Five
WAKING UP
HE CROUCHED IN a high alcove, looking down over the pews of a church. I had to figure he was on a balcony to be so high above the floor.
Wherever he was, it was dark.
It was also quiet despite the time of day. A few whistles and whispers of wind snaked through the pockets and curves in the high-domed ceiling, but otherwise, the nearby area exuded silence. I heard a few voices carrying from outside. Despite the darkness of where Black waited, blue sky showed through white pillars around him, the sunlight hitting the white walls above where he knelt. White clouds scuttled by as he watched, high and pushed by a fast wind.
He was cold, being out of the sun.
Wherever he was, it looked familiar to me, although I couldn’t quite place it. Some of that might have been the strangeness of the angle where he sat. In fact, as I continued to look down through his eyes, I realized he wasn’t in an balcony at all.
He was somewhere higher––likely in the dome itself.
Wherever he was, it was high enough to give him a bird’s eye view of the church pews below, as well as a section of the gilded and white-clothed altar.
The church was closed. Repairs, maybe. Or maybe for some other reason.
Gold and royal blue and white, a curved mosaic of Christ with arms outstretched hung over the altar itself, just visible from his angle.
Christ in Majesty... Black thought, looking at the same mural. Same as our world. I saw it... in a book maybe? I know I never saw that version of Paris...
I felt the voice listening too, listening to Black think.
He would definitely want a body here. Just like in Notre Dame... Black thought.
Even so, I felt Black’s skepticism. He didn’t think Ian would come here today. This felt like a set-up to him, a way to wear him down, to keep him dancing when they said dance. He’d already been informed his presence was expected at some religious meeting that night, along with a handful of others new to the organization. He would have to meet with his handler before that. He’d be up all night.
He honestly wasn’t sure which was worse.
They usually went after his light while he slept.
The voice whispered, He’s right. Your ex-lover will want a body here... but he won’t come today. Lucky knows.
Do you know him? I asked the voice softly, so Black wouldn’t hear. Ian?
The voice exuded his answer, even before he spoke it. No.
Do you know Lucky? I pressed.
No.
The wind picked up, whispering through the high dome. I feel Black scanning the floor of the church. I feel how tired he is, how long he’s been awake.
Guilt always worked with him, the voice tells me.
My throat tightened.
I didn’t answer. I can feel Black’s mind wandering, remembering things from that other world. I can feel that he didn’t travel much, in that other place. When he did, he had no control over the destination. He moved when people bought him, when he had his ownership papers transferred to new owners.
Since he’d been in this world, he’d traveled though.
He made up for that lack of freedom in movement by making sure he saw any part of the globe that struck his fancy. For any fucking reason. Even to fight in another human war. Or to spend a weekend getting drunk and losing money on the tables in Macau.
Exhaling, he leaned into the short wall behind him, propping the rifle against his leg. Inside the church, the lights were all out. The only light illuminating the rows of benches and the stone statues and mosaic floors came from the sunlight filtering through colored windows, and from the dome itself, where Black crouched.
It was pretty, he thought. Churches always were more religious somehow, with no people in them. He felt more like that now, with all the crap Lucky’s people had been shoving down his throat. He closed his eyes briefly, sunlight playing on the backside of his lids.
He jerked awake a few seconds later, coming out of a light doze. I felt Black’s nerves ratchet higher as he used the scope again to stare down into that hollow space. I felt him holding his breath, his mind as still as a windless pond.
He spent a lot of his time in hideaways like this since he’d gotten here.
He’d also been shot at, more than once, by Ian, when the other seer had found him, and several times when Ian had been waiting for him before Black got set up.
One of those got close––too close, to my mind.
This was different than the other jobs he did for Lucky.
Black took it more seriously, for a lot of reasons.
I could feel glimmers of emotion off him as he held his breath, cursing himself for dozing off, for exposing himself to being shot at again. I’d already noticed that some of Black’s cockiness had dimmed in the months he’d been gone. He’d sobered in some way I still struggled to pin down––maybe partly due to what happened with Solonik in Thailand. I definitely got the sense he’d grown more cautious when it came to other seers.
I felt whispers of his thoughts around that.
