Jess heard no sound, but instinctively he knew Saber was there. He looked up, met her violet-blue gaze, dark and stricken. She blinked and her face was a mask.
“I’m going for a walk, Jess. I’ll be back when your friends are gone-
Her voice choked and his heart sank. He swore and glanced at Lily. She had tears shimmering in her eyes.
She held out her hand to him. “We’ll go. I know what it’s like to feel like a freak. To have to live differently than everyone else. All of us do. It doesn’t matter what gifts we have, people are going to look at us in the same way Eric does.”
“That’s not true,” Eric denied, obviously upset. “I’ve never looked at you in any way other than as a friend and colleague.”
But there was Dahlia, one of the women Jess had been a handler for, a woman who started fires when the energy buildup was too severe. She couldn’t safely go out in public without an anchor. No doubt Eric would consider her a monstrous freak as well. Jess pressed two fingers to the spots throbbing above his eyes. Why hadn’t he realized Eric might think of them that way, and if Eric, a doctor who helped them, did, what would most of the rest of the population think?
The walls breathed in and out and the ground rippled again. “Damn you, Eric. What the hell was that? You don’t come into my home and insult my woman…”
“
“Yeah,
“For God’s sake, Jess, we’ve been friends for years.”
Jess rubbed his eyes. “Saber is in my life to stay, Eric. She isn’t going away, and knowing how you feel about her…well, enough said.” Because he still wanted to smash his fist in Eric’s face for making Saber look so lost.
“Talk to you soon,” Lily said. “Get some rest.”
“Yeah, I’m tired. I need to sleep for a while,” Jess agreed. “Thanks for sewing me up.”
Lily picked up her bag. “Be more careful, Jess. Until you can get the bionics working properly, you shouldn’t risk practicing without someone with you.”
He waved his hand in acknowledgment, but didn’t reply. He needed them gone. And he sent word to the others that the house was secure and they could leave. Ken protested, along with Logan, but he made it clear he wanted them gone. Because he needed Saber to be all right more than he needed anything else right then. He wanted her to feel safe and secure and that her home was a haven, a sanctuary for her.
It didn’t matter that Eric made a kind of weird sense. He didn’t care. Maybe someday she would get tired of him and want out, but he couldn’t imagine, not for one moment, Saber killing anyone for killing’s sake. She detested it. She feared making mistakes. She wasn’t the killer Eric believed her to be.
Saber waited until the last GhostWalker left. They had gone reluctantly and she could only assume Jess had sent them away. Still, she waited until dark before she went back into the house, and even then she crept in, not wanting to see him. He was the only person in the world she’d ever called friend, the only person she’d ever loved, but how could he hear those things about her and not have doubts? Even she had doubts.
For a moment she stopped, covering her face with her hands, listening to Jesse’s breath, his heartbeat. She couldn’t face him. She might not have the courage to ever face him again.
The minute she set foot on the landing, Saber began stripping. She hadn’t been able to stop crying, and between her tears and the rain, she was soaked. She used the second bathroom, avoiding her room altogether. She couldn’t face the idea that someone had been in there touching her things, even after the cleaners had removed all the evidence.
She stepped into the shower, allowed the steamy water to cascade down on her, warming her cold skin, doing nothing for the ice deep inside her. She was upset with Jess, with his friends, but most of all with herself. What had she expected? That they’d all just embrace her into their lives? That they’d want her to be a part of them? That she could fit in somewhere?
She hadn’t even been certain she’d wanted it. Okay, that wasn’t true. She’d been
A shudder ran through her body and her chest hurt, crushed beneath some heavy, tearing emotion. The raw burning in her throat refused to go away no matter how many times she worked at swallowing the lump. She leaned against the tiles, her knees weak, legs shaking so much she was afraid they would give out on her.
An hour later Saber lay on the sofa on the upstairs landing, staring up at the ceiling. Her small lamp dispelled the darkness but gave her little comfort. Sighing, Saber slipped from the bed, wrapped her arms around her waist, pulling Jesse’s shirt close around her body. On bare feet she padded down the hall to sit on the top stair, needing to be close to Jess but not wanting a confrontation. After all, it was a no-win situation.
Below her, something moved out of the shadows. Jess. Saber could make out the outline of part of his chair and one powerful shoulder and arm. His face was still hidden in the darkness. Of course he would be down at the foot of the stairs, needing the same feeling of closeness. Saber drew her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on them. It gave her a measure of comfort to know he was there.
“Why don’t you come down here?” he suggested softly.
“I can’t, Jess,” Saber replied, her voice muffled, throat raw and torn from the earlier heart-wrenching sobs. “I just can’t.”
There was a small silence. A red glow and the aroma of pipe tobacco drifting up the stairs indicated his state of mind. “It won’t get cleared up if we don’t talk about it.”
Saber rubbed her forehead. The headache wasn’t going away anytime soon. “What’s to say?”
“He was wrong about you.”
Her eyes began to burn all over again. She pressed her fingers deep to try to stop the tears. Crying was a weakness, one she’d never been able to overcome. “Maybe. If I don’t know, how could you?”
“Because I know who you are. I see inside of you. You know yourself that using telepathy gives you glimpses into a person’s mind. I feel what you feel. I can see what you’re thinking. You aren’t a killer, Saber. You kill reluctantly.” He sighed. “The truth is, between the two of us, I have much more of a killer mentality. I don’t feel remorse. Dead people don’t haunt me at night. When I thought I was stuck in this chair, I missed the action, the adrenaline, the danger. I like the life. You don’t.”
“I made mistakes, Jess. I could make more.”
Jess was silent, very aware of her fragile state of mind, the battle raging in her. She sounded so lost. So forlorn. He was walking a tightrope, needing to find a way of reaching her. Eric had reconfirmed all her own doubts about herself. If only he could touch her, hold her, he might have a chance. They were separated by a flight of stairs; it might as well have been the Grand Canyon.
“Listen to me, angel face,” he tried again. His voice was sheer black magic, a dark sorcerer’s powerful weapon, the only one he had at the moment, and he used it shamelessly. “We need to talk this out. Come on down, honey. I’ll make hot chocolate, we can curl up on the futon with the fire going and settle it all, just the two of us.”
His voice touched her like fingers, soothing, caressing. Half mesmerized, needing him, Saber stood up slowly. Part of her wanted to run down the stairs, fling herself into his arms and be comforted. The other half of her, the sane half, recognized the danger, the shaky line separating standing on the fence and making a commitment. She actually walked down the stairs thinking she was going to do it, just sit on his lap, lay her head on his shoulder, and everything would be all right.
Self-preservation took over. She’d hoped once. Believed once. Hoped and believed in him, yet with her own eyes she’d seen her file, pictures of her as a child killing a puppy. That had been one of the worst moments of her life and he’d witnessed it. Not only Jess, but his friends. Saber eluded Jess’s outstretched hand, hurried into the
