by Deanna Chase
“Does this look like someone who needs a fuck?” she said.
She motioned at Revik, up and down, her fingers a graceful arc in a seer’s gesture of emphasis. She again gave Dalai a near-accusing look. “You remember him in Brazil, sister...when he actually wanted sex. Is this how he was?”
When none of them answered, Dalai included, Mara looked around at the rest of them once more. Her voice grew colder still.
“He is right,” she said. “We need to confer with the Council...with that old man, Vash. And with brother Balidor. They need to understand we are forcing this on him, that he is not compliant in the ways he needs to be. We need consent...real consent...or this is rape.” She hit the word with deliberateness. “It is coerced sex, yes? Can we not agree on this? Is that what we do now? Rape our brother recruits?”
Yumi frowned, her jaw noticeably clenching as she glanced down at Revik.
Sighing in a denser irritation, she gave Mara an annoyed look.
Revik recognized that look. He knew how rigid the chain of command was within the Adhipan, so he wasn’t particularly surprised that Yumi would be annoyed at Mara for bucking it, and in front of witnesses. More surprisingly, Revik caught an underlying thread of emotion there, too. Conflict, mixed with a pulse of anger and something else.
Shame.
Woven into that last part, he felt a subtle pulse of agreement off the seer.
Meaning, Yumi agreed with Mara.
Something in that caused his shoulders to relax, if only a little.
“Yes,” Yumi said, clicking in annoyance. “I agree. We need a different strategy for this.” Folding her arms, she looked back at Revik. “What do you want, brother? What would help you open your light? I would prefer to have your wishes included in my recommendation to Council Leader Vashentarenbuul...and to Adhipan Balidor.” Her voice developed a faint warning as she narrowed her eyes. “Know that there will not be an option of doing nothing, brother. They will want you to address this in some way. I can guarantee it.”
Revik exhaled, feeling himself relax even more.
“Yes.” He nodded, once. “I understand.” He kept his voice polite that time. “What are my options, sister?”
Yumi looked down at him, frowning.
Revik couldn’t get a read on her at all that time.
He found himself thinking she was having the same problem with him...meaning, she couldn’t get a read on him, either.
Eventually, he heard her clicking under her breath once more, right before she looked around at the rest of them. Revik saw her irises blur, enough to know she was talking to someone in the Barrier. When her eyes clicked back into focus, she let out another sigh.
“Would affection be acceptable to you, brother?” she said, meeting Revik’s gaze. “The Council, Vash and brother Balidor agree that whether or not the contact is sexual does not matter in the slightest, as long as you open your light. They simply believed sex would be quickest. Further,” she added. “Your friend, Vash, offers his apologies for the forceful way in which it was ‘offered,’ and asks for your forgiveness.” She made a vague, concessionary gesture with one hand, even as she smiled. “They would like this done soon, however, the old man says...” By which Revik knew she meant Vash again. “...So they can put you back to work.”
Revik felt a sharp tightening in his chest.
It occurred to him only then that they didn’t want him removed from the Bridge’s guardianship. He’d braced for it, expected it, ever since he got on the plane. He knew full well he might be forbidden from ever speaking to or looking at her again...that they might even mind-wipe him, so he wouldn’t remember she existed.
He’d never fully admitted any of that to himself, though.
“Can one of us approach you now, brother?” Yumi said.
When Revik glanced up, she’d quirked a dark eyebrow. Something in the amusement in her expression made him think she’d felt all or most of his thoughts just then.
“You now merely need to tell us who,” she added. She motioned around the room, including all of the Adhipan seers that time, as well as the unwilling. “...Balidor agrees that any one of us can do this thing for you, given the revised parameters.”
Revik swallowed, looking around at all of them.
He paused on Garensche briefly, for they had been friends in the field all of those years ago...and also on Dalai, who he’d slept with once, although it hadn’t been overly personal or intimate. He looked at Poresh, who’d also been a friend, although not a very close one.
Then he looked at the hazel-eyed seer by the door, Mara, whom he’d found attractive from the first time they’d met, but who had disliked him intensely upon that meeting.
She’d mocked him for weeks...then eventually seduced him with Dalai and a few others, but Revik had always assumed she ultimately viewed him with contempt for his time under the Rooks. Because of that, he’d never trusted her, even in sex.
Truthfully, he’d thought she hated him.
He thought the sex to be more of a power game than not, although she hadn’t mistreated him there, either.
And yet, just now, she’d been the one to stand up for him.
More than that, she’d stopped them.
He met her gaze, and found her watching him. She looked how he remembered her looking, only her dark hair had grown longer...long enough that it fell in a straight, heavy curtain down one shoulder, only half of it up in an infiltrator’s braid. Her green and gold eyes slid marginally out of focus as she returned his gaze, in a way that told him she was scanning him, still poised lightly on her feet, not far from the unwilling with the blond hair.
“Mara,” he said, blunt.
Mara’s eyes flickered in surprise. Maybe partly from his smile.
Maybe because she remembered their earlier meetings, too.
“If that’s all right with her,” he added politely.
Her surprise deepened, whispering more tangibly around her light.
