I was ten when I saw my first human. I can’t remember much about it except that it was funny looking and screamed a lot. I also remember laughing when my father told me that this ugly squirming thing was going to save us.

I didn’t believe it then.

I do now.

And it disturbs me when I think about it now, seven years later – the fact that this thing…this living thing was tied down and screaming in terror whenever we looked at it and I had laughed at it. I had thought it was stupid and annoying and not worth the small amount of attention I had given it.

I wonder if that’s how they see us. Stupid and weak – easily taken, easily destroyed.

The Mantriz are the reason we had any contact with the humans at all.

My father knew it was a bad idea to let them in, to share our planet with them, to share our home, to trust them. But it wasn’t his decision. The elders decided to have compassion for them despite the fact that they knew how they lived, what it was in their nature to do – to assimilate, to absorb, to control, to destroy. They thought they would be protected by a contract – a stupid piece of paper that said our two races would agree to live in harmony. No ultimatums were listed – no backup plan if things didn’t work out. Nothing.

We should have left The Mantriz on their planet, should have let them die with it. They had destroyed it after all. It would have been fair.

It doesn’t matter.

I don’t know why I’m thinking about this.

What’s done is done.

They are here and we are going to die.

But everyone else…those held captive, those not considered a direct threat, those enslaved…

There is hope for them.

After it became clear that the fate their planet had suffered was going to be repeated here, the elders, led by my father, finally decided to do something, to plan, and eventually to fight back.

It began when I was ten years old.

Patrols were sent out to find humans and "borrow" them for a short time in order to explore their bodies, their minds, their social structures. The humans were always brought back after they were finished with them, for the most part unharmed as far as we knew.

I’m wondering if they had told us the truth about how the humans reacted to our experiments whether or not we would have cared. I doubt that we would have given it a second thought, but if we had we might have been glad of their pain.

We hated those creatures because we were angry with what our parents were making us do.

Our parents forced us into learning how to act like humans, think like humans, look like humans. And it was only the four of us. No one else had to go through what we did for the good of the community, for the good of our race…

In our world none of us have names, and we all look the same. Our identities are forged by our thought patterns which are easily recognizable to another of our kind.

The Mantriz are like us in that respect.

We communicate through what is called the Collective Consciousness. All thoughts and feelings are open and shared. If one is in pain we all are. We were disconnected from the consciousness after we were given human names because the thoughts we were broadcasting were unpleasant. We were disturbing the elders, not to mention our parents, and they had had enough.

Anger is frowned upon in our community.

Anyway, as I said, we were given human names. I was now "Sarah". My friends were now "Tom", "Julia", and "James". Ugly names for the ugly creatures we were about to be transformed into.

We were the prototypes - the sons and daughters of the ones in charge. We knew we would be ostracized, we knew we would never be accepted in our community again. It was a sacrifice forced on us by our parents, by our elders, by the scientists who forced us into changing our bodies.

I still remember that day and it still hurts, it still infuriates me.

One by one they went into our minds and forced us into the change, all the while sending us soothing feelings and thoughts, telling us that this was necessary, that they were depending on us to be strong.

I could barely hear them over the screams that were tearing through my head as my body stretched into a new shape, as my insides changed, as vocal cords burned their way into existence until I screamed with a human voice.

When they were done with me they put me in a room with "Tom" to rest and adjust.

We were now fourteen, and had known each other for nine years.

I didn’t recognize him.

I didn’t recognize his face, I couldn’t feel his thoughts, couldn’t read him to make sure he was who I needed him to be.

We sat there on the floor together, holding each other and crying, and after a while he wanted to see my face. At first I wouldn’t let him. I was afraid he would think I was ugly. I was afraid he wouldn’t want me anymore.

He had gently pulled my hands away from my face, and stared into my human eyes, as I stared back into his. And then I knew. His eyes were different, but what was behind them was the same. I knew him and he knew me. He still loved me, and he thought I was beautiful.

Julia and James had come in soon after. Julia had been quiet as she sat down beside her brother and I. James had remained by the door, glaring sullenly at the lock, then down at his hands, then back at the lock, trying to determine whether or not the extra digit on each of his new hands was going to hinder him in breaking it.

