Allie's War Season Four (32 page)

“Stop it,” Revik snapped. His voice shook. “Alyson! I get the fucking message!”

The images faded at once.

There was a pause, then that first set of images resurfaced.

That time, they had a softer quality to them.

Softer, but somehow more insistent, too...a quiet intensity and determination that Jon couldn’t help but feel, that couldn’t help but make him look at her with a less conscious flare of hope. It felt so much like her that time. Jon
felt
her, even if it was far away... even if it felt different than what he knew of her down here before. Layers of meaning lived there this time, along with reassurance, some message Jon couldn’t fully make sense of, even as he could glimpse pieces of it, like puzzle pieces scattered out on a table.

Out of those, Jon once again saw the image of Allie in combat gear, wearing a black shirt and pants, holding Revik’s hand, her light entwined in his.

Whatever the emotional undercurrent, Jon got the message, along with the others.

Allie intended to come with them to New York.

She would come with them, or she would make Revik regret it, and maybe make the rest of them regret it, too.

Jon didn’t feel a lot of room for compromise.

Hell, he didn’t feel any room for discussion.

Jon felt another, denser pulse of pain leave Revik’s light, enough that Jon flinched back from the other man, closing in spite of himself. Jon’s fingers clenched on his own chest a second time, but he didn’t look at Wreg, or even at Allie herself...or at Revik.

He stared at the floor until he heard Revik speak.

That time, the Elaerian’s voice sounded tired. The defeat rang audibly in every syllable, completely on the surface of his words.

“All right,” he said. He rubbed his face, exhaling in a series of sharp clicks. “All right... I will make it happen. We’ll have to leave tomorrow. I’ll need to make arrangements.”

Jon looked up, startled, in spite of himself.

It wasn’t Revik’s face that drew his eyes, however. It was Allie’s.

She continued to stare at Revik, her green eyes sharp, commanding.

“I know you’re in charge,” Revik snapped. “I said yes, didn’t I?”

That sharper edge in her eyes dimmed, but only somewhat. After another pause, Revik shook his head again.

“I won’t,” he said. “I promise I won’t... I vow it, okay? I’m not a fucking
liar,
despite what you keep saying...” After another pause, he looked around the room at the others. “I am vowing to my wife I won’t drug her and leave her behind,” he said, his voice short. “I am fucking
vowing
I will bring her to New York... all right? Is everyone clear on that?”

The seers still seated in metal folding chairs nodded to him nervously, gesturing affirmations even as they shifted uneasily, glancing at Allie. Jon saw smiles on a few faces, but those looked more nervous than amused, too. Even so, they were careful to hide those smiles from Revik.

Another silence fell as Allie seemed to be speaking to him again.

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” Revik repeated, his voice warning once more. “I need to make arrangements... change a few things. All right?”

Allie folded her arms in front of her bare chest. Jon saw her let out what looked like a relieved exhale, right before a calmer look began to smooth her expression, taking away that sharper bite he’d seen in her eyes and light.

Once it had, Revik exhaled too, clicking to himself softly.

“Fine. I’m bringing Balidor then,” Revik muttered, shaking his head. More than anything, he sounded tired now, almost as if he were thinking aloud. “...And Wreg. Fuck.” His frown deepened as he stared at the floor. “We should just pack up. There’s no reason to leave anyone here, if we’re doing it this way. We have to move inland, anyway.”

Allie didn’t move, other than to watch Revik as he reacted in front of her. She didn’t change expression, but remained where she was, her light exuding a pale warmth Jon could almost feel, even from where he sat with the others.

In any case, she seemed to know Revik was in planning mode again, no longer arguing with her but trying to figure out logistics.

Jon stared between the two of them, still in shock at what he’d just witnessed.

He couldn’t tear his eyes off Allie herself, not caring any more how inappropriate it might be, considering how she looked, even with her long, dark hair covered a fair bit of her front torso. Jon couldn’t comprehend in any way the blank and yet totally present expressions he saw flickering through those jade-green eyes. She just stood there, completely unselfconsciously, not wearing a stitch of clothing.

As Jon watched her, a faint, almost happy smile slowly warmed the edges of her lips.

He supposed that made sense, too. She’d gotten what she wanted.

Something in the expression reminded Jon briefly of Tarsi, although he couldn’t have said what that was, either, not precisely.

When Jon glanced at Revik next, he saw a kind of frustrated relief in his eyes, too, mixed with something like exasperation as he stared at his wife. As Allie continued to smile at him, however, Jon saw that relief slide back into a darker anger.

“Now go put on some
fucking
clothes,” Revik growled. “Or I’m changing my goddamned mind... and locking you in the basement until I get back!”

There was a silence.

It didn’t occur to Jon until that exact moment that Allie hadn’t spoken a single word, not one since she’d come into the room, despite the intensity of her back and forth with Revik.

