Hidden Faults (35 page)

“Let’s go inside, Timo.”

He held my arm all the way into the house, turned on the smallest lamp in the room, and then made me face him. “Jodi...did you escape from prison?”

“Yes, and these people helped me. Timo, we need to talk to you, and I need you to be quiet.”

He glanced back towards the bedrooms. “Hana—”

“Your family’s safe and asleep,” Kir said, his voice gentle but commanding attention. “I’m a telepath. We rescued Jodi, and now we want your help.”

“For what? Jodi, please...I can’t risk them, I can’t—”

“Shhh. Timo, you know me, would I do that to you?”

He shook his head, his eyes suspiciously bright. “I would have come but they...came to work. Made it clear if I tried to contact you...we’d lose everything. They threatened the boys. I’m so sorry.”

He hung his head. I patted his shoulder and wanted to hug him, but Kir was watching.

“Timo, I need to ask you about your childhood.”

He frowned at me. “Why?”

“Because someone made me forget a lot of things that happened to me, blocked my talent, made me think I was normal. We’re trying to find out who and why. It’s something to do with school, we think.”

“
No...no.” He shook his head frantically, holding up his hands in refusal. “You can’t...I’m not like you. Am I? Are you trying to send me to pr—”

Kir raised his own hand and Timo froze. “Calm down, Mas Paltimo,” he grated out. “No one’s going to prison. But we ain’t got time to indulge you neither, so you keep quiet until we need you to speak.”

Timo’s eyes grew wide with shock.

“It’s okay,” I said uselessly, glaring at Kir. “We need you not to wake people up. Timo, no one will put you in danger. I just need some information. Kir, let him talk.”

“I don’t know anything about your talent,” Timo said, glancing worriedly at Kir and Jeyle.

“No, I know. All you have to do is remember some things. Let me guide you. Do you trust me, Timo? Will you let us do this?” He nodded, though still clearly anxious. I put my arm around his shoulders. “Thank you. Now....”

I guided him through the questions Kir and Hermi had put me through, with Jeyle prompting. Kir said nothing, but he recorded it all in his perfect memory. Finally, he nodded at me.

“We’re done,” I said, hugging Timo a little,.

“I don’t understand, Jodi. What’s going on?”

“
I don’t know all the answers. Near as I can tell, someone wanted to make sure I never found out I was paranormal—and that no one else did either. We wanted to know if your memory had been interfered with in the same way. Kir?”

Kir, who’d gone over to watch Jeyle working, turned around. “Yeah, exactly the same. For the same reason, I think.”

“I’m a paranormal?” I nodded. “Marra’s tits.” Timo clutched at his bathrobe, pulling it closed around his chest. “You’re going to expose me?” His voice went high-pitched in terror.

“Not if it meant my life,” I said, staring into his eyes, trying to reassure. “This is what will happen. Kir here will erase all memory of this event from your mind. You’ll wake up tomorrow and never know we were here—”

He grabbed for my hands. “Forget you? Jodi, no!”

“Timo, there are telepaths working for the government. They tried to recruit me. It’s not safe. I won’t be gone forever, I swear. You have to trust me.”

“I thought I’d never see you again.”

“Same here.”

We stared at each other, regretful and longing, until Kir coughed a little. “Guys?”

“Uh, yeah. Kir is going to plant a suggestion in your mind so you visit some of the people from school. He needs to check their memories too. No one will ever know. There’s no danger.”

“If I refuse? You’ll do it anyway?”

“
Yes.” That was Jeyle, at her most cold and unsympathetic. “Because someone is controlling a lot of innocent people and manipulating them, and we have to know
why
. It’s bad enough that the government is suppressing us, but whoever did this, isn’t part of that. You could be in grave danger, Mas Paltimo.”

“I hate it, but she’s right, Timo,” I said. “You have no idea how bad the situation is. Kir’s good. You won’t be aware of any of it, and he’ll disappear from your life without you ever knowing.”

