True Colors Part 6

Alex realized her eyes were open, and she blinked them several times, until her sister and AnnaCoreen Tesch appeared before her, both on their knees at her feet and peering up at her as if she'd just spontaneously combusted.

An odd throbbing burned through her left cheek, and Alex raised a hand to touch it.

Charlie raked both hands through her hair before stumbling to her feet and over to the railing for support. "Jesus."

"Are you back with us?" AnnaCoreen searched Alex's eyes, her countenance as soothing as a trauma nurse trained in calming hysterical patients.

Alex nodded, which was a mistake, because dizziness welled through her head as quickly as the bile rose in her throat.

"Easy," AnnaCoreen murmured. "Breathe through it."

Alex closed her eyes, swallowed hard. "I'm going to be sick."

"No, you're not," the older woman said firmly. "You're going to breathe."

Alex tried to nudge the woman aside so she could get up, but AnnaCoreen refused to budge. "Listen to me, Alexandra Lee, and do what I tell you to do."

Alex looked at the woman in surprise. How could she possibly know her middle name? And what did it matter? She was going to hurl all over her if she didn't get the h.e.l.l out of her way.

AnnaCoreen grasped Alex's left elbow with a strong hand to still her, then dug the blunt end of her thumb against the inside of her elbow. With her other hand, she did the same thing in the middle of Alex's right forearm. "Breathe in," AnnaCoreen ordered. "Do it."

Alex complied, if only to get the woman to let her go more quickly. Ribs that felt bruised protested the deep inhalation.

"Breathe out."

Alex exhaled, wincing at the answering pain. She hurt like she'd been beaten. Or had fallen down the stairs.

"Again."

After several more inhalations and exhalations, the nausea began to subside. Whatever AnnaCoreen was doing-acupressure, Alex a.s.sumed-worked.

Behind AnnaCoreen, Charlie began to pace. "I can't believe how much this sucks. n.o.body ever has to punch me to snap me out of this s.h.i.t."

AnnaCoreen turned her head slightly to address Charlie. "Charlie, dear, would you mind giving your sister and me a few moments alone?"

Charlie left the porch mumbling something about a stiff drink.

AnnaCoreen turned back to search Alex's face with eyes that no longer twinkled, a grayness to her complexion that hadn't been there before. "Better?"

Alex nodded.

After releasing her wrist and elbow, AnnaCoreen bent her head over Alex's palm and quickly cleaned the shallow cut with a round of antiseptic-soaked cotton. As she tore open a palm-sized piece of gauze, she said, "Your sister had to strike you to bring you around."

"She did last time, too. It's like I get stuck."

AnnaCoreen pressed the gauze to Alex's palm, then wrapped more gauze around it to hold it in place. "Please accept my deepest apologies."

Alex had no idea what she meant.

The woman secured the gauze with white tape, and Alex noticed that AnnaCoreen's fingers trembled. "I a.s.sumed your empathy was like your sister's," she said, her voice so soft Alex had to strain to hear her. "I had no idea."

"So you know what's happening to me?"

AnnaCoreen got stiffly to her feet and sat in the rocking chair next to Alex's, a tension in her body that hadn't been there when she'd welcomed her into her home. "Understand that I'm not a scientist or doctor. All I know is what I've learned from studying your sister's ability."

"Maybe just start with Empathy 101."

AnnaCoreen actually seemed relieved at that, as if simple empathy was something she could deal with. "Empaths, in the most basic terms, are very in tune with the feelings of those around them. They absorb others' emotions into themselves and feel them as if the emotions are their own. The stronger the feelings, the stronger the absorption. Your sister has told me that she experienced that before the accident that claimed your cousin's life. Do you think perhaps you did as well?"

Alex shook her head. "I'm probably the most self-centered person you've ever met."

"I don't believe that for a moment. You open your home to damaged animals that no one else wants, do you not?"

Alex narrowed her eyes. Another psychic guess? "Charlie told you that."

"Of course," AnnaCoreen said with a small, knowing smile. "I have a theory, if you'd like to hear it."

"Okay."

"You surround yourself with animals because it's too painful for you to be around people."

"Because I'm empathic," Alex said, unable to quell the doubt in her tone.