It faded soon after, however, and she smiled in return, a pleased smile that grew warmer the longer she held his gaze. Remembering again how they’d first met in the caves of the Pamir, and the dynamic between them at the time, Revik found himself wanting to laugh.
He didn’t, though. He merely sat there as she approached him on the bed, doing his best to ease his light open out of the clench he’d locked it into before. When she sat down beside him, he’d nearly managed it, even before she motioned towards his body.
“Take off your shirt, brother,” she said. “It’s easier skin to skin...even for this.”
Hesitating only an extra few heart beats, and still feeling Kat’s eyes on him from by the door, Revik nodded, reaching for the front of his shirt. Without looking at any of them, he began to unfasten the buttons, sliding his body back on the bedspread once more as he realized they’d probably want him to lie down, too. When he had the shirt undone, Mara helped him get the fabric off his arms and shoulders, even as it occurred to Revik that his coat, shoulder holster, gun and vest had already been taken off him, presumably while he’d been unconscious.
Yumi motioned towards the unwilling then, her words firm, but not unkind.
“You may go, sister. You will be paid, but it seems we will not be in need of your specific services today, after all.”
“Can I stay anyway?” Kat said.
Revik glanced up, surprised.
Looking at him, then back at Yumi, she added, “I will not interfere...I vow it.”
Yumi frowned slightly, looking at Revik.
Revik glanced once more at the unwilling, too, then shrugged. He didn’t know why the seer would want to stay, but it made no difference to him. Not anymore.
Yumi surprised him, though.
“No,” she said, her voice decisive as she looked back at Kat. “I think not, sister. With all due respect. We will contact you when we need your services again.”
Kat frowned, glancing again at Revik. When he returned her look with only a blank stare
of his own, she shifted her light-filled eyes back towards Yumi and nodded, once.
Hesitating only a few seconds longer, she bowed.
Turning, she silently retreated from the room.
All of the seers watched her go, Revik included. None of them spoke until she closed the hotel room door behind her and her footsteps could be heard retreating down the hallway outside. Once the hallway had grown silent, Mara looked at him again, grinning.
She shoved lightly and playfully at his chest, startling Revik, nearly making him slide into a fighting stance on the bed.
“You do have a tendency to inspire crushes of your own, brother,” she said, grinning wider before she shoved at him again. “Why is that?”
Revik frowned, not answering, and she shoved him again.
“…Being such a quiet, angry fucker, how is it they all want you?” she teased. “Is it some wounded bird syndrome you inspire, I wonder? Or is it something else?”
Revik clicked at her, flushing a little and rolling his eyes. When she shoved him again, however, he couldn’t help smiling a little, too.
Seeing his grin, Mara burst out in another laugh.
Before he could figure out how to react to that, she shoved him again, harder, nearly pushing him to his back on the creaky bed with the worn quilted cover.
That time, Revik couldn’t help it…he laughed.
11
EYES ON THE BACK OF MY HEAD
My legs shook slightly as I walked up the wooden steps leading to my Victorian flat. I was exhausted, desperate to get home after working back-to-back shifts, one of them graveyard. Even so, I came to a dead stop before I reached the wraparound porch, feeling suddenly like an animal who’d caught scent of a predator in shifting wind.
Standing there, I looked around.
I couldn’t see anything, or hear anything.
Well, nothing outside of the norm.
The early morning air was crisp, making my breath steam. I could see lights on down most of the block, people in windows probably getting ready for work. I could smell coffee along with the usual faint salt and brine tang in the air. I heard gulls, car horns, the swish of cars sweeping by on nearby Divisadero and Oak Streets. A monitor blared a news feed talking about something in China through another open window. I heard someone laughing…and a dog barking further up the street…but even those felt subdued.
For the city, it was quiet, but not weird quiet.
Normal early-morning, day-about-to-start quiet.
The whole, most-of-us-haven’t-finished-our-first-cup-of-java-yet type of quiet.
And nothing, absolutely nothing I could see or hear, was wrong.
It annoyed me. Not the quiet itself, or the lack of bad vibes, but the increasing frequency of these sudden starts and hesitations, like I’d turned into a frightened deer overnight. Like I was jumping at fucking shadows. I’d never done that before. Never. I’d never been someone who’d been afraid like that. Hell, if anything, I’d always been the opposite.
Well, according to Jon, anyway.
Some part of me couldn’t tolerate being one of those scared people that Cass and I used to roll our eyes at when they expressed reservations about living in a city. I think that was worse than the fear itself: the self-doubt that came with it.
I wanted something tangible, I guess. Something I could wrap my arms around. Something I could point to, at least, where I could yell, “There! That’s it! THAT’s the fucking thing that has to go! That’s the problem!”
But I had no friggin’ idea what the problem was.
Which of course made me wonder if it was all in my head.
I hadn’t seen anything unusual, even though I’d been looking. Little things, sure. But I didn’t trust those things––they were the kinds of things that my mind might easily have made up.
Like my drawings.
I could have sworn my drawings had been messed with.
