Chapter 25

By the time evening drew near Alja had at least managed to meditate a while and do a very gentle Yoga practice in her rooms. As a result her mind was slightly calmer and her body a little less sore. Still both were humming with anticipation to be close to Kaleb once again.

She felt the telepathic knock two minutes before the appointed time.

Are you ready to go? His telepathic voice was crystal clear as always.

Yes. I was about to leave my quarters.

Stay there. I'll come to you.

He teleported to her a second later. This time he made sure to steer clear of her shield radius. When he came in she was standing in front of her dresser inspecting her face in a small mirror that was placed on top of it. When she turned he saw that she had just put her contacts in. Even without their crashing night-sky her eyes looked somehow haunted. But that wasn't all. Although everything she'd changed about her appearance was an old jeans jacket instead of the leather synth she usually wore, she seemed human. And a female human mind was all he could sense in the room.

Alja began to speak in the lightest of tones, deliberately trying to surprise him with her appearance. "Oh hey, didn't think you'd be so fast. Gimme a sec. I'm almost ready."

All he gave her was a stern look

"Don't look at me like that. I'm supposed to be human, remember?" An ironic smile spread over her features. This was such a good excuse to let down that ever chilling Psy façade she seemed unable to hold up in his presence anyway.

"And you really are convincing," he had to admit. The careless air she'd put on didn't fit the worn out face – yet somehow it fit her. But then within a second her face iced over the way he knew it and she answered in her usual cool, clipped soldier-voice.

"Thank you, sir." Alja forced herself to reign in that teasing streak at once. What did she think to start playing like this with him? She quickly checked if it might have been her dark part acting again. But no, she was one for now, all the darkness simmering low and painful in her soul where it belonged. These were simply her behavioral controls failing, because the chaotic mix of emotions in her just wouldn't be suppressed any longer. She really needed to talk to a sentient being before this got any worse.

Thank you, sir. The sudden renewed distance acted like a kick to the guts for Kaleb. He'd gotten used to hearing her say his name. It made him feel that strange warmth, he might be willing to risk everything for. "We agreed on Kaleb, didn't we? There's no need to go back to a formal address."

"Yes sir, Kaleb sir," she replied lightly with a mock salute and her heels clicking together.

And just like that she was all human ease and ironic tone again. He wondered if these quick switches were a sign of extraordinary acting skills or mental deterioration. He was utterly fascinated by her. She was an enigma to be solved, this strange, beautiful creature that just wouldn't fit any parameters he knew. "Now you are acting absurd. Is this necessary?" The faintest shiver of confusion in his voice.

"It's called humor and it's one of the best ways to release emotional tension." Though I could think of even better ways to do it with you... Alja's feelings just went haywire. She was going nuts right in front of the most dangerous man on the planet. She was too provocative, she smiled too often and a thousand other little things she had suppressed all her life, things that had nothing to do with mental degradation. They just were her – or rather who she'd be if she wouldn't have to hide behind Silence anymore.

You'll die if you ever show just a glimpse of what you truly are. One hint of your emotional nature and you're dead. It were Ghetty's words again that finally brought her back enough to pull herself together. "We should go now. Will it suffice if I telepath you the location with a few visuals?"

He only nodded but his eyes were intensely focused on her, as if he was trying to see right inside her – trying to figure out what was up with her.

"That is a truck stop," he stated when she'd done the telepathic transmission, his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.

"Yes, it's the best place to show up whenever you want and stay away for anytime you like without someone starting to ask questions. Still you can discuss rather private matters, without getting in too much contact to other people."

Kaleb needed a moment to file through his knowledge of humans and changelings to fully understand the statement: He had heard members of the feeling races occasionally spilled intimate details to bartenders or the like – a phenomenon mostly attributed to the consumption of alcohol. And perfect for Alja's needs. She'd found a place to get something that was technically impossible for a Psy. She seemed extraordinarily good at finding the perfect niche to survive.

"Oh, I apologize. Of course we cannot teleport into the middle of the parking lot. There's a small grove right next to it that should qualify as an appropriate lock." Another set of images was transmitted accurately to his mind. Of course she'd know how to give him a proper lock. But her erratic behavior constantly let him forget that she was a trained elite soldier.