“That’s horrible,” he said, shivering. “How can you be so calm, Jodi?”

If only he knew.
“Because there are worse things.”

He touched my arm. “I’m so sorry.”

“Absolutely not your fault. Kir, leave him with that, at least. Knowing it was all he could do.”

“
All right. Say your goodbyes, cos I gotta do my thing.”

Kir’s voice lacked any trace of friendliness, and Jeyle’s expression was set in stone. I ignored them both as I hugged Timo and whispered that I loved him, and would come back when it was safe. I had no idea when that would be.

Then I let him go, and his expression went blank as Kir set to work. A couple of minutes later Timo rose like a sleepwalker and let us out of the house. The door closed behind us with a quiet, final clunk that made me die a little inside.

Kir said nothing as we flew back to Meram and Terna’s. Smart man. Jeyle delivered a curt ‘Good night’ and a warning to me not to sleep too late, and went off to her room.

In ours, I sat on my bed, my fists clenched, unable to stop shaking.

Kir came over and knelt in front of me, his hands resting lightly on my knees, his dark eyes kind, searching my face.

“I just...seeing him. I miss him. I miss...all of it. My life, my...Timo, and—” I closed my eyes and bit my lip to stop me saying things that would hurt us both. What was done was done, and the past could not be unmade. But Timo’s eyes as we said goodbye would haunt me forever.

“Calm down—”

“Use your talent on me, Kir and I’ll turn you into a roast dinner. Don’t you dare wipe my memories.”

He gripped my chin and made me look at him. “If I wanted to do that, you’d never know it, right? You think that’s all I am? A telepath?”

“I want to hate you,” I said, my voice shaking so hard I could barely understand my own words. “How can I make a friend of someone who did what you did?”

“You just...do. If you want to. I can apologise and apologise and it won’t make any difference. It’s done, and if I had to, in the same situation, I’d do it again because it’s bigger than you, bigger than me. It’s not just for me, Hermi, all of us. It’s your friend, his family, the others like him. It’s people like your guy, Neim. It’s people like my sisters, growing up thinking their brother killed their Mam. I’d do it again even if you hate me. I love you, Jodi. But you’re just one guy.”

He rocked back on his heels, his expression set, waiting for me to bite back. I couldn’t. All I could see was Neim’s desperate face as he begged me to find his son. Timo as he pleaded with me not to bring my hellish fate on him and his. All the sad, hopeless paranormals I’d put through my clinical trials, treating them as cannon fodder for the greater good.

“I want it to stop hurting,” I whispered.

“I can make it not hurt.”

“Not with your—”

“No. Shhh. Let me make you feel good. I need to.”

He leaned up and kissed me, barely more than a brush of his lips against mine, as if he was afraid how I’d react to more. I went stock-still, my thoughts, my feelings colliding so hard I couldn’t react with words or act. He moved so he could sit on the bed beside me, then kissed me again. This time I responded, ravaging his mouth, greedily, wantonly, because tasting his warmth, male and desirable, felt better than the agony in my heart. His hand tugged at my belt, and I helped him undo it, still kissing him and rubbing my hands up and down his slim, muscled back. I needed him naked, I needed to touch warm, living skin.

He sat up suddenly and tore off his sweater and shirts as I clawed at his lean, brown body, needing him to come back, closer, so I could touch him. So needy, so weak, and yet I couldn’t stop this craving because it made me feel good and I wanted something to end the pain. He let me tug him down so I could stroke and touch him. His hand slid into my open trousers, palming me, and my cock swelled against that knowing, possessing touch.

“Please,” I whispered, kissing him desperately, begging. “Please, Kir.”

He moved down, but before I could complain about the loss of his lips on mine, his mouth touched me again, only lower. I arched, sudden heat and slickness on my cock so intense and welcome. I spread my legs, eager for him to close in. He pushed a hand under me, cupping my buttocks, squeezing, as his sweet, sweet mouth worked on me. I gripped coarse, thick hair, his smooth shoulders, needing so much to have him connected to me, needing his mouth on my cock, sliding with skill and gentleness, his mouth a haven for my pain and my lust, his hands on backside and thigh claiming me and possessing me.

