Thanks for your reviews. ochanteuse, Natz2, and ParkerEvanss

nanashinogombe ~ as to your question I can't tell you because I'm evil like that J

Hope you all enjoy this chapter.

The ice is thin come on dive in
underneath my lucid skin
the cold is lost, forgotten
Hours pass days pass time stands still
light gets dark and darkness fills
my secret heart forbidden
~ Sarah McLaughlan

Chapter 8: Underneath My Lucid Skin



Purple clouds stretch like fingers across the sky.

It will be morning soon, and we've been walking for hours. Winding along some trail, the Pacific rushes below us. Trees rise like silts from craggy cliffs. Their black trunks resemble the cold iron bars of a cage where nothing can get through except a gnarled hand with long white finger nails.

"Come here poppet, it's time for your medicine."

No, not now. Jumping back, I run into his chest.

He pushes me forward.

Keeping my eyes to the ground, I don't look up at the trees again.

One problem at a time.

An eerie silence hangs over everything. Leaves do not rustle. Birds do not sing. He does not speak. Needing to fill this silence, my brain replays his last words in one continuous loop.
"I don't want to hear why you helped Khivar. Turn around or say anything and you're dead."
Clear concise, and utterly effective

If you can't do it, I will.

The mysterious "it" is beginning to take an extremely dark form.

Fear burrows underneath my walls of control. Looking up from the dirt, its fuzzy head eyes me hungrily. Another wall springs up in place. Tess tells me I repress too much. The healers say it's not healthy. Yet right now my inability to handle emotions is the only thing keeping utter panic at bay.

A vision would be nice right about now, but nothing comes. Sometimes I wish my head resembled a Magic 8 ball. Where I could get immediate, definite answers.

Is he going to kill me?

Try Again Later.

Even Magic 8 balls have their limits.

Abandoning my alien talents, I turn to my human ones. My only way to get out of this is to make him see the real me. To soften the image, he holds.

I need him to talk me. My mind seizes on the absurd, "Silas is going to sense this," like that would ever happen.

I brace for his attack.

It doesn't come.

A laugh sounds instead, "because you and Silas share this deep connection. Half the time you don't even let him touch you. "

I can feel his eyes roam up my body. Great, now he's equating me with sex. Green energy curls around my fingers.

"Relax, I don't force myself on women even those who work for Khivar," a seriousness is in his tone and for some reason I believe him.

"Besides you're not my type," he says playfully, "but it's a shame though because I could handle you in a way Silas could never do."

Blood rushes into my cheeks. "Handle me?" I stop to turn around.

Immediately fingers touch my hips, "remember the rules."

"Yes, you don't see me and I don't see you. Are you sure you aren't suffering some undiagnosed psychiatric problem? Kidnap women and drag them all over. Get a girlfriend, these midnight excursions of yours have to be exhausting," I close my mouth abruptly. Way to go, get him angry that's really helpful.

"I had someone once," he whispers.

Bingo, I'm in.
Yet, I can't exploit it.

A pain clings to his words. Dark and potent it mingles between us. Looking for a new body, it leaves his and travels to mine. Its icy fangs sink down into my skin. Patiently waiting for warmth, it wants only to lap it up. A banshee wail erupts when it meets an identical chill.

I'm just as cold as he is and just as broken.

With its tail between its legs, the pain wobbles back to its former prey.


Sympathy for a kidnapper, maybe I'm the one that needs to get my head examined. Remember the knife, remember Tess, I say trying to remain hard.

"She died."

Died or was killed by her psycho knife welding boyfriend?

"I didn't kill her, but maybe I did in a way."

"What do you mean?"

"They went after her to get to me."

"And who are you?"

"The thing is without her, I don't know who I am anymore. My memories of her trap me. They've become a prison of sorts. I know that I need to let her go, but I can't. God knows I've tried."

Ironic isn't it. He wants out from the very thing I want in to.

"What no witty remarks?"

"Profound insights takes time." An unexplainable want fills me to throw him the life raft he so desperately needs. A gift that somehow I know only I can give him, but I have no idea how to do it. Love has never wrapped its passionate embrace around me and then vanished leaving me naked and exposed.

Staring up at the sky, the red twinkle of Venus draws me in. Like a fuzzy radio song that suddenly becomes clear, words spill from my lips, the words of someone else, "I want you only to be happy. That's all I ever wanted."

His hand takes my arm.