Self-recriminations, mainly. He saw himself as having grown soft, overly complacent. He’d gotten too used to having an advantage over the people he went up against.
Like Solonik, the seer he hunted now was older than him.
Ian had probably fought in wars in that other world, too. Maybe dozens of them. Most seers had, especially those trained as infiltrators.
Black had no way of knowing what kind of training Ian had received though, or anything about his background really, apart from what made it to human records on this version of Earth. Black didn’t intend to underestimate him though, like he had with Solonik.
Lucky’s people wouldn’t tell him anything. Nothing he could believe.
He knew the seer hated him.
Worse––in Black’s mind, at least––the seer had a serious grudge against me.
The main thing I felt from Black however, was that he couldn’t let Ian get too far out of his sight. He couldn’t lose track of him here, with everything else going on. Black was hyper-aware he’d left me alone in San Francisco. I felt his fears around Ian and the things he might do––to me, especially. I felt him aware of my vulnerability, with the two of us physically apart.
It was interesting to me, in a morbid-fascination kind of way, just how different Ian looked through Black’s eyes compared to mine. More than that, it interested me just how different the situation between the three of us looked to Black than it ever had to me.
In Black’s mind, Ian would be furious that I was with Black now.
Black assumed that me and him being involved would be an unpardonable offense in Ian’s eyes. Really, from what I could tell from Black, it would be an unpardonable offense to any seer. Black broke some “code” seers had around sexual partners by dating me.
He’d done it more or less knowingly too. Enough so that he felt vaguely guilty about it, if only for the danger he’d put me in.
I still didn’t know exactly what that code entailed.
Whatever it was, in Black’s mind, Ian killing those poor kids in Thailand had been about that. Ian killing newlyweds in Paris was about that, as well. Further, Black seemed to think Ian wouldn’t be able to let it go. Black thought Ian still wanted to kill me primarily to keep me away from him, meaning away from Black himself.
I found that difficult to believe.
It also didn’t explain the original murders––meaning the Wedding Murders in San Francisco. From what I could tell, Ian killed those women mainly because he resented having to marry me, likely after being ordered to do so by Lucky.
All that started before I’d even heard of Quentin Black.
Whatever the truth of Ian, I had no doubt Black believed his own theory around broken seer “bro-codes.” The fact that Black saw it as personal only made him more cautious, not less, however, which is all I cared about.
I watched the rifle’s scope as he panned it over the floor of the darkened church. He scanned every visible inch of the cathedral through the telescopic lens. It only hit me then, why this rifle looked so different from the ones I’d seen Black using over the past however-many weeks.
He was holding a tranquilizer gun.
He was here for a live capture. Not a kill.
That had to be Lucky’s doing, too.
Whatever my feelings for Black, I had no illusions about how he’d deal with Ian, given the choice. If Black was trying to bring Ian in alive, it was because he was under orders to do it.
Truthfully, given what Ian had done and the unlikelihood of the police ever catching him, given what he was, I was more in sympathy with Black’s preferences than Lucky’s. I also knew Lucky couldn’t be trusted to have good motives for wanting Ian alive.
Anyway, I knew it wasn’t about revenge for Black.
Fear wasn’t his primary motivation either, although that played a part.
At the end of the day, Black was risk adverse. More than that, he had strong feelings about people who posed a risk to anyone who fell under his personal rubric of “family.” He would kill Ian simply to warn others away from what was his. He would do it because in his mind, taking the long view, it was the safest course of action for himself.
At the end of the day, Black saw me as his.
The idea stunned me a little.
It also turned me on, although I wasn’t sure it should.
You could ask me about the tranquilizer gun, Miriam... the voice whispers. It is faint, soft. Maybe so Black won’t hear us. Ask me what I think?
I sighed. Sometimes the presence felt like more of a child than an adult.
What’s significant about the gun? I thought back.
More games. More wasted time. He’ll never catch your ex-lover like this. Lucky knows. Lucky knows he won’t, Miri... he doesn’t want him caught. He wants him alive.
I gritted my teeth at the voice’s insistence on calling Ian my “ex-lover.”
What would you call him? the voice sent, curious.
A psychopath, I thought back.