"Animals give you the companionship you crave without burdening you with troubling emotions."

"Other people's problems raise my blood pressure, and the unconditional love of my pets brings it back down. Aren't there studies that say that's normal?"

"Even now, you're rationalizing your ability."

"Rational," Alex said with a snort. "That's not a word I expected to come up in this conversation."

AnnaCoreen didn't let Alex's sarcasm derail her explanation. "Charlie's ability appears to be based on energy. Contact with another person's energy, through a simple skin-on-skin transfer, sparks her ability, a kind of empathy with some retrocognition thrown in that we've been calling super empathy."

Alex blinked at the older woman. Retro what? She was so lost.

Before Alex could say "huh?" or start fidgeting with impatience, AnnaCoreen continued. "The body is made up of electrical impulses. Everything you do, feel and think originates as an electrical impulse inside your brain. We're all surrounded by an energy field made up of these electrical currents. Most of them bleed off as we go about our day, but some are stronger than others and remain with us as a kind of . . . residue. Say you stub your toe. That's much more painful, or traumatic, than, say, nicking yourself while shaving your legs. Your toe may hurt for a few days after the injury, whereas the minor nick is forgotten by the time it stops bleeding. Charlie's ability allows her to tap into that residual energy. She absorbs it into herself and experiences the event as if it happened to her. The more traumatic the event, the more powerful the residual energy and the more powerful the retrocognitive, or postcognitive, empathic experience."

"But Charlie said she absorbed our cousin's ability when she died and that triggered hers. Nothing like that has happened to me."

"That's not entirely true. After you were shot, you had to be revived at the hospital."

"This has something to do with that?"

"My theory is that when they used the defibrillator paddles to restart your heart, the jolt of electrical energy somehow supercharged your ability. How many times did they shock your heart before it responded?"

Alex swallowed hard, the nausea back. "Three times."

AnnaCoreen nodded. Alex had confirmed her theory, but instead of looking pleased, AnnaCoreen appeared even more concerned. Perhaps three times the shock meant three times the supercharging.

Alex didn't give AnnaCoreen a chance to voice that concern as she plunged ahead. "If it's residual energy, wouldn't it wear off after a few days? Like the pain of the stubbed toe goes away?"

"That was my a.s.sumption, based on Charlie's experience."

Alex didn't like the fact that AnnaCoreen spoke in past tense. "But she was kidnapped three months ago. Shouldn't that energy have faded by now?"

"It should have, according to what we know about Charlie's empathy."

"So what the h.e.l.l's going on?" Alex couldn't help that her voice rose. She wanted answers, but every answer brought up more questions.

"Half an hour ago," AnnaCoreen said, "I would have a.s.sumed that because Charlie's experience was so intense, it has taken longer for the residual energy to evaporate."

Half an hour ago, Alex had been at the bottom of some bas.e.m.e.nt stairs, unable to move and terrified of a man stomping around overhead. Something about that experience had changed AnnaCoreen's a.s.sumptions about Alex's ability.

Alex could no longer sit still. She had to move, get up and pace, maybe run as far and as fast as possible. As she shifted to rise, pain tightened around her torso, and an involuntary moan escaped her lips.

AnnaCoreen got quickly to her feet and, before Alex could stop her, hiked up the hem of Alex's T-shirt to just below her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Alex opened her mouth to protest, but the blood draining from the older woman's already pale face stopped her.

"Good Lord," AnnaCoreen breathed. She straightened, and with one cool finger, she tilted Alex's head back until her narrowed eyes could focus on her throat. Her brow furrowed with what looked like pain.

"What is it?" Alex asked. Not that she really wanted to know at this point.

"You have bruises on your throat, too. As though someone tried to strangle you."

Strangle? Holy c.r.a.p. A strong, thick hand on her throat that pinned her to cold concrete flashed through her brain. "Is it similar to the injuries you sustained in the past?"

AnnaCoreen nodded, lips so tight they'd gone white.

"What the h.e.l.l is happening to me?" Alex asked.

"It's like an empathic stigmata," AnnaCoreen murmured, then grasped Alex's forearm and studied her wrist. "The marks you arrived with are gone. How long ago did you flash on your sister's captivity?"