Static intercedes, and the song fades out. I'm me again.

"Sorry," he mutters releasing me, "you reminded me of her for a moment, but you're not," he says as if trying to return to seeing me as the enemy only.

The line clearly beginning to blur in his own head.

"When you mean happy," he pauses, "do you mean in the arms of someone else?" an obvious distaste colors his words.

"If that what it takes, yes. She wouldn't want to be an excuse for you not living, or becoming someone your not."

"Following that logic, I should let you and Tess go," a slight irritation traces his voice.

"I was giving you my honest opinion."

"I know," his tone evens out. "I've not talked to someone like this for a long time."

I trip over a tree root. His hands grab my waist again, but this time it's different. They linger far longer than necessary. Somehow his fingers find exactly where my coat and shirt have ridden up. An immediate warmth bubbles underneath my skin. My mind unaccustomed to pleasure refuses to let it linger. In seconds, the ice within me surrounds the enemy. It waits patiently for my command. Only I don't give it.

Of course, my visions take this wonderful moment to resurface. Jumbled as ever, snippets flash.


Authority.

Gleaming Robotic bodies.

H& K's.

Two minutes.

In two minutes, I could scream. It would recognize me and blow him up. Could they find Tess in time? Do I really want to blow him up?

"What is it?" his fingers withdraw.

"Nothing." He's pulling apart my detachment and destroying my control. Auto pilot, it's how I survive. Designated pathways keep me from falling. With a mere touch, he's making me want to throw all it away. To expose myself to the turbulence, self preservation seals my lips. Let the H&K's destroy this potential storm.

"I know, but she's acting weird. Whitman will you just look at it."

He obviously has some communication device on him.

"Got it. Well it appears you devoted lover has discovered your absence," comes the clipped reply.

He grabs me and begins to pull me along.

My much shorter legs struggle to keep up with him.

Rounding a bend, a black lake appears.

"Can you swim?" he demands.

"Yes."

"Get in then."

"You've got to be crazy. I'll freeze."

"That's the point. H&K's search for body heat along with DNA signatures. They can't find what they can't see. If you had told me about them sooner, maybe I could have thought of something a little more pleasant. Now move."

Throwing off my coat, I wade in, "I hope they blow you up." Cold rushes up my legs.

"They can't because they've been reprogrammed," he calls behind me.

Larek.

A high whistle sounds from behind a pair of trees.

"Hurry up."

In my head, the squadron appears. The lead H & K's yellow eyes shine. Narrowing in on the trail, they see our footprints. Electricity sparks in their robotic minds the closest thing to pleasure they will ever feel. Spurred on, they round the bend.

I dip underneath the lake. Water spreads over me. Goosebumps immediately rise on my skin.

Above me, the H&K's begin their scan. A red prism stretches across the water. Looking for the tiniest bits of information, my breathe would be enough to set it off.

Time passes. The H&K's are if nothing but through.

My lungs throb. Tiny alveoli gasp for air. Shivers wrack my body.

A high screech echoes underneath the water. The leader and his squadron spot a heat pattern. Rushing to it, they scan it. Male: Antarian, their sensors confirm. They retreat. Their program fails to account for conflicting loyalties.

Cold. So Cold.

Bubbles rise to the surface, and the leader is back.

His yellow eyes glare.

Yellow. The sun. Warmth. Sunflowers.

I need to get closer to the pretty yellow. Yellow, gold, Goldeylocks, Tess, Maria.

Looking up, the eye is gone.

Two hands crash through the inky black, but they're not yellow.

Picking me up, they hold me to a chest. A warm chest, I paste my body to it.

"Come on talk to me. Tell me how much an ass I am."

Vaguely, I try to remember where I am and who this ass is. .

He tries to disconnect my fingers from his neck, "no," I mummer, "cold."

Words come out about grass and warmth.

I don't understand.

"You have to let me put you down, and I'll warm you up. I promise," he repeats.

He lies me down in green. Green is not warm.

My hair falls around me like some dark curtain. Blocking out all color, yellow and warmth become non-existent. Yet, there's a familiarity in this absence. A void can be just as inviting when it's all you ever known.

Closing my eyes, the black only intensifies. Swirls of grey mix with midnight in a sea of nothingness. Ebb and flow, over and over it calls for me.

"Open your eyes. You have to look at me," a voice demands.

A wave of black crashes over my head and then there's nothing.