I held my breath as the word got pulled apart and away by the wind. My mind coiled protectively around Black where he crouched in the dark, the stock of a tranquilizer rifle jammed up against his shoulder.
The voice watched us together.
Strangely, I felt it approve.
He’s yours too, Miriam, he sent softly, as if hearing me. But you have to take him back. They’ll never let him go willingly. It’s not a test Lucky wants... it’s control. He wants a good little doggy and Black won’t be that. He can pretend. He can play make-believe and let’s pretend... but in the end, Black’ll only get himself killed...
The voice drifted, falling into that melancholy it sometimes wore.
All of us can make sacrifices, Miriam. Black, too. But in the end, we can only be who we are. We can only be who we are in the end, Miriam...
I knew the voice was right.
I knew he was right about Black, too.
I OPENED MY eyes, staring up at a shadow-patterned ceiling.
I was in his bed, under his sheets... in his room.
I wondered if I’d come here for that reason.
To try and strengthen that connection again.
I was losing him. It hadn’t happened yet, but I could feel it coming, just like the voice told me it was coming. I saw it in my mind, like a light flickering at the horizon, drawing closer whenever I looked away. They wanted to take him from me.
I didn’t know why they wanted to separate us, but I could feel that tangibly too.
In the outside world, the differences remained invisible.
In the outside world, he was still Black. I still talked to him almost every day. There was nothing I could feel on him that was different, nothing I could notice at all when he was awake. He still claimed he was just doing a time-limited contract. Six months, then he was out.
But, like the voice said in the back of my mind, I knew it wouldn’t be that easy.
I knew they had no intention of really letting him go.
Black? My jaw firmed.
I didn’t want to distract him. I knew I could be putting him in danger, given what I’d just seen, but like Black himself, I had my doubts Ian would be coming. Lucky sent him on a snipe hunt––probably just because he could, to keep Black tired and over-stressed.
I also knew this couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
Black? Are you there? I prodded him a bit with my mind, sharper. Hey, I need to talk to you. You there? BLACK.
I felt his presence filter around me slowly, wrapping around me, enveloping me in heat and light and affection. I also felt the caution there, and the fact that his mind remained split, still halfway focused on the floor of the cathedral below the barrel of his tranquilizer rifle.
More than that, I felt him pretending he’d been asleep, that I’d woken him up.
He did it to reassure me, I knew. He also did it to keep me from asking questions.
It didn’t reassure me though. Not even a little.
Hey baby, he sent, his thoughts sleepy-sounding. What’s up?
Warmth swam through me, liquid affection.
Gods, I’m hard already. He said it teasingly, pulling on me, but I felt a flicker of truth in his words. When I didn’t answer, his thoughts sharpened. What is it? What’s wrong, Miriam?
I fought back my reaction to feeling so much of him.
I also fought back my reaction to his blatant lie.
Shaking my head without really answering him, I stared up at the darkened ceiling, only faintly lit by the moon. I was high enough here, in his penthouse apartment, that no other buildings leaked light into where I was.
Are you at my place? he sent.
That heat on him intensified, coiling around my body.
As I closed my eyes, letting him in, his presence turned more pulling, that longing shifting from less of a means of distracting me and more into the real thing. That warmer affection morphed into an aching kind of pain, what Black called “separation pain.”
He told me seers experienced that pain when they wanted sex.
He said sometimes it wasn’t really about sex though––it could be about affection too, or simply a desire for a more intense connection with someone, sexual or not. Kids who got separated from their parents too young got it. Siblings who lost siblings could get it, too. Close friends could get it as well, along with lovers and family.
He said it could also be a more general wanting of affection and connection and physical contact. He said sometimes it could also be very specific to a particular person.
With him and me, he admitted, it was both.
I was almost used to the sensation now.
Unlike regular physical pain, it felt more like a confused mix of pain and desire and even loneliness. Sometimes it got so bad I couldn’t eat. I remembered feeling like this when Zoe died. I remembered learning to stifle it when my parents died, too.
Whatever it was, it was getting worse lately. For me, at least.
Gods, Miri, he sent, as if hearing me. You have no idea how fucking badly I want to be there right now...
