Allie's War Season Four (145 page)

I could have told them he wouldn’t have hurt me.

That’s not what worried me today, either.

When I felt fear around Revik, it never really attached to anything like him hurting me, or even him being psychologically abusive, even on accident. The fears tended to be more abstract, more about him shutting me out, or shutting down.

Leaving me, maybe. In his own way.

“Alyson,” he said, a little louder. “Are you going to talk to me? Or not?”

He made another move towards me, and I acted without pause or thought, maybe because I could still feel that fight thing all over his light.

I shoved him, using the telekinesis.

I didn’t do it very hard, but it stopped him in his tracks.

He stared at me. Then his eyes ignited at once.

That heat I’d felt in his light turned into a fucking furnace. I felt the charge ignite, somewhere in the higher areas of my own aleimi, raising the hairs on my arms, sucking in my breath, hitting at my chest.

Then he shoved me back, hard enough to push me into the railing under the observation window where we’d often watched our daughter. I hit into that metal bar with the small of my back, and let out a surprised gasp.

“Don’t fucking do that,” he said, his voice colder still. “I tolerated it when you were mentally incompetent from the wires. I won’t tolerate it now.”

Looking at him, I didn’t answer.

I still didn’t feel afraid of him, though.

He hadn’t done that to hurt me, either. He’d done it to make a point...a point I couldn’t help but see as valid. I shouldn’t be shoving him around with my light, either.

When he returned my gaze, I got the sense he could feel that, too.

He was both grateful for the thought and frustrated by my lack of visible emotion.

Or maybe frustration wasn’t what I felt off his light. Maybe the anger I felt had less direction than that, even. I could feel the fear more prominently now, which was what I’d been looking for. It grew stronger in his light the longer I looked at him, and the longer I refused to react to the anger he continued to try to use to get a reaction out of me.

When I thought that much, he averted his gaze.

“So that’s it?” he said, his arms tensing once more. “I’m sidelined now?”

“Revik,” I said, breaking my silence for the first time. “It’s all right.”

“What?” He turned, staring at me. His irises continued to glow with light, but fainter now. I saw them spark the longer he looked at me, even as his jaw hardened. “What’s all right? Me being locked in here?”

“I won’t lock you in here.”

“You already did!”

I nodded, still watching his face carefully.

I still felt somehow detached from this. Well...not detached. I don’t know the words for how I felt. I just knew I could see him, I guess. I could see him past whatever he tried to show me on the surface, whatever he used to try and push me back, to scare me off. I could feel the distrust, too, but it felt different now.

“Revik,” I said. “We can’t do this. We can’t.”

“We can’t do what?”

Clicking at him softly, but still not really in anger, I shook my head.

Staring around the relatively spartan trappings of the room, it struck me how much this small space reflected so much of his life, so much of who he was. Like a mini command center, only with the bound religious books given to him by Wreg. I could feel Menlim’s influence even in this, but I knew that as a part of Revik now, too. The thought didn’t sadden me...not anymore. A lot of what Revik had been forced to become had arisen in direct opposition to his childhood. It was that, or succumb to being the monster.

I knew I wouldn’t have survived it.

Truthfully, I couldn’t imagine anyone surviving that, even him.

But the fear...we couldn’t afford the fear any more. Not like this.

“Revik,” I said. I held up my hands, palms open, a seer’s gesture of surrender. Well, a human’s too, I suppose, but seers used it more formally. “Revik, you’re not going to hurt me. I know you’re not. I need you to know it, too.”

He stared at me.

I saw his pupils dilate, even as his clear eyes seemed to grow sharper. He looked me over, a reflex of his eyes and light. Even as I saw that much, I found my light reacting to his, feeling something in that charge shift.

“What’s going to help?” I said, frustrated. “What’s going to help with this? Because you know damned well I can’t have you doing this...”

“Doing what?” he snapped. “Trying to protect my
wife?”

“Fermenting a goddamned mutiny on this ship!” I snapped. “I can’t have it! You would never stand for it! Not from Wreg...or from ‘Dori! How am I supposed to take this from you?”

His eyes hardened.

Even so, I could tell I’d gotten through to him that time. A little, anyway.

I’d deliberately chosen the military thing, though. I knew it might get under his defenses, and past that denser fear I could still feel sparking through his light, twisting into the distrust I felt coiling around his aleimi. I knew his ability to follow orders was hardly the issue here, not at base, but I also knew I’d never get him to hear me if I went after this thing directly.

I needed to talk to him in a way he could hear it.

“Revik,” I said. “What’s going to help with this?”

His eyes grew colder again. “Let me kill her.”

“No.”

“Why?” he growled. “...Because it will look like I overruled you? Since when have you given a
damn
about that with me? They know we talk about this shit...usually we’re open about that fact! They know we decide on courses together, at least when we can!” Taking a breath, he lowered his voice with an effort. “...Besides, it’s pretty clear you didn’t listen to me about Dubai. Or fucking
Macau
for that matter...where I was dead-against using you as bait. Or about your own goddamned security protocols. And given your little display out there, I don’t think you left any doubt about ‘who’s in charge,’ wife. So if you’re looking for ways to up your macho points, you might have used them up for today...”

