by Minton, Toby
She launched herself to the side at the last second, turned in the air, and crashed into Coop. Her shoulder caught him on the chin, causing more surprise than damage but giving her all the opening she needed. She didn’t use it, however. He wasn't her real target either.
Nikki pushed off Coop and into the onrushing Cole and laid into him with everything she had. She didn't try anything fancy. She didn't try to remember a single technique she'd learned over the past week. She didn't pay attention to her training, or to her doubt, or even to the images Michael was trying desperately to hold back. She listened only to the fury.
She let go.
She struck with fists, elbows, knees, feet—each strike adding a trickle to the current of oblivion beckoning to her, each blow pushing her farther from her painful reality.
Letting go meant casting aside concern for her own safety and that of her enemies, which is what her sparring partners became, what they had to become. To let go she couldn't hold on to her feelings about the people she was fighting. She couldn't measure attack speed and pull punches. She had to forget they were instructors, friends, or even people at all. They became faceless enemies.
Wherever she sensed an opening, she smashed it with whatever was closest—and not just on Cole. She raged from target to target, one enemy to the next, wherever the flow of battle took her. She didn't think—she acted.
She punched, catching someone on the chin. Another enemy reared up as the first fell away, and she spun under his attack, driving her elbow into his ribs.
She rode the current of sweet adrenaline rushing through her, a weak stream compared to the raging river of power she used to know, but still deep enough and strong enough to sweep away all thought, leaving raw instinct in its place. With the pulse of battle lust thundering in her heart, she wasn't broken anymore. She wasn't even herself anymore. She was an unstoppable force. She was a war machine doing what she was made to do.
She rolled under a heavy blow, kicking out, then ducked another strike. Catching the enemy's arm, she pulled him off balance, smashing her knee up into his falling chest.
Somewhere deep inside, a part of her quailed at what she was doing, pleading for her to stop. But the voice was barely a whisper next to the thundering beat of her own heart. She was beyond hearing. She kept fighting, focusing her rage on the biggest of her enemies, the one who kept coming back for more. The one who just wouldn't stay down.
She didn't know when she'd grabbed a weapon. Nor did she know when Michael had started yelling from inside her head and Elias from outside. All she knew was that when they finally got through to her, she stopped like she'd been hit with a blast of ice cold water. She had the empty weight bar raised over her head ready to bring it crashing down onto…Elias?
He was standing in front of her, one hand up to catch the bar, the other ready to defend against whatever else she might do. Behind him, Coop was on one knee, one hand to his head near a lump on his eye that was already swelling into a prize-worthy shiner. Sam was on his feet, but he was holding his ribs, and the look in his eyes made Nikki shift her focus somewhere, anywhere else.
Her gaze landed on Cole standing on the other side of Elias. He looked calm and almost pleased with himself, even though his nose was bent to the side in a stomach-turning way and blood was running down his chin. As she watched, he put his thumb up to his nose and shoved it back into place with a grinding pop. He wiped the blood away with one callused hand and flung it to the floor as Nikki slowly lowered the bar, letting one end of the heavy hunk of metal drop to the mat.
"That's what she can do, soldier boy," Cole said, his voice as calm as his face, like the aggression of the past few minutes never happened. "That's what she is," he said, his hard eyes softening. "That's her beauty."
He turned and walked toward the door, where Ace was holding a distraught Kate in her arms like she was trying to restrain and comfort her at the same time.
"You don't teach a berserker control," Cole said without looking back. "You point her at the enemy and stay the hell out of her way. Know that."
He stopped in the doorway, glanced at Kate and Ace, then looked over his shoulder and met Nikki's eye. "Thanks for the workout, little slip," he said, giving her a nod. Then he walked out.
A sound from Kate drew Nikki's attention. Everyone else's was already on the shaken girl, watching her struggle to hold herself together.
"…not crazy," she was saying, voice getting louder by the word. "You saw him. Didn't you? You did. He was—he was there. You saw him. You heard him. Didn't you?"
Ace looked up, her expression mirroring Elias's. Neither of them looked at Nikki. Nobody did, which was somehow worse.
"Come on, honey," Ace said. "That's enough excitement for one day. Let's get you somewhere less crowded."
Nikki looked away as they stood. She couldn't meet Kate's eyes. Her shame bucket was already overflowing.
Nikki, you have to tell them. Michael used his serious voice, the one he used when he really dug in his heels.
What? That we're both crazy? she snapped in her head, eyes squeezed shut again.
You're not crazy, he said. Neither is Kate. But if you don't tell them you can hear me too…
He really believed it. She could feel as much. But if he was just a product of her imagination, he wouldn't tell her she was crazy, would he? He'd tell her what she wanted to hear, make her feel what she expected to feel.
She couldn't deal with this—not now. Not after what she'd just gone through. With the adrenaline from the fight fading, every bump, bruise, and potential fracture was starting to make itself felt, and there were many. But as bad as the aching promised to be, it was nothing next to the emotional throb that was setting up shop in her chest.