When Alja left the grove, Kaleb had teleported her to, she considered what she'd told him. This wasn't just a place where lonely truckers went to drink and get things off their chests because they had no one else to talk to. It was more than that. Liza made the place feel like home for those who didn't see theirs for a long time and – in Alja's case – for those who had no true home at all. The whole place held a deep warmth that had nothing to do with the nice little fireplace that was set in one of the walls. Everything from the old leather sofas in one corner of the room to the collection of old photographs on the walls held the touch of love, of care. Alja hadn't realized before how much she'd missed this: She felt more alive the moment she entered the restaurant that belonged to Liza's husband. Finally being surrounded by people who felt a wide spectrum of different emotions was the necessary antidote for the death she carried inside.

Coming in she did a short telepathic scan of her surroundings.

Clever and well trained, Kaleb thought with appreciation. But she was by far not good enough to detect him. He had teleported back in after he was sure she'd left the grove and now he was standing in the shadows of the parking lot, shadowing minds at a very low frequency to get information about what she was doing. But not Psy minds. He had made sure there were none in the vicinity before he let her enter the house. He was sweeping over the human minds in the room to see to whom Alja would be talking. Then he found a visual of her smiling and waving in the mind of a middle-aged woman who obviously overlooked the room from behind a counter. He linked into the mind with no effort. Human minds posed no barriers to even the lowest telepathy. But he didn't intend to use it on that one. He just wanted to watch, to listen to the woman opposite to her.

"Hey Liza!" Alja called out to her.

"Wow Ally! Haven't seen you in months. Where have you been?"

"Got myself a new job. That kept me busy for a while. Make me a lemon soda?"

"Had a bad time lately too, didn't you? You look like shit! Sure you don't want something stronger?"

"Thank you. That's just what I needed to hear." Alja's voice was tired and yet filled with good-humored sarcasm. "And you know I don't drink, when I have to drive."

"Always glad to be of service," Elizabeta answered with a bright laugh.

Kaleb was at a total loss to understand how this conversation could possibly lead to calming down negative emotions. But the woman was right. Alja looked battered. And it wasn't only the shadows under her eyes. It was also her expression: There was nothing left of the well-controlled Psy. She looked completely human now, her features drawn to tense lines of strain. It made him wonder which of her appearances was real. Outside she seemed to have set up the human façade to blend in with the crowd in the restaurant but now he wasn't so sure, if that was not her true face. Another needle of dissonance spiked at the thought that he did not want her to look so tired, so haunted, so lost.

It no longer surprised him. He'd checked his conditioning and the vault in his mind earlier, after Alja had shattered his defenses so easily this morning. He'd found out that his Silence was fracturing despite all his attempts to prevent it, but not like he'd always expected it to: Not along the cracks he'd sealed for years. This was not the monster trying to break free from its prison. The vault he'd built was still rock solid, the monster calm, because whatever emotions Alja had called awake in the depths of his soul, they had nothing to do with the death, silence and madness of the monster. They were a concept so strange to it that it didn't even stir in his cage. So maybe – just maybe – there was a chance that he could risk loosening the confines of Silence just a little, learn more about the life, the heat Alja was offering to his frozen heart.

"Now come on, why do you look like you've been chewed up and spat out?" Liza continued, drawing his focus away from that dangerous train of thought.

"You know the jobs I do are not always a hundred percent clean. Sometimes it's wearing me off a little."

There was no hesitation. She told an adjusted version of the truth that led the woman to believe Alja was a trucker who did some contraband and maybe drug transports. But she didn't seem to choose her words with such care as she usually did. How much must she be hiding then, when she was with him? Kaleb wondered.

"I always wondered whether the jobs you did were really worth the money." The waitress answered with a worried shake of her head, placing the drink Alja had ordered on the counter.

She cares for me although she barely knows me, Alja thought. That was the real reason why she'd always come back here, rather than go to any other fleeting human contacts. Liza had a heart that resonated with something lost and lonely deep in Alja's own chest. It took her only a second to find the right words to get her next sorrow out without betraying any of her secrets. "An old friend of mine died a couple of days ago."

"Oh that's bad. I'm sorry for you. Have you been very close?"

"No not anymore. He was my instructor in my former company. But it wasn't an accident. I suspect it had something to do with the jobs we did back then. You know I never ask too much questions as long as the cash comes in. Turns out I better had in that case."

"Oh darling what have you gotten yourself into now? You think they're after you next?" Real concern colored her voice.

"I think they might be. That's what really freaks me out."

"And you're still out on the road? You need to go into hiding if it's that bad! I can see if I can arrange something for you…" The waitress flipped through various contacts in her mind that might be of use. Kaleb was amazed how many shady figures with definitely criminal potential she turned up. So that was the company his Arrow kept. Somehow he had expected something that was more like the ideals of human behavior that were promoted in their media.