I couldn’t explain why I thought that either, though. The leather portfolio case had been in exactly the same place it always was, tucked up between the legs of my drafting table and desk. The drawings themselves even seemed to be in roughly the same order I remembered.
Even so, I couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that someone had rifled them. Like I could almost feel the remnants of those fingers and eyes still vibrating on the page.
A part of me was afraid it was Jaden, I guess.
He’d been calling me nonstop since that night.
He’d left messages, asking me what was wrong. He’d left apologies, telling me he thought I was into the whole thing––which made me wince and hit “delete” on my headset queue before I finished listening to him speak. He’d said we were all drunk, that his judgment had been off, that he never meant for anything bad to happen to me.
On one of those, he said he was falling in love with me.
Wait...to be precise, he said that he thought he might be falling in love with me.
The distinction struck me as relevant.
Whether it was or not, though, I didn’t want to hear Jaden’s professions of love. I didn’t want to hear his reasoning behind what I suspected he’d done to me, either, although some smaller, nagging part of me wanted to believe him, probably for reasons that had nothing to do with his credibility and everything to do with my pride.
Even I couldn’t delude myself that well, though.
For one thing, whether it angered me or not, I was rattled. I finally had to admit I’d been rattled enough to try and do something about it, again probably for reasons of pride and needing to feel I was “handling it” as much as anything connected to reality.
So I approached Jon.
I didn’t tell him anything, but I did ask if I could join his kung fu classes for awhile. He’d been surprised...but he’d also been enthusiastic. Really enthusiastic. In fact, he’d thrown me into his beginning classes with a gusto that made me wonder if he’d wanted me in there for awhile.
I found it strangely comforting, in a way, to embrace who I was.
I wasn’t like other people. Jon knew it. Cass knew it, too, although she’d probably deny it if I asked. My parents knew. Hell, even my grandmother knew.
I was different.
I was different, and I needed to be able to defend myself.
Weirdly, it had been pride that kept me from that realization, too. Or maybe just denial, like with everything else. I knew I’d long harbored a desire to just be normal. I tried to convince myself I would grow into normality somehow…like kids grew into big feet or dumbo ears.
But I knew now, that was pretty unlikely.
So I deleted the messages, practiced choy li fut, and I tried to shove Jaden and Mickey from my mind. Eventually, I deleted the messages without listening to them, as soon as I saw his name flashing in the queue.
I didn’t tell anyone about that night...not even Jon.
Then again, what was I going to tell them?
When the blackout lifted, most of what I remembered had seen consensual. I’d come out of Jaden’s bedroom from being passed out…and I’d started having sex with him. I did it right in front of his friends, and in front of at least one of their girlfriends.
Then, when Jaden suggested it, I started having sex with his band members, too.
The problem was, while all of it made me cringe, I couldn’t remember saying no to any of it. I couldn’t remember Jaden forcing me. I couldn’t remember drinking, or doing drugs…or anything that explained why I would have done those things.
All I knew was, someone lied to me. Either I was lying to myself, to the point of being totally divorced from reality…or someone else fed me a line of total b.s.
My vote was Jaden, but I had no proof.
I wasn’t willing to talk about it with anyone, either. Not Jon. Not Cass.
Sure as fuck not Jaden himself.
It lingered around me like a scent, though, that bad feeling.
More than that, it brought up emotions I hadn’t dealt with since I
was kid. That sick, stomach-wrenching feeling, for one. The knowledge that I was different…that there was something wrong with me, that there was something wrong with me sexually, in particular…mixed with a helpless anger that almost scared me more, if only because I could feel the colder violence behind it. Some part of me wanted to hurt the fucker.
Like, really hurt him.
I didn’t like that feeling...even apart from the fact that it could land me in jail.
Maybe I just didn’t want to know what I was really capable of, when push came to shove. I remembered people making bravado claims about what they’d do if this happened to them or that happened to them. Usually they were full of shit. Jon said the same. People talked a lot of trash, but most of them wouldn’t do anything.
But I could feel that part of me now. The part of me that was dead fucking serious. I could feel the part of me that would hurt someone.
For real, I mean.
So I just removed the possibility from my mind.
I focused on Jon’s self-defense training, instead. I focused on the thought that it wouldn’t happen again, not to me…that I wouldn’t let it.
I knew that was more bravado, too, but I didn’t care.
Jon showed up at Baker Beach that morning, just like that voice...or presence...or whatever it was...said he would. I didn’t question that much at the time, either, or since, really. I still didn’t want to think about how weird that aspect of things had been, or the fact that he...or it…or whatever he or it was…was probably just a hallucination.
The fact that I could still feel traces of his anger when I concentrated hard enough, along with things that felt a lot more personal...was irrelevant.
Or so I told myself.
Because hell, the last thing I needed was to start walking that road of questioning things about my own sanity.
Or worse. I could start questioning my race.
It didn’t help how I’d been found and adopted as a kid. I knew law enforcement thought I was a seer when they first found me under that overpass as a baby. They did blood test after blood test, trying to confirm that I wasn’t human, but every test screamed human at them anyway. Eventually, they had to leave me and my adoptive parents alone.