Alex stared first at her right wrist and then her left, trying to a.s.similate the fact that not long ago, she'd had large purple bruises and raw skin, and now all signs of the injuries had vanished. How was that even possible? Of course, how she got the bruises wasn't even possible, so why should it shock her that they'd healed in an unbelievable amount of time?

"How long, Alex?" AnnaCoreen prodded.

"An hour and a half maybe?"

"So the marks fade fairly quickly," AnnaCoreen said.

Drawing away, Alex fought back a shudder. Could this get any worse?

"Clearly, your empathic ability goes well beyond residual energy from a recent traumatic event," AnnaCoreen said. "I believe it's more of a postcognition hybrid with strong empathic overtones. Whereas Charlie's ability is more empathically focused with only slight postcognition, yours appears to be both empathic and acutely postcognitive. You relived Charlie's deepest, darkest memory, one that will never leave her."

A horrible thought struck Alex. "Will this happen every time I touch her?"

"You've touched her since, have you not?"

"Yes. I think so. Nothing happened."

"Perhaps once you've made the connection to the energy, it's somehow discharged. Like static electricity. That's how Charlie's ability works, too."

"So it's like the energy recognizes me," Alex said. "Like syncing an iPod."

AnnaCoreen's lips quirked with the hint of a smile. "I'm afraid I don't know how that works."

"Once you plug your iPod into your PC the first time and set it up, your PC recognizes the iPod the next time you plug it in. It's, like, *Hi, how ya doing?' instead of *Who are you and what do you want?' "

"Yes, that's possible. Sort of like a cookie that gets placed on your hard drive the first time you visit a Web site. The next time you visit, the Web site recognizes you because of that cookie."

Alex laughed softly, not at all amused. "I'm a technological wonder."

"These are all semi-educated guesses, of course."

"So, really, what's happening is that my postcognitive empathy hybrid whatchamacallit can tap into something further back in someone's past than Charlie's can, right? I mean, her thing happened three months ago, so . . ." She trailed off, and despite her effort to keep it at bay, she thought of another woman, this one writhing in agony after being ruthlessly shoved down a flight of stairs.

Focusing on AnnaCoreen, she tried to frame her question tactfully. "That man. He was your husband?"

AnnaCoreen nodded, and her hand gripped the arm of the rocking chair. Her tension was back. "He was a good man when I married him, but our life together didn't develop as planned."

"Did he . . ."

AnnaCoreen knew exactly what she meant and gave her a sad smile that didn't touch her eyes. "No. My friend-"

"Richard." The name from the . . . flash, that's what Charlie called them, the name from the flash came to her as easily as the fear and pain.

"Yes, Richard. He arrived before Frank could hurt me further."

Alex struggled to focus on AnnaCoreen and not the memory. G.o.d, it was going to haunt her forever. As it apparently haunted AnnaCoreen.

When the older woman added nothing more, Alex got that she no longer wanted to talk about it. But Alex had one more important question, and a cold band of dread began to tighten around her chest. "How long ago did it happen?"

"Thirty-two years."

CHAPTER TEN.

Butch McGee pulled the Mustang to the curb and killed the engine in front of 3481 Colonial One Place. John Logan lived here, and Butch planned to wait, ensconced in his comfy leather seat, for him to come home.

He imagined what it would be like to kill the man who'd killed his brother. He hoped he had the control to keep from slitting Logan's throat right away. Torturing him first, that would be the most satisfying. Over several days would be even better. But he'd need to prepare for that first. Get a storage unit. Those were the best for what he did. Secluded after closing time and usually in the middle of nowhere because no one wanted an ugly storage place in their backyard.

Easy to clean up afterward, too. If the floor got stained, all you had to do was say you spilled some red paint. Oops. The setup and even the aftermath were easy: No one questioned what you brought in or what you hauled out. As long as you hauled it out before the smell set in, everything was copacetic, peripatetic and chic. That's why he preferred the climate-controlled kind. Took things longer to rot.

So it was settled. He'd hold off on outright killing the son of a b.i.t.c.h in favor of torture. His brother would prefer that anyway. He couldn't partic.i.p.ate in the act, so Butch would draw it out to make it extra special when he shared the grisly details with him on the phone.