Mindlink (30 page)

“Later. You know this is our last night together, right? I
mean, I guess it could take another day for Ramlah to come through with his ship
but what if it doesn’t? This is it.” A tinge of disbelief underpinned the words,
though how she’d just come to the realization was beyond him when it was all he
could think of. “Right here, right now.”

“Yes.” He pressed his mouth to her forehead and realized his
lips were trembling. “I chose to delay an attempt to reach the ruins.”

“Yeah.” She snuggled in tighter and her unhappiness swamped
him, mingling with his own in an overwhelming surge. “I knew. It’s okay.”

He tipped her chin to access her mouth and plummeted into a
long, bittersweet kiss. She broke it off much too soon and buried her face in
his chest with a noise of disgust.

“I didn’t think I was going to have such a hard time with this.
You’re not helping either with being all depressed and stuff,” she muttered and
then shifted restlessly. He couldn’t see her face but knew she was crying.
“Please, Sam. Try to forget for a few minutes and let’s have one last time with
no regrets. Let me lose myself in you. Make it hot. Fast.”

Already hard, he met her halfway in a blazing kiss, hands on
her breasts, molding them to the shape of his palms, imprinting the feel of
them. Her fingers raced over his fevered skin, stroking and encouraging,
building the flames. Slow wasn’t even an option. She shoved him on his back and
climbed on top, enveloping him in her slick heat. Plunging them both into
mindless pleasure in seconds with hard hip thrusts.

As he’d come to expect, to need like he needed to take his next
breath, one of them shattered and sucked the other into the black hole. He’d
lost track of how to determine which of them went first. Nor did it matter. They
operated as one and when she left, he feared he would be broken forever.

His heart rate slowed and he gathered her close, intent on
holding her as long as possible. Likely for the last time. Cloudy film crept
over the freshly reconstructed sun in his head and she stiffened.

“Stop. Just stop, okay.” She wriggled away and sat up. “You’re
making me crazy. What happened to no regrets?”

“I never agreed to that. Though I had no issue with hot and
fast,” he said, and took a calming breath. They had little time remaining. He
didn’t want to spend it arguing, but she was leaving. Never to return. While
academically aware she’d tasked him with accepting it, he balked against doing
so. “Soon you will be free of my unwelcome thoughts. Then perhaps you may be
happy.”

A sob rushed from her mouth and she buried a fist against her
lips. Around it, she mumbled, “I don’t think that’s going happen.”

Gently, he drew the fist from her mouth and kissed it as her
tears transformed his ire into regret. Once she left, all the color in the
universe would go with her—he hadn’t collected enough memories to last forever.
“If leaving will not make you happy, why are you so determined to go? Stay here,
with me.”

Her eyes glowed in the torchlight, wet with moisture. Images
pinged between them and hers were a maddening muddle, tinged with the almost red
color. She gripped his arm, her slick tipped fingers biting into his flesh. “You
need to understand the kind of person I was, back on Earth. If I can get it out
right, you’ll understand why I have to go home.” A massive breath heaved from
her chest and she shuddered.

At last, she wished to explain the images from her past, which
he’d never been permitted to question. Then perhaps he might find a way to
convince her none of it mattered. She belonged here, with him.

“Lie beside me. Be comfortable.” He peeled her fingers from his
arm and tugged on her hand until she did. Caressing the place where her hair met
her forehead, he said, “Do not feel pressured to say something you may
regret.”

“The only regret I’ll have is if I don’t tell you. You have
some crazy idea I’m this person, the one I see in your images, who’s courageous
and worth following. Like I know where I’m going or something, and I don’t even
recognize that person. I’m Ashley V. That’s all I can ever be. And I’ve done a
pretty good job of messing that up. I have to fix it.”

He filtered through the verbal—and the nonverbal. In her
silence, trees creaked and settled around their shelter, leaves whistling in the
slight wind. The creep of Kir Namur halted at the edge of the forest but he
could sense it waiting. “So you desire to return home so you may be flat, shiny
Ashley again.”

“No. I want to be real Ashley, whoever that is. Ashley’s not my
birth name, did you know that? Ashley Vassler is a stage name my mom invented.
My manager shortened it to Ashley V a while back to create buzz. It worked, just
not the way he expected.” She grimaced. “Now I’m a ridiculous fabrication of a
movie star who can’t get parts because I’m too busy ruining my life.”

Images flashed of scenes with no context, but the underlying
sorrow was clear. Likely he’d stumble and say the wrong thing so he kept to
simple questions. “How does one go about ruining her life?”

