Pandora’s People 2: Keely Read online

  Keely nodded, but she didn’t believe it. She was never going to feel better, not until West stood again by her side.

  * * *

  She slept nearly sixteen hours. When she woke, her mouth felt sticky and tasted like spoiled cheese. Sitting up slowly in bed, she registered the time and date on the bedside clock and stared at it grimly.

  “Fucking waste of time,” she muttered, and swung her legs out of the bed. Pushing her hair out of her face, she made her way to the kitchen and started a cup of coffee.

  She still could get no clear sense of West. His presence remained a silent cipher in her consciousness, there but with no means of connection or contact. She could sense nothing from him, and was certain he could sense nothing from her.

  The situation made her more angry now than sad. Maxwell’s refusal to let her try to bring West back rankled. West was a member of the team, and was injured. To make no attempt to rescue him was, in her mind, reprehensible.

  Maxwell had seemed adamant in his choice of non-interference, though. Fine. She’d go over his head.

  Taking a seat cross-legged in the middle of the living room floor, Keely closed her eyes and reached out, searching for the one person to whom she owed her loyalty, the one leader who truly mattered, in her estimation.

  She had no idea what time it was right now in Applewood Village, but she didn’t really care, either. She reached out as best she could; she didn’t have the power to complete the connection to Pandora over this great a distance. Pandora would have to sense her attempts to reach her and complete the connection herself before Keely could communicate with her.

  Impatiently, Keely waited, thrusting her psychic self out as far as she could, waiting for Pandora to connect with her. With each second that passed, she felt panic try to rise in her, felt a slow sense of despondency mix with the more immediate fear that tried to take her breath. She clenched her eyes tighter shut. She knew trying to force her power to work was the worst way to get it to cooperate, but she was desperate and she was scared. Tears prickled behind her eyes. She had to reach Pandora. Had to make her understand. She couldn’t lose West, couldn’t go through that again --

  Keely? Keely, dear, settle yourself.

  Keely almost sobbed with relief at the familiar “voice” inside her head. The tone was soothing in spite of the chastising sense of her words.

  “Pandora?” she managed. Her mental voice was steady, but she felt hot tears on her face.

  Yes, it’s me. Are you all right?

  Keely shook her head. “No. Pandora, it’s all gone wrong. I don’t know what to do…”

  She passed on the story, half in words, half in telepathic images, showing Pandora what had happened, and showing her West’s current condition. She could sense Pandora’s growing concern and horror.

  Keely, I’m so sorry, she said finally, and the sincerity surrounding her statement made tears bead again in Keely’s eyes. I’m so sorry.

  “Why didn’t anyone know this was going to happen?” Keely burst out, beyond comfort now, ready to lash out at anything that presented itself. “What’s the use of having precogs around if they never know what’s going to happen?”

  It’s an uncomfortable, enigmatic, and unreliable skill, Pandora soothed. There was enough regret in her voice to keep her statement from being patronizing, but Keely still found it without comfort.

  “Can you… can you tell me if he’ll be all right?”

  There was a long silence from Pandora, then she quietly said, No. I can’t tell.

  Keely gritted her teeth. “I have to save him. Help me save him.”

  The silence this time was like that of breath drawn, waiting to be released. Finally the answer came. I can’t.

  “Why not?” Keely’s mental voice came out as a screech of angry denial. “Why won’t anyone help me? Why won’t anyone help him?” She collapsed forward onto the floor, folding over herself, sobbing. “Please. Just help him. I love him…”

  Pandora’s presence was like a hand gently caressing Keely’s hair. Keely could “hear” the sense of Pandora’s reasons -- she was too far away, West was too deeply hurt, the risk was too great. All of them made sense to Keely, except that none of them did.

  She cried, feeling Pandora’s presence slowly slip away from her, as maintaining the long-distance contact finally became too much of a strain for them both. Alone again, she curled around herself on the floor and wept, her heart wrenching at the emptiness left behind by John, by West.

  And finally, slowly, she brought herself back under control and sat up. She rubbed the tears from her face and pushed her hair back.

  She was going to get him back. With or without help from Maxwell or Pandora. She would bring him back.

  She loved him.

  Chapter Seven

  Keely had taken a vow a long time ago to never use her powers to unfairly manipulate other people. It had been a weighty, formal vow, taken in front of all the teachers at Applewood’s schools, all the men and women who had guided her through a tricky adolescence and into adulthood. She had held up her right hand and spoken the words clearly and firmly. She’d meant them, and she’d never broken that vow.

  Until now.

  In spite of the oath, she’d learned everything she’d been able to learn about manipulating other people’s emotions. For healing them, helping them, especially in recovery after use of their own powers. But she’d also learned how to use her power for subterfuge and manipulation. All to be used in the proper context, of course -- to defeat the bad guys and serve the cause of justice.

  Until now.

  She slipped in through the back doors of the hospital, silent and unnoticed. Anyone who might have seen her found themselves unconcerned, distracted, or even oblivious as she walked straight into West’s room. Even his doctor smiled at her blandly, as if looking through her, and suddenly seemed to find something else to do.