Before the looks she was failing to avoid could turn that throb into a crippling cramp, she fled. Keeping her eyes down, Nikki slipped past the slow-moving Kate and Ace and stepped into the hall. She told herself she wouldn't run, that she'd fight the urge, maintain a casual, unhurried pace. She told herself she'd hang on to the few tattered shreds of self-respect she had left.
She failed.
* * *
Nikki, you have to tell them, Michael said as soon as she slammed the vault-like door, sealing herself safely inside her room.
She kept her hands pressed flat against the door and took a deep but shaky breath. She closed her eyes and breathed out slowly through her mouth, imagining the air taking all her stress and pain away with it.
It didn't.
"I can't do this with you right now," she whispered.
She was too exhausted, physically and emotionally, to argue. And definitely too exhausted to play at analyzing her fears and feelings and putting them into words. All she wanted at the moment was to be left alone. But Michael wasn't giving up.
Nikki, they need to know.
She leaned forward and rested her forehead against the cool metal between her hands, and even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, she asked, "Why?"
Because…
His forced pause finished the thought as well as the swallowed words would have. Because of Kate, he'd been about to say. She'd bet her bed on it. What she didn't know was why he'd stopped himself. If he thought she didn't care, he was a bigger idiot than she looked in her stupid vest.
Keeping her head on the door, she reached back with one hand to fumble with the vest straps.
Because I'm asking you to, he said. For me.
She had to hand it to him. He knew how to get to her. He was also desperate if he was willing to play the guilt card this early. Not surprising, considering this all had to do with Kate.
Nikki didn't respond. She just continued working blindly on the straps, getting nowhere. Her hands, like the rest of her, were shaky from the fight. She couldn't call it a sparring session. It may have started out that way, but after Michael had…done whatever he had, the session had turned real. She felt a thrill at the memory of what she'd done, the way she'd cut loose, the way s
he'd felt alive again for the first time in months. But the thrill was short lived. It didn't survive the sucking whirlpool of their mingled concern for Kate.
You can ignore me if you want, but I'm not letting this go. Not until you tell them Kate's not crazy, he said.
Getting Michael off her case was a strong motivator, but it couldn't compete with her fear of losing him, which was exactly why the thought of telling the others about him made her chest feel like it was caving in. She couldn't risk it. She was too afraid of what might happen if she brought Michael out into the light of day.
Maybe nothing would happen. Maybe nothing would change. Maybe. But if…if he was no more than a creature of her fractured mind, no more than just a part of her foggy memory of who she used to be, then what was to stop the sun from just burning him away, leaving her well and truly alone?
Why couldn't Michael just let it go? If he could hear everything she thought, he had to know why she was afraid to say something. Even if he couldn't hear what she was thinking, he couldn't miss what she was feeling. Why didn't he understand?
I do understand, Nikki, he said softly. But telling people about me isn't going to make me go away. You aren't imagining me.
"That's what an imaginary brother would say," she said aloud.
I'm really here. You know that. And you're not going to lose me again. Not if I can help it.
She wanted to believe him. She wished she had his faith that everything would be okay, but she just didn't have it in her.
She didn't notice the first tear fall. She tried to pretend the second didn't happen. But she couldn't ignore the flood that followed.
Feeling weak was the last thing she wanted, but it was all just too much. The fight, her aching body, the pain she'd inflicted on people she cared about, failing the person she loved most, again… Nikki's legs folded under her when the sobbing started.
For the second time that day, she gave in and let go.
Chapter 24
Kate
They were talking about her again. From the corridor outside the command center, she could hear everything they said without being seen, which suited her at the moment. She wasn't proud of eavesdropping like a coward instead of participating in the discussion like an adult, but a little shame was preferable to suffering looks of concern and pity. She'd had enough of those over the last four months to last a lifetime.
Kate hugged her knees tighter to her chest and tried to relax a little to get rid of the grimace. No one was around to see, but just in case, she wanted to look as normal and sane as possible. A pained and confused look was not going to help her sanity case.
"It's your call, Gram," Elias said in the room behind her.
"You think I don't know that?" her grandfather snapped back.
He was doing that even more than usual lately. Because of Kate. Her brain damage had him on edge. It had them all on edge.
No, not damage, she reminded herself, closing her eyes and leaning her head back against the concrete. There was nothing wrong with her brain, nothing wrong with the hardware, at least, even though she'd thought so at first.
For weeks after the voices started, Kate had believed they were a product of scar tissue and misfiring synapses. She'd assumed her unnaturally quick healing at Gideon's hands had been less than perfect, that it had left her broken.
To determine the full extent of the damage she'd put herself through a battery of tests. She worked puzzles designed to test logic, spatial reasoning, memory—both short and long term—tests of fine motor skills and reflexes, and even tests of empathy and social awareness, just to be sure. She passed every test with no sign of deficiency, yet the voices continued.
Her failure to find a problem did indicate a cause, however. Eliminating other possibilities told her what she was dealing with was not a hardware issue it all. It was a software problem. Either she was misinterpreting basic sensory input—hallucinating—or she was receiving signals her brain simply didn't have the knowledge to understand. Either way, her connection to reality was no longer stable. Of that she was certain.
Especially after today.