“Oh, let me count the ways. I wrecked an extremely expensive
car because I tried to drive after inhaling four martinis. I was arrested—more
than once—skipped court, violated my probation terms, continually cost producers
money by being late to the set and then turning in an awful performance because
I was too drunk to walk, let alone act. These things make me unemployable. That
give you the idea?”

It did, to a point. Foremost as a method for understanding her
more thoroughly. “What was your name at birth?”

“Eleanor. Wow, I haven’t said it out loud in years. Eleanor
Allison Smith.”

Eleanor might have existed at one time, but the woman before
him had become someone else. Someone she stubbornly refused to acknowledge. “You
seek the fusion between Ashley and Eleanor. The old and new, both halves of
yourself in one whole. This, I understand.”

But she failed to recognize a third factor in the equation.
Without him, she could never be complete and neither could he.

“I guess. Yeah. Figuring out who I am. Who I want to be. That’s
definitely part of it. A big part, but there’s more.” She shifted and images
flashed. She hesitated, started to speak, then stopped, as if the words were
wedged in her throat. Distress wept through the link and squeezed his lungs,
compelling him to assist her through this difficult conversation.

He locked gazes with her, detesting what he must do, but
resolution eluded her and would continue to without his intervention. “Almost
red. The color is important. Tell me what it represents.”

She stopped breathing for a moment and he feared he’d pushed
her too far. Then she swallowed.

“You mean orange.”

Chapter Sixteen

The accompanying image confirmed they were in sync.
“Yes. Is it relevant to the subject at hand?” Instinctively, he knew the answer,
but he could only lead her to a certain point. She must do the rest.

“You could say.” Her gaze darted everywhere except his face and
he ached over her discomfort.

“Turn away, to your other side,” he said. “You do not have to
face me while speaking. Perhaps that will cause you less anguish.”

After a moment of deliberation, she did and nestled against
him, head on his biceps. Her body fitted to the length of his and heated his
skin pleasantly. “How do you do that?” she asked. “How do you know the exact
right thing to say?”

He laid his lips on her temple. “You guide me in your thoughts.
In all things. I follow you because I trust you to show me the way. You are my
compass. One day, you will recognize yourself in the person I see.”

“Maybe. Most days I feel like I need a compass of my own. I
have no idea how to find my way out of being tabloid-disaster Ashley V and the
downward spiral I’ve been powerless to break out of. This trip was supposed to
be the first step in solving that problem.” She sniffed. “So if I don’t go home,
I can’t take that step. Staying would actually be easier. But it’s the chicken
way out and I’d never have to face my past.”

The truth slapped him and he recoiled involuntarily. She didn’t
want to go home. He’d never considered she might be making a difficult choice,
one she didn’t want to make. That she might prefer to stay, but had to leave in
order to reconcile wrongs of the past.

“Tell me about orange.” The request clogged his windpipe and
one of them grabbed the other’s hand. Perhaps they both reached out at the same
instant. Her palm was clammy in his.

“Orange. It was the color of the couch. In the director’s
office.” A rain of tears plopped on his arm where her head lay. “I’ve never told
anyone this. Give me a sec.” She breathed in and out noisily, the rush of air
catching on the boulders life had thrown at her. “He um, persuaded me I wasn’t
talented enough to get parts unless I...slept with someone. Him. So I did. I was
sixteen and it was my first time, but I—I wasn’t getting roles. Do you
understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yes.” Rage ripped through him. He curled his free hand into a
fist. Helplessly, because the man in her thoughts was merely an image and Sam
could not strike him, over and over, as his muscles ached to do. “This man lied
to you for his own gain. It is unconscionable.”

“Sam.” She strangled over his name. “I’m the one who did
something wrong. So wrong and I can’t undo it. I had sex with this guy so he’d
give me a role in a stupid movie. And he’s not the only one. It was like
dominoes. Once I’d done it the first time, I couldn’t stop. Because I believed
him, that I had no talent and the only way I’d make it in Hollywood was to use
the one thing I am good at. Sex. I’m horrible. Dirty. Inside, where I can never
make it clean again.” She pressed a thumb to one eye. “It’s no better than
prostitution. I’m someone who can take the same beautiful, pure thing we’ve
shared and turn it into something ugly. Shameful. Because I’m flawed inside.
Something in there is broken. I should have told you what kind of person I
am.”

Pain swept through the link, sucking him into a whirl of agony
and he could think of nothing else but stopping it. Blindly, he mustered as much
calm as possible, pushed it through the link, and crushed her to him. “You have
punished yourself far too long.”

