Later that night Farfarello returned from his mission and we went back to having the same conversation we always had. We were talking about God and the world as we say in German, meaning that we didn't talk about anything special at all. Just being with Farfarello, the weirdest man I'd ever met, was enough to make me happier than most other things.

We were sitting in front of the TV that night, watching a show on hybrids, when he asked me about my little breakdown earlier that day. Nagi must have told him; the boy and Brad were out to attend some compulsory school festival now, leaving me alone with our local Irishman.

His one yellow eye was fixed on me, but I didn't find this weird or intimidating any longer. It was just part of who my friend, my team mate was.

"Did someone fuck with your head, I Sidhe /I ?"

I rolled my eyes at him for the nickname. I I was /I a telepath and I I did /I know that he said that kind of thing to mock people and their misconceptions regarding the Irish culture.

"If they had I'd know," I replied dryly, taking a sip of my Italian white wine. "He couldn't have messed with my head, anyway. A.) He's about as talented as Nagi is when it comes to telepathy and B.) hello? We're talking about I me /I here!"

To mess with me you have to be stronger and that's nearly impossible. I don't want to sound arrogant ... on a second thought I do, live with it. Anyway, as I was saying, I'm one of the most powerful telepaths ever trained at Rosenkreuz, which is both rather rewarding and painful.

"It is entirely possible for someone to be stronger than you are. There's always a bigger fish," Farfarello answered casually, gesturing at the TV where a shark was ripping a smaller fish to pieces. I rolled my eyes at Farfarello again, willing my steadily growing headache away.

The kind of energy needed to re-build shields from scratch is hardly ever used for I anything /I , simply because there's the rest of exhausting yourself to the point where you just drop dead – especially when you're powerful. The more power goes in, the more has to go out. A simple output-input equation.

At any rate, I wasn't feeling well and Farfarello's theories weren't exactly helping.

"Not in Tokyo. Hell, not even in Japan! The good ones are over in Europe and Australia! Not that they're as good as I am, but ..." I smiled coyly, knowing he was gonna sneer at me for this.

He sneered.

"Why were you fucking other men anyway, I Sidhe /I ?"

" I Other /I men as opposed to ...?" I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Other men as opposed to Crawford."

I could practically feel my eyes widen as I gaped at him, who possessed the impertinence to be implying that I was fucking our leader. "Hold your horses, Dr Love! You're making this sound like I was his man-wife or something!"

Farfarello snorted and took a sip of his Guiness. He's doing these Irish things on purpose, I swear!

"You know how you affect men," he said almost tenderly.

Sensing there was something more behind this than his assessment of my ever budding sexuality, I reached out to briefly touch his mind. I didn't like staying in Farfarello's mind for too long because it tended to overwhelm me, even when I was in good shape. His personality was far too strong for someone without a backbone to rely on. Someone like me.

What I saw inside of him was enough to make me pull back immediately; I already felt the outer walls of the protection Brad had formed for me crumble and I certainly wasn't in the mood for two breakdowns in only one day.

//Are you okay?//

It took me a moment to come back to my senses and identify this voice as Brad's. He'd felt my distress via the bond between us and I mentally cursed the lack of privacy I had to endure.

//I'm fine. I'm just spending too much time with Farfarello or something.//

He gave me the equivalent of a mental nod and blocked me back out as easily as you switch a lamp on and off.

Through all of this Farfarello had remained quiet, knowing that I was either reading him or communicating with someone else when I was zoning out like this. It's something everyone who wants to spend time around a telepath has to deal with and he was a patient man when it came to certain things.

As much as I loved spending time with him normally, right now I couldn't be anywhere near him.

"I'm going to bed," I murmured, getting up.

He grabbed me by the wrist, pulling me back down on the couch. I didn't panic yet, but I was damn close. Despite the fact that he was probably the only real friend I'd ever had, he was also a dangerous psychopath who had to restrained – for his sake and for every other person's.

"Let me go."

If I hadn't been this damn exhausted I could have given him the command mentally, forcing him to get the fuck away from me. As things were, he had a much bigger effect on me than I had on him; his one yellow eye held my gaze, forcing me back into his mind almost instantly.

I didn't know if he did this on purpose or if he was simply trying to get me to stay, but whatever his intentions were, it wasn't good for me. The carefully rebuilt shields slowly dropped, one after the other, leaving me naked and helpless to his mind as well as the many others in this building, this street, district, city ...

I desperately tried to block them all out, but I found that I couldn't. Again.

I would have collapsed if Farfarello hadn't held onto me still, but the physical contact only made matters worse; the closer we were the more I was forced to feel.

Suddenly a sharp voiced echoed through my mind, but the command wasn't aimed at me. //Farfarello, let go of him. Now.//

There was only one man who held power over Farfarello, who could command him with his voice alone and this man was Crawford. I'd never been happier to hear him bossing others around.

Farfarello hesitated a second, pondering his possibilities, but I knew what he was going to do. As insane as he could be when he wanted to, he was also a member of Schwarz and he knew who he owed his allegiance.

He released my wrists, causing me to stumble back, my gaze fixed on him. I didn't know much at the moment, only that I needed to get away from this man before he really did manage to pull me into his mind and keep me there.

I ran.