We lived in that place for two years, just the four of us and the ones in charge. We discovered that we could do things neither our race nor the humans could do. We were taught to use these abilities in order to fight the Mantriz. We practiced on each other, on the things they put in our rooms to make them feel more like our long forgotten homes. And when we felt we were being treated badly or not being listened to, we practiced on the ones in charge.

We discovered that we didn’t need anyone but each other, that we belonged with each other – Julia with James and me with Tom, and eventually we began to forget the reason why we had been changed. We had translated our early fear and sadness into pride. We were special. We could do things no one else could. We became selfish and self–centered, we…we forgot the fact that we were weapons, that we would eventually have to fight.

At the end of that second year, we were forced back into our original forms. I had dreamt of that moment for so long, and when it came – nothing.

I felt uncomfortable.

I’d look down at my hands, alarmed when I saw that the skin was silver, and that there were only eight fingers instead of ten.

I’d look at my friends and not be able to recognize them at first by face or, once I remembered how to navigate the Consciousness, by thought. The Collective Consciousness once my safety net, my comfort, my home, felt confusing and invasive. It wasn’t a part of me anymore and I couldn’t understand it.

Eventually I was able to sort them out from the others’ whose thoughts and feelings were swirling all around me – Tom’s confidence, Julia’s strength, and James’s passion. I recognized them and clung to them as we were led out of the building we had lived in for years as humans and stepped out into the world we had once been forced to leave behind.

I wanted to run screaming back to my room and lock my door.

Carnage.

Death.

Despair.

The feelings of hopelessness and fear from the dead as well as the living came hurtling at us from all sides. Those who weren’t bound in chains wandered listlessly down the once beautiful but now filthy and broken streets with haunted eyes, their movements slow and dreamlike. They were beaten.

And we were expected to make it all better.

We were only sixteen and we were expected to save the world.

James kicked at the stones, he kicked at the ground. He tried not to be afraid as he wandered down the streets. He was a warrior. He should fear no one and no thing. He had killed two dozen Mantriz in the battle last night - he had the burns and bloody scars to prove it. He never healed them. He always kept his battle wounds visible as long as possible to prove to himself that he was still alive. It was easy to forget when everyone around you was dead. He stepped to the side as one of his people drifted down the walkway. He reached out with his mind, a feather soft caress against the dull orb of its consciousness and he felt nothing.

Walking Dead.

This one would fall any minute.

James shrugged and continued on his way. There were a lot of them walking around, wandering until they finally died. The Walking Dead were the ones who were ripped from the Consciousness by the Mantriz. The Mantriz would first capture them and then tear into their minds, separating them from the Consciousness, before sucking out any information they could. In the beginning the Mantriz had used to use their prisoners as links to the Consciousness – as a means of getting inside in order to learn what they could, to learn their enemies’ weaknesses, their strengths, before destroying them from the inside. They leaned from the few times they tried to get to them this way that the Sentreye Consciousness without a moments hesitation would kill the prisoner themselves the second they sensed that they had been infiltrated.

Now the Mantriz went through it individually, grabbing random people hoping they had information that would be of use to them, then sucking their minds dry and letting them free after they were done to wander the streets until they finally died.

There were a lot more Walking Dead in this area. They hadn’t gotten here in time. The Mantriz had taken over half the city before they were finally able to break through. They had killed maybe sixty Mantriz last night, but had lost over a hundred of their own fighters. If every victory of theirs came at such a price, once the Mantriz finally were defeated, there would be no one left on the planet to celebrate.

James stepped around a body, and then stopped, sending out feelers for anyone who was still alive. He was on recruiting detail this time. Julia had wanted to go with him, but he had said no. He didn’t want to have to worry about her getting grabbed. It wasn’t like she couldn’t take care of herself – in terms of the psychological warfare the Mantriz liked to use, she was probably better at fighting it than he was. Her powers were mentally based while his were energy based - He blew things apart, she broke them down from the inside. Julia was more than capable of handling recruiting, he just wanted to do this alone. Tom and Sarah were planning their route to the next city and Julia was trying to repair some of the Walking Dead they had taken back from the Mantriz last night. Most of them weren’t completely gone yet, and she was doing everything she could to bring them back. Everyone had their