His words brought it back, the memory of what I’d seen, just minutes before.
Is it daytime where you are? I asked.
Yes... I saw him glance at his watch. Eleven-thirty. Coming on noon... I watched him yawn behind my eyes, knowing that was put on too, although he did feel tired, more tired than he was admitting to me. I had a late night. Surveillance. Why?
I noted the information, even as I glanced at my own clock.
He’d never been that careless before. He really was tired.
Are you at home, in the apartment? That place with the fireplace?
Yes. His thoughts grew wary. I felt him going over what he’d told me already, what I’d asked. His mind grew warier still. Why?
I sighed, fingering the pendant around my neck.
You know why. I didn’t wait for his reply, but decided to cut the crap all the way. Look, I know where you are. I can fucking see you, Black. Right now... most of the time now, if you want the truth. I see more than I’ve been telling you. I see more all the time. I feel more all the time too, and not all of it is stuff you seem to want me to know...
I hesitated again, still gripping the pendant.
I’m done. I’m not waiting anymore, okay? I can’t do this, Black. I can’t just sit here and wait for you anymore. So after today, I’m not going to. I needed you to know that.
Silence.
Real silence that time.
Images of Nick flickered through his mind. It might have made me laugh under different circumstances. Not because it was funny––I knew he was paranoid about Nick. I also knew why he was paranoid, and that it was mostly my fault.
But Nick was so far from what I’d been thinking just then, Black and I might have been in two different conversations.
I felt him taking my words, pulling them apart. I felt his fear and jealousy worsen as he tried to decide what I was really telling him.
Oh? he sent casually. Can you explain that, doc?
I shook my head, but not to his question.
Or maybe to the question he hadn’t asked.
Black, no. Still tugging at the necklace, I shook my head again. That’s not what I meant. You’re misunderstanding me... relax, okay? Relax, Black.
When his wariness didn’t lessen, I opened myself to him more, pushing reassurance at him, warmth, letting him feel more of me.
He reacted to that too.
Within seconds, his presence grew hotter, sliding deeper into mine.
Gods, he sent. Are you trying to give me a heart attack? You’re not breaking up with me? This isn’t the go-fuck-yourself speech?
I smiled at the ceiling, shaking my head.
Not breaking up with you, Black.
But you’re tired of waiting? I felt him hesitate, not sure if he should ask, or maybe what he should ask. I don’t know how to ask this, Miri... he sent, even as I thought it. I know it’s not really my business, but––
I’m not sleeping with anyone else, Black. I’m not saying I’m about to, or threatening to... so stop worrying about me like that, okay? There is no one else. I promise. You’ve misunderstood me. Completely. That’s not where this is going.
His relief intensified, enough to make me smile again, but not really in humor. I was worried he was in mortal danger and he was worried I was going to have sex with someone else.
Typical.
Miri, he sent, pulling on me again. Don’t tease me. Tell me what you mean.
I’m not teasing you, Black. I’m telling you I’m not waiting for you anymore. I don’t care what you say... or about your overprotective bullshit. I’m not doing it.
But what does that actually mean?
I let out an incredulous snort. What do you think it means? It means I’m coming to where you are. I’m not going to sit here and keep trying to convince you to come back. It’s obviously not working. You’re not listening to me, no matter what I say. And since none of your damned goons will help me, I’m doing it on my own.
Silence fell in the darkness between us.
Miri... He hesitated, and that pain on him worsened. Baby, I want to see you so fucking badly. You have no idea. But you can’t. You can’t come here, okay? Please. Go to Hawaii or something if you’re going stir-crazy there. You can use my money for whatever you want. Take your friends too. He paused, his thoughts sharper. But not Nick––
Jesus, Black, I don’t need a goddamned vacation.
Miri, you can’t come here. I’m serious. You can’t.
I shook my head. I wasn’t asking, Black. I was telling you.
That pain on him intensified. Miri... I understand. Gods... I really really understand. I know it’s hard. I know what you’re going through right now, but please don’t come here––
What I’m going through? I sent.
He fell silent.
That time, a density lived in his silence.
When he still didn’t speak, my heart started beating harder in my chest.
Black? What am I going through? What are you talking about?