He said the last with more than a little bitterness.

Rather than rise emotionally to the insult I felt woven into that crack, I kept my voice calm. Almost too calm.

“You know this isn’t about power for me,” I began.

“Then what the fuck
is
it about, Allie?” he said.

I flinched, but more for the emotion I heard leak into his words.

The heat remained in his light, but I felt more of him now, too. Enough that the shell I’d been wearing began to melt. I realized I’d been defending myself from him since I’d walked through that door...seeing him more as an adversary than my partner. A puzzle I needed to solve...or fix maybe. Or simply to figure out how to manipulate.

Realizing that much, I felt all of the charge in my own light deflate.

Leaning against the wall he’d just pushed me against, I sighed, combing my fingers through my tangled hair. Feeling his light start to de-charge in that same pause, I waited until he felt more open, then I looked up, meeting his gaze.

“Do you want to be in charge, Revik?” I said. “Is that what you want?”

“No!” he snapped. The anger was on the surface that time, but it felt more open, too, more genuine, and if anything it made me relax more. “That’s not what I fucking want, Allie!”

“Then what do you want?” I said.

I saw him flinch, surprise flickering through his eyes and light.

Then, everything in him seemed to de-charge all at once. He stepped back. I watched his gaze shift inward, right before he leaned against the desk, sitting on the edge of it, supporting his weight on his long legs and his feet set at angles in front of him.

“I want more say in you and Lily’s security,” he said.

“More say?” I pressed. “Or all say?”

He looked up. His clear eyes sharpened. “Do you want the truth?”

I clicked at him, annoyed for real that time.

“Of course I want the truth!” I said. “What the hell do you think I’m doing in here? We need to agree on this. We need to settle it...now. We don’t have the luxury to argue about this shit, especially when we’re getting ready to mobilize again. I need your help on Dubai! That’s a six-week planning op, minimum. And I’m tired of arguing in front of the others...”

His gaze cleared slightly as I spoke.

I saw him nod, but felt his agreement even more than I saw it.

“I’m sorry I shoved you,” I said then. “I won’t do it again.”

He looked up at me, his jaw hard. “You can do it again,” he said. “Just don’t fucking do it when you’re
angry
at me, Allie. Don’t do it as a way of putting me in my place. I may be your subordinate, but I’m your husband, too. You can pull rank on me out there all you want,” he added, motioning towards the tank’s door. “But you do it in here, where we’re supposed to be mates, and equals, and you’ll be sleeping alone, Alyson.”

I didn’t lower my gaze. Seeing the depth of feeling there, I nodded.

He’d never leveled that particular threat at me before, either.

“Okay,” I said. “Agreed.”

That heat in his eyes lost even more of its charge.

Waiting until I saw him let out an exhale verging on a sigh, I adjusted my rear against the hand rail under the view window, feeling my jaw harden.

“Are we going to talk about you disobeying orders?” I said. “Going around me out there?”

His jaw hardened, too. I watched him stare at the organic floor, even as his gaze shifted inward once more. I waited for him to collect his thoughts before I went on.

“Just how much control do you want over decisions that affect my security, Revik?” I said, coming at the issue from a different angle. “And how broad a scope does that cover? Because what you did today...that doesn’t only impact me and Lily’s security.”

I waited another few seconds, watching him think.

“I have a condition, too,” I said, pausing when I felt him tense. I waited for him to look up, and when he did, I sighed a little. “I want you to start seeing Yumi again,” I said. Seeing the anger rise to his eyes, I held up a hand. “...Look, this isn’t a punishment. I want you to let her help you with this. Balidor showed me the transcript of your sessions in the tank with him, after I left for China. He showed me the part about your fears around Menlim being alive...fears about what he used to make you do.” I shrugged, swallowing. “...Especially what he made you do to women. Balidor told me you were afraid of what might happen to me because of Menlim, even then. Even before you knew Menlim was alive.”

Revik’s gaze turned briefly murderous. I could feel the other emotions churning there, too, though, and waited for him to process my words.

“I’m willing to give you a lot more say over security, Revik,” I added. “But I can’t give you
carte blanche.
Not when it impacts something like killing one of the Four. That’s not only your decision to make.”

There was another silence.

I knew that, even now, I was handling him to a degree. I’d deliberately referenced Cass as “one of the Four,” not by her name, or even her title. I knew I was playing on his religious beliefs. I didn’t intend to hide that fact from him, but I needed him to make this less personal. Less about me and him and more about what we were trying to do in a broader sense, like keeping the rest of the humans and seers on the List from being eliminated by the Dreng.

“Revik,” I said, softer. “Would you have let me do that, if it had been Terian?”

There was another silence.

I felt the arguments forming in his mind, and spoke before he could voice them.

“I know what Cass did to you, baby,” I said. “I really do. But Terian tortured you...for months. He nearly killed you. He nearly killed my brother. He raped and nearly killed my best friend. He raped me.” Swallowing, I shrugged, keeping my voice neutral. “We made the decision to keep him alive in spite of that. We did that because of who and what he is.”

“And maybe that was a mistake.” Revik continued to focus down, at his feet. “Did that occur to you, Alyson?”