"No it's alright. I think I have someone who is able to protect me for now. I'm just here to forget all this mess for a couple of hours." The truth in those words only dawned on Alja when she had spoken them. She tried to find some piece of mind, some comfort here. But what she really craved was something she could never have.

Liza understood at once and grabbed the next topic that promised a good story. "A mysterious protector. Your life sure turned interesting."

"It's not mysterious at all. My new boss favors workers, who can do their job and keep their mouth shut and as long as I do that, I am safe with him." That was in fact a very precise description of her so called new boss and the deal they'd struck.

"That sounds like you: From the frying pan right into the fire! Sure he's not interested in something else? I mean you're probably doing fine at your job but you're also kinda pretty for a trucker."

"No I'm sure it's not that." The statement was accompanied by a dry and slightly resigned laugh.

Again Liza caught it at once. "Oh but you're interested in him? That's it, eh?"

To Alja it was always surprising how this woman with no psychic abilities and no clue of her true background could read her. So her answer was accompanied by a crooked smile and a shake of her head. "Are you sure you're not Psy? You're reading me too well." And with a sigh she added: "Yeah he's quite hot!"

Kaleb almost lost grip of the mind he was shadowing. He wasn't sure he'd heard right. Had his assassin/shield specialist just called him hot? A sudden heat flared up in his body and that fast the dissonance slashed out with a vicious bite of pain. But this was far too interesting to care about his conditioning now. To his luck Liza went on with merciless curiosity.

"Ah now we're getting at it. That's what's bugging you. He's not into you! He got someone else?"

"No, that's not it," Alja admitted reluctantly, feeling blood rise to her cheeks, her behavioral controls unable to stop the reaction. That wasn't where she had intended the conversation to lead. She was here to get some compassion for the losses and fear she'd suffered recently, not to talk about her very inconvenient attraction to someone who was sure as hell the very last being on this planet she should be attracted to.

"Oh come on! You've been coming here for four years and never had any guy stories. Now don't make me beg for the rest of that one!" A disappointed scowl.

"There's no rest really. He's Psy. End of story."

Capital mistake.

Alja realized too late, that for Liza this was clearly not the 'end of the story'. She was just warming up.

"You've got to be kidding me! I always thought you were one to fall for the really bad guys, but a Psy?" Liza made the word Psy sound like a particularly disgusting insect.

"I know, I know!" Alja rolled her eyes at the waitress, blushing even more.

Suddenly the other woman got very serious. "Don't do anything stupid, child! We owe their kind nothing. Their whole fucking race is just using us like stupid cattle, raping our minds, manipulating us to do what they want. And your boss – even if he protects you now, he sure as hell won't lose a thought over you, once you're no longer of use to him."

All true. Only that Alja owed their kind everything. She couldn't run, couldn't turn away. Although Liza was probably right in her advice even if she didn't know the true story. Kaleb would discard her like so much garbage, when she stopped being an asset. Yet he had cared enough to take her here tonight, which had spared her two six hour hover-truck rides... "I know how to deal with bad guys. I got some skeletons rattling in my closet too."

Kaleb noted that Alja didn't deny the accusations the human made against their race. Why should she? They were all just, especially for him. And he'd never cared. Only that suddenly it mattered, what Alja thought about him.

"Ally, whatever you've done, I'm sure it's not as bad as half the shit an average Psy pulls before breakfast every day. You're nothing like them. You're good at heart. And you don't need to risk your hide for someone like that, just because he's got a nice butt." All seriousness vanishing from her voice again she added with a smug grin "He's got a nice butt, hasn't he?"

"You're impossible! You know that? One second you're going all mom on me and the next you bring on something like that." A smile like a sunrise flashed over Alja's face, removing all heaviness from her features for a second.

"But you're laughing again," Liza retorted.

And Kaleb realized it fit Alja's face perfectly to laugh and smile in such an openly emotional manner. She seemed to like it. And it spoke to him too, in a way he had never experienced. Was this the woman she she'd be if she didn't cloak herself in Silence? Or was it just another clever mask?

"Yeah, you always make me feel better … and yes I saw him in the gym. He's built quite well." Another giggle followed that statement. God, it was good to get that out. Alja only hoped it would be enough to valve the tension that had built up in that section.

"Well I'll admit some of them are quite something to look at. What's he like? Is he as gorgeous as Councilor Krychek?"

