We walked down a hall to an elevator that looked like an antique––at least until I saw the organic modifications that had been made to the control panel and the double doors.

  He nodded at the porter, making a gesture with his fingers that indicated down. I felt my stomach sink when I realized what his gesture meant for me.

  He was taking me back to my cage.

  I barely noticed the security detail that accompanied us.

  I more wondered how he’d managed to talk the boy into staying behind.

  As if he heard my thoughts, Terian glanced at me.

  “We’ll have to make this next piece quick, Alyson,” he murmured, checking an expensive, organic-component watch on his wrist. “Our dear young friend is getting impatient, I’m afraid.”

  From that, I had to assume Nenzi was yelling at Terian in the Barrier.

  An instant later, I remembered where we were.

  “The shields?” I murmured.

  The entire White House was covered in dense Barrier shields, run by a few dozen seers on the payroll of the Pentagon and Secret Service. Nenzi shouldn’t be able to reach Terian at all through that maze.

  “Pretty much useless against him, I’m afraid,” Terian murmured, folding his hands in front of his body. He gazed up at the ceiling of the elevator, bouncing lightly on his heels as we descended. “I’m trying to figure it out. He seems to know how to bypass the shields entirely. I thought he might be able to help me design some sort of upgrade––”

  “I’m looking forward to watching your head explode,” I said.

  Terian glanced at me, raising an eyebrow.

  Then, he chuckled aloud.

  “I guess it’s good I have a few spares.” The smile widened, right before he winked. “I wouldn’t be so quick to applaud this one going though, Alyson. I would think you’d prefer it to some of the alternatives.”

  Leaning against the elevator wall, I gave him a bored look, rolling my eyes.

  Still, his comment made me nervous, and brought back memories I would rather have repressed. Looking down, I fidgeted with my cuffed wrists. It was the closest he’d come to threatening me since we’d first left India, at least in regard to rape.

  Nenzi made it pretty clear that I was off-limits to anyone, human or seer, despite the number of monetary offers and other bribes I’d already overheard offered to the Scandinavian for a few hours alone with me.

  Terian only broke Nenzi’s rule once, about two days into my captivity. Giving the kid some excuse about medical tests, he took me into a locked room made of organic steel that apparently even Nenzi couldn’t see past, and kept me there for a few hours.

  The only good news was, I was collared.

  The one time was enough.

  I’d considered telling Nenzi, of course.

  Terian told me what would happen if I did. The threat was simple, but effective. He would tell Nenzi that Revik and I hadn’t completed the bonding process.

  Then Nenzi would hunt down and kill Revik.

  Nenzi couldn’t read me through the collar. I had to assume Terian had ways of keeping Nenzi out of his own mind, as well. If I had to guess, I would say he did a lot of it by moving any incriminating memories or thoughts from one body to another, to keep them out of Nenzi’s reach.

  Either way, I couldn’t bring myself to risk it, not when I knew full well that Revik, assuming he was still alive, was likely on his way here––and not without any idea of how many other bodies Terian had lurking around. If that number was anything more than one, killing this body wouldn’t even do me any good.

  That doesn’t mean I didn’t think about it, though, imagining how Terian’s brains would look splattered against the drab colors of the Oval Office wallpaper.

  Still, I’d gotten off easy, and I knew it.

  Without Nenzi there, I’d be going through what Cass endured… and worse, because Terian would have wanted it public, for Revik’s benefit. He would have rented me out to every loser on the White House payroll with a few dollars to spare, then let rumors and live footage leak directly to the feeds.

  We reached the bottom of the elevator shaft.

  The door let off a low ping. After a pause where the security mechanism scanned us a second time, it opened to reveal a dimly-lit, featureless corridor.

  Terian made a hospitable gesture towards the opening.

  I exited in front of him, and he let me walk ahead, only taking my arm right before we entered the room at the end of the low-ceilinged tunnel.

  An oval table dominated the rectangular space.

  Around it sat a group of humans in business suits, filling all but a few of the padded, high-backed, leather chairs. I was still standing there, feeling again like a show dog on display at the State Fair, when Wellington rose to his feet from his place at the head of the table. Smiling, he gestured towards the two open seats.

  “Join us,” he said hospitably.

  I sat where the Scandinavian seer indicated.

  I avoided the eyes of a 50-something male human who stared at me openly.

  I couldn’t quite tell if the look there was revulsion or some combination of that and lust. His reddish face turned even redder the longer he looked at me, frowning, his eyes flickering from my chest to my face, then back again. I glanced at the Vice President, an older man with white hair who sat to Wellington’s left.

  His appraising look was less ambiguous.

  Great. I was surrounded by horny, racist humans.