Her anguish increased, keening inside his head. Genuine fear
lanced through his chest. He flipped her and braced her face between his palms,
forcing her to look at him. “You are stronger than this. Find that compass, the
one you use to guide me. You have it inside you and it will lead you out.”

Gradually, she stilled and her irises lost that spark of wild
torment. He pushed more calming waves and cupped her chin. “Focus on me.”

Her wide eyes sought his. “I’m okay,” she whispered. “I’m
sorry. You deserved to know all this way before now. But I didn’t think I could
look you in the eye and say it. It means a lot to me you got that and figured
out how to fix it so I could tell you.” She touched his arm, tentatively. “You
know I wouldn’t blame you if you never wanted to speak to me again.”

He shook his head and entwined their fingers. “I am not angry,
though I would have appreciated knowing the source of your pain much earlier. I
wish to share every memory with you, bad or good. Ashley, do you hold a grudge
against me for bringing you here? For killing untold numbers of human beings,
who will never see another sunrise? I cannot undo these things either. Does it
cause me to be irrevocably flawed?”

“Of course not. They lied to you. Used you. But it’s not the
same. I hated what I was doing, every second of it, and I
knew
it was wrong.” She untangled her fingers from his and swiped
her eyes.

“Did you? Or did that begin later, when you veered into
self-destruction to atone for your remorse?”

She froze so completely, not even a strand of hair moved. Her
images fragmented and became nonsensical.

“I—can’t...” She trailed off and licked her lips, processing.
“I don’t know. Yeah. That does make sense. I figured I was screwing up so bad to
give myself another reason why I couldn’t get parts, besides having no talent.
Like sabotage. But that’s not true, is it? How come I never realized that?”

Surprise and no small amount of incredulity had completely
replaced her earlier torment. Good. He encouraged her to go on with raised
eyebrows.

Snuffling, she stared at the tarp. “See, I’m really messed up.
I had to come all the way to an alien planet to get psychoanalyzed by someone
who’s been human for five minutes. Compasses. Ha. I can’t find my own way, let
alone lead you.”

He smiled at her fretfulness and tucked the blanket around her
tighter. “All of this lay in your mind. I voiced it on your behalf. You are not
the sum of your mistakes and the ability to prove this, to accept you are not
inherently flawed, is within if you embrace the truth. You
are
the person I see.”

Rain beat on the tarp above them and the rhythm shook the
realization from his consciousness. Only on Earth could Ashley resolve this and
heal, once and for all. Not here. In that moment, he finally understood the term
“heartbreak.”

Her past mattered. Just as his history with the Telhada
mattered and drove him to correct the injustices. It defined them both and
shaped their future. This was what she had been trying to explain when she asked
him to accept they were not meant to be. She didn’t belong here, and he’d
rejected it because he didn’t want to face the truth.

He and Ashley didn’t belong together.

They each had a goal, dictated by wounds of the past, and they
must answer that call. Separately.

Heartbreak perfectly described the painful cleft growing wider
in his chest and the sensation of internal organs ceasing to operate.

Tendons in his hand jumped, reaching for her, but he couldn’t
indulge in the simple urge or he might lose the courage to give her the one
thing she’d requested from him and he’d stubbornly—selfishly—refused to fully
commit to. “You must go home. If there is a way to accomplish this, I will find
it. Or die trying.”

“Really? No more arguing or begging me to reconsider
leaving?”

“No. No longer.”

Warily, her gaze swept over his face. “Why?”

He shut his eyes. “It is how these things are done, is it not?”
His voice shattered and his crushing grief filled the link, squeezing out
everything else until it even eclipsed the sun. Especially the sun. “You must
prove to yourself you are not flawed and may only accomplish this by returning
to your old environment. And only by accepting your choice to leave can I prove
I love you.”

* * *

The next morning, Ashley awoke alone, mentally and
physically, and so numb, she couldn’t move. A rock dug into her shoulder but the
pain in her chest outstripped it.

Sam was in love with her.
Her
. Not
Ashley V. He knew the real Ashley inside and out, even better than she did. He
identified parts she hadn’t realized were there. Not just identified—those
pieces existed because of him, because he’d opened the floodgates of her deepest
core.

She didn’t question it. The link didn’t allow lies. Sam was in
love with her.

And she had to leave him.

Worse, he agreed she’d made the right decision. He was letting
her go because he loved her and wanted the best for her. If faced with the same
choice, she doubted she’d discover such a wealth of selflessness and
understanding.

