Allie's War Season Four (30 page)

He regained his feet in an instant, crossing from the chair to the doorway in what seemed only two strides. He had his arms around her as soon as he reached her, shielding her both physically and with his light from the rest of the room. Jon felt a coil of pain off him, but also anger. The latter wasn’t aimed at her, though, not precisely.

Jon didn’t fully understand it until a few seconds later, when he felt pain off a few of the other seers, especially Jorag, who Jon sat directly next to, Maygar, who sat four chairs over, and Garensche. All three of them were still glancing surreptitiously at the door.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Jon muttered, without looking at any of them.

He felt all three of the male seers start at his words.

Maygar, he felt the strongest, of course.

Jon almost got it now, too.

He didn’t get it in the sense of feeling the same, when Allie’s light grew visible in the room, but he could see something there, in her, and not only her nakedness and the fact that she had a figure a lot of them appreciated purely from the aesthetic angle.

There was something about Allie’s light itself that drew them. It might have been what the Lao Hu did to train her while she’d been working for them... or it might be something in her. Whatever it was, for the first time, Jon could feel it, and he could feel Jorag reacting to it next to him. He could feel Maygar reacting to it, too, and the invasiveness of the latter man’s reaction made Jon recoil in disgust, even knowing what a hypocrite it made him.

He’d been told by Wreg once that Elaerian light was different somehow.

Different from that of other seers, that is.

Some seers––and even a lot of humans, apparently––were drawn to that light, almost like a drug. At the time, Wreg had been explaining to Jon about Ditrini’s fixation on Allie, as well as the problems Allie faced with stalkers and whatever else, the whole time she’d been growing up. At the time, it mostly just made Jon feel threatened and jealous. He’d been worried Wreg was trying to tell him he wanted Allie, too.

Jon smacked at Jorag’s light again, giving him a warning look.

He didn’t do it subtly enough, though, or perhaps he’d done it too late.

Revik darted a murderous look over his shoulder, aiming it first at Jon before he glared at Jorag, Garensche and finally Maygar. Jon felt Jorag shrink from that stare, right before he jerked his gray-blue eyes off Allie’s body. The tall seer’s pain didn’t lessen, however, and Jon felt himself shielding from it, disturbed in spite of himself.

It affected him, though.

That conversation with Wreg had fucked him up a hell of a lot more than he really wanted to think about, and not only because they’d been fighting. Jon’s light still could barely stand to be in the same room as Wreg, regardless of what he told himself, or what he might wish to be true. Being reminded of that now not only disturbed him because it was Allie... it forced him to admit the real reason he was so sensitive to this crap in the first place.

It was yet another reason Jon had to get the hell out of here. He would never be able to live with himself if he succumbed to that pull. Never.

Revik continued to stand in front of Allie, his arms around her bare back. The pain continued to emanate off his light, and off Jorag’s, Jon noticed. He shifted slightly away from the latter on his chair, in spite of himself.

“No...” Jon heard Revik murmur to her. “No, baby... I’m sorry...”

Allie surprised them all then, stomping her foot.

The sound made a lot of the seers jump.

Jon jumped, too, startled enough that he looked over at the door...right before he caught himself enough to glance around at the other seers instead. He noticed that a number of them were staring in the direction of the door, too, wide-eyed.

Whatever was happening, though, it seemed to be happening primarily from Allie’s light to Revik’s and the reverse, because Jon didn’t hear either of them speak again after those few murmured words of Revik’s.

Once again, the silence stretched.

Then Allie stomped her foot again.

She did it harder and louder that time. Hard enough to shake the floor, loud enough to make Jon jump a second time. Since that foyer area by the door had no padding, her feet hit with hollow thunks where they landed sharply on the hardwood boards.

Jon looked over that time, staring with the others.

Then something in the light by the door changed. Jon felt something leave Allie’s small-looking form, expanding out of her like a cloud, filling the room with gold and white light. Strangely lit, nearly physical-looking streamers seemed to come from the ceiling, reminding Jon in caught-breath bewilderment of what she’d done to him in that dressing room in the hotel in New York, when she laid her hand on his chest.

She’d done...
something
to him that day. He still didn’t know what.

Neither had Wreg... nor even Revik.

Remembering that now made the tightness in Jon’s chest worsen. He’d been yelling at her that day. He’d blamed her for Vash, blamed her for Cass and Baguen being missing, practically blamed her for the human-killing disease being in San Francisco in the first place.

He’d blamed her for Cass.

Jon felt that pain in his chest turn into a hard knot. He remembered how she’d been with him that day, how her eyes had flinched at some of his words, how he’d almost enjoyed the flush that crawled up her cheeks when he hit close enough to the mark. He’d been angry...more at the world than at her... and he’d used her as his punching bag. He’d hurt her deliberately, then accused her of being a martyr when she tried to apologize.

He stared up at those streaming gold lights, and felt tears catch him off-guard.

That gold light pulled at his, reminded him...

Gods. It felt like her... more than even that golden ocean had, with Revik.

The light sucked in his breath again when it came with a rush of unexpected warmth, an odd sort of cheerfulness that he associated with her, too. Information came that time, confusing him until his mind started to adjust, to make sense of what he felt. Information, packed like some kind of puzzle hitting his mind, filled with tiny strands he could follow, leading off into hundreds of different directions. It bewildered him, and not only him...he felt the seers around him react in various ways, sucking in startled breaths, tensing, breathing harder, their hearts pounding almost where Jon could hear them.