It ended fast, my orgasm hot, shattering, him swallowing me down and giving no quarter until he had tasted it all and released me, and as I shuddered in the grip of climax, he licked me and kissed me until I grew calm and limp to his touch. My fingers released the hair I’d held so cruelly, and I moved them to caress his cheek—no stubble though it was night, his ancestors a strong and beardless race of warriors.

I pushed myself up, and he stood, hard in the trousers I fumbled to undo. His hand guided my face to his crotch as naturally and easily as any man might, but I froze, jerking back.

“
No.” My heart raced, my nostrils flaring in memory. “No, I can’t.”

He crouched, holding my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Hey, it’s me. Jodi, it’s me. It’s okay.” He held me until I stopped shuddering. “I’m sorry.”

“Just...I can’t, I can’t....”

My fists clenched so tight my nails felt like they cut into me.

“No. It’s okay, I—”

I reached down and cupped him. “No. I want...stand up.”

He did, but then lay down again, insisting on kissing me, petting me, murmuring gentling words that I should have been ashamed to need if it wasn’t him saying them. My fingers played over his erection, still trapped behind cloth, touching and stroking the warm hardness, teasing him, but without him doing the least thing to encourage me.

He didn’t resist as I tugged his erection free, shimmied a little as my hand wrapped around it, his tongue more eager, more demanding as I stroked silky, perfect skin, a touch as familiar as my name to me, even though he was yet unfamiliar, terrifying but desired. He gasped and writhed under my hand, a touch too desperate to be as skilled and gentle as he had been, but he didn’t seem to care.

And when he’d spent, he licked every trace of himself from my fingers, kissing the tips with a reverence that made my vision blur, then he kissed the moisture from my eyes. He held me close, and stroked my back, an illusion of intimacy that I so desperately needed, though the gulf between us was, in reality, as wide as before. Somehow he manoeuvred us around, and a little time later I found myself divested of clothes and under covers.

I thought about accusing him of using his powers for evil, but decided I didn’t want to disturb this fragile, temporary peace between us. He curled up against me, his head familiarly against my shoulder the way Timo used to fall asleep, and the pang of homesickness and sadness hit me again, though distantly, bearably this time. I kissed the top of his head, grateful and ashamed at the same time.

Thank you.

His fingers over my heart tightened a little.
Sleep. Long day tomorrow.

True, and travel, emotion, and the brief, vivid sex had exhausted me. I had things I wanted to say to him, but my thoughts were chaotic and my mouth uncooperative. They would wait.

But as I drifted off to sleep, I thought I heard him say something. Words that, if he’d said them aloud, would not be easily overlooked, easily erased.

If you loved me the way you love him, I’d never give you up.

On the edge of sleep, I didn’t know if I said, or he heard me reply,
If I loved you...I could never let you go.

He’d gone when I woke, but as I dressed, heavy-hearted but calm, he returned, apparently having only been out to use the bathroom. He stood, assessing me—reading my mind no doubt, so I didn’t bother asking questions. Nor did he.

“Your friend’s awake, and he’s fine. I did what you asked, but he still feels like a shit. Not much I can do about that.” His tone implied Timo deserved his guilt. “Meram and Terna are having breakfast. We need to leave when they do, or it’ll look funny.”

To offer me shielding Kir would drive with us out of Vizinken and to a rollo station some hundred pardecs north, then to catch a rollo back to town. He would stay with Meram as long as it took for Timo to contact our school friends. Even with my own experience of Kir’s great skill and power, I still worried that Timo would expose himself to the security forces.

Kir walked over to me—but didn’t come too close. The intimacy of the night before had been a truce, but now the war had resumed. Nothing had really changed.