“Friends,” he said. “Ullsya’s people.”
She looked up. Her eyes still shone with that faint light, greener even with the contacts, and a whisper of pain went through his chest.
Fuck.
“You aren’t acting like they’re friends,” she said.
He shrugged, forcing his eyes off hers. “They are curious about you.” He hesitated. “Do not talk to them, Allie. Stay out of their way.”
“You just said they were friends.”
“I just mean… do not distract them from their job.”
“Did she call you ‘sir’?”
His face grew warm. Her attention to detail was starting to unnerve him a little. “Yes.”
“Are we in the military now?”
“No.” He stared down at her face, at a loss. “We’ll talk about it later. After we sleep, Allie.”
She nodded absently, clearly hearing the “sleep” part and not much else.
He hesitated, glancing back over his shoulder at Chandre. He needed to get them in contact with the infiltration team in San Francisco, as soon as possible. When he looked at the hunter, he saw her nod, just before she signed that they had someone on it already.
Apparently Chandre had done more than look at the structure in Allie’s light that connected her to him.
We’ll have news in under an hour, sir.
Revik gestured for her to give it to him alone.
He waited until Chandre gestured in assent, but he didn’t miss the appraising look she gave him at the request.
He glanced at Allie again. He suspected she already knew what had happened in San Francisco. Even so, he knew from experience that knowing and knowing were two different things. He didn’t want her receiving verification of some loved one’s death as an emotionless report from an infiltrator who viewed her family as nothing but human collaterals.
He continued to study the Bridge’s face as she gazed up at the ship’s high walls, trying not to care that the guards were watching him look at her, or that her proximity was having an effect on him again, an effect they could probably see in his light.
He had to remind himself that she’d only been awake a few weeks, that she still didn’t understand how she was different. He had to remind himself also that she really had no idea what was going on with the two of them, either.
Perhaps it had been a mistake to not let Ullysa and the others explain it to her in Seattle.
He was still watching her face when she leaned on his arm, merging her light overtly into his. Sucking in a breath, he closed his light, glancing reflexively at the seers watching. He saw more than one of them smiling and turned his gaze up the white face of the ship.
Shuffling his feet forward with the rest of the crowd, he willed the line to go faster.
22
GRIEF
A WOLF RUNS across the tundra, tongue flicking over black lips, body elongating in rhythmic waves. It extends to full stride and retracts, stretching paws so that none of its feet touch the ground. Insanity flickers behind its eyes, joy in its feet pounding the snow in steady bursts of powder. It runs at a tall, dark form marring the white plain.
I scream, my voice torn by wind.
The man doesn’t turn. He is too far away.
He doesn’t hear me.
Dawn colors the sky. A dark shape burns in the distance, filling the pale blue with a curl of smoke like ink expelled in the ocean. My chest feels as if someone’s taken an ice pick to it, hitting it again and again, digging out the tender light at its core.
It is a feeling worse than death.
I JERKED AWAKE. For a long-feeling few moments, I could only lie there, gasping. Behind my eyes, the wolf is tearing the man apart, eating his heart out of his chest.
My breath caught…
Then someone moved.
An arm tightened around my waist. Warm weight pinned me to something soft. I looked down, staring at the arm; it took another few blinks before I recognized the lean lines, the fine black hair, the long fingers. My eyes focused on the silver ring he wore around his smallest finger. I felt his chest press against my back, his fingers clench lightly on my shirt.
Then I remembered.
Grief came without warning, with a depth and intensity I had no way to evade. Days had gone by and it still wouldn’t let me forget, wouldn’t let me push it from my mind for more than minutes, even seconds at a time.
Everything amplified, got harder to control.
Revik told me that was normal, part of the “awakening” I was experiencing from being a seer. Seers felt more, he said. They were more irrational, more volatile with their emotions.
I’d been living among humans so long I’d learned to adjust, but my seer nature was waking up. I was changing.
Knowing that didn’t help anything, though. Knowing it was normal––that feeling like I was being punched repeatedly in the chest––didn’t do anything to alleviate it.
I couldn’t talk to my brother. I couldn’t go to her funeral.
She was just gone.
Even more than dad, she’d just vanished totally out of my life. Forever.
And it was my fault. Adopting me had done this to her.
Revik heard me thinking that. He told me I was wrong.
He didn’t elaborate, although a few of the other seers tried. One told me I had a greater purpose, that my mother’s sacrifice was noble, that she was honored to be in my life.
I hit him in the face. I probably would have hit him again, but Revik dragged me back, then took me back to our cabin. I knew they meant well. But I fought a near-violent reaction towards all of the seers as I replayed his words again like a dead-sounding record.
Revik told me how it happened.
He hadn’t soft-pedaled it. He didn’t pull any punches at all. He relayed all of it, word for word, watching my eyes as he spoke.
I remembered everything he’d said.
Found her in her house. She’d been dead several hours, Allie. Most of her blood was gone.
Behind me, his arm tightened, then slid upward, wrapping around me lengthwise. His fingers curled over my shoulder, drawing my back snugly against his chest.