He felt love from Maygar, too, a dense grief that clutched at his heart, that filled Jon’s own light. Everything Jon felt in that dense wash of meaning and light tied him to every other seer in the room briefly, too. The room filled with her, her thoughts and the very frequency at which her light vibrated...

Then, somewhere in the midst of all that, in those dense pulses of light and mind, Jon saw something else. Something that looked almost like...

Pictures.

As soon as he pulled even the tiniest of those threads that made up the rest of her, pictures filled Jon’s mind. They flashed into living color around him as if he’d put on a VR link that washed out the rest of the room. Jon saw Allie in those pictures. He saw her as she had been, her eyes full of light and sharp intelligence and understanding.

He saw her with Revik... he saw her with all of them.

Allie wearing armor like the seers sitting around Jon on the metal folding chairs. Allie on the plane. Allie strapped in beside Revik in one of the back rows of seats. Allie standing with them on the docks in New York...

“No,” Revik said, his voice harsher, almost hoarse.

Jon jerked where he sat, startled by Revik’s audible voice. It reminded him of where he was, why they were even in the room. Realizing suddenly what was happening, Jon swallowed, feeling faintly sick.

Allie wanted to come with them.

Allie wanted to go to New York with Revik and everyone else.

Even as Jon thought it, Allie stomped her foot again, glaring up at Revik, her green eyes sharper in the overhead lights. Those eyes still held that denser confusion on the surface, but somehow remained expressive beyond that, almost as if some part of her forced its way through to––

“No.” Revik stared down at her, breathing harder.

Her eyes narrowed.

“No, goddamn it!” he snapped, his face flushing. “No, Allie. No!”

When more images started to bombard Jon’s mind, he winced that time, gasping a little. Raising his hands up to his head, he gripped his own hair tightly, just long enough to feel it pull against his scalp. Jon heard the seers sitting around him gasp and shift in their chairs, too, so knew he wasn’t the only one reacting in more than one way. When Jon looked out again over the room, he saw some of them raising their fingers and hands to their temples and heads.

The images came faster, so vivid they almost hurt to look at.

Allie on the plane, Allie in combat armor, Allie standing beside Revik on the roof helipad in New York...

“No, goddamn it,” Revik snapped. “No!”

The images stopped.

Like a spigot being turned off, the space behind Jon’s eyes simply grew black once more, empty. He found himself staring around the room, panting, still seeing the gold streamers where they came down from some distant Barrier space, filled with her light.

Jon felt his throat tighten. Wiping his face, he realized that tears were rolling down his cheeks, although he couldn’t have articulated anything of what he felt... not the relief for feeling her there again, that sharp pain of loss, pity for her and what she wanted from Revik and the rest of them, grief at what had been done to her, anger at Cass, no
fury
at Cass, a hatred that Jon suddenly realized wasn’t only his, but reflected off Revik’s, too.

That electric charge continued to course through the room as he sat, fighting to incorporate... even to understand... everything he felt. That same charge raised the hairs on his arms, sending a sickly, half-painful shock over his skin.

When Jon glanced back towards the door, he saw that Allie had disentangled Revik’s hold on her. They stared at one another, facing off as if having some kind of argument that no one but the two of them could hear. Allie’s eyes glowed faintly in the dimmer light by the door, and Jon felt anger on her now, along with an intensity that Jon finally realized reflected a complete lack of compromise.

Her confusion wound into that, too, but it felt dimmer now.

Some part of her was here for this. Some part of her was aware enough to be here, even if only for a short time.

“Allie,” Revik said, once more startling Jon when he broke the silence. Revik’s voice came out subdued that time, careful to the point of subservience. He held up a hand, without taking his eyes off her face. “Honey... please. You can’t come. You can’t... you don’t understand...”

She frowned, and Jon found himself thinking she’d answered him in his mind again.

That thought was confirmed when Revik shook his head, without lowering the peaceful and appeasing gesture of his hand.

“No,” he said, adamant. “No. It’s not safe. Honey, please...”

She must have interrupted him again, because his words trailed.

“No!” he said a few seconds later. “I said
no,
goddamn it!”

Jon realized suddenly that Balidor now stood in the corridor behind Allie, along with one of the female seers that Jon didn’t personally know. Then Jon felt his pain worsen and realized he felt Wreg there, too. Rather than looking to confirm what he felt, Jon focused his attention on the Adhipan leader instead. Balidor was watching Revik with occasional glances, but his primary focus remained on Allie. The same appeared to be true of Wreg, when he slid into Jon’s view a few seconds later, although Jon didn’t stare at him to confirm that.

Jon could feel from the female seer that she’d been the one watching Allie prior to all of this, even before that seer spoke.

“Sir...” she stammered to Revik. “I’m so sorry, sir... I tried to stop her...”

Revik gave her a silencing look, right before he turned back to Allie, his hand still up in a gesture of submission.

“Allie... baby. You need to listen to me...”

Her eyes narrowed more.

She turned her head, staring at the three seers watching her warily from a few paces away. It occurred to Jon that at least part of that electricity he felt had to do with the telekinesis. Jon had been told that the structures Allie used for telekinesis weren’t damaged when she got hurt by the wires and Cass. For the first time, it really hit Jon what that meant.