Today Michael's voice got so loud she thought her eardrums would rupture. Then she saw him. She really saw him with her eyes, not just in her imagination. He'd been standing right in front of her in the gym. And when she spoke to him, he heard her. He looked at her.
Then he faded away, leaving Nikki in his place and proving to Kate, yet again, that seeing and believing were no longer one and the same. Not for her.
"What about Dr. Morgan?" Gram said in the command center.
"She hasn't the expertise for Kate's condition," Gideon said. His voice grew louder halfway through, like he was turning toward the door. He kept doing that. Kate imagined him looking directly at her through the wall, like he knew she was there, like he was waiting for her to screw up her nerve and come in.
Maybe she should. She'd been avoiding the issue for months, just like everyone else. They, at least, were finally talking about it. They were deciding what to do with her. She should be in there.
Kate stood up, but that's as far as she got. Back pressed even more tightly against the wall, she drew in on herself further as she listened to the debate about her future continue.
When someone grabbed her hand, she nearly jumped out of her skin. When she saw who it was, her stomach dropped. She was hallucinating again.
"I suck," Nikki said.
The hand gripping Kate's in a painful grip felt real enough, and the voice had come from outside her head, not inside. Kate's stomach settled a little as she took a breath. Maybe she could trust her senses this time.
"What do you mean?" Kate replied after an awkward pause. Better late than never.
But Nikki didn't seem to have noticed. She was staring at the open doorway to the command center like she wanted to hurt it. Then she looked back at Kate, and her eyes softened, thankfully. Those eyes were puffy and red, like she had been crying.
"I'm sorry I didn't do this earlier," Nikki said. "Come on."
She started toward the command center doorway, pulling Kate along with her, but she jerked to a stop after two steps. Kate bumped into her before she could stop herself.
"Wait," Nikki said. "Before we go in…"
She pulled Kate into a hug so fierce and desperate it pushed the questions right out of Kate's head. After so many weeks of self-imposed isolation, suddenly feeling the warmth of someone's touch, feeling the weight of the emotion wrapping itself around her in those strong arms, Kate was so overwhelmed she returned the embrace just as tightly and forgot about everything else, even breathing.
Nikki broke the hug as suddenly as she'd initiated it, pushing Kate back to arm's length and grabbing her hand again.
"That's from Michael," she said. "He wanted me to do more, I'm sure, but that's all you're getting. This is weird enough as it is." She almost smiled, but it slid away as her eyes found the doorway again. "All right. Let's do this."
The conversation stopped as soon as they walked in. Everyone looked surprised to see them. Everyone except Gideon.
"Two things," Nikki said, marching up the steps to the command platform, sounding brusquely confident despite the white-knuckle grip she had on Kate's hand. Kate didn't know what she envied more—the fact that Nikki wasn't hesitating to do something she clearly didn't want to do, not even a little, or the fact that she sounded so sure and strong doing it.
"First, Kate is no crazier than I am," Nikki said. Then she screwed up her face. "That's not helpful," she mumbled, but loudly enough that everyone had to hear it.
They were all there too. From the corridor Kate had heard Ace, Gram, Elias, and Gideon, but not the others. Coop, Impact, and Padre were standing or leaning against the rail around the tac table. Even Mos was there in one of the seats, looking stronger than he had in days. Only Corso and Cole were missing, but Kate didn't consider them part of the group, not truly. She was relieved, in a way, that the people trying to decide her fate were on
ly those she cared about.
"She's no crazier than any of you…" Nikki trailed off, mumbling under her breath this time. "Point is she's not crazy. She's telling the truth."
Nikki did pause then. For just a second her nerve wavered, and Kate could see how hard this was for her to say. Even though she was feeling anything but confident herself, she squeezed Nikki's hand in what she hoped was a reassuring manner.
"Michael is still here." Nikki paused, her jaw clenching briefly before she said, "He has been since he died."
Kate had known what Nikki was going to say. She'd known as soon as they'd walked in. But hearing it still sent a chill through her that took her breath. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. She wanted to hug Nikki's neck. She wanted to shout, to dance. Instead, she settled for another hand squeeze that she hoped conveyed even a tiny fraction of the gratitude and relief flooding through her.
You're really not going nuts, she told herself, fighting the urge to laugh hysterically. This time, for the first time, she actually believed herself. Because this time, she wasn't alone in saying it.
"You don't believe me," Nikki said flatly, looking around at the mixed expressions staring back at them. The mix was heavy on concern from some of the team, the same concern Kate had seen in every pair of eyes she'd met lately.
"Darlin', I'm not even sure what you just said." For Coop, the look was pure confusion.
"Michael," Nikki snapped. "He's not gone. He's here. How hard is that to understand?"
"Here?" Coop asked, pointing toward the floor at his feet. "In this room?"
"Here," Nikki corrected, pointing at herself. "In this head."
"And in…that one?" Coop asked with exaggerated slowness and clear disbelief, pointing at Kate.
"No," Nikki answered, turning to look at Kate too. Only then did Kate realize she was shaking her head slightly.
"I don't think so," Kate said, her mind racing through the possibilities.