On the Prowl (Alpha & Omega 0.5)(39)

Kai could handle the sting of rejection  -  and had, plenty of times. She understood why people feared the loss of privacy. But pity labeled her pathetic, and she couldn't tolerate that.

In the eleven years since the accident, Kai had moved seven times. In each new place she'd hoped to find friends. And she had, until she tried trusting them with the truth about herself. Whenever she told someone she saw thoughts, they changed. Most withdrew, fearing judgment or invasion. Those who didn't withdraw physically did so in other ways, watching for signs of insanity... because everyone knew telepaths went crazy sooner or later.

Everyone but Nathan. She didn't know how she'd found the courage to tell him, but she knew why. He didn't lie to her, not even a rosy little social lie. How could she keep lying to him? So six months ago she'd told him. He'd nodded, asked a few questions, and said he'd never heard of a telepathic Gift like hers, but it sounded easier to live with than the usual sort. And that was it.

"You sure you're okay?" Ginger put a hand on Kai's shoulder. "I need to make my way to the front. I'm supposed to speak after Charley."

"You didn't tell me you were one of the speakers!" Kai patted her hand. "Go on. I'm going to hang here at the back." She might not have the problems a real empath would, but the excited crowd made her nervous. "You might see if you can calm folks down a bit. They're wired."

Ginger grinned. "Charley will help with that. He can put a class to sleep in under ten minutes."

"Hey, I'll bet his students stay awake. They'd want to see if he does." Charley, like Ginger, taught at the local community college. He was actually a wonderful speaker, but so laid-back he looked like he might doze off mid-word.

Ginger started threading herself through knots of people. The moment she left, Kai dug her nails into her palms.

She might not feel the emotions swirling around her, but if she weren't careful they'd still suck her in. Kai called it fuguing, the way she could slip away, entranced by the colors and shapes of the minds around her. As a baby she'd apparently been lost in fugue so often that she'd been diagnosed as autistic.

Grandfather had known better. When she was three he'd taken her to another shaman, and together they'd performed a rare ritual that suppressed Kai's Gift. For eleven years she'd been normal  -  until the day she woke, weeping, from a week-long coma. She'd had no memory of the accident, but from the instant she awoke she'd known her parents were dead.

Therapy had saved her in more ways than one. Therapy and Grandfather. She'd needed the intense physical focus to learn how to mute the Gift that had woken, full-force, while she was in a coma. She'd needed Grandfather to teach her how to go on.

Fugue had never captured her completely, the way she was told it had when she was a baby, but it brought other dangers. When in fugue, she could play with the patterns, change them, intrude her patterns into others. When in fugue, she wanted to. She'd see something in the patterns that needed fixing, and  -

"Kai. Kai!"

Startled, Kai swung around to see Jackie a few feet away, trouble writ as large on her face as it was in her colors. "What is it?"

"Damned ghosts." She scowled. "I'm supposed to get you out of here. Or Ginger. Or both."

"Afternoon, Doug. This is Sergeant Hunter," Sheriff Browning said. "He has some information you need to listen to."

Midland's chief of police made Nathan think of a whip  -  quick, taut, and snappish. He even looked the part, being over six feet and under one-sixty. His hair and eyes were dark, his forehead high and getting higher. His mustache might have been laid out with a ruler.

"Randy." Chief Roberts nodded at the sheriff. He had a nod for Nathan, too, but no word of greeting. Nor did he offer either of them a handshake, remaining behind his wide desk, its shine interrupted by very few objects  -  reading glasses, a file folder, a pen, a phone, a wire basket holding papers. "I imagine you're here to complain that I'm intruding into your territory. I'm behind, so I hope you can make this quick."

"Quick enough." Browning took the seat he hadn't been offered, so Nathan sat, too. "Knox hauled off a possible witness to my case. You want to explain that?"

"If you're talking about the Shaw murder  -  "

"You know I am."

"There's no evidence he was killed outside city limits, and every reason to think his death is connected to the two Knox is already handling. He found a witness. He brought the man in to make a statement. That's his job. However"  -  he spared Browning a thin smile  -  "I'm not trying to keep evidence from you. Here's a copy of that statement." He handed Browning the file folder.

The sheriff took the folder but didn't open it. "Doug, in your rush to make this your collar instead of mine, you've screwed up. I know the gist of this. Knox found a witness who identified the woman Shaw left The Bar with last night."

Though the smile remained thin, the dark eyes were smug. "That's right."

"Kai Michalski."

Nathan's heartbeat didn't speed up this time. He knew Knox had Kai in his sights and assumed the chief was backing him, so he had his body under rigid control. But deep inside, in a part of him that had never been and would never be human, he was howling.