One week was a decent amount of time to wait, wasn’t it? Stephen Benford sat looking at the
brief email he’d typed. He didn’t want to pressure Claire, but he also didn’t want her to think that
her reticence to make any sort of commitment had made him uninterested. He comprehended far
too well that the events in her life had left her gun-shy of serious involvement. He hoped the
email hit the right blend professional and personal.
To: CHolden@DivP.gov
From: SBenford@DivP.gov
Subject: New Hire
Hi Claire,
I received notification that Steve Milbourne is considering a new employee named Will
Creighton. I was forwarded a copy of his Army psych eval but was wondering if you had met the
man yet? I have possible concerns. They would not exclude him from the program but they
would warrant discussion.
Seeing you last week was fabulous and I’m hoping that we can get together again.
Stephen
~
It took Claire three days to get back to Stephen. She read the email, started a response and
deleted it and tried again. She had met Will Creighton. He was an Army Ranger sniper and a
mental dominant. The guy was also about as tightly wound as anyone she had ever met. Was he
the type to crack under pressure? That was something out of her depth. Using Stephen’s
expertise to try and figure that out was probably a good plan. The side benefit being that maybe,
just maybe, Stephen would be willing to fly to L.A. to do the assessment. She did want to see
him again. Honestly she did, but she still wasn’t making any promises.
From: CHolden@DivP.gov
To: SBenford@DivP.gov
RE: New hire
I have met him, and I think I understand your concerns. Since he hasn’t passed the final vetting
yet, would you consider doing your eval of him out here? I know that’s not the norm but there
could be perks. ;) Let me know what you think.
Claire
~
The flight was delayed an hour. Stephen squirmed in the uncomfortable airplane seat, wondering
if Claire had checked the website to see that he was delayed or if she was apt to spend an extra
hour cooling her heels in the airport. Any airport late at night was something of a wasteland. It
wasn’t like he could really do anything about it.
It had taken three and half weeks to sync schedules enough to fly to L.A. Will Creighton, the
prospective Division P hire, was still in a holding pattern of sorts. Stephen’s psych evaluation
would likely be the deciding factor. It took a certain kind of mindset to be a sniper and be good
at it. Unfortunately, that mindset often bordered on sociopath, not always, but enough that the
combination of a mental dominant Talent and that kind of skill set could be very bad indeed.
Stephen rolled the idea around in his head. He needed to discuss certain concepts of limits and
guilt and responsibility with Will and judge his responses. The seatbelt sign flicked on and there
was an announcement that the plane was going to begin its descent into L.A.
They landed relatively smoothly and soon Stephen was grabbing his laptop case out of the
overhead bin. As he walked down the carpeted corridor, he watched for Claire. He caught sight
of her off to the left side, out past the security barriers. The blue streak in her hair had been
exchanged for a green one and she was wearing jeans and a black tank top. As soon as she saw
him, she headed toward him.
Stephen set his laptop case against his foot and held out an arm. Claire wrapped both arms
around his neck and kissed him hard. There was that feeling again, a heady flicker of lust
combined with the sensation of holding an undischarged lightning bolt. He threaded a hand up
through her shoulder length hair and cradled the back of her head. Her tongue invaded his mouth
and she tasted of coffee and warmth. He was distantly aware that they were drawing stares.
“Missed you,” he mumbled against her lips.
“Ditto.”
God, it felt good to have her in his arms. Eventually he pulled his thoughts together enough to
remember he had luggage. “Gotta go get my suitcase,” he said.
“’kay.”
Arms around each other, their hips bumped together as they walked. “Sorry about the delay.”
“Shit happens, in fact shit happens frequently when it comes to flying,” she replied.
~
As Claire watched Stephen haul his suitcase off the baggage carousel, she ogled the stretch of the
fabric of his khaki slacks across his ass. Stephen might not be ripped enough to grace the cover
of a fitness magazine, but he was in good shape and he had a very nice butt.
He popped the wheels on the suitcase and headed back toward her. “So do we have to hike to
Timbuktu to get to your car?”
“Enh, sort of. There’s a short term parking deck attached to the west concourse. It is kind of a
hike.”
“That’s okay. After spending all those hours in an airplane seat, I could use some walking.”
She took the laptop case from him and fell into step. The walk through the airport was quiet, as
soon as they got away from baggage claim the number of people around them dropped off.
~
Suitcase and laptop placed in the back of the Claire’s Honda Pilot, Stephen shut the back hatch.