When I couldn’t feel anything from him, I felt myself listening harder, even as I fought to understand what I’d already reacted to. Before I could wrap my head around it, his presence surrounded me, filling me from all sides. I got a flicker of the dome where he sat, remembered where he was. Even as I did, his thoughts backpedaled.
They grew subdued. Cautious.
He sighed, as if giving in.
I just meant... the seer thing, Miri. The seer thing, you understand? You’re changing. I know you’ve noticed. We’ve talked about it. He hesitated. That time, I felt the barest hint of calculation behind his thoughts. Well. Perhaps not in so many words... but I thought we’d talked about it somewhat. More or less. You said you’d felt things. You said I was different, too. You said we both felt different to you. Remember, Miriam... ?
I frowned. My fingers wrapped around the pendant I wore, the one he’d given back to me. I thought you said that was nothing.
It is nothing, he said at once. You’re only half seer. It’s not a big deal.
How am I changing, Black?
Even as I asked it, I knew.
I knew some of it at least.
His thoughts grew cagier. I can only feel pieces of it, doc...
I tugged on the chain around my neck. Stop dancing, Black. Tell me. Changing how? I focused back on the ceiling, my face warming. You mean the sex stuff? I grunted. Like the fact I practically raped you while you were here?
I told you why I said no, he sent. I explained that, Miri.
I know you did. That wasn’t a dig. Not at you anyway.
He had explained it. Finally.
In part, at least.
We talked about that during the same period when we first started talking again over Christmas. I still couldn’t quite believe his reasons. I don’t mean I think he was lying, but what he’d told me blew my mind a little.
A ninety-year-old virgin, I mused. How is that possible?
I’ve fucked humans, he reminded me. A lot of them, Miri.
I grimaced. I know. I was joking... and gee, thanks for that. I really needed that visual to go with my nightly dose of paranoia... so, thanks, Quentin.
His pain worsened when I said his given name.
I felt embarrassment on him too.
I am embarrassed, he admitted after a pause. That’s why I said it. I apologize.
Relaxing, I shook my head where it rested on the pillow. His honesty still disarmed me. Especially when it came to personal things.
Sighing, I sent, Why would you be embarrassed with me of all people? My jaw tightened. I got raped, Black. A psychotic seer raped me. That hardly counts as ‘experience.’
It’s more experience than I have.
Feeling my mind spark at that, he sighed, backpedaling again.
... You know what I mean. Anyway, neither of us knowing what the hell we’re doing isn’t exactly comforting, Miri.
I rolled my eyes a little. Even so, I felt him dodging still and it frustrated me, partly because I couldn’t feel what was behind it. I knew he didn’t want to talk about this––about any of it, really––but I had no idea why. When I first met him, he’d been so blunt about sex it constantly caught me off guard. I would have said I was a difficult person to shock before him, but he’d done it pretty much every time we had a conversation.
Whatever I felt on him now, it wasn’t shyness.
I smiled wryly. You think I’m going to give you a bad grade on your seer sexual performance, Black?
There was another silence.
Miri, he sent, his mind stiff. It’s not a big deal. You’re only half-seer, but your needs are changing. You’re going to need... different things now.
Different things? I was genuinely thrown. Like what?
Taking a breath, he hesitated.
For a second I saw him again, leaning against a stone pillar, aiming the rifle down on a mosaic floor, at least eighty feet below him. He was focused on me, but I felt that split in his mind too, maybe in more than two segments.
I could almost feel him choosing words before he spoke.
You’re changing a little more than I thought you would, he admitted after that pause. I just wish I was more... you know. Experienced. With such things.
I laughed. Jesus, Black. What are we, in high school?
Miri... stop making this a joke. Please. His thoughts grew serious, open enough to disarm me a second time, and to cut off my laughter. Not when I’m so far away. I’m sorry I said the thing about Solonik. Where I’m from there’s not this weird shame thing you have about rape. I wasn’t implying anything at all about consent... I was being literal and saying you’d actually had physical intercourse with a seer. I haven’t done that with a female seer... even forced. I have zero experience of the anatomy of how that works. I don’t know the angles of it... He trailed, as if searching for words. ... any of it.
