Allie's War Season Four (177 page)

He still looked at Revik like he’d personally beaten up Jaden’s mother with a baseball bat. If he was going to glare at anyone, I wondered why he didn’t glare at me.

After all, he
knew
me.

Revik knew a lot more about Jaden, of course, from watching me all those years. I knew Revik didn’t like how Jaden treated me when we were together. I got the impression Jaden blamed Revik for things that had happened to me, too, but I also knew a lot of that was just a big fat excuse for both of them. I knew the whole thing was more complicated than I was pretending, but I couldn’t get past my overall annoyance that they couldn’t just get over it, especially since the me and Jaden thing felt about a million years ago to me now.

Balidor cleared his throat, more delicately that time.

“Esteemed Bridge?” he said. “Whenever you’re ready...?”

I gave Revik a last glance. He smiled at me reassuringly, but I noticed that sharper, more wary look never left his eyes.

I’d stalled as long as I could, I figured.

I could feel the part of me that knew something was off, but didn’t want to know. I could feel how I didn’t want anyone telling us that what we were doing was wrong, or somehow part of Shadow’s evil plan. Truthfully, I kind of wanted to tell them all to piss off and leave us alone, that we deserved this––that whatever we were doing or feeling, it was none of their damned business.

But I knew I couldn’t do any of those things.

Realizing only then that I’d been holding my breath, I let it out in a slow exhale.

As I did, I released the stranglehold I’d maintained over me and Revik’s light.

I FELT THE difference pretty much at once.

That was even before I started focusing on the specific pull in our light.

Really, the difference happened almost at once, as soon as I lowered the wall I’d created around our aleimi. Honestly, I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been blocking that intensity of light between us, or trying to manage it, I guess. My attempts to control it had increased as the pull itself gradually worsened. Now that we were admitting this even existed, I realized it
had
been worsening. Maybe it had been worsening since we’d left New York.

But I couldn’t be certain about that, either. I knew it had worsened exponentially since my parents showed up and Revik and I had our big blowout.

Within a few seconds of my letting go of the shield––less than that, maybe––pain swam liquidly up through my light.

It happened so fast I couldn’t track it. There didn’t seem to be any in-between steps at all, simply “OFF” and then “ON.” Moreover, it didn’t seem to come from any particular place in my light or his––the pain and that feeling of pulling seemed to come from everywhere and no where all at once.

So yeah, it hit me before I was ready for it.

It also hit me with an intensity that sucked the breath from my lungs, even as I clenched Revik’s fingers where they wrapped around mine.

His grip on me tightened, too.

I felt him fighting not to block it and realized again that he’d been helping me control this thing. As both of us struggled not to fight it, I felt it bleeding through our lights like liquid fire. I felt both of us clench and unclench those blocks as it did, never holding any one of them for long, or consistently... or at the same time.

The inconsistency alone was enough to open the floodgates.

And yeah, all of that happened before I’d thought to actively start focusing on whatever it was. I was still fighting not to block it when the pain keened abruptly higher.

In what felt like seconds, it was already bad enough that I found it difficult to think, to control my motor functions, or to sit still on the padded bench next to Revik. The pain continued to turn my limbs liquid, even as part of it grew into a hard knot in my chest. I fought to breathe, to remain silent, but I couldn’t regain control over my light. Everything hurt, and once I tried to open to that pain instead of control it, the emotions started to hit at me, too.

Those emotions went towards Revik, first.

Protection. Fear. A kind of numbing possessiveness, wound into a desire that tried to take over my mind, even as it amplified the rest of it.

I fought not to react as those feelings worsened, but I knew I wasn’t succeeding.

My mind kept returning perversely to how I remembered him looking in London, right after he’d escaped from Terian. I remembered how thin he’d been, how quiet, the cuts and burns and bruises and scars he’d tried to hide under the long-sleeved shirt and collar. He’d been afraid of me that day. I hadn’t known that at the time. I’d been too swallowed by my own fears to see his clearly, but I could see it now. He’d been so quiet, too––quiet even for him, although he’d managed to hide the thousand-yard stare better than Jon or Cass.

Jon and Cass, who’d escaped that same hell with him.

I felt Revik’s light react next to me.

I didn’t know if it came from feeling what I felt, or hearing my thoughts or seeing what I saw. I knew he had his own thoughts there. I felt glimmers of San Francisco around that, as he let out a strained breath. The breath bordered on a gasp, even as his grip tightened painfully in mine, right before he released my hand, only to wrap his fingers and palm around my thigh. He yanked me closer to him, and I felt that desperation in his grasp. It resonated with mine, but instead of reassuring me, it made that danger feel all the more real.

Danger of what, I didn’t know exactly. I was afraid for him, though.

He’d never felt safe to me, not since London.

I would never feel safe to him again after what Cass had done.