Claire pushed him against the door of the SUV and pressed her body to his. Walking through the
airport, tramping through the concrete and car jungle of the parking deck, Stephen felt so near
and yet so far. She wanted him close, over her or under her or something that involved touching
and skin… He pulled her tight to him. She could feel the roar of his desire, not to mention the
hard bulge of his arousal.
She grabbed a fistful of his dark green polo shirt and pulled it loose from his pants. Sliding her
hand up under his shirt, she stroked the skin along his ribs as he plundered her mouth. He made a
low moan of pleasure.
“Claire…” he whispered.
“I’ve a perfectly good back seat.”
“God, no, we can’t.”
“Why not?” She ran her hand up over his chest, dragging a fingertip across his nipple. He jerked,
and hauled her body closer, grinding against her. She was enjoying the sensation, the friction in
almost the right place and intensity of his presence sliding across her shields.
Stephen groped for the door and somehow managed to wrench it open, pushed her inside and
yanked the door shut. They were sprawled in a tangle on the back seat. His body weight pressed
her down into the seat. His hand was between her legs, strong fingers pushed upward against
layers of fabric, rubbing as he dry humped her hip. Stephen’s mouth sucked and nipped along her
throat.
She groaned. “OhJesufuckthatsoclose” and it degenerated into a panting moan as he brought her
closer to the edge of climax. His body shuddered, hips snapping hard against her and she felt the
bright wash of ecstasy racing through him. It tipped her over and her body bowed with the
pulsing force of her own orgasm.
Stephen’s face was buried against her shoulder. “I can’t believe we… I think I’ll die of
embarrassment now.”
She laughed. “Reliving a high school moment?”
“College.” His breath heated the skin along her collarbone, and one hand petted her arm. “Are
you going to drop me off at the Division P building? The meeting with Creighton’s supposed to
be in the morning right?”
“I was thinking maybe you’d like to stay at my place.”
He lifted his head and looked down into her eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Unless you don’t want to…”
“I didn’t say that. I just don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
She smiled. “Uncomfortable is the angle my neck is at, not having you sleep in my bed.”
He looked unexpectedly relieved, and began to push himself up off her.
~
Stephen almost fell asleep on the drive back to Claire’s condo. It was quarter past midnight west
coast time and his body thought it was three in the morning. As Claire pulled into a parking spot
outside a condo building, he roused himself and ran his hands down over his face.
“Jet lag bites,” said Claire.
“Mmm, yeah.” He climbed out of the SUV, grabbed his cases from the back and followed her up
to a second floor apartment. What he noticed of the inside was somewhat messy and cluttered.
She led him to the bedroom and he set his suitcase and laptop case on the floor. He sank down on
the edge of the bed, pulled off his shoes and flopped backward.
Claire knelt over top on him. “You look beat.”
He reached up and pulled her down into a kiss, wearily enjoying the warm weight of her body on
top of his. “I’d love to continue our event from the parking garage, but I think I’d fall asleep
halfway through.”
She snickered. “The mind is willing but the flesh is weak?”
“The mind wants sleep too at this point.”
She helped him strip, leaving the clothes in an untidy heap on the floor. He crawled into bed and
curled against Claire’s body. In some vague way it reminded him of a running motor, the way
her energy tingled his skin. He drifted off to sleep.
~
It had been a long time since Claire had woken up with somebody in her bed. Stephen was
spooned up against her back, one arm slung around her torso. She squinted at the clock. Ten
minutes after seven. They had plenty of time before Stephen’s ten a.m. appointment. She arched
her back a little and wiggled her butt against his groin. Through the thin fabric of his boxers, she
could feel certain parts twitch, so she did it again. Picking up his hand, she licked across his palm
and sucked on his middle finger. That drew a sleepy groan from him and he hugged her closer,
grinding his morning erection against the crack of her behind. She sucked on another finger.
“As much as I like that, it would be better if you sucked on other things.” His voice was a deep
sleepy slur.
“Mmm, I could do that.” She twisted around under the weight of his arm and brushed a kiss
across his mouth before ducking under the blankets. Claire hooked a couple of fingers in the
waist band of his boxers and he lifted his hips as she slid them down and off. His cock bobbed
stiffly against his belly. She licked along the length and across the tip, before she opened her
mouth and went down on him. He made a strangled noise and bucked up into her mouth as his
cock spasmed. She didn’t care; she didn’t have much of a gag reflex. She lifted her head,
dragging her tongue along hot skin, with just a hint of teeth. He writhed, hands fisted in the sheet
and she could tell he was fighting the urge to grab her by the hair. Oooh, apparently blow jobs
were a real turn on for him. She twirled her tongue around the tip and then deep throated him. He
made that strangled moan again. Hot damn, anything that drew noises from her usually very
quiet lover was worth doing again. She dipped her head a couple more times and then he was
coming down her throat, a raw little gasping cry tearing his own.