Biting my lip, I nodded, thinking.
It wasn’t just what he’d said.
I could feel him trying.
He’d been trying a lot with me, I realized.
Pretty much every conversation we had, I felt him trying to communicate with me, to clarify things between us. Ever since Christmas, after those weeks where I’d refused to talk to him, where I got drunk and kissed Nick and Black flipped out, eventually admitting he’d never been with a seer and that he didn’t want me to have sex with anyone else. Ever since then, he seemed to take all of our conversations a hell of a lot more seriously.
Realizing I wanted to do that too, I exhaled again.
Okay, I sent. Thanks for explaining that. And I’ll stop teasing you about sex. Just stop talking about what a man-whore you are, okay? I got the memo. I don’t need to hear the details... seriously.
I felt him agree, even as more relief came off him.
Understood. I don’t want to hear about your past lovers, either.
I nodded, smiling a little. Sometimes his language bordered on old-fashioned.
That warmth coiled deeper between us, making me sink into the mattress. It also made the emotional thing worse.
Gods. He exhaled and that pain on him sharpened. You contacted me on a job for this? To make me afraid you were breaking up with me? I feel like I should go read seer sex manuals. I’m so turned on and relieved and fucked up right now I might need to jerk off...
I laughed, unable to help it.
Then he seemed to remember what we were talking about before.
You don’t really know where I am, Miri? he sent. You’re not really coming here?
But I did know. I did know where he was.
Miri, you can’t come here. You can’t.
Why not? Are you going to tell me the reason?
That silence returned. I could feel more there. Things he was unwilling to say. Those things pulled at me, tugging on me in the space between us, fighting for me to understand them. He wanted me to understand them. He wanted it so badly. He wanted me to get some message there, but whatever it was, he couldn’t tell me outright.
I was still fighting to understand, growing more and more frustrated with every passing second, when he exhaled. I winced, feeling a wave of what could only be depression steal over him. I felt more pain in that too.
Miri, he sent. I miss you. I miss you so much. But you can’t come here. You can’t.
I didn’t answer.
I was still listening, straining to hear.
The contract is time-limited, he continued. It’s more than half over. I’m coming back, Miri. I promise you I am... as soon as it’s done.
I nodded, pressing my lips together as I stared at his ceiling.
But I couldn’t get it. Whatever he wanted me to hear, I couldn’t hear it.
My thoughts turned bitter.
You know they’re playing you... don’t you, Black?
There was a silence, then he exhaled again.
Yes. But the truth is, from their perspective, I’m a risk to them. I’m a wild card in their eyes... unaffiliated. So they see me as a potential threat. Their primary concern is to make sure that regular humans don’t know too much about people like me. He paused, and I saw him lean back against the stone pillar. They’re worried it might cause a panic. Or persecution. Remember how I said my people were persecuted where I’m from?
I frowned. He’d said a lot more than that.
But I’d already picked up that Black thought we were being overheard.
Whoever was listening, he clearly wanted them to think I was clueless.
Well. More clueless.
But why would you ever expose them? I made my thoughts skeptical. Wouldn’t you just be putting yourself at risk, too?
He sighed. For the barest flicker, I felt gratitude in that sigh.
He was relieved I was playing along.
I still didn’t know why though, what he wanted to tell me.
They don’t know me, doc. To them, I’m an x-factor. The main reason they want me here is to assess my ideology. I think they want to make sure they don’t have to worry about me doing something crazy. That I’m still conscious of the dangers around exposure.
I felt truth in that and nodded, thinking.
So they were worried about Black being unaffiliated. Check.
But what else was he trying to tell me?
Even as I thought it, he sighed again. I felt a faint warning on him that time.
I shouldn’t even be fucking telling you this, he added. But a lot of what they’re doing while I’m here is testing me. They’re dragging me to these religious things. Having me do hits for them. They ask me to consent to each job first, but it’s like a morality test... like they’re assessing my personal code of ethics. They’re trying to determine how I feel about human beings. They want to know how much I mind killing them. They want to know where I draw the line.
Pausing, he added, Killing doesn’t come naturally to seers any more than it does to humans, Miri. We have to be trained to kill, just like you do. It might be even harder for us, since we tend to feel more than your race does.