She pulled the blankets up to her neck and stared up at the
beige tarp, while the forest’s heavy humidity pressed down on her chest so hard,
she couldn’t get enough air in her lungs. Every morning for the rest of her life
would be like this. Lonely and breathless.

But today didn’t have to be like that.

She crawled out of the tent. Sam slumped against a tree not too
far away, already dressed, and staring off toward Kir Namur. His face was
desolate, with deep lines etched around his mouth and shadows under his eyes.
Anxious to be inside him, she ignored her clothes and ran, sliding to his side.
She cradled his face in her hands and lifted his eyes to connect with hers.

The link crashed into her mind, and with it came a burst of
emotion.

Love.

It had been there for a while, she’d just been too dense to
recognize it. So certain he couldn’t know what love meant and he’d proved her
wrong. In spades. Maybe she was the one who didn’t understand love.

With a muffled curse, he hauled her into his arms and buried
his face in her hair. He held her for a long time, then pulled back and without
a word, lifted his hand, palm out. On it, lay a single green stalk topped with
sparse threads of white in a circle around its crown.

Her heart pinched. She took it and held it in a tight fist. An
image of a huge bouquet in a riot of colors appeared in her mind through the
link and superimposed over the weed. Something unrecoverable wrung loose in her
chest as he helped her to her feet.

He’d given her a flower. Because he remembered her comment from
so long ago. It was one thing to have a guy be able to read her mind but it was
another entirely to have one act on it.

Why did he have to be so perfect? Why couldn’t he be just
another guy? Easy to leave, easy to forget, easy to hurt.

She drew on her still-damp clothes and carefully put the flower
in her pocket, where it suddenly weighed a million pounds. Her feet were leaden
and hard to lift as she and Sam set off for the mine.

The mine was indeed on the other side of the ridge but it had
taken a good bit of the morning to reach as they skirted the ruins, picking
through the forest inside the tree line. The creepy mist seemed to follow them
and she had the strangest sensation of it having eyes, watching them. Like a
guard dog.

A single barge hovered near a hole in the ground, which she
assumed indicated the entrance to the mine, though without the presence of the
floating vehicle, she wouldn’t have given the spot much notice. The clearing had
no markings or much sense of industry, but then, Ramlah had said the Telhada
limited mining due to the shortage.

“Are there any workers around?” she whispered and then shut her
mouth when Sam shook his head and put a finger between her eyebrows.

Silently, he told her to run behind him and jump into the barge
as soon as he lowered the stairs. Easy enough and it only took Sam a few minutes
to figure out how to get the thing going. Alternately lurching and gliding, the
barge turned and Sam aimed it toward the ruins, following a crushed-stone road
leading away from the mine. It was exactly the right width for the barge. Was
this floating boat another example of Namur technology the Telhada had
stolen?

“Why wasn’t there a guard or something? That was too easy.”
Ashley glanced behind them, half expecting to see a flurry of uniformed workers
spewing from the mine to give chase. Nothing interrupted the weird whooshing of
the barge as it sucked in air and pushed it out the rear of the vessel.

“The Telhada system is based on the illusion of benevolence. A
citizen’s every need is fulfilled, often before the citizen consciously realizes
the need. Therefore, the concept of theft is removed. Also,” he said with a
sideways glance. “Whom do you imagine is wandering the woods with the intent to
steal a barge? A citizen who is assured of certain death if the perimeter line
is crossed? Residents of a mythical city no one in Kir Barsha will acknowledge
exists?”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, okay. I see what you mean.”

Limbs brushed the side of the barge as they passed, leafy
fingers threatening to halt the vehicle right in the middle of a road which
hadn’t been used in who knew how long.

“Seems weird the road would still be here.”

“Shh.” Sam held up a finger.

Echoes drifted out of the mist ahead of them. Like something
had crashed in the center of the ruins. But the city was empty. Wasn’t it?

“The buildings shed stone continually,” he said in a low voice.
“The ruins are unstable, which is the only valid reason to fear Kir Namur. It is
dangerous. We must hurry.”

The barge glided over the crevice and into the mist but Ashley
didn’t believe for a minute they’d triumphed over the hardest part. Sam was
right—rubble lay everywhere. Walls without ceilings. Entire structures in
dust.

Glimpses of color peeked through the toppled stone to the left
and she pulled Sam’s sleeve to get his attention. “Stop the barge. I want to see
what that is. I’ll be quick.”

She ducked under a large slab lying diagonally across the
entrance and Sam followed. He crashed into her when she stopped short.