Chapter Eight:

"Are you ready for the procedure?" asks the new chief doctor. He's a thin, angular man with a fair more nervous disposition than Gates had had. Then again, it might serve him well. A little nervousness goes a long way to keeping you from getting your face shot off.

"It's not so much a procedure…" I say. "More of just a…thing."

"A Chosen One thing?"

"Yeah."

"Fine," he says. "I figure you can't make him any worse. Do you want any help, any backup?"

"I'd better go in there alone," I say.

"You seem to rub him the wrong way, at the slightest sign of trouble I'll-"

"No you'd better wait for my signal," I say. "That's an order by the way."

"Even if he kills you?"

"Well I wouldn't be in any position to give any signal at that point, so you could stop waiting and move on to any remaining duties you may have."

"I…" He starts to reply, but we've already reached the room. I swipe the key card from his lanyard, and open the freshly unlocked door.

"Just be-"

"Pleasant. I'll try," I say. He says something about being careful instead as I shut the door.

Vaynich jolts awake as soon as I entire. Every muscle strains as he tries to the reach me, but the collection of straps and harnesses binding him to bed do their job. It's the second time he's been awake since the Rebels picked him up. He had fallen deep into unconsciousness when I left the room after he tried to kill me earlier.

You'd think he was some kind of sleeper agent.

That was exactly what the entire medical staff thought.

They'd examined him fully, and the only sign of tampering they found were some traces of drugs, sedatives and steroids. When revived with a mixture of chemicals he wouldn't even move, let alone communicate. Seemed like only the sight of me would rouse him, and the rousing took a particularly violent form.

Or so it seemed, this was only the second time I'd seen him, and we'd only found the guy about twenty-four hours ago. He could just be having a really bad day.

Zanna and I had talked to Coy about the situation. She agreed that he seemed to be very out of character. She also considered him a major security risk, and understandably so. It was decided that he'd be moved to the highest security brig in the fleet, on one of those stolen modified warships that kept tagging along with us. But it was also decided, thanks to Zanna's suggestions primarily, that first I would see what I could do.

"Hello again," I say aloud. "Can you hear me?"

Vaynich growls deep in his throat.

"Can you speak to me?" I ask slowly. "What did they do to you? What are you thinking?"

He struggles with his restraints all the more and I figure that's the only answer I'm going to get.

So I reach into his mind and run right into a wall.

Telepathy is a very abstract thing, difficult to explain in the words of galactic basic. When my mind touches the consciousness of others, I still don't feel like I get the whole picture. Just waves of emotion that pulse and ebb, inflating and deflating like a lung. Pieces of feelings flowing inward and outward, half-formed images strewn about. I wonder if there is even a whole picture to glimpse. Maybe what I can actually feel is all there is.

But not with Vaynich. My mental probe just stops, halts, bends and dissipates reforms and repeats. There is a wall around his mind. All around it. I have no idea how to react.

But Vaynich does. There's a sharp crack as something in his left arm snaps…and it's free. He's pulling at the rest of his restraints, wriggling and forcing his way out. I see it all in the background, like out of the corner of my eye. He's fighting the bed, tearing at cloth and metal and cord and then he's freed. Leaping toward me, pouncing like a predator. Like a Jedi.

I catch him in midair. With my brain. He hangs, suspended by my force. His fingers inches from my nose. I punch him.

Not with my fists. I wrench up my consciousness and punch the wall before me. Again and again and again and it chips and chips away and the cracks spread and the strength crumbles and it all shatters and I'm through.

I become pain.

I've felt pain before. I've been injured plenty of times. More than most people, I figure. But not like this. This is pain of the mind. This is anger and fear and hate and depression and remorse and everything that hurts all wrapped up together. I've learned about emotion, felt it a little bit, but I've always been detached from it, ostracized by it. I don't get it. I don't see it. I don't understand it like other people do.

Now I do, and it floors me.

My muscles relax, my knees buckle, and I crumple to the floor. Vaynich slams down and scrabbles toward me, atop me, scratching and biting and punching at me. I'm loose, limp immobile; I fight back in the only way that feels natural. By pushing through the pain.

I see things. Metal all around. Computers and beds. Needles glinting and multicolored liquid bubbling. Day after day of machines and minds and pictures of me. I see myself and I feel it all. Anger, pain, hate, Kara Evenstern has become synonymous for them. But above me, behind me, past the vision of myself I see of myself is a mysterious dark robed figure. I feel I should recognize him, like we've been watching each other for a long long time.

I reach out to embrace him. To embrace it all. All that pain, all that emotion. I take it and squeeze them away. I see myself again, but push away the fear, the horror, the conditioning. I watch myself through another's eyes. Sitting with Perrin, laughing with Osca, drinking with my mother, fighting with Gurog.

There are other faces like mine. A sea of them. Victors. Senators. Kiffar after Kiffar, a whole family of them. I hold Sharon the Togruta, kissing her in the rain. She's light in my arms and I can feel her in parts I don't even have. With that I'm myself again. An outsider looking in, so the voyeur retreats. Out the way I came, filling in the walls behind me.

I'm back in my own head. Breathing heavily on the floor, Vaynich sprawled over me, unconscious again. I slowly pull myself up, leaning against the wall as the door slides open. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand, tears blur my vision.