Claire slowly crawled up the length of his body and looked down into eyes. He had a dazed sort
of expression. “I take it that was good for you?” she teased.
“Oh… God…”
“Robbed you of coherent speech? Yeah, that probably qualifies as good.”
He pulled her down into a long open mouth kiss. When she finally lifted her head to draw a deep
breath, he asked, “What can I do for you?”
She was already hot and bothered. Just touching him tended to wind her up, so giving him head
had ramped her arousal pretty high. She guided his hand between her legs.
Stephen wrapped an arm around her and rolled over slowly so she was lying on the bed and he
was stretched out against her side. His fingers explored, stroking that sensitive nub at the front
and sliding on back to her entrance. She rocked into the gentle pressure. He slipped a couple
fingers inside and rubbed. It was toe curling, hand clenching good. His mouth closed on her
nipple and his tongue teased her flesh. Claire could feel her nipples go hard and tight.
“M-more…” she moaned, fumbling at grabbing his hand. He added a third finger and the stretch
jacked her pleasure up another notch. … So close…She moaned and whimpered and squirmed
and… the orgasm rushed through her body in long pulsing contractions of muscles and zinging
nerves.
They spent the next several minutes engaged in slow sloppy nibbling kisses, arms and legs
around each other, savoring the contact.
~
The lounge in Division P’s office building was as close to a low-key comfortable location as
Stephen could find to do the job he had come to L.A. for. “Tell me about your last assignment
for the Army,” Stephen prompted.
Captain Will Creighton sat in the upholstered chair facing Stephen. The man had short blond
hair, cut in the military high and tight style. His face was craggy and his ears protruded slightly.
Dressed in weathered jeans and a dark blue T-shirt, he looked on edge.
“I was in Afghanistan.”
“Doing what exactly?” Stephen asked.
“Taking out a target.”
“I don’t need to know who but I do need some details on your usual procedure.”
Will shifted in the chair and began to describe being inserted into a situation, the surveillance,
the wait and the watching. Stephen noticed that the man went still; his fidgeting stopped.
“And when you pull the trigger, how does that feel to you?” Stephen asked.
“Like completion, a job well done, unless I miss, which almost never happens.”
“Are you ever close enough to notice the responses of the people around your target?” There was
a flash of gut gnawing guilt from Will.
“Now and then.”
“You’re an empath. How do their emotions affect you?”
“I try not to deal with it.”
“Mmm, that didn’t quite answer the question. Does the fear and anger of the people around the
victim bother you?”
“Sometimes.” Will looked at the floor.
Stephen let the man sit in silence for a few moments, and let his telepathic senses skim along the
surface of Will’s mind. He knew perfectly well that Will felt him do it. “Do you make the fear
and anger stop? Do you use your psi skills to do that?”
“I have.” Will’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “But that made it worse.”
“How often do you consider harming yourself?”
“Now and then. This washes me out of the program doesn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. You acknowledged your thoughts. That puts you many steps closer to dealing
with the problems than most people. I think in fact that you would benefit from the training
session at Division P headquarters. Being psi often creates specific problems that the rest of the
world is ill equipped to help you with. I am leaning toward signing off on your recruitment under
the condition that we meet at least weekly during your training schedule. Would that be
amenable to you?”
Will nodded, and Stephen could sense a level of relief in him.
~
Claire looked up from her computer to see Stephen in the doorway. Her office was a small room
off to one side of the eighth floor infirmary.
“Am I allowed to ask how it went? Or does that violate confidentiality?”
“You’re a doctor, so am I, even if our degrees differ. How ‘bout you tell me exactly what your
worries were regarding Will?”
Claire leaned her elbows on her desk. “He has a great deal of skill at violence. I wonder if the
wrong set of stressors is likely to make him go postal. I know that’s not a good clinical
description, but that was my best guess. Am I right?”
“Yes and no. He doesn’t process his stress well. He does have a very deadly skill set, but…”
“I missed something, didn’t I?”
“His guilt and rage has a decidedly internal focus. In essence, he’s unlikely to go postal as you
put it, instead he’s far more likely to put a bullet in his own brain.”
“He’s a suicide risk?” Claire said.
