A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 47 Shifting 1

"I can feel it! Can't you?! It's in the air itself!"

Tassen smiled. It looked like the smile you would expect from an unholy cross between a rabid dog and a cunning demon.

"Excellent. Now that I've learned what I need to know, would you like to know whose heart this is?"

Callin only stared at Tassen, beginning to feel a writhing coldness deep inside. He knew whenever Tassen smiled and offered information, it was always knowledge he wished he had never learned.

"That heart belonged to a boy much like you, Callin. A boy named Carl Cross. Your twin brother."

Callin's senses were so keen he was capable of detecting the slightest of increases in heartrate and breathing patterns if someone was lying to him. He had learned even the scent of a person changed when they lied. Now, his senses told him Tassen was telling him the truth.

"You will learn more later. After the surgery." Tassen said, motioning for the guards to take Callin away, clearly disappointed in Callin's mute reaction to the news.

Callin went back to his cell quietly, not responding to the guard's cruelty when they pressed his face against the electrified bars of his cell. Mirage watched the exchange with worry burning in her eyes. She could sense something had happened. She always seemed to know when the lab scientists had found a new way to hurt him further.

Now she simply waited on her bed until the lights were dimmed for the night. Then she used her powers to leave behind an image of herself lying in bed as she crawled over to his bed and held him all through that terrible night.

Callin's memories seemed to swirl. To lose their sharp, reality-bending edges. Both Carmen and Raina latched onto their own minds the moment they felt like they were back inside of themselves. Then they reached out across the shifting patterns of his thoughts, and tied their minds together.

It wasn't exactly a true mind-link, but they found themselves naturally tying their minds tighter together than ever before. Much tighter than was required for simple telepathic communication. Both of them were feeling more than just adrift, here in the waking storm of Callin's strongest memories. They were feeling vulnerable and confused.

"I never knew...I didn't even begin to guess..." Even in telepathic sending, Raina couldn't form complete thought, she was so stunned.

"I know." Carmen's thoughts were quiet, subdued.

Callin had never really talked about the lab and all that had happened to him there. Now she understood why. She could sense where her powers and Raina's were working. She could tell they were removing blocks to Callin's memories, placed there by the lab telepaths. And they were also removing blocks placed on his memories by his own mind. Blocks placed because they were too terrible for him to bear.

"We need to be careful here. I don't think we should undo whatever blocks we find." Carmen sent, noticing how aggressively Raina was attacking any and all blocks she found within Callin's mind.

Amidst the scattering lights and fleeting images of Callin's mind, the soft, indistinct light-figure that was Raina paused, her attention turning towards Carmen. Carmen shrank back from the pure fury radiating outwards from her friend.

"You think it's our place to decide just how crippled he stays? That we pick and choose where we repair the cruelty and control-damage done to his mind?" Raina demanded fiercely, razor edges of her power flaring about her, reflections of the anger seething in her.

Carmen was shocked at the unbridled wrath that had consumed her friend. She sent out a single thought at Raina, unable to form anything else in reply.