Chapter 37
After he had brought Alja back to the HQ Kaleb had wanted to go home and catch some sleep too. He had already deprived himself of it for a dangerously long time and he had to be fit to deal with the media chaos in less than three hours. But just when he wanted to teleport out of his office, he sensed someone approaching through the corridor. He really should get some sleep, he thought. He had only noticed her mind when she was almost at his door. He opened it before she could knock. And the sight of her knocked the breath out of him.
"Alja, what are you doing here?" She had changed back into the dress she'd worn at the ball, except that she was barefoot now and her hair tumbled down in soft waves over her shoulders.
"You said I just had to say it if I need something to deal with the residual." Her voice was low, calm and full of sinful promises.
"Yes." It was all he got out. His voice was about to crack. Somehow the air was filled with an unbearable, but addictive kind of tension.
"Well, I need touch. Yours would be fine." One of those smiles – pure provocation. Just the way he liked her.
But this was wrong. She shouldn't be here.
She stepped closer. Too close. He had trouble thinking clear with her wildflowers and rain scent wrapping all around him. He should react. But all he could do was stare.
Her tongue flicked over her lips once before she spoke again. "You want to touch me, don't you?"
Of course he wanted. He had barely been able to think of anything else. How was he supposed to back out now? He had used up all of his resistance tonight.
"You knew?" It came out husky.
"What did you expect? I'm an empath. Of course I knew. But you were so stubborn about your fake of Silence all the time." Another mocking smile he wanted to drink right off her lips.
He couldn't fight the urge to touch her any longer. He lifted a hand to her face brushed his fingers over her lower lip. It was soft, warm, wet. His heartbeat got unsteady. He was mesmerized, unable to look away from her sky-fall eyes and unable to act when she slowly pulled one of her willow-glass blades out of her sleeve.
So finally she was about to make him fall. He didn't care.
"Just let me show you what you're missing," she said with her voice turning another shade darker. Then she reached up behind her head and cut the strap of the dress that went around her nape. The fabric slipped just far enough to reveal the upper curves of her breasts.
And he knew he was done for.
He lowered his hand to tug at the front of her dress. It slipped down even before he touched it and his hand landed on soft, warm skin. Under his palm he could feel her chest rise and fall in a fast irregular rhythm.
He wanted more. The thought hadn't even fully formed, when her dress started to slip further, as if it was moved by invisible hands.
Then he realized it was.
"What did you do to your shields?" He had never been able to use his Tk so close to her body, not even when she'd flexed them during the dance. But now the midnight blue satin kept peeling off her body at his will until all of it collected in a pool at her feet.
"You wanted my trust. So I opened them up." She simply stood there, naked like the picture of an ancient goddess, holding his gaze, an erotic invitation full of mischievous challenge. Sky-fall eyes kept drawing him into the sweet madness of sensation.
It was all it took.
He crushed her to him, one hand fisting in her hair angling her head so he could take her mouth the way he'd dreamt of every time he'd looked at those luscious lips. She opened up to him with a sigh allowing him to explore her mouth as he wanted. A small clink sounded as Alja dropped the glass blade to the floor. A second later he felt her hands fist in the sides of his shirt, while he let one hand slide over the soft curves of her back, her hips, her buttocks. He squeezed the firm flesh, made her moan into his kiss.
The dissonance kicked in hard. But the pain didn't matter. It was a price he'd gladly pay. The memories of death faded under the potency of the sudden fantasy of having Alja's body splayed on his office desk, ready for him to take.
Breaking the kiss he slowly released his other hand from her hair that seemed to turn softer with every inch he stroked through it – until it was almost feathery. He drew back at once, caught a flutter of blond in the corner of his eye. But it was still Alja's face that looked at him disappointed that he'd broken the contact. He blew out a relieved breath. It was just the memories activated by the Protocol, refusing to be ignored. He leaned down to press a kiss on her neck, felt her arch to give him better access.
Crack.
Suddenly a nasty, crunching noise disrupted the calm.
Then another – and another.
Crack, crack, crack.
Just the memories. He told himself. But Alja's body suddenly cringed under his hands as if she could hear the noises too. He pulled back to see what it was that had her shudder, while another cascade of crunching echoed in his head far louder than it should have.
Crack, crack, crack.
The look in Alja's eyes turned terrified, but she didn't make a sound.
Crack, crack, crack.
Then her knees gave under her. She dropped away from him. He couldn't hold her.
And with a shock he realized it weren't her knees! Her very bones buckled under her. Her beautiful legs bent in impossible angles, before he even fully realized what was happening.
It made his guts churn.
Oh no! PLEASE NO! This was Alja. He mustn't hurt her.
Instead more and more crunching noises followed and the vicious voice of the monster started whispering.