  She watched him leave the room, feeling a twinge of guilt. Fighting it back, she sat next West’s bed and took his hand.

  “I’m bringing you back,” she said, her voice quiet. She couldn’t keep it steady, and it cracked as she spoke. “I’m bringing you back.”

  She squeezed his hand tight and closed her eyes.

  * * *

  West drifted. Everything around him was dark -- thick, cottony blackness everywhere he looked. He could feel nothing, hear nothing, see nothing. The only thing in his awareness was the last, suspended exclamation of pain, still echoing in his head, as if everything had simply stopped at that moment.

  The moment he’d realized exactly who had attacked him.

  He had to tell the others. Had to get the information to them before they, too, fell victim. But the longer he hung in the cottony darkness, the less he could summon to his memory; he hung there, silent and alone, knowing the information he held was desperately important but unable to remember exactly what that information was.

  And there was pain. Searing, enveloping, filling the spaces in the darkness with a red-black haze. The pain that had stabbed through him when the object of his probing had lashed out to prevent his intrusion remained, and had become all-encompassing.

  There was nothing left of him. Just the pain, the darkness, and the sure knowledge that he had failed.

  * * *

  Keely felt the pain first. It lay at the highest levels of what was left of West’s consciousness. Before she could get to anything else, she had to peel that away. She gasped as it invaded her own consciousness, nearly incapacitated by the first taste of it. She took a long, slow breath and, realizing her hand had tightened on West’s nearly hard enough to break his fingers, focused on loosening her grip.

  This pain is not mine. This sensation is outside myself. I do not sense this. It is not mine.

  Still, it hurt, like hot lava poured over her. Slowly, carefully, she managed to set herself outside it, separating it from herself, refusing to acknowledge that this was her lover, that the agony was his. That he’d been sufferin
g like this for so long already, that if she hadn’t taken the step she had and defied her superiors, he would have remained doomed to this pain until he either woke on his own or succumbed to it.

  None of those thoughts could help her now, or help him. She set them away where she could no longer hear them.

  Beneath the layer of intolerable pain, all was quiet. West seemed to float in an endless nothingscape surrounded by darkness that both comforted and beckoned. He could let go, drift away on that darkness and never touch that horrible rending pain again.

  But he hadn’t. Because beneath the darkness lay yet another layer, where his mind still held some vague sense of itself. And that small kernel of consciousness knew that if he let go, no one would ever know the truth of what had happened to him.

  What is the truth? Keely felt the thought form automatically in response to the desperation that seemed to be all West had left.

  I… I don’t know. His answer came in something fainter than a whisper, more nebulous than a breath. Keely?

  Yes. It’s me. Her own relief finally bubbled up, but she quelled it as quickly as she had her fear, realizing it to be equally debilitating if she let it take any sort of control. Instead she reached out with her mind, projecting peace into West’s consciousness, hoping this might in some way ease the pain.

  To her surprise, he fought her. No… no… I have to hold on… tell you…

  She caressed him gently, picturing it crystal clear in her mind, feeling his skin beneath her fingertips as vividly as if she’d actually touched him. Relax. Let it go. Once you’re away from the pain, you’ll be able to remember, and then you can tell me.

  No… But then he suddenly relaxed, letting her inside.

  His psyche hadn’t completely emptied, as she had feared even after making contact with him. She could feel emotions trembling along the edges of his consciousness, ready to coalesce again when healing had set in, when he was free of what now held him. Her talent lay in empathy, but she could sense other parts of his mind, as well -- the logic parts, the memories and thoughts. They all seemed closed off behind doors. And one part seemed particularly safeguarded, the barrier in front of it thick and heavy, an impenetrable door.

  On the edges of her awareness, she vaguely felt her hand tightening on West’s. Around her, his consciousness began to shiver somehow. The trembling sensation surrounded her, making it hard for her to hang onto him.

  Come home. She could feel the words forming on her lips as they sounded in her mind, but couldn’t hear her own voice.

  His consciousness rose to meet hers in a sort of embrace, warm and gentle, and they moved together, her mind holding and caressing his, bringing him back to himself.

  The pain flared again, and she nearly screamed before she once again locked it away from herself. It was a trigger mechanism, she realized. Whenever he reached for consciousness, the pain tore through him. Carefully, she soothed him, closed herself and West both away from the lashing agony.

  Something was acting as a trigger. Settling a bit more deeply into her trance-like state, she drew a cloak of objectivity around herself and opened her perceptions as best she could. West’s emotions were muddled and unsure, but his entire psyche seemed to focus away from one thing.

  The door.

  It felt heavy and immovable to her, a solid block between West’s psyche and whatever lay behind the barrier. She turned her attention to it.

  Immediately, she knew it had to open. Whatever lay behind it was important enough to be hidden, and therefore was important enough to un-hide.

  No… West’s protest sounded more reflexive than impassioned -- like something else that had been implanted in his mind. Yet another indication that the barrier had to go.

  The biggest question was how. This was different from the work she’d been trained for, not work that meshed well with her empathic talent. But it had to be done, and the additional training and assistance she’d received from John made it more feasible that she could pull this off.