“Yes. Not a high one, but the possibility exists and I know he has considered it. I told him I
would sign off for him if he agreed to weekly sessions with me during training.”
“Should I have picked up on it?”
“Maybe, maybe not. I suspected as much from his file. I’ve been doing this long enough to
recognize certain unwritten hints.” He paused. “Your file helped me understand you better.”
A flash of anger lit Claire’s brain. How dare he! “What the fuck were you doing reading my
file?”
“Claire, I read everybody’s file. Steve Milbourne and Danny Valentine’s included. It’s part of
my job.”
“And what’s was your fucking professional opinion of my head space? Did you enjoy the part
where I was stupid enough to care about him? The part about the betrayal and the fact he stabbed
me with every fucking intention of killing me? How ‘bout the part where I ripped apart his
central nervous system and turned him into a barely living vegetable?” She picked up the coffee
cup on her desk and hurled it against the wall. It shattered spectacularly. Stephen flinched hard.
“I only guessed some of that,” he said softly.
“You had no God damned right to go through my information like I’m one of your fucking
patients!’ She was screaming at him and she didn’t care. “Get out. Leave me the hell alone!” She
was about ready to throw something else, but he walked away. Claire slammed her office door.
~
That hadn’t gone well. Stephen stood in a corridor across from the elevator, with his head
leaning back against the wall, eyes closed. Had he crossed a line? He hadn’t lied. He kept up
with everyone’s file, except the Director, Andrew Bottman. That one was above even Stephen’s
pay grade. How was he supposed to juggle what he knew professionally against what he wanted
to know personally? Maybe he should have kept his mouth shut about reading Claire’s file.
“You look… not happy,” said a voice.
Stephen opened his eyes and saw Will Creighton. “Keen assessment. I think I just royally pissed
off the woman I’m involved with.”
“Buy her flowers,” Will suggested.
“Somehow I don’t think that’s going to cut it.”
“Did you cheat on her?”
“Not in the way you mean. I found out something I wasn’t supposed to know,” Stephen
admitted.
“So even the shrink has girlfriend problems?”
Stephen gave him a rueful grin. “Unfortunately true. Do you know if there’s a coffee shop
around here somewhere? Considering that she was about to throw something at me, I think I’d
better lay low for a while.”
“Hang a left out the front of the building and two blocks down there’s a really decent coffee
place on the opposite side of the street,” said Will.
~
Stephen dawdled for nearly an hour over a cappuccino, second guessing what he’d done. Was
there a way to repair the damage? His phone buzzed with an incoming text. It was from Claire.
CAN WE TALK? WHERE R U?
He heaved sigh and hoped for the best.
WENT 4 COFFEE. WILL B BACK SOON
Stephen ordered a latte to go and walked back to the Division P building carrying it. He assumed
she was either in the infirmary or her office, and he was correct, she was in the infirmary,
looking out the window. He handed her the cup. “Vanilla latte.”
She gave him the ghost of a smile. It was obvious she had been crying.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have told you like that,” he said.
Claire glanced at him then stared back out the window. “I … my response was unreasonable. It’s
just…”
“What happened to you was traumatic. You will never be the same person you were before it
happened. I stand by my promise. If you need me, I will find a way to be there for you. If you
only want the professional part of me I can do that, but I’d rather be the one who holds you and
kisses away the tears.”
Tears were brimming in her eyes, but her shields were up hard and tight. It was something akin
to watching a hurricane behind a dam. He touched a couple of fingers to her cheek and turned
her face back toward him. “Will you let me hold you?” he asked.
She nodded.
He put his arms around her and held her close as he leaned back against the wall. There were
cracks in the dam and he caught a hint of the misery and self-loathing she was choking back
down inside herself. She wouldn’t let herself cry again, but he wished she would.
Stephen did the only thing he could think of to offer her a little solace. He let his own shields fall
open wide and matched his breathing to hers, knowing that if she didn’t fight it, her pulse would
slow to sync with his. His hand rubbed the nape of her neck and his mouth brushed her temple.
It took a number of minutes for her to relax. Slowly her head drooped to lay on his shoulder and
most the tension left her body. “I don’t know if I can give you what you want,” she whispered.
“How ‘bout you let me worry about that? Because standing here holding you is exactly what I
want right this minute.”
They were immobile for several more minutes until Claire’s cell phone rang. She fished in her
back pocket and pulled it out.
“Hey Dave, what’s up? … Yeah maybe.” She looked at Stephen and asked, “Are you up for a
burrito bar for dinner?”