Even so, and despite that faraway look that still lived in her green eyes as the silence stretched, she did the last thing Jon would have expected.

She laughed.

10

SHAME

REVIK LEANED BACK in the seat, trying to get comfortable, mainly by rearranging his long legs in the space between his seat and the one in front of him. Nothing initially designed for human public transport ever fit him.

Even so, he didn’t try to get up, not even to stretch his legs.

The reason for that primarily lived with the dark head that currently rested in his lap, as well as the pale arm that coiled around his thigh. That same arm squeezed him tighter as he shifted, then relaxed once Revik relaxed himself.

Sighing, he ran his fingers through his hair, trying not to think about her, at least right at that precise moment. He found it almost impossible not to have some smattering of thoughts in the back of his mind about her, no matter what he was doing, but he at least tried to push it out of the forefront. Well, apart from how she figured into the new plan, anyway.

Out of habit mostly, he sat at the back of the cabin.

He didn’t know why he sat there, other than the fact that he usually walked around more, so the seat’s inability to recline far usually didn’t bother him. He liked having his back to walls in general...old infiltrator’s habit, even apart from the war and some of the identities he’d adopted over the years. Still, Revik knew he could have brought Allie with him to another part of the plane and both of them would have been able to sleep.

Revik didn’t want to sleep, though.

Conversely, he could have headed up to what had been the first class section of the longer cabin, where he knew Wreg, Balidor and Jorag sat, probably talking about the details of the new plan, or even about Revik and Allie themselves, which he knew they did on occasion, too, although they tried to hide it from him.

In any case, he wasn’t feeling particularly social, either, not even in terms of strategy.

He knew he needed to talk to them again before the plane landed. For now, he just wanted the quiet of his own mind...or as quiet as it ever got nowadays, with the connections between himself, Jon, Maygar and Allie. Maybe because of those connections, he found himself craving silence more these days, not less. He found himself wanting to be alone more often, too––or, more accurately, alone with just Allie, even if it meant an artificial physical barrier of one kind or another between the two of them and the rest of their strange quartet.

Whatever the causes and connections, Revik already knew he wouldn’t sleep, even if he’d felt inclined to try.

Allie seemed to be okay where she was, anyway. Revik knew that probably influenced his decision as much as anything. He scarcely bothered to think about that fact consciously anymore, much less find fault with it.

Running his fingers through the dark curls of her hair, he combed through tangles absently, feeling her light and body grow heavier against his when he began to massage her neck and shoulder with light fingers. Without his willing it, his own light reacted sharply to the increased warmth he felt off hers, especially when her fingers tightened on his skin through his pants, one hand curled around his thigh and the other his calf.

He shoved his awareness of that away, as well, but not before it began to affect his body, and not only by tensing his muscles.

Also without his willing it, his mind shifted to the day before.

Emotions still warred with him whenever he let the memories touch the more conscious edges of his light. His chest hurt whenever he thought about her walking into that basement room without clothes, but he felt pain too...especially when he let his mind drift to their interactions when he caught up with her again upstairs.

He couldn’t pretend any of it felt simple to him, not anymore...or that he had some black and white set of answers that made sense to his rational mind. Even less could he pretend to understand the more light-level reactions he had to her, the ones that always seemed to bypass rationality altogether.

His mind toyed with those lines anyway.

Looking down at her now, at her profile where her head rested on one arm that curled into a near triangle in his lap, he felt another pulse of that heat. Guilt accompanied the feeling, along with an uncomfortable shift of his eyes off her body...but the feeling didn’t really dissipate. He knew the others had been speculating as to what he’d been doing with her since she regained consciousness, but he couldn’t let himself think about that, either.

Truthfully, though, it had been easier to ignore those whispered speculations before yesterday. Now, after her display in the basement and his interactions with her when they were alone in the upstairs room afterwards, Revik found himself avoiding the eyes of the other seers, too. He found himself avoiding Jon’s eyes, especially...and Maygar’s...and not only because he wasn’t sure how much of him they could feel, since their lights were so much more inextricably tied into one another and to her. He knew they’d heard at least part of what had transpired in that upstairs bedroom, even if it had only been Revik’s side of his and Allie’s second argument of the day––the one that at least marginally happened in private.

Well, it hadn’t really been an argument, not in any true sense.

The truth was, all he’d felt when he got back to the room yesterday had been anger.

More than anger.

He’d been
furious
with her.

So furious, he’d barely been able to remember that she wasn’t the woman he’d married... that she might not even be able to understand his rage, given how she was now, much less respond to it in a way that his less-than-rational mind would find remotely satisfying.

Whatever he’d realized, consciously or not, after he’d finished making arrangements to accede to her wishes––including contacting the airport and his pilots to inform them of the delay in their departure, which caused a whole other host of security issues that only pissed him off more––after all of that felt more or less under control and on track, Revik had gone upstairs to their bedroom.