  Wellington’s face was almost a relief after I’d looked around at the others.

  “So,” I said. “What’s for dinner?”

  The room grew, if it were possible, even more silent.

  Then Wellington burst out in a genuine-sounding laugh.

  The woman sitting next to him, a middle-aged, female human with dark brunette hair and hazel eyes, laughed with him. So did the Scandinavian.

  Looking around at the three of them, I realized they were all Terians.

  Watching them laugh together in a kind of blank incredulity, I thought my life couldn’t possibly get more fucked up.

  Of course, I was wrong about that.

  37

  CAGED

  I WOKE UP, my face pressed against the floor of a semi-organic cage.

  My
wrists and ankles were locked to bars set in the same floor; there wasn’t even a chain to allow real movement.

  My neck and spine hurt so badly I could barely lift my head. I was thirsty. I couldn’t feel my fingers, and I didn’t know if the latter was from cold or lack of circulation. I was naked again, which added to the feeling of powerlessness.

  It also made me angry.

  But for one window in the wall in front of me, the room was dark.

  The inability to use the Barrier made everything appear flat, two-dimensional.

  I remembered the world this way, of course; it hadn’t been all that long ago that being sight-blind was all I knew. Even so, the difference was staggering, like being drugged.

  Of course, it made everything hurt less, too, but it didn’t do anything about the feeling of deprivation that never left, or the depression that came with it.

  I couldn’t feel him at all.

  I watched nighttime clouds whisper by the lone window. It took me another moment to realize it wasn’t a window at all, but a virtual reality screen. My cage lived in the basement bowels of the White House. We were dug in far too deep for any clouds, at any time of day.

  The window-like appearance was just another lie.

  I tried to stay calm. No good would come of thinking about him, not now, so I tried to keep those thoughts away from me, too. I clenched my hands instead, staring at the empty corridor, fighting not to let my mind go anywhere but my immediate situation.

  I had to get out of here.

  Fingers touched my foot, caressing my skin.

  I sucked in a breath.

  My heart beat hard enough to hurt my chest as I tensed, then craned my neck, focusing in the dim light.

  There was a minute where I couldn’t see anything.

  It was beyond strange not being able to use my light to compensate for the limitations of my physical senses. I was back to having to wait for my eyes to adjust as soon as they pointed away from the fake window.

  Eventually, I made out his face.

  He sat in the middle part of the cell, cross-legged, his face concentrated.

  The longer I stared, the brighter his eyes got. They shone a pale green, ghosting the round contours of his face.

  It was eerie, actually. In part because they looked like mine.

  They also looked like Revik’s––or at least how Revik’s looked after our first few nights together in that house up in the Himalayas. Even collared, I felt some part of myself react to the memory. Forcing it away from me, I watched this new set of glowing irises as the boy crawled across the floor. I didn’t move as he reached where I lay.

  I couldn’t have done much, anyway, not with inch-thick cuffs holding me to the floor.

  The boy’s fingers touched my face, pushing hair out of my eyes.

  “Nenzi,” I said. My voice was hoarse. I cleared my throat, trying to get enough spit to talk. “What are you doing here?”

  He spoke English, maybe because I had.

  “He’s gone. You were sleeping.” He caressed my face again, his fingers lingering at my jaw. “Are you in pain? Do you hurt still?”

  In reflex, I tried to look at my body.

  I saw pale-looking flesh, bruises, what looked like cuts. I looked thin to myself. My sense of smell was both dampened and sickeningly sharper. With the aleimic portion of it missing, the physical smells nearly overpowered me. I must have peed through the grate below me, because I could smell that, too.

  But I wasn’t really in pain apart from the collar. The rest was discomfort from being tied down, from not being able to move, and having my skin chafed by metal.

  After thinking for a moment, I shook my head.

  “Only my neck. And I’m thirsty.”

  The boy immediately turned away, fumbling with something in the dark.

  I wasn’t surprised when, seconds later, he put a cold-feeling container to my lips. I drank the water eagerly once he’d opened the top, swallowing as he held it to my mouth. After minutes passed where I only drank, pausing here and there to breathe and swallow, I nodded, gesturing with my fingers that it had been enough.

  He set it on the floor of the cage.

  “Thanks.” I looked up at him, squinting in the dim light.

  He caressed my arm, then my fingers. I saw his face tighten in some kind of concentration. A little nervous at what I saw there, I averted my gaze, resting my chin on the grate. I wondered if he was reading me––or trying to.

  “Nenzi, where were you today?” I said, when he didn’t move away.

  The boy began to answer me in a series of complicated hand gestures until I made a negative gesture of my own. I kept my voice calm.

  “I don’t understand.” At his blank look, I said, “You need to tell me. Speak out loud, like you did before.”