“I could be.”
Claire continued her phone conversation. “We can do it. Where…?Oh they have awesome
margaritas. … Seven’s fine. Are you bringing Andy? …Cool. We’ll see you there.” She tucked
the phone back into her pocket.
“I take it we just agreed to meet some of your friends for dinner?”
She nodded. “I’ve known Dave just short of forever. He’s bringing his boyfriend Andy.”
~
“Wrapt and Stuft” had good food. Claire went there at least once a month, sometimes with Dave
and sometimes with other friends. The margaritas were both amazing and potent. After the
events of the afternoon, Claire felt entitled. Stephen ordered beer, saying that margaritas were
not his thing. Andy had a single beer and volunteered to switch to soda afterward so he could
drive everyone home. Stephen sat with his arm possessively around Claire’s body.
Dave and Andy were arguing the merits of cross-training with Stephen when the Karaoke
started.
“So Claire, should I dare you?” teased Dave. “Will you get up and sing?”
She rolled her eyes. “How bad do you want your ears to bleed?”
Dave cast an eye to the stage where another woman was slaughtering a Linkin Park song. “You
are not as bad as her, and everybody knows Karaoke is Japanese for I drank too much.”
Claire consented. She picked “I Wanna be Sedated” and the guys cheered her on from the table.
When she was done, she flopped back into the chair beside Stephen. “You’re next.” She pointed
at Dave. He smiled and shrugged and she stuck her tongue out at him.
Dave did a rendition of Cowboy Casanova and carried the performance off smoothly. When he
sat down again, Claire poked his shoulder with a finger. “You cheat.”
“How so?” asked Stephen. “That was good.”
“He spent a few years singing with the San Diego Gay Men’s chorus,” offered Andy and gave
Dave a kiss.
“So now that I’ve suitably embarrassed the shit out of myself will you get up there too?” Claire
asked Stephen, fully expecting protests.
He shrugged and said, “Okay.”
Claire raised an eyebrow. “Should I check and see what they put in your beer beside beer?”
Stephen gave a light snort of laughter and headed toward the stage. He poked at the computer
screen for a few moments and then something slower and mellower than previous songs started.
He sang “Something’s Got a Hold of my Heart” in a light smooth tenor.
Claire sat at the table with her mouth hanging open. Oh fuck, Stephen could sing… Stephen
could sing well! She could feel his eyes on her as he sang the romantic song and it felt weirdly
like being singled out at a rock concert for attention.
“You didn’t tell me he could sing,” Dave said.
“I didn’t know he could sing,” replied Claire.
Once Stephen finished, he stepped down from the stage and came back to the table, dropping
into his chair.
Claire put her arms around his neck and kissed him, then she pulled back and banged her fist
lightly onto his arm. “You fucker. You didn’t tell me you could sing.”
“You didn’t ask.”
“Fess up,” prompted Dave. “Where’d you perform before?”
Stephen grinned a little. “In college, I sang lead for a cover band for a few years, when grad
school hit I gave it up. Too busy.”
~
Claire headed off to the bathroom and Stephen noticed himself being eyeballed by Dave.
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Dave. “But if you hurt her I will hunt you down.”
“I care about her,” replied Stephen.
“It’s obvious, but she’s been through some really rough times over the past couple of years. So
fair warning and all.”
“How much do you know about her attack?”
“Every last fucking sordid painful miserable detail. I think I’m the only one she’s ever talked to
about it. I had a lot of doubts when she first started seeing that psycho. In the beginning it
seemed to work, later…Just… Christ… She spent six days in the hospital.” Dave fiddled with his
glass.
“I’m glad she had someone to support her,” said Stephen.
“She’s closer to me than my sister.”
Claire returned from the bathroom, and everyone decided to call it a night. The four of them
walked out and began heading across the street in the direction of their cars. Stephen felt the
buzz of his phone in his pocket and slowed his steps to pull it out. It was a text from Danny
Valentine.
SUMIKO PASSED OUT ON THE JOB. PETER CHECKED HER OUT – SAYS NO HARM
DONE. THOUGHT U WOULD WANT 2 KNOW
Stephen heaved a small sigh of worry. Sumiko was his protégé. An ex-FBI agent being groomed
as a profiler, who had been recruited by Division P, Sumiko had suffered a devastating car
accident a year and a half ago which broke her pelvis and left her struggling with a long road of
rehab. Eight months ago she had fallen in love with a Secret Service agent, and gotten pregnant.
She still had a month or so left before her due date.