  Remembering hours of practice focusing while John did his best to distract her, remembering time spent in formal classes honing and refining her ability to reach beyond the normal limits of her power, she focused on the door. It became more clearly a door, firm, solid and square, perhaps of oak, with metal bands across it to hold it in place. There was no visible handle or keyhole. Studying it closely, she wondered if she could visualize some kind of opening mechanism, some way to just pull it open.

  Even as she gave the notion coherent form in her mind, the pain stabbed through them both again. She clenched her teeth -- she could feel them creaking together even in her trance state -- and with an intense concentration of her own power, kicked the door open.

  The pain was excruciating. Flaying, as if they both were being skinned alive. Keely reached out to West, and he reached back, and she felt both his hands in hers so distinctly that she wasn’t sure if it was real or only occurring on the psychic plane.

  It drew them tightly together, regardless, and suddenly Keely felt as if she were inside West, body, mind and soul. She heard his mental gasp; it was the most intense sensation she’d ever experienced. Her body seemed to explode with it, negating the violent, pervasive pain with an orgasm so intense she thought she might turn inside out with it. West’s consciousness convulsed, as well, pulsing through the soul-deep climax. Everything -- the darkness, the silence, the quickly dissipating pain -- rushed in on them in a final paroxysm of sensation, then --

  They were --

  Back.

  And Keely looked down at West, lying quiet and pale on the hospital bed. He opened his eyes.

  “Keely,” he murmured. His hand lifted, shaky, to touch her face. His fingers trembled against her skin.

  She turned her head a little to kiss the palm of his hand. His skin was soft and warm under her lips. She smiled down into his still-hazy eyes.

  “Keely,” he said again, but his tone was different this time, and her smile faded. She knew exactly what he meant.

  The door had opened, and the memory within had flooded out, imbedding itself in both their minds with perfect clarity. Once seen, it could not be unseen. They both carried that burden now, along with the responsibility to pass it on.

  She looked down at his hand in hers, the full impact of what he had discovered only now beginning to sink in. West’s loss would have destroyed her; she could at first only rejoice that she’d been able to bring him back. But this -- this could destroy everything.

  She met West’s sober gaze and knew what he was thinking without benefit of her talent.

  “We have to tell Maxwell,” West murmured, his voice ragged with exhaustion, barely more than a breath.

  Keely nodded. “Yes,” she said, her voice heavy. “We do.”

  Chapter Eight

  Maxwell stared at them both across the expanse of his desk, his expression one of slack-jawed shock.

  “It can’t… it’s not possible.”

  He was so distraught Keely was tempted to ease him gently with her power, make him feel more at peace, but she didn’t dare. He had to come to terms with this on his own. They all did. She herself felt gutted now that the shock had begun to wear off.

  “I just don’t understand,” he finally finished, opening his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  West looked at him evenly. He still looked pale and wan, with dark circles under his eyes. His hands shifted against each other in his lap. They were trembling.

  “I don’t, either,” he said. One hand rose hesitantly to his chest, rubbing there as if it were sore.

  “Are you sure this memory wasn’t implanted somehow?”

  West nodded. “I’m sure.”

  Maxwell’s gaze swiveled to Keely, a raised eyebrow requesting her opinion.

  She made a helpless gesture, not quite a shrug. “If it was implanted, why would it have been put behind such a solid barrier? If it had been put there as part of a frame-up, you’d think the person who implanted it would ha
ve wanted it to be easily accessible.” She hated the truth of her words, hated that she had to say them. More than anything else, she wanted a reason not to believe what she’d discovered. The truth that had nearly killed West. The truth that felt like it could kill her, tear her to pieces, if she let it touch her too deeply. The truth that made everything she had ever believed into a lie.

  Maxwell’s frown deepened. He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. “I have no choice, then.”

  Keely said nothing. West was fading; his skin looked almost transparent. He wavered in his seat, and she reached out to steady him. His hand closed over hers in a desperate grip, clutching at her. Anger flared, unexpected, and Keely turned to Maxwell.

  “Unfortunately, we won’t be able to help, not this time.”

  Maxwell nodded. He could make no protest, she knew, not face-to-face with West’s weakness. He needed her now, needed her to help him heal. They could be no help to Maxwell now, not given what he had to do.

  They could be no help against Pandora.

  * * *

  She put it out of her mind as best she could, helping West back to his room. He was still shaking, having insisted they go immediately to Maxwell without resting or waiting. It had been the right thing to do, of course, given the circumstances, but Keely knew he’d suffered for it.

  He half-collapsed onto his bed with a gasping moan that sounded like pain. Keely sat next to him and gently removed his shoes and socks, unfastened his trousers, unbuttoned his shirt. She eased him out of them, leaving him lying on the bed in just his boxers.

  “Feeling better?” she asked, hard-pressed to keep her voice light, but managing.

  “A bit.” His hand moved, reaching, and she took it in hers. “I just… I can’t believe it.”

  “I know.” She laid her other hand on top of his, holding him tight, anchoring herself to him. “I keep wanting to ask you if you’re sure.” She gave a bitter laugh. “But I know you are. I was there.”

  He nodded. “And I’m still not sure.”