  I was still confused by his inability to read me.

  Revik told me sight restraint collars only prevented him from using his own sight; the collar I wore shouldn’t have impacted the kid’s ability to read me at all.

  Revik also told me he’d been in a lot of separation pain from me while he’d been locked up with Terian. He said the collar prevented him from controlling it, so it had actually been worse, almost unbearable at times.

  Why couldn’t I feel anything? And why couldn’t Nenzi just pull answers from my mind?

  For that matter, why couldn’t Terian?

  “Tests,” Nenzi said, once his brow cleared. “They do tests on me. They want to do more… on both of us,” he said.

  “What kind of tests?” I said, although I already knew.

  He pointed to his head, gesturing up towards the space above where we sat. Wearing the collar, all I could see was air where he pointed, but I understood. He meant the structures over his head. The telekinesis.

  Moving closer almost shyly, he sat next to me, crossing his legs by my ribcage where I lay on my stomach. After another moment’s pause, he placed his hand lightly on my back, stroking the skin there tentatively with his fingers.

  I watched him stare at me. I closed my eyes at the intensity of his gaze.

  “Nenzi, why do you look at me like that?” I said.

  He smiled. There was something heartbreaking in that smile, something that made my chest hurt. Still, I had to find some way to discourage this. Hopefully without him deciding he needed to make my skull crack in half.

  “Nenzi,” I said. “I think you’re mistaking me for someone else.”

  He caressed my hair as I looked up. Touching me tentatively at first, he gradually grew more bold, sliding his fingers through long, half-curled strands, working out tangles carefully with his hands. It reminded me of Hannah a little… but more so of Revik, who had done something similar a number of times when we were alone together.

  Both of us had our moments when we just wanted to touch each other.

  There was a bit of possessiveness behind it, I guess. But it was also loving and affectionate and sensual, and… I think with us, stemmed at least partly from the fact that we finally could.

  For Revik, it had been my hair, at least in part.

  I closed my eyes, pushing the memory away.

  Nenzi scooted closer with his feet.

  He continued to touch my hair, pushing it aside to rub my shoulder, and the back of my neck not covered by the collar. I was so tired I could barely think, and didn’t bother telling him to stop, figuring it might be better not to piss him off until I had a good reason.

  I’d tried asking Terian about the boy, of course. More than once.

  The only time we had what approximated a real conversation about it, we’d been in a federal holding facility. We’d been forced to wait for over eight hours while they went through the paperwork of letting us through Sight Containment and into the United States. Nenzi took almost as long as me, probably because Terian had to falsify all of his records for the first time.

  I’d been naked of course, and cuffed to a metal bench.

  Terian had been his usual,
charming self. He’d plopped down next to me on the bench, smiling. His fingers touched my cheek until I flinched away.

  “You’re going to help me with our little friend in there,” he’d murmured. “Keep him happy, yes? It is the healthy thing for both of us.”

  “Uh huh.” I’d continued to look around. The room had been a ten by ten cell with white walls, a bolted down organic bench being the only furniture.

  “Does he know why you really want him?” I’d said.

  Terian made a “more or less” gesture. “He knew well enough to bargain with me about you.” The blond seer tilted his head to look at me. In that body, it gave him a kind of rakish air––again, almost cartoonishly handsome.

  “And he’s right, of course,” he’d smiled. “I can’t expect him to function at his best, not when his basic needs haven’t been met.” He winked at me. “The poor lad’s suffered so much already.”

  I snorted. “You really think I’m going to be able to bring the teenaged serial killer under control… because, what? I have girl parts?”

  Terian chuckled. “Most definitely.”

  I decided to just come out and ask.

  “Why me, Terry? Why does he think he knows me?”

  A flicker of curiosity touched the amber eyes.

  “You know, I’ve wondered that myself.” His gaze drifted down the length of me, then turned inward. “There’s your race, of course. But he seems quite taken with you, specifically… and convinced he knows you personally. And he knows a lot about you, Allie-bird.”

  I grimaced at the nickname.

  Smiling, he gestured in a shrug, putting his hands in his pockets.

  “I’m very much looking forward to what you find out,” he said. “Once the two of you have become better acquainted.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said, warning.

  His lips stretched in another smile.

  “Oh, I’m quite sure it will,” he said. “I highly doubt he’ll take no for an answer… for long, anyway. You should see all the nasty little thoughts he’s had about you already.”

  His smile touched the amber-colored eyes when he saw me grimace a second time.

  “He’s quite the little voyeur, our Nenzi,” he added. “He barely took time off to sleep while you and Revi’ were getting acquainted in that hovel. And let’s just say, Revi’ wasn’t the only one who got off on some of those experiences…”