He heard the sound of a car engine and looked up to see headlights mere feet away and heading
straight toward him. He made a wild lunge to get out of the way. It almost worked.
The bumper caught his leg and flung him spinning to the side. Knocked off his feet, he was
slammed against a parked car. He fell to the pavement, stunned and in pain.
~
He noted that Benford was separated from the group of people he had gone to the restaurant
with. Now was an excellent opportunity to disable and capture him. A hefty nudge with the car
fender ought to serve the purpose.
~
The sound of impact and squealing tires on asphalt yanked Claire’s attention away from her
conversation with Dave. They both whirled to see Stephen’s body crumpled on the street as a
man leaped out of the car that was stopped a couple of feet away.
“Stephen!” Claire screamed.
Dave, Claire and Andy immediately began to run toward Stephen. The man jumped back into the
car and it sped away with a roar.
“What the hell?” shouted Dave as he dug his phone out of his pocket.
Claire heard Dave asked for ambulance and police to be sent as she dropped to her knees beside
Stephen. He was lying on his side, eyes closed, utterly limp. She immediately touched fingers to
his throat. There was a pulse, fast and a little erratic. Her Talent kicked into high gear, assessing,
feeding her information. Deep bruises, scrapes and a concussion were all that registered, nothing
life threatening, though Claire wasn’t sure she trusted her senses because her heart was pounding
and her stomach was tied in an epic knot of fear.
Stephen made a low groan and one arm wrapping around his torso, the other groping for his
head.
“Lie still Stephen, I haven’t finished checking you out yet,” Claire said.
“Lights…” he muttered.
“From the car.”
He brought his other hand up to his head and rolled onto his back.
“Stephen you need to lie still,” she repeated, as her hands were slowly feeling down the length of
his legs for breaks.
“Car lights…” he mumbled, making a feeble uncoordinated movement to sit up.
Claire grabbed his shoulders and held him down. “Damn it, stop moving! If you have a spinal
injury you could end up with permanent damage.” She flinched. His mind was crashing against
hers in a sloppy aggressive quest for information. It took her a moment to process that he was so
disoriented that he didn’t know who she was or what had happened.
She changed her game plan and took hold of his wrists (one was sprained her Talent noted) and
placed them against her cheeks. “Stephen, it’s Claire. You have to calm down and not move.
You were struck by a car.”
His eyes opened slightly but failed to focus. Something must have registered though, because he
said, “Okay.”
She could still feel the pressure in her head, but the tone changed from demanding to pleading.
There was also pain, his, not hers, and a whole lot of outright confusion.
“The ambulance is on its way,” said Dave squatting down beside her. “How bad is he injured?”
“Banged and bruised and scraped. Concussed for sure, but I think the car must have just clipped
him.” She continued assessing him and tried to block his pain, frustrated when it didn’t seem to
work.
“I can’t believe that guy just drove away,” commented Andy standing a few feet away. “I
wonder if he was drunk.”
“Maybe. It definitely qualifies as a hit and run,” replied Dave.
The police and paramedics showed up. Stephen was checked over by the paramedics and Claire
watched with a wary eye. There was something funky going on with them and Stephen and it
took her a couple of minutes to put her finger on it.
Stephen let them take his blood pressure and check his pupils but every time they started making
implication that they wanted to take him to the hospital, the conversation wandered off topic or
they seemed to lose their train of thought. She took hold of Stephen’s hand. His shields were up
hard and tight, from behind them was raging pressure at the paramedics to write him off as just
shaken and leave.
Claire had mixed feelings about that, but since Stephen wasn’t seriously injured, she let him have
his way.
The police questioned Dave and Andy and then her, getting a partial description of the car. It had
been light colored, white or beige, actual color had been hard to judge under the street lights. It
was a Chevy with California tags and there had been a three and a four on the license plate.
Beyond the description of the adult male in dark clothing, nobody had gotten a good look.
When the officers got around to talking to Stephen, who was sitting on the back step of the
ambulance, he told them that all he had seen was headlights.
“Can we leave now please?” Stephen asked, as the police car and ambulance departed. His
expression was tight.
“Yeah sure, you could probably use a hot shower and some Tylenol,” replied Claire. She and
Dave guided Stephen back to the car, and she slid into the back seat beside Stephen. Stephen’s
body was tense, one fist clenched and arms hugged around himself, cradling his sprained wrist.
She kept a hand on him and tried again to shut down the pain in his body without success. There
was something wrong that she didn’t understand. Was it an effect of the concussion? He’d
probably hit his head on either the parked car or the pavement.
