Hidden Faults (39 page)

He sighed and stood up, cracked his back, and then set the half-finished chair, covered with jigs, upright. “Needs to set.”

He glanced at me then, and for the merest second his eyes exposed his naked emotions. He wasn’t anything like as calm as he pretended.

“I missed you,” I said. “I was worried.”

“Worried about your friends.”

“That too.”

Kir picked up the tools he’d been using and carried them over to the storage rack on the wall. With his back to me, he said, “You did good with Jeyle, whatever you did.”

“I, uh, found out she expects me to betray you. She thinks things between us are going where...well, where they probably won’t go.”

“Because you don’t trust me.”

“I'm working on it. But you don’t trust me either. That’s why you didn’t bother asking for my permission before you attacked me.”

Kir clenched his hands on a hanging saw, almost seeming like he was suspended against the wall. “In bed, it’s great with you. But it’s like the blowjob thing for you. You can know all you want I won’t hurt you, still won’t let you take my cock in your mouth—”

“Kir, I tried—”

“
Ain’t my
point
, Jodi.” He turned around. “It’s what’s in your head and in your heart. I want you, you know I want you. You know I want to be with you, and I know part of you wants that too. But you don’t trust
me
not to hurt you. I do something that startles you and you light a fireball under my nose.”

“You said you wanted me to be scared of telepaths,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Yeah. Don’t want you to be scared of me though.”

“You’re being unfair.”

“Yeah, I am. Cos I’m fucked up. You’re fucked up. If I could...if we could get past the fear, then...we’d be good. Great. But I can’t. Like you and blowjobs.” He walked over to me, stood toe to toe with me, his dark eyes searching mine. “I want you, but you scare me.”

“Yes. Same here. Where are we going with this, Kir?”

“You’re asking me? Damned if I know.”

“Could we...at least aim for friendship?”

He gave me a brilliant smile. “Sure.” He took my hand. “Thank you,” he whispered, resting his cheek against it.

My heart lifted a little more.

They held the meeting—not a greeting circle, fortunately—immediately after supper, in our side of the refuge. Hermi chaired, Jeyle reported Kir’s findings. It was clearly news to most of them, and I realised then that most of them had very little to do with the actual covert operations. Or perhaps didn’t want to know about them.

“
How many paranormals are we talking about?” Ronwe asked.

“If Kir is right in his surmise, at least ten. Extrapolating from the records we got from the school, we could be looking at as many as a hundred. That’s adults. Children...who knows.”

An excited murmuring rippled around the table. “So,” Lonin said, “will we bring them all here?”

“Why would you do that?” I blurted out. As I hadn’t met some of them before, and had never spoken to the whole group, I caused some surprise. Hermi nodded to me, so I continued. “They’re all in their happy lives. Why disturb them, if you don’t have a purpose. It’ll only cause misery.”

“But if so many respectable citizens were suddenly revealed to be paranormals, if they went to the President,” someone else said. “It might make a difference.”

“Noret and his thugs would stop that happening,” Jeyle said. “Even if we had a thousand examples to show him.”

“Then deal with Noret,” I said. “Kill him if necessary.” The room fell into a horrified silence as every eye fixed on me. “Seems to me you’ve been dancing around the solution to your situation for years. You’ve got the power to change things by force. Why don’t you? Kir, Dede, you could make the politicians do whatever you want.”

Ferige, Kir’s pyrokinetic friend, glared at me. “Young man, that’s not how we do things.”

“Yes, and I can see how well it’s all turned out for you, living inside a rock. If you want to wake up these hundred paranormals, then do it for a reason. Showing the president how harmless you are is only going to get you stomped on.”

“We could ask for a sanctuary to be officially set up. An enclave,” someone said. “Apart but autonomous.”

“You mean, a nice big prison where they can come pick you off when they need you?”

Hermi frowned at me, and Kir touched my arm.
Why are you pushing?

Why not? They want things to be all sweet and tidy, but they don’t care if your hands get dirty.

“We don’t believe in violence,” Dede said, but mildly.

“
No, but
they
do. Did they or did they not drag you from your homes, forcibly drug you, shove you into prison to be raped and beaten and abused, and take your families from you? And you’re suggesting that you offer alienation to these unsuspecting bastards so you can give the government a chance to do it all over again?” I stood up. “The first time, they used your families against you. What are they going to threaten you with now?”

People looked at each other, some confused, some angry, many fearful. Hermi coughed. “The Weadenisis—”

“Have their own country to protect. You people have been hiding here for nine years. What the hell are you waiting for? You’ve got potentially twice your number waiting to ally with you. The time for timidly begging favours from the powers that be is over. Either accept you’re rodents in a cage, or live like humans. Not halfway.”

“If we threaten, we have to be prepared to carry out those threats.” Uliem shot a look at Kir who glared back. “Are you, Arwe Jodi?”

“If someone tries to take me back to prison, they’re going to end up burnt to a crisp. I don’t believe in killing. I don’t believe in being a victim either. If they force the choice, I’ll fight. I’m not living the rest of my life here.”

“
Then go!” someone shouted. “If you despise us so much, go. Run to the Weadenal, if you want to be free and don’t care about this country or us.”

I turned to the angry man who’d yelled at me. “I care about this country. I care about paranormals, and people. But this is no way to live.”

“Jodi, what do you propose we do? We can hardly storm the Presidential residence and take hostages.” Hermi, reasonable and calm, as always.

I ran my hand over my short hair and sighed. “First of all we need to confirm how many paranormals are being concealed, and then we need to know why. Someone’s got a plan for them. If it’s Kregan, he’s clever. He could be an ally. He could be an enemy. We don’t know. Kir, I’m going in with you to question him.”