His mental voice had been soft as he translated for the infiltration team in San Francisco, not leaving anything out, not embellishing. As he spoke, I’d seen and heard what they found as they picked their way through Mom’s house like shadows among the SFPD.
Images accompanied his words. My mother’s eyes stared up from where she lay by the television below a section of wall painted in her blood. A child’s handprint stood out, small and innocuous-looking, like the outline of a Thanksgiving turkey drawing made in kindergarten.
Someone had eaten a sandwich and left the crusts on Jon’s old Transformers plate on the low coffee table beside the body, along with a half-full glass of milk. The bedroom showed signs of a struggle, sheets half on the floor, a lamp broken.
The cops took pictures of a dark stain on the carpet by the lamp.
They took pictures of another rust-colored handprint on the refrigerator door, that one adult-sized. They photographed the body from every possible angle, then zipped it up in a bag, like the garbage Mom always forgot to put on the curb.
I felt the weight of guilt on Revik as he relayed details ruthlessly.
I didn’t blame him, though. My mom’s safety couldn’t possibly have been his priority.
It should have been mine.
The news media agreed. Within an hour, the feeds began accusing me of matricide, saying I’d allied with seer terrorists against homo sapiens. They argued on talk-show feeds about whether other seers brainwashed me into going along, or if I’d masterminded the whole thing. The police claimed to have DNA proof that I’d done the actual killing, as well as evidence that a male seer, possibly more than one, had ejaculated in my mother’s bed while Mom lay dying.
That last part, Revik said, was deliberately crafted to incite public outrage.
It didn’t make it
any easier to hear.
We sat on the couch in the small ship’s cabin for hours that first night. He led me there before he told me anything.
Sitting me down, he peeled the prosthetics off my face carefully, throwing them one by one into a small trashcan while I watched. He indicated for me to remove the contact lenses. Once I had, he threw those away as well.
He pulled me to him then, holding me against his chest as if to contain something that might otherwise explode outward, coating the cabin walls with their seashell-decorated wallpaper and bland paintings. After he’d gotten the initial reports back from Chandre—the small, muscular, female seer with black braids and frightening-looking reddish eyes who commanded the shipboard Guard—I still hadn’t been able to cry. I had no idea if he drugged me, or used his light to get my vigil to finally end, but eventually I fell asleep.
That had been days ago.
The cruise ship docked at least once during that time, letting human tourists off for shore excursions and kayaking, trips to see wooden totem poles carved as eagles and bear spirits, and authentic salmon bakes with real Native Americans.
Revik parked me in front of a media player with a remote, the room service menu, and a list of pay-per-view channels. I’d flipped through listlessly before settling on a bland comedy with a talking dog and two teenagers who were doing… something.
Now, it was dark outside again.
I heard the sound of water being pushed out of the way by the ship’s prow, flowing outside past our cabin. The glass door to the balcony stood propped open, a single orange bulb glowing over its frame, illuminating spray-filled wind.
Revik disliked enclosed spaces, I’d learned, especially while he slept. Air always had to be flowing from somewhere, no matter how cold. He’d sat with me again that night, once he got back from one of his wanders outside the cabin.
After what felt like hours where we curled up together on the couch, he got up, stretched, and left me sitting on one end like a posable doll. He went through cabinets, searching drawers and in-built closets along the curved walls and even in the bathroom.
I had no idea what he was looking for, until he emerged with a bottle of vodka and a gun.
I’d laughed aloud.
He aimed a quizzical look in my direction until I motioned for him to pass over the vodka, which he’d done reluctantly. Taking the bottle back as I started to open it with my fingers, he poured me a glass, watched me down it in a single shot. He poured me one more, and while I drank it, the bottle promptly disappeared. I didn’t see where he hid it, although I watched him, fighting a head rush from the alcohol, so tired I literally couldn’t make myself stand, though I’d barely moved all day and badly needed the toilet.
Taking my arm, he’d pulled me to my feet.
Opening a series of drawers, he grabbed the tank top, underwear and sweats I now wore before steering me into the bathroom and laying the clothes on the sink.
Seeing him about to speak, possibly to say something more meaningful than I could handle right then, I pointed at the clothes.
“Are those mine?” I actually recognized the shirt.
He nodded. “Ullysa took care of it.”
I felt a strange surge. “Oh.”
He felt where my head was going. “Before, Allie. While your family was still being questioned by SCARB and the Feds.” He hesitated. “Do you need help? You should take a shower.”
After a pause that stretched longer than it should have, I shook my head.
Studying my eyes a few seconds longer, Revik let go of my arm and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind him. Fingering the clothes still on my body, I realized those were mine too. I wondered how long I’d worn them, and replayed Revik’s comment about a shower. That was probably his way of telling me I stank.
I felt broken; I couldn’t believe how broken I felt.
I couldn’t believe I was letting him be the one to pick up the pieces.
My mind tried to wrap around what that meant, fighting to snap out of it, to let him off the hook. I needed to pull my shit together. I needed to at least convince him I had, so he didn’t feel like he had to hover over me night and day.
I thought about that the whole time I showered. The room had filled with steam by the time I finally came out, but it felt like no time had passed at all.
