Lover Mine(102)

What, he mouthed as she let the stall door shut.

"Who found you?" When he made like he was mopping the floor, she murmured, "A janitor."

As he nodded, he felt ashamed of this place, of his history.

"Don't be." She came over to him. "Believe me, I'm not one to judge. My circumstances aren't any better. Hell, they're arguably worse."

Being a half-breed symphath, he could only imagine. After all the two breeds didn't mix willingly for the most part.

"Where did you go from here?"

He led her out of the bathroom and glanced around. Qhuinn was standing in the far corner, glaring at the doors of the terminal like he was hoping something that smelled like baby powder would walk in. When the guy looked over, John nodded; then he untranced and scrubbed the minds of the humans, and the three of them dematerialized.

When they took form again, it was in the backyard of Our Lady's orphanage, next to the slide and the sandbox. A bitter March wind swept over the grounds of the church's sanctuary for the unwanted, the links of the swings creaking and the bare branches of the trees offering no protection. Up ahead, the rows of four-paned windows that marked the dormitory were dark . . . and so were all the ones in the cafeteria and the chapel.

"Humans?" Xhex breathed as Qhuinn wandered over and sat his ass on one of the swings. "You were raised by humans? God . . . damn."

John walked toward the building, thinking maybe this wasn't such a hot idea. She seemed horrified--

"You and I have more in common than I thought."

He stopped dead and she must have read his expression . . . or his emotions: "I was raised around people I wasn't like, too. Although considering what my other half is, that could have been a blessing."

Stepping in beside him, she stared up at his face. "You were braver than you thought." She nodded toward the orphanage. "When you were in here, you were braver than you thought."

He didn't agree, but he wasn't about to argue her faith in him. After a moment, he held out his hand toward her, and when she took it, they walked together to the back entrance. A quick disappear and they were on the inside.

Oh, shit, they used the same floor cleaner. Acid lemon.

And the layout of the place hadn't changed, either. Which meant the headmaster's office was still down the hall, in the front of the building.

Leading the way, he went over to that old wooden door, slipped off the backpack and hung it on the brass doorknob.

"What's in there anyway?"

He held up his hand and rubbed his fingers against his thumb.

"Money. From the raid on . . ."

He nodded.

"Good place for it."

John turned around and stared down the hall to where the dormitory was. As memories bubbled up, his feet started in that direction before he had a conscious thought to go over to where he'd once laid his head. It was so strange being here again, remembering the loneliness and the fear and the nagging sense that he was totally different--especially when he was with other boys his own age.

That had always made it worse. Being around that which he should have been essentially identical to had alienated him the most.





Xhex followed John through the hallway, staying a little behind him.

He was walking silently, toe-heel in his shitkickers, and she took his example to heart, doing the same so that they were nothing but ghosts in the quiet corridor. As they went, she noted that although the physical plant of the building was old, everything was spotless, from the high-polish linoleum, to the much-painted beige walls, to the windows with the chicken wire embedded in the glass. There was no dust, no cobwebs, no chips or cracks in the plaster.

It gave her hope that the nuns and the administrators looked after the kids with similar attention to detail.

As she and John came up to a pair of doors, she could feel the dreams of the boys on the far side, the tremors of emotion that bubbled up through their REM sleep tickling her symphath receptors.

John ducked his head in, and as he stared in at those who were where he had been, she found herself frowning again.

His emotional grid had . . . a shadow to it. A parallel but separate construct that she had picked up on before, but now found screamingly obvious.

She'd never sensed anything like it in anybody else and she couldn't explain it . . . and didn't think John was consciously aware of what he was doing. For some reason, though, this trip into his past was exposing the fault line in his psyche.

As well as other stuff. He'd been just like her, lost and apart, cared for by others out of obligation, not blooded love.

On some level, she thought that she should tell him to stop this whole thing, because she could sense how much it was taking out of him--and how much farther they had yet to go. But she was captivated by what he was showing her.