The fear in his words disarms me, then confuses me.
Turning away from him altogether, I run, even as another negative image of him inside the Barrier fills my vision. Red and blue charges spark along his arms and legs, growing brighter. He throws another of those blindingly bright bolts at me, this one denser, and again I manage to sidestep it. Something above my head also reacts, pushing the bolt sideways.
The second reflex feels weaker than the first, though, almost like a muscle atrophied from lack of use.
I stumble towards the road, stub my toe on a rock and half-fall, pick myself up.#p#分页标题#e#
My limbs move muddily but I force them faster, fighting the rising sickness in my gut as his light reaches for mine, strangling some part of me I can’t see, making it hard to move. I make it to the road when the scene around me vanishes...replaced by dark blue clouds.
Blind, I try to manage my limbs, can’t.
Out of nowhere, a hard thud collides with the meat and bone of my physical body. Pain rockets up my leg, pools in the point of contact until...
I snapped out.
...and found myself staring into the chrome grill of a car, on my knees, holding my stomach. Nearby, a car door opened, and the sound is so loud it deafens me. I stared at the dotted dividing lines in the road, garnished with yellow reflectors.
“Get out of the road!” a man yelled at me.
A whisper of hope lifted my eyes.
And if you are the terrorist? the voice says. Will you still run to them to save you?
“Are you crazy, girl? Trying to kill yourself?”
Are you really so sure you’re not one of us?
Fear lurched me to my feet. My knees were bleeding but my first thought was that he was coming, that he was in my head, and even if he wanted to, this old man with the angry face and the bushy white eyebrows couldn’t save me.
I pushed past him, seeing his expression change as he took in my appearance, my hair matted with blood and dirt, my cut feet and hands, the ripped up waitress uniform and handcuffs.
“Girl.” He called after me. “Hey...girl! Are you all right? Where are you going?”
I looked back, but not at him.
The tall, black-haired seer had reached the bottom of the hill. He slid down the last of it on leather boots through dusty gravel and broken glass.
I ran, feeling each bare foot hit hard at the pavement. I darted into traffic, aiming for a nearby gas station, and again cars honked, swerved to avoid me, only now I tried to wave them down once more, too desperate to think about whether they could help me or not.
I pounded on the hood of a red compact when it screeched to a stop.
“Help! I’m being kidnapped! Please, help me...!”
The woman inside stared up at me, wide-eyed.
“Please!” I screamed. “Get me out of here!”
The woman flinched, cowering behind the steering wheel.
I ran on. People on the sidewalk reacted slowly, staring as they realized something unusual was happening, something they probably shouldn’t ignore. Someone might have called the cops by then, but he was right, I couldn’t be sure if they’d come to help me or to take me away.
Then, before I could decide what to do next, he took me down.
He watches her from the Barrier, calculates how best to proceed.
He has frightened her, broken her trust with his honesty about the Rooks, or at least his refusal to lie. He is glad he chose to tell her less rather than more about them and the being, Terian, who Revik knows he did not really kill in San Francisco.
He does his best to shield her light, to keep her in her body, out of the Barrier.
When she runs into the street, he sees interest dawn on the faces of watching humans. It is too many for him to push. Worse, her light sparks in panicked waves that remind him that she is the Bridge, not just some fledgling seer with poor light control.
Although she is that, too.
When she starts pounding on car hoods, interrupting traffic, he splits his consciousness, leaving a lesser part to steer his physical body and jumping the rest out.
His aleimi leaps ahead, flashing across the road’s meridian to knock her out of her body.
Like any fledgling, she cannot yet split herself...and collapses.
Revik checks his own physical body, sees it running across the road, dodging cars with only slightly slower reflexes. Then he sees the truck, and lands more of himself in the physical to speed his legs...
...Time lurched back, bringing him along its narrower lines.
The driver saw him and then her and slammed the truck’s brakes, careening cab and cargo to a slanted halt a few feet from them both.
By then, Revik crouched over Allie, his arms outstretched, protecting her, his eyes glowing a pale white the human wouldn’t see.
The driver leaned his bulky form out the driver’s side window.
“Hey! Wiseass! Get your damned girlfriend out of the road, unless you want to scrape her off the pavement with a spatula!” He paused, looking down. “And put some clothes on her, while you’re at it! Where the hell do you think you’re doing, with the...”