It had, though. He already lay on the bed, his pale legs sprawled on the coverlet beneath gray sweat shorts. His legs were muscular, I noticed, with a fine coating of dark hair. He caught me staring.
“It’ll be cold,” I said. “With the door open.”
He gestured me over, not speaking. I followed the motion of his hands in something like resignation, despite everything I’d been thinking while I showered. Other than guilt, I didn’t know what motivated him, but I couldn’t make myself care enough to ask him to stop. I let him hold me, thinking I’d never sleep after sleeping all day, then––
Nothing. I must have passed out.
He’d been talking to me, even then. I don’t remember everything he’d said, but some of it painted pictures in my mind, things that pulled at my light, distracted me. He’d shown me light patterns in Barrier starlight, nebulas made of gold and green light, volcanos erupting.
Thinking about that now, I looked at the balcony door.
Outside, black sky beckoned.
Pulling his fingers off me gently, I slid out from under his arm, shivering at another curl of wind that gusted through the cracked door. I angled my legs off the bed, touching my feet to the carpeted floor, trying not to move the mattress as I regained my feet.
Seconds later, I slid through the gap in the glass sliding door, stepping out onto our room’s balcony. My toes curled when they met the icy deck. Gripping the railing, I looked out over white and dark churning ocean before letting my gaze travel up.
Stars met the horizon in a cluster of pinpricks, creating a curved black bowl.
I blinked, tracing the swath of the Milky Way as I listened to faint music from other decks. When I reached out lightly with my seer’s sight, I saw the ship from the Barrier. From there I glimpsed bars, casinos, hot tubs, restaurants, a dance club. I saw maps inside the construct I swam through, what might have been tracers of the various seer guards moving through the ship, some of them on duty, some off.
I didn’t care about any of it.
My gaze drifted a few balconies over, to where a lithe form stood alone by a painted rail. I glimpsed the telltale cheekbones of Chandre framed by thin, black braids. She stood unnaturally still. It wasn’t the stillness of a living being. It was the stillness of a boulder, or a parked car.
Warm fingers touched my bare shoulder and I jumped violently.
I turned, relaxing when I saw his face.
I watched his gaze follow mine to the adjacent balcony. He stared at the other seer, and I wondered briefly if they were talking.
Then I remembered Kat and wondered something else.
His pale eyes flinched, shifting to mine.
After a pause, his hand grew warmer on my shoulder. His fingers ran lightly down my arm, then wound around mine.
“What are you doing?” he said, quiet.
I shivered, staring down at our joined hands.
Thinking about his question, I pointed up. His gaze followed mine and I saw his expression grow less hard as he took in the wash of stars. He continued to stand there, not moving. When the wind rose, I felt him shift the angle of his body so that it shielded more of mine.
Something in the warmth of having him near brought the emotions back without warning. I felt that kicking, punching thing at my heart begin again, the feeling I’d woken to, mixed with a silent photograph of a decomposing eye staring through matted, dark hair I used to like to tug on with my fingers.
He wrapped his arms around me.
“You need to cry,” he said. “Why don’t you cry?”
I didn’t have an answer.
“Do you want someone else here? A female?”
I shook my head. “No. I want you here.”
There was a silence. I felt myself blush at my unthinking honesty; I also felt my words touch him in some way. I felt him try to suppress it, even as his hands on me tightened.
Still thinking, I sighed. “I want a favor, though. You can say no.”
When he drew back, I studied his face. Seeing the taut look there, I smiled humorlessly.
It didn’t take much to arouse his paranoia, I’d also learned.
“Tracking,” I clarified. “Shielding. I can’t stand being this helpless. And I need to do something. I’ll lose my mind for real if I spend another day in bed.”
I felt him think. Interest grew in his light. Real interest.
“Tomorrow?” he said.
Relieved, I nodded. I leaned into him again and felt him react. I pretended not to notice, just like I always did when it happened, feeling him tense until the feeling faded in both of us. I knew I was taking advantage, letting things blur so much. I wondered if he’d even give me sex if I asked, if only to distract me from this.
I felt his breath pause.
“Is that what you want?” he said, low.
His words vibrated his chest against my ear, but I heard every one. I considered pretending I hadn’t.
“No,” I told him instead.
I did want it, though. I was pretty sure he knew that.
I wasn’t about to go that far in letting him try to fix me, though.
I felt him hesitate, as if hearing all of those things.
I felt conflict in him, indecision as he tried to decide if he should say more. But his relief was palpable. Palpable enough to make me feel worse.
I let my embarrassment be there, knowing he felt that, too.
There was nothing I could do about it, whatever I told myself. Pride became meaningless when everyone could read your mind; you could either accept being pathetic in hundreds of unexpected, unacknowledged ways, or go crazy.
He withdrew slightly from our embrace, then slid his light into mine as if to compensate, merging into me until I couldn’t move. I got lost there, like wandering into a vast space with no walls or corners. No sexuality lived behind it, nothing but warmth and light, like being immersed in steaming water. He relaxed more, willing me further in.
Rook (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #1): Bridge & Sword World Page 22