"What…" is all the articulate doctor can say.

"He was tortured," I say. "Conditioned. They turned him into a weapon and sent him to kill me. I don't think he's going to kill me. Not anymore. But he's going to need your help. A lot of it."

"How about you?" he asks. "You seem pretty much in shock. Not to mention those scratches and bruises. Let me the get the salve-"

"No."

"You need to get taken care of so-"

"No, I've had enough being taken care of," I say. I'm all empty, now that I've felt so much so fiercely and now it was gone. "I've had enough of people."

…

The water scalds me. I let it, pay it no mind. It doesn't hurt, not the way my head does.

I left Vaynich and the doctors and the medbay all alone, came right here to the deserted locker room, stepped into the shower. There I stayed. Plenty of people came and went, I felt their minds passing in and out of focus, but still I stayed. There were restrictions, limits, provisions for saving water. I was above all those.

It wasn't the only thing I was above. I knew what emotions were. I had feelings. I guess I did at least. Other people just seemed to make a lot bigger deal of it than I, hold more stock in it, trust them, listen to them, live for them. Alright, maybe I didn't have them or maybe mine just flowed more into everything else. They didn't get in the way. Not like that emotion, his emotion, the hate and the fear I'd felt roiling around inside Vaynich was beyond anything I'd imagined. It was the most intense thing I'd ever felt. Hell, one of the most intense things I'd ever done in general. It still hurt.

Tears intermittently trace down my face, salt water mixing with fresh. I don't remember the last time I cried, other than tears of pain forced out of me by bodily trauma. It was like the emotions had gotten under my skin, past my defenses, through my shield. Taken control, and I couldn't help it. I can't stand that.

So I decide I won't. I take breath after breath, work on what Thea had taught me. I just let it go. Box it up; throw it away, whatever shoe fits. I put all my strength of will into calming my mind. It doesn't work, not completely, but I get better. I am able to think straight at least by the time I finally turn off the water.

My skin is bright red and I breathe steam all the way back to my locker. I'm toweling off, my wet face deep in a shroud of white cloth, when I feel the familiar mind approach me.

"What do you want this time?" I say into my towel.

"Can't you just read my mind?" asks Galen.

"It's a lot vaguer than that," I lower my towel and wrap it around myself before I turn to face him.

"You always used to want everything to be clear and to the point," says Galen, almost remorsefully.

"My life isn't so simple anymore."

"That's something we have in common," says Galen. He's wearing black from head to toe, but his t-shirt has a small rebel emblem emblazoned on it above his heart. The shirt also looks just a fraction too small.

"They signed you up already?" I ask.

"I didn't have much a choice," he says. "Did you?"

"I'm the Chosen One," I say. "I am the choice. I don't always make my own."

"Now you even talk like a Jedi."

"Do you know how Jedi talk?"

"My gran always said that riddles were involved."

"Is that what you came to ask me about? If I'm being forced into this life, into some grand scheme? So you can sweep me away and erase everything that's gone on between us since my sister was reaped."

"I came to talk. The erasing will come in time."

"Like hell it will."

"Look, you know how hard it is for me to say something like this," Galen puts his hands in his pockets. "I thought I had something with you, turns out I didn't. But I was rash. We're already in different worlds. If we're going to fight on the same side, fight the same people, I'd rather not be fighting each other."

"Fine."

"Is that forgiveness."

"It's apathy. I really don't give a fuck."

"That's what forgiveness always meant to me."

I open my mouth, but choke on my next words.

"Are you crying?" Galen's eyes are wide. He's never seen me like this before. Hell, I've never seen me like this before.

The walls of calm and serenity are breaking down, all the hurt and hate from Vaynich's brain is leaking through the cracks and I can't stop it. I almost can't even breath, that's how strong it is. I'm drowning.

And warm fingers brush my face.

I reach up and swipe his wrist away.

I let it all go again. I find the way. I can't thrust the anger down inside. But I can pour it all out. "Don't. Touch. Me," I hear my voice as if from far away, as I watch Galen fly across the room and slam into a row of lockers.

He lands on his knees, gets to his feet, wipes his split lip on the back of his hand. "Fucking Jedi."

Galen lurches into action as I come at him. He swings a good punch, not so good that I can't avoid it by a mile. My knuckles surge up into his throat. Galen steps back, choking, and I whip my elbow up into his face. Flecks of blood from his nose paint my cheeks.

I bring my hands together, palms first, with his head in between, clapping his ears. Galen's fist whips up under my ribs and gasp and lose my balance as my towel tangles around my ankles. I fall back, but my force serves me well. I catch the floor with my palms and propel myself into a flip, landing in a crouch. I blow wet hair away from my face, but it just flops back.

"What are you," Galen pants.

I just scream. I wave my hand, the towel pounces at him and his feet leave the floor as it wraps around his neck. He struggles, kicks, beats and pulls at the rope as it tightens further and further. His gagging steadily lessons. It's only when he stops kicking that I fully realize what I'm doing. I've been riding on instincts, passions, emotions, everything that isn't my style, ever since he touched me.

Galen is immediately released, flopping the floor. I don't even look at him. I'm already storming out of the room. I don't want to see him. I don't want to feel the anger. I don't want to feel.

Two corridors later the first Rebel soldier I see flushes bright red and offers me their jacket.