A faint smile curved his lips. “Exactly.”
With the comm implants, humans had gained a fraction of that ability, but the implants still relied on technology to work. Innate biological skills would always have an advantage.
“Could you communicate telepathically with me, even through my shield?”
“Yes. And if we were close enough and I focused, I could hear your replies, too.”
Curiosity had always been a weakness of mine. Before I could think better of it, I asked, “Will you show me? Not the hearing the replies part, but what telepathic communication sounds like.”
Torran frowned. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, even though I really wasn’t.
Torran took me at my word. I felt the slightest brush of coolness, then his voice whispered across my mind. “Octavia.”
I froze in terrified wonder. It was completely different from communicating via comm implant. I somehow knew that the thought came from Torran, but like our subvocal comms, it didn’t exactly sound like his speaking voice. Unlike our comms, it was closer, more intimate, like a caress. I shivered and forced myself to start naming things in the room lest he catch the direction my thoughts had taken.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes. Thank you for demonstrating. I thought it would be like our comm implants, but it’s not, exactly.” I had a million questions, but I brought my focus back to the reason I’d asked for help in the first place. “If I can’t build nets like you do, then what can I do?”
Torran took the change of subject in stride. “Can you tell when I touch your mind?” When I nodded, he continued, “I can build a shield for you, but I don’t know if you’ll be able to feel it well enough to figure out how to duplicate it. If that doesn’t work, I can try piercing your existing shields to see if you can fix the holes that way.”
I swallowed. Neither choice sounded super fun. “Are there any other options? How would you explain it to a child?” While it grated to be treated like a child, I’d take it if it kept Torran out of my head.
“In public, parents shield for young children until they learn to shield themselves. Children instinctively learn from that example.”
Well, that was exactly zero help. “I don’t suppose you’ve taught other humans how to shield?”
A flicker of emotion crossed Torran’s face, too fast to identify. “You will be the first.”
“Fine. Show me how you’d build a shield for me. Let’s see if I can learn anything from it.”
“Are you ready?”
No, no I was not, but I agreed anyway.
I stared at the scratches in the tabletop as Torran’s mind brushed mine. I focused hard on my mental shield and what was presumably Torran’s additional shield, but all I felt was the same coolness that I normally felt, just to a much larger degree. His telepathic voice remained silent.
I glanced up. Torran’s eyes blazed with power, the silver, copper, and teal nearly obliterating the deep gray. Fierce Valovian eyes in cool, dispassionate faces haunted my nightmares, and paired with the cold feel of his power, I recoiled violently. I was on my feet and reaching for a weapon before I realized I’d moved.
Luckily, I didn’t have any weapons on me, and that likely saved Torran’s life—and mine.
Torran flinched as if struck, and I could no longer feel his power. He blinked and his eyes reverted to their normal state, then narrowed dangerously. “How did you do that?” he demanded.
I slowly picked up the chair I’d knocked over and wrestled the memories back into the mental box where I kept them. My hands trembled and I felt sick to my stomach. “Do what?”
“You barred me from your mind. It should not be possible.”
He didn’t say “for a human,” but I heard it nonetheless. I slid back into the chair and tried to hide the fact that my legs had barely supported me. My pulse pounded in my temples. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Just before you kicked me out, you were scared, terrified. Why?”
“Do you really need to ask?” The question came out far more bitterly than I’d intended, so I took a deep breath and searched for calm. I didn’t find it, but I faked it as best I could. “I fought Valoffs for a decade. During the war, shining eyes and cold power meant death, and some instincts are harder to overcome than others.”
Torran’s expression morphed into searing anger and bitter grief, and it didn’t take a mind reader to know that he was thinking about Rodeni. It was the most infamous battle in a war full of famous battles. I’d lost half of my squad and most of my soul on that cursed planet. Others had lost so much more.
After the battle, I’d gone straight to Command still wearing my bloody uniform and turned in my discharge request, effective immediately. Lexi, Kee, and Eli had all done the same.
None of us had escaped unscathed.
“Why did you do it?” Torran asked. His voice was so quiet and pained that the words could’ve come straight from my own conscience.
I clenched my hands together. I knew exactly what he meant. That day in Rodeni was seared into my memory forever. “I was told the Valovian civilians had evacuated and that the military had taken over the building as a command center. We were being overrun. An attack on Valovian Command was the only way to buy our forces enough time to fall back. I volunteered to go. My squad followed me.”
His gaze sharpened, pinning me in place.
The memories rose, haunting me with my failures. My stomach churned as adrenaline surged through my system, but I swallowed down the acidic taste of bile. “By the time I figured out that the building still held civilians, the charges were planted. I called off the attack and got overruled.”
I didn’t tell him—couldn’t tell him—that three of my squad had died while frantically trying to deactivate the explosives. I’d already said too much. FHP Command had lied to me, killed my people, and then left us behind to die. When we’d survived against all odds, they had used expedited discharge approvals to buy our silence and compliance while they’d paraded me around as a hero.
I would never forgive them.
I stood on shaky legs, drowning in bloody memories, and barely keeping my stomach contents where they belonged. “I’m sorry,” I said through the lump in my throat. “Thank you for your help with my shields.”
I fled without waiting for a response.
Chapter Fourteen
I sent my team a message telling them to watch Crash Crush without me and retired to my room. Luna wasn’t inside and I desperately missed her. My thoughts refused to calm, so I changed into my workout clothes and headed for the gym.
I cranked the music and settled onto the rowing machine. I pushed my tired body hard, burying memories under layers of exhaustion and pain. Sweat soaked through my clothes and I kept rowing, until the stroke cadence was the only thought left.