The galaxy is full of mysteries—some of which we never want to solve.
— Erich Quizibian
9 Decem, 5249 PD
Lindsay darted forward as Brendan crumbled like a sand castle undermined by the tides. His eyes rolled up into his skull as he went down without a sound. She and Rachel caught him just before he hit the floor.
As her arms wrapped around him, the force of his terror and the visions hit her with the force of an uncontrolled atmospheric reentry.
…Rachel pointing a gun at the back of someone’s head, someone whose face they couldn’t see…
…Lindsay tackling Frederick Rose to the ground as gunfire rang out somewhere not far in the distance…
…Marshal Rose herding pack of frightened men and women—most of them terribly, terribly young—into a shuttle, wincing as explosions begin to rip a space station apart…
…nose of a fighter angling down, the water coming up fast and at a steep angle, fear bubbling up in his belly…
She gasped out his name, eyes tearing as her arms tightened around him, even as Ezra tugged at her shoulder.
“Lin, let go. Let go! Your noses are bleeding.”
She could taste it, the blood in her mouth, dripping down onto her upper lip. She sucked in a ragged breath and looked up at Ezra through watering eyes.
“What’s happening?” she whispered.
“I don’t know,” he said honestly as he gently disengaged her arms from around Brendan. Rachel had a solid grip on him and held Brendan as his eyes moved under tightly closed lids. His breathing was quick, but easy.
Lindsay’s hands curled into fists as she rocked back and away from him. Is that what I look like when this happens to me?
Why is it happening to him? This doesn’t make any sense. He never…really had this talent before. It was me. Her gaze drifted toward her aunt.
“What’s going on?” she asked quietly, meeting Rachel’s gaze only for a brief instant before her aunt looked away. Lindsay’s jaw tightened. “Aunt Rachel?”
“Not now,” Rachel said, her voice tight. “Clean yourself up, Lindsay. I have to help Ezra.” Her eyes flicked toward Alana. “Stay with her.”
Alana, standing next to the kitchen table, nodded slowly. “Of course.”
“But I—”
Ezra made eye contact with her and shook his head slightly. “We’re going to put him to bed. I’m sure it’s nothing. Stay here.”
Her stomach twisted back on itself. If it’s nothing, why are you telling me to stay here? She swallowed against the knot in her throat and fumbled her way to a chair, snagging a napkin off the table and balling it up against her nose. Alana touched her shoulder as Ezra and Rachel took Brendan back to the bedroom hanging limp between them.
“I don’t understand,” she whispered. “What just happened?”
Alana grimaced and sank into the chair next to her. “I’m not sure, either, but unless I miss my guess, he just had a dozen visions and it was you catching the end of all of that for a change rather than the other way around.” She reached over, her good hand covering both of Lindsay’s. “I’m sure he’s fine. Just a shock.”
“Yeah. Sure.” Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut and tried to ignore the bright playback of what she’d seen when her arms had closed around him. Why Brendan? And why now—why when he touched Aunt Rachel? She swallowed hard. “Something’s happening—something’s happened. I’ve got no idea what it is, but something’s going on and it’s big.”
“Maybe that’s why your aunt’s here.”
“Oh, I have zero doubt it is. I just wonder what happened.” What couldn’t wait? She knew that we were having Ezra and Alana over tonight…it must be important, whatever it is. “She wouldn’t come over if it wasn’t important and couldn’t wait.” Lindsay stood from her chair abruptly and started for the doorway into the rest of the house. Alana shot to her feet and grasped her arm.
“No,” she said simply. “Let them do what they need to do. Sit down.”
“He needs me,” Lindsay said.
“No. You need him.”
“We need each other,” Lindsay corrected, then jerked her arm from Alana’s grasp. “I’m going to him.”
“Let him rest, Lindsay.” Rachel was suddenly there in the doorway, looking vaguely guilty as she met her niece’s eyes. “He needs it—he’ll need all of it he can get.”
Lindsay fell back a step, swallowing back the bile suddenly rising in the back of her throat. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Rachel slid past her and slumped into a chair at the table. “The Council meets tomorrow.”
“We weren’t supposed to meet until next week.” Her heart thudded painfully against her breastbone as she made her way over to the table and reclaimed her seat. “What’s going on?” Is this about what ‘lana just told us? About what Chinasia and the Compact are saying—are doing?
Rachel sighed. “It’s Sergei. He’s stepping down.”
“Sergei? The Speaker’s stepping down? Now?” Now? Why now?
She nodded. “He told me a couple of days ago. I guess that with everything that’s happening, he decided the sooner it all happened, the better.”
“There’s something you’re not saying,” Lindsay said after staring at her for a moment. “It’s what I think it is, isn’t it? He’s asked you to succeed him?”
Rachel nodded, gaze distant for a moment. “Though that’s suddenly seeming less and less important.”
“I don’t understand.”
Alana snorted. “It won’t take much for you to in that election, Rachel.”
She shook her head. “I’m not worried about it. I’m worried about doing the job, not winning it.” She studied her niece for another long moment. “There’s something else that’s got me worried, now, something that hasn’t been seen since Farragut and LeSarte.”
Lindsay wanted nothing more than to go curl up in bed with Brendan and not come out again for a few days, especially as she watched her aunt’s face. There was something painful and guarded in Rachel’s expression, something that left her stomach unsettled and shot shivers up and down her spine.
“What aren’t you telling me?” she whispered.
“There were always theories,” Rachel said slowly, “about why Sarah Farragut didn’t display any psychic talent before she met Ryland LeSarte. You’ve read the histories about them.”
Lindsay shook her head slowly. “Being around him probably just make her aware of talents that she hadn’t tapped before.”
“It could be that,” Rachel agreed quietly. “But LeSarte was well on the path to severe neurological damage—burning his brains out—when they started to become close. There are medical records that show his issues began to ease almost as soon as he and Farragut were Bonded.”
“I don’t like where you’re going with this.” She felt sick, her stomach out of control. All thoughts of eating dinner had completely evaporated. Now she just wanted to keep breakfast inside of her body. Alana’s hand closed on her shoulder and Lindsay sucked in a breath.
Hang in there. Hang in there. You can do this. Lindsay squeezed her eyes shut for a moment.
“It may be happening again with you and Brendan,” Rachel whispered.
“Stop,” Lindsay whispered. “I don’t want to know.”
“But you have to,” Rachel said.
“No. No, I don’t.” You suspected already. But no one else has said it—the only one who’s ever come close is Kara, and that was enough. “Let me have this, Aunt Rachel.
“Let me have my denial just a little bit longer. Let me believe it’s not true, that it’s still just a theory. Let me believe that I haven’t condemned him to the same life I’m living with this gift.”
“He’s sharing a burden.”
“We’re shouldering a curse together,” Lindsay whispered. “And that’s all there is to it.”
She came to her feet and fled the kitchen, not certain she ever wanted to show her face outside the house ever again.