I nodded. I still couldn’t quite wade through what he was telling me, though.
I heard him hitting on the “you’re a human” thing pretty hard. Meaning, he wanted whoever was listening on the other end to think of me that way, too. Since it was different from what he’d said to me before, I couldn’t help but be puzzled.
Clearly, he didn’t want these people thinking of me as seer.
Again, a warning pulsed off him, rippling over me like an electrical current.
Black, I sent, pushing the rest out of my mind. What does any of this have to do with me? Why can’t I go there? They must know you and I are dating, right?
Before I could take a breath, Black surrounded me like a dense cloud. He blocked me off from everything, pressed so far into and against me it stopped my heart. Realizing he was shielding me, that he was shielding both of us, I held my breath.
You and I are bonding, he murmured in my mind, so soft I barely heard it. He doesn’t like it. That’s why I’m here, doc. He doesn’t like it at all...
The shield around me abruptly vanished.
I realized only then that some part of his mind had continued talking while we were in that other place.
... the contract’s more than half over. Just wait it out, okay? I’m doing this for Lucky, then I’m out. Just be patient, doc, please. They’re not going to want you here because of the testing thing. And some of the religious stuff is private...
He hesitated, and I felt a flicker of his nerves.
... You’re okay, right? After everything in Bangkok?
I knew he asked in part to cover up any lingering emotional tension. It scared me sometimes, how calculating he could be.
To be perfectly honest, it kind of turned me on too.
I kept those thoughts carefully shielded in the back of my mind.
As good as can be expected, I sent back drily.
I made my forward thoughts defeatist, and a little depressed. Like he’d convinced me not to go where he was and I felt let down and a little annoyed with him. Letting that flavor color my light, I sent more of that separation pain towards him too.
Feeling him react sharply, his own pain spiking violently, I realized my mistake and immediately dialed it back.
When that desire on him worsened, I covered it up with a sigh, like I hadn’t noticed.
Black, are you ever going to tell me anything? About the seer thing? About what I am? Half of what I am, anyway? I paused, waiting. When he didn’t answer, I sighed again. You promised you would. Months ago. Getting information out of you is like getting blood out of a stone. All I really know is that you can read minds, like me. Can’t you tell me anything?
The silence deepened.
I knew he heard my real question in that.
I also knew I’d genuinely hurt him, sending him that pain.
He fought to control his reactions even now, restraining some part of himself that still coiled and seethed in the distance. For the first time, it hit me how much he’d been downplaying that pain between us. He’d joked about sex, but he’d been casual about it, too. There were nights where we spent a fair bit of time messing around in this space, but those had grown less frequent lately as well. I’d thought maybe he was trying to keep things lighter between us while he was gone, since they’d felt a lot less light while he was here.
Thinking back on what he’d pulled me into that shield to tell me, I wondered just how constructed that casualness had been.
I started thinking maybe he was hurting as much as I was.
He let out a soft sound in the space, right before he pulled on me again.
I miss you, he sent softly. Gaos, doc...
I nodded, feeling the message there, too.
I needed more though. Especially if I was going to get him out of there.
Is there anything you can tell me? I sent. Anything at all? Anything apart from, “you’re changing?” And “stay away from me?” And “you’re psychic”?
I deliberately used the word psychic. Black told me once that seers didn’t use that word. They had other, much more nuanced words. Hundreds of them, from what he’d said.
I felt him thinking. I had no idea if that was a front too.
You’re going to have to wait until I get back, he sent finally. Honestly, there isn’t much to say. I’m affecting you a little... you know that already. And Solonik changed things with the sex. But you’re going to be fine. I promise you. It’s nothing to worry about...
As he spoke, I got the barest glimpse of an image.
It was there and then gone, like a few frames spliced into a longer film.
In that millisecond, I saw a jumping orca and three stars.
Can you wait? he said, softer. Can you wait until I get back, honey?
I nodded.
I can wait, I told him.
I felt his relief. Good. Thank you.
But I wasn’t going to wait.
I was pretty sure Black knew that.
I was also pretty sure he didn’t know the extent of it, however.