I felt him fighting to restrain his light even as I thought it... even as his more rational mind intervened, telling him to let go, to let this happen. Watching him struggle only made it harder to keep my hands off him... although if it was in protection or some twisted part of me that got off on his vulnerability and loss of control, I honestly couldn’t tell.

We weren’t the only ones reacting by then.

Meaning, I could already feel us affecting the group.

I felt the room react around us in waves, seemingly more intensely once I noticed. I glanced away from Revik long enough to look at them, but I could barely see through the light that flared in my irises as my pain worsened. That light misted the room with a now-familiar green glow that forced me to rely on my aleimi alone.

Even so, I couldn’t really see them.

My light just wasn’t that interested in theirs, truthfully.

Well, other than to keep them away from Revik.

Once I noticed that, I saw myself doing that actively, too. I could feel the part of me that wanted to fight them off, that wanted them to leave us alone... or really, leave
him
alone. I felt their interest in his light and it angered me, but it frightened me, too.

Next to me, Revik’s pain worsened, enough that I could feel him looking at me, his light wrapping into mine, his hands and arms wrapping around me, too. I felt the others in our light as well, but having them there only made the pain worse.

The sensation brought up yet another irrational array of feelings in me, even apart from the sharper pangs of possessiveness, protection, embarrassment at letting them see either of us like this... anger at all of them for even asking it of us.

Feeling pretty much ran away with my light.

Feeling reminiscent of that time in D.C., of feeling strangers in his aleimi... people who shouldn’t be there, who weren’t welcome there. My anger turned violent when I thought about Dalejem being in the room, as well as other memories I thought I’d let go of, even if I’d never really forgotten them.

Watching him screw Kat right in front of me on that bed.

That cruise ship to Alaska, when Revik had been with that human woman to avoid being with me. He hadn’t even tried to hide it that time. He’d
wanted
me to know what he was doing. He’d wanted me to feel it while he was actually doing it.

Next to me, Revik let out a low sound, gripping my leg tighter.

I felt what might have been revulsion in him, snaking through his light. I realized he’d felt my memory from the ship... as well as my imaginings around Dalejem and what I’d actually seen when I opened that door in D.C. My pain worsened when I felt it mirrored in him, even as he pulled me closer on the bench, using both of his hands that time, tugging my leg up around him, wanting more contact with me, even through our clothes.

The pain worsened after he slid his arms around me.

Even in that, I felt him trying to reassure me with his light. Embarrassment lived there. Anger, too, as I felt him thinking about Beijing... then about Jaden... and then about what a goddamned hypocrite I was.

A kind of horror washed over me when I remembered the others could feel this. Revik blew at my worries with his light, assuring me they hadn’t caused his embarrassment, that he didn’t care about that at all.

I cared, though.

I cared what they knew about him. About us.

Worse, I could feel the rest of them really in it now. They weren’t just watching us anymore, but feeling what we felt, listening to our thoughts, watching the same pictures. I felt some of them reacting more strongly to the two of us as part of those sensations, and that made my paranoia worse, until I found myself wrapped into Revik’s long arms, sitting in his lap, still fighting to block him from the rest of the room.

I felt Balidor there, trying to calm my fears, Tarsi... even Kali... but I almost couldn’t make myself care about anything they tried to tell me, though.

I fought with shame, too, around Beijing and the things I’d done there––even around my possessiveness and anger at Revik’s past––but I couldn’t seem to stop my reactions to those things, or the compulsion to try and expel them from our light.

Within seconds, I found myself fighting an urge to use the telekinesis, too.

The pain worsened the harder I fought it, until fear exploded over my light, blinding me. I remembered hitting out at Jon in the mess hall, and that fear worsened.

Revik,
I pled with him.
Revik...don’t let me...

You’re okay...
his mind murmured.
You’re okay, Allie. You won’t do anything bad. You don’t want to hurt them...

It won’t matter. I’m not okay. I’m not...

His light snaked through mine, turning harder. His pain worsened, blinding me.

He leaned up then, bringing my mouth roughly down to his. He kissed me, his pain exploding somewhere in my chest as he lowered the shields he’d once more thrown over his light. I felt those shields waver, click open and shut, then fragment as he deepened the kiss, pulling me harder against him, so that I was astride him.

I want to fuck...
he told me, once he’d come up for air. His pain worsened as he pulled me harder up against him, arching to meet me. “I want to fuck again...” he murmured.
Alyson, gods. I want your light so far inside me. I want you to hurt me when we fuck. I want you to hurt me for real, this time. I want you to keep me there, with you..
.

I only half understood his words, but I felt the rest of it. Pain eclipsed my mind.

I shook my head, gripping his black hair in both of my hands.

We can’t...
My thoughts fought to coalesce around that one thing, around the reasons I could feel living there, just out of reach.
Revik... gods, baby... I love you. I love you so much, but we can’t. We have to stop...