Alja almost choked on her drink. Of course the young Councilor was the first man who leapt to mind when talking of attractive, male Psy. But the absurdness and irony of the situation still made her laugh out loud. "Yeah I guess quite like that."

"Wow, I wonder how that man looks out of his suits!" Kaleb was slightly irritated by the thoughts in the mind of the older woman but he was too occupied observing Alja's reaction to care.

"Liza, please! It's embarrassing enough already. I feel like a stupid teenager who's got a crush on her teacher and I'm trying to get over it. And you talking about Councilor Krychek naked is not exactly helping that cause!" But she was laughing despite the shocked exclamation.

That conversation was so not, what Kaleb had expected, when Alja had told him about human emotional support. Despite having gone great lengths to learn how to manipulate it, he had to admit there was still very much he wasn't even beginning to understand about emotion.

Having been caught in the conversation he reacted too late to the Psy minds entering the perimeter of his continuous scan. He had just glimpsed them on the edge of his awareness but when he scanned the area more thoroughly they were already gone. Maybe it was just coincidence. He did another scan enlarging the radius. Still there was no one. He set his scans on high alert before he returned to slip in the mind of the waitress to find Alja talking again.

"You know how it is with Psy? How you can never really be yourself around them. How you automatically act less affected just to fit in with them?"

"Oh yeah! You try not to give away what you feel. You don't even dare to think your own thoughts until it makes your skin crawl. God, I'm damn lucky I don't have to deal with them very often."

"With him…" Alja hesitated, pressed her lips together tightly for a moment, drew in a deep breath, before the words all but rushed out of her. "I know this sounds crazy but somehow I can be more myself when I'm with him. Now isn't that fucked up?"

"Oh girl! You really are in deep. If you feel like that for a man it's not gonna go away easily."

And at that moment Alja knew that she had come here to discuss exactly that and she'd known before what the outcome would be. She just hadn't wanted to see.

"Fuck! What am I gonna do now Liza?" she blurted out with a trace of almost panicked desperation.

"Well things change with them Psy. There are rumors that this weird Silence of theirs isn't holding forever. Maybe you can thaw out your Psy one day." A hesitant smile full of warm affection.

"I don't think so Liza. Not that one–" A pause filled with pure, bitter resignation "Not that one. I'll just have to get over it."

Pain. A sudden flash of memory.

A picture.

Soft features. Feathery, blond hair. Lifeless eyes.

Kaleb pulled back out of Liza's mind just in time before his Tp was spinning out of control. The lapse was minuscule, but he had almost crushed the human's mind, when his telepathic hold tightened in an involuntary reaction to Alja's words.

He wanted to shake her for daring to talk about her feelings as if they were some kind of disease that needed to be gotten over or cured. Even if she was right: She shouldn't feel about him the way she'd described. No one who was sane could ever feel like this for a monster. But he wanted her to, needed her too. When she'd admitted she found him attractive it had caused a mix of almost-satisfaction, male pride and strange new desires to spring up. And more than that: He wanted to possess her in a way that was so visceral and so physical it shocked him. It was something he hadn't thought himself capable of until the moment he'd kissed her.

How could he have developed such needs without realizing? And how had he dared to allow himself this betrayal of the one he'd pledged loyalty to? It was just what Psy had known for so long: Emotions destabilized everything. They simply were not to control. And he couldn't allow himself any more slips. Silence was imperative for him. Only there was a good chance he'd already gone too far to return to that state. And no matter how reproachful the dead eyes of a swan changeling stared at him, regret was not one of the emotions Alja stirred in him.

He took a deep breath of the cool night air. Suppressed the forbidden impulses once more. Filed away the image of the dead girl and tried to get his mind clear with cool logic. He knew women were attracted to him. It was something he frequently used in the interaction with the feeling races. But this highly skilled woman, a trained Arrow and a very good actress would not likely to fall for his good looks and false charm. Could she have known he'd observe her? Was this just a clever charade? Or was his paranoia finally getting the best of him? He was so used to not trusting anyone it was second nature to him. But it tore at him that he couldn't trust in anything about Alja.

When he was sure he was back in full control of his abilities he slipped into Liza's mind once more. He found that she had stopped conversing with Alja and was attending to other customers. He gave her a slight telepathic push to make her look in Alja's direction again. She just sat at the counter sipping her soda seemingly lost in thought but somehow also relaxed. Some of the tension had left her face and shoulders.