He frowned again, this time in concern. “Your shields ain’t ready.”

“
Then we wait until they are. I’m not sitting here again while you put your life on the line. You go with backup. That’s me.” I said it to him but I looked at the others as I spoke. “You’re all waiting for someone else to fix your lives for you. The Weadenisis rescued you from prison and instead of saying, okay, now this is our chance to reclaim our rights, you’ve sat here in your luxury and done
nothing
. Out there,” I waved, “thousands of minor paranormals are living in hell. Do you help them?”

“We help many of them escape,” a woman said indignantly. “We’ve prepared dozens of false identities.”

“Dozens.” I sighed. “You don’t know how bad it’s become. I do. I was there less than a year ago. Women your age offering themselves for medical experiments to get a few weeks off naksen, for a warm bed and decent meals. A man my father’s age....” I clenched my fist. “Killing himself because it was better than a life with nothing but degradation and pain. I don’t want to help a few dozen. I want to help them all, and I want my old life back, damn it!”

They didn’t want to hear it. I proposed the disturbance of their safe, easy existence, and running the risk of going back to prison. I knew why it scared them. I didn’t know why using the amazing powers we had appalled them so.

I sat down and Hermi stood. “Everyone, Jodi is speaking his mind as is his right. I think, personally, he’s made a very good point—that we do need to know who is behind this and why. As you know, I also believe that Kir has put himself at risk time and again for us, so if Jodi wants to support him, I support Jodi. But I can’t support violence, Jodi—nor killing. If
my
personal safety is to be won at the cost of mass slaughter, I would rather cut my throat and be done with it.”

I started to protest, but he held up his hand. “The safety of innocents who can’t protect themselves is another matter. I know some of you disagree this is a valid reason, but there are circumstances which justify actions I would normally condemn. Kir, nothing I said is a criticism of you, you understand that, don’t you?”

Kir gave him a weak smile. “Yeah, we’re good. I don’t want no slaughter neither. People already hate us.”

“Exactly. Jodi, your anger’s justified, but we need a solution we can live with.”

“Like what?” Kir laid a hand on my leg and I patted it.

“That’s to be decided.” I frowned at Hermi impatiently, but he only smiled back at me as if I was a beloved but occasionally impetuous child. “Jodi’s spoken. Anyone else have an opinion they’d like to share?”

Two hours later, after a good deal of heated discussion and charged emotions, Kir stood quite suddenly, his eyes narrowed and his forehead wrinkling. “Sorry. I—”

He pushed his chair back with a screech of wood on stone and then walked away. Jeyle started to rise, but Hermi put his hand on her arm then looked at me. “Jodi, please?”

I needed no other urging and didn’t apologise as I got up and walked quickly after Kir. He sent no message to tell me to stop, so I took that as assent to follow him.

He’d headed for his workshop again. As I came in, I found him sitting on a stool, his expression blank. I went to him and put my arms around him, and he didn’t resist, his head against my stomach.

“I just...sometimes I get the urge to smack people,” he murmured. “Really smack, not like....”

“Metaphorically? I understand. I don’t know how you bear it.”

“Mostly I don’t. We don’t usually talk about stuff that much. Every so often, sure...but they don’t know much about what I do. Don’t want to know, most of them.”

“So I gathered.” I combed my fingers through his thick, black hair, hoping he found the motion soothing. “This is an opportunity, Kir. How can they talk about pissing it away?”

“I thought you wanted to protect all them poor innocent paras.”

“I do. But maybe the best way of protecting them is to change society. I don’t want to die inside this mountain. I’d rather die fighting the army than endure that.”

“Enough with that. Between you and Hermi, there’s been too much talk about killing yourselves.”

“Sorry.” I crouched down, and then clutched the front of his shirt in my hand. “Will you take me with you? I know you want to.”

“If your shields are strong enough. We don’t know what Kregan is, but I’m betting he’s a TP. That’s what that demonstration was about this afternoon.” He closed his eyes and by the way he winced, I knew he had a headache.

“Up.” I hauled him up by his shirt. “You need to go to bed. Hermi should have shut that meeting down an hour ago.”

“Yeah, but people was talking....”

“No excuse. Go on.”

But he stopped me removing my hand from his shirt. “Jodi...can I sleep with you? Just sleep? I don’t want it to mean— “

“It won’t. And yes.”

And I was truly glad he couldn’t read my mind any more and hoped my self-control was up to it.

~~~

In the end, he fell asleep rather quickly, and I found his warm, strong body wrapped around me more soothing than anything else. A comfort that made the walls less oppressive, and for a change, I spent the night in my own bed and not on the sofa.

Better rested, and with a chance to mull over all the discussion, Kir waded enthusiastically into the breach the following day. Finally everyone present—by no means all the residents—agreed that he, Jeyle, and I would confront Kregan in Vizinken, a task which required not only my personal preparation, but more strategic planning.

The meeting broke up, but the discussion wasn’t over. Hermi wanted to call yet another meeting to get the whole group to agree to possible tactics, and Jeyle finally lost her temper.

“
Bloody hell, Hermi. These people couldn’t agree on how much soap powder to order for the laundry! Jodi knows this man, Kir can handle himself, and I’ll be there as backup. The others have been content to sit on their bottoms for all this time, they can continue to do so.”

“But we’re a collective, my love.”

“A mad house,” she muttered. “No. I’m putting my foot down.”

“And if Wesejne objects?”

“
Wesejne doesn’t live here,” I said. “It’s our country. Our problem.
My
problem.”