Crack – stop the blood,
Crack – stop the heart,
Crack – or just tear them apart.
He couldn't stop. He knew it was him who was doing this, but he couldn't stop because he wanted it. The monster wanted to hear her bones crack in the silence of death.
Crack – make them mute,
Crack – make them cease,
Crack – when they're dead…
Stop please! She doesn't even scream!
Alja just stared at him her features twisted in pain and shock while her body convulsed with every breaking bone. But he was powerless to hold back. His Tk slashed out again and again, mercilessly breaking his beautiful Alja apart.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Her gaze stayed locked with his until the life left her eyes turning them a pale blue – a shade he'd only ever seen in the eyes of the woman he'd killed.
"Ha, ha, ha!" A cold mockery of a laugh. "That is a very good solution. But not good enough. Try again."
And then the screaming started inside his head.
NO!
Kaleb was woken up by a bone-chilling scream and the sensation of falling.
It took him several seconds to realize that the scream had been his own. Sitting up it felt as if his sense of balance was somehow off. He was panting, drenched in sweat, his hair plastered to his forehead and his heart was racing like a machine gun.
The sheets were rumpled and partially pulled off the bed. He didn't usually move that much during sleep.
Just a dream.
Psy didn't dream. But he just had.
Slowly he took in his surroundings, trying to calm down his breathing, focus on reality.
It was not his balance that was off, he realized. The mattress hung skewed in the remnants of his bedframe which had collapsed to one side, the thick wooden posts broken like matches. But the real shock hit him when he turned on the lights with Tk to look around the room. It was a battlefield. Every leg, board and bar of every piece of furniture was broken exactly in half.
Diving into his mind to check the control mechanisms he saw at once why it had happened: The mental tripwire, Judd had taught him, had burned through like a silken thread, without even causing his energy to flicker. Because there was one crucial difference between Judd's abilities and his: The magnitude. A mental tripwire might be able to keep Judd's abilities in check, but it held back Kaleb's powers as much as a real wire would hold back a tank. And if they went active unconsciously, during sleep there was no way to stop it. That was why he had been trained not to dream, like all Silent Psy.
Yet, until that moment he had fooled himself into believing he still had some kind of control over this. But the emotions that had grown underneath his fracturing Silence had already gotten far too strong to be contained. And by allowing it he had done the unspeakable:
He had woken up the monster. And with it a knowledge he'd buried so deep inside the vault in his mind that he had managed to ignore it most of the time. But now he was forced to remember what he had chosen to suppress: The monster had killed long before he had snapped the fragile neck of the swan. The monster had caused the most violent carnage even as a child. The monster was who he really was. And now it wanted to feed on the hopes of the man he had idiotically thought he could be. It was bouncing against the walls if its confinement, wanting out for prey.
He knew it hadn't been attracted to Alja by itself. It liked the weak ones, the ones who screamed. It had been awakened by the memories of the swan girl that he triggered again and again with his feelings, because he'd connected them to his version of the Protocol. He had wanted to be reminded of the one he still had to find, to save. Instead he had reminded himself that a part of him didn't want so save lives. It just wanted to end them.
His conditioning had turned against him after all, in a way that hurt worse than any physical pain ever could. Because now he could no longer deny that a part of him wanted to hurt Alja – while another part would do anything to prevent him from doing so. And there was only one way to do that: refrain from all further contact with Alja and try to rebuild his conditioning.
The thought made his chest grow so tight it was hard to breathe and it caused a burning kind of pain in the place where he'd always thought there was just a piece of muscle pumping blood through his body. He buried his face in his hands, as if he could just will reality away. Then he ran them up through his hair. A gesture he'd never done before, yet it came naturally with the surge of desperation. But of course it was superfluous. He couldn't wipe away the dark truths that had become clear. He had to get up, pull himself together and start cutting his losses.
First he had to get rid of the evidence of his dream: The destroyed interior of his room. Usually he would've teleported the broken furniture right into a garbage incinerator. But that was what he'd done to the swan's corpse. Disposing of the debris in the same way would be like repeating the murder all over. He excused the irrational idea with needing physical exercise. So he started carrying all of it to an unused room in the house. Since he only used a bedroom and a study, there were plenty of those.
Even though the task was exhausting he started to feel colder with every minute. So when he was done he took a hot shower. But he wouldn't get warm no matter how hot he turned the water, because this cold had nothing to do with the physical. It came from deep inside and the one who could thaw it was the one he could never come close to again. He had never been this alone, never understood loneliness like now. Until he met Alja he had always accepted it as a cold fact.
Maybe he should have stuck to the sun-mind. That hope had only ever guided him, never hurt him. It was the safe option. Yes, of course he should have stuck to Her.
What awaited him when he returned to his HQ erased even the last doubts he might have had about his decision to stay away from Alja.