Andy drove to Claire’s apartment and dropped them off. Claire put an arm around Stephen and
helped him go inside.
“We’re going straight to the bedroom,” she said when he hesitated in the entranceway.
His steps were less coordinated than they had been outside, and once they reached the bedroom,
he stopped and sank to his knees beside the bed.
“Stephen!” Claire dropped next to him.
He was huddled against the side of the bed, head leaned on the edge of the mattress, eyes closed.
She cupped a hand on his cheek and let her Talent run loose again. His heart rate was dropping,
as was his blood pressure, his psychic shielding was just plain gone and his entire body was
shutting down.
“Noooo,” she whispered. “Oh God don’t do this! Stephen! Stephen! Stay with me!” Psi shock
was always a danger when physical trauma happened. Sometimes it was mild, sometimes it was
bad. This was looking very bad. Claire yanked off her shirt and flung it. She tore open the
buttons on the front of his shirt and stripped him out of it. He was going limp as she did so. She
hauled his torso up into her arms, holding him tight to her chest.
Claire boosted his heart contractility and constricted blood vessels to raise his blood pressure out
of the danger zone… And then she did something she hadn’t done in way over a year, she
opened her shields completely.
Stay with me Stephen, honey, please. I’m right here. Reach for me, I’ll pull you back to the
surface. She rubbed her hand over his chest, and caressed his face. The physical deterioration
had stopped but there was no conscious response. He lay against her like a rag doll. She kissed
him softly, lips, nose, chin, jaw, giving in to emotions she didn’t know how to deal with, grief
and guilt and fear. She let them flood through her mind into his, naked and raw.
After awhile, there was a sluggish response from him, a flutter of agony and confusion and need.
I have you. You’re safe, she whispered in his mind. She rocked him slightly, his body still a
heavy limp weight in her arms.
Too many…have to make them go… his thoughts were choppy and broken.
“There’s nobody here but you and me. No paramedics, no police, just us,” Claire reassured him.
Hurts…
She tried yet again to damp down his pain. This time it worked and Stephen made a tiny moan of
relief. She shifted positions slightly, cradling his head more to her shoulder, pulling his hand
toward her face so she could kiss his palm. The palm chakra was a special link point for almost
every psi. As her lips pressed against his skin, she could feel a little more coherence return to his
thoughts.
Need you he begged. His thumb grazed across her mouth. He drew a shaky breath and a shiver
ran through him.
Yanking the blanket, off the bed, Claire wrapped it around them. Any drop in his body
temperature was just going to compound the problem. She hugged him against her chest again,
stroking his hair, and kissing him softly.
He wasn’t the only one who needed, she decided. The thought of losing him to the impact of that
car was devastating. Tears seeped down her cheeks. Jesus God, crying twice in one day; the first
because she was furious with him and a second time because she could have lost him. How
messed up was that.
“I love you,” he whispered, his breath ghosting across her lips.
The depth of emotion those few words carried stirred something painful in her chest. She
couldn’t have what she wanted. It wasn’t allowed, she was too dangerous and too broken.
I want all of you, the damaged parts as well as the gifted and beautiful. I love you Claire. I need
you, he said.
The tears kept coming, and eventually she realized he was the one kissing her. His hand was
curled along the side of her neck, fingers rubbing. Stephen tilted his head back a little and wiped
her tears with the edge of the blanket. He made an attempt to push himself a little more upright
but the pressure on his injured wrist drew a hiss of pain from him.
Claire pulled herself together enough to face more practical matters. “Do you think maybe we
could get you into bed? I want to see every last scrape and bruise and do something about your
sprained wrist.”
“I can try.”
~
Stripped completely naked and stretched out in bed, Stephen lay still as Claire’s hands ran over
his body. She was sitting on the edge of the bed beside him. Her touch was a soothingly heat,
washing through him, feeling like a combination of electricity and warm sunlight on skin.
“I still can’t figure out why I couldn’t block out your pain earlier,” she mused.
“My shielding.”
“But I could change your heart rhythm and alter your blood pressure.”
“It’s not the same. Pain is about perception, and I’m … different than most, even for psi.”
“But back in Seattle, it wasn’t a problem and different how?” Her hands cupped around his
injured wrist.
“I wasn’t trying to block out the world and avoid blind panic at the same time.”
“I don’t get it.”
“In Seattle I was drugged half out of my head by the time I got to you. My shields were already
close to wrecked, but not gone. Tonight, the pain and getting knocked unconscious created a kind
of reflex response. I remember thinking that anyone who touched me was going to cause that
unbearable blast of static we all can get without shielding. I … didn’t know it was you.”
“Okay, maybe I understand. Any idea why your psi shock got so bad afterward?” she asked.
Stephen closed his eyes. He didn’t especially want to discuss this but he probably needed to.
“When my shielding fails, not when I lower it on purpose, but when it fails… I have no
protection. Claire, without my defenses I can sense every single person for probably a mile. It’s
overload, on a magnitude very, very few psi ever have to deal with.” He opened his eyes and
looked at her.
Her eyes were wide. “I knew … you’re really… Your Talent is that strong?” she finally finished.
“Unfortunately.”
“Your shields are completely down right now, but you’re… well you’re lucid.”
“I’m also conscious and you’re touching me, so everything else is just a background murmur,”
he said.
“Has it always been this way?”
“Pretty much. My childhood was… kind of rough. My parents didn’t understand. They finally
took me to a psychologist. He was brilliant and unconventional, and a mid level empath, so when
I told him about the people screaming inside my head, he actually believed me. He taught me to
ways to cope. Eventually I came up with mechanisms to protect myself.”
“Did you go through psi shock as a kid?” Claire asked.
“Yes, more than once. I suppose it’s something of a miracle I’m not dead. I literally wrote the
book on psi trauma, and over the past decade Peter Vithoulkas and I have been using it as the
training manual for Division P and refining it every time we learn something new.”
“If I hadn’t had a clue what was happening tonight…” her voice trailed off.
“I might have died. No guarantees one way or the other, but it’s a possibility. I have survived
before.”
She was silent, and he could read the grind of her thoughts as she tried to take it all in. He limited
his attention to the surface; it was too invasive to listen deeper and he tried to pull his own
shielding back together. It hurt, like broken glass in his brain. He knew he could force it, and it
would hurt even worse but he could make it happen.
“Stop, just stop,” she said.
He must have closed his eyes again, because he had to open them to look up into her face. “I
need to-“
She put a finger against his mouth. “No. Anything that hurts that bad is liable to do more
damage. Can I just hold you until everything stabilizes? Or does what you strenuously advocate
for everybody else not work with you?”
He couldn’t help smiling a little. “No, that part works just fine.”
She took off the rest of her clothes and slid into bed beside him, wrapping both arms and one leg
around him, hugging him against the entire length of her body.
Her skin on his might feel the same as when they had sex, but with no shields on either side, the
intensity of the touch was deep and intimate, orders of magnitude higher. A little sliver of his
hindbrain made carnal suggestions, but his body vetoed the idea.
Claire made a little snort of laughter. “How like a guy, nearly squashed by a car and still thinking
about sex.”
~
Claire sat down on the sofa beside Stephen. His hands were curled around a coffee cup and his
bare feet were propped on the coffee table.
“Are you interested in breakfast?” she asked.
“Eventually, not right now.”
She reached out and laid a hand on his wrist. His shields were up, just barely and her light mental
poke produced a flinch from him. “Still not back to normal,” she commented.
“No, not yet. Sometimes it takes a while. You said a man got out of the car?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, there was the thud, screech, and the guy jumped out. As soon as Dave and
Andy and I started running toward you, he scrambled back into the car and took off.”
“Back up, was the screech of the tires before the sound of the impact, me being hit?”
“Um, I think so, why?” she asked.
“It might mean there was no braking until after I was struck. It might mean that it was
intentional.”
“It also might mean the driver was so drunk off his ass he had fuck all for reflexes, and didn’t
even see you until he hit you,” she replied. She stroked the skin on the inside of his wrist, and
took the empty coffee cup from his hand, setting it on the end table.
He gave her a vague distracted half smile. “Maybe I’m seeing coincidence and making it into
danger. I just … there seems like there’s too much synchronicity. First Jamie, then the thing in
Seattle, then this…”
“Jamie Ketelsen?”
“Yes, I started seeing him as a patient after his abduction. He has a degree of neurological
damage in addition to the psychological trauma from what happened to him.”
Claire looked away.
Stephen touched a finger to her face, gently turning it back toward him. “I know you said you did
something to the man who attacked you. You’ll talk to me about it when you’re ready. Today,
I’m the one who needs you.”
She looked at him. His eyes were so very blue, and so intense. She had a moment of wondering
just how much he read of what was in her head without her ever opening her mouth.
He dipped his head toward hers, and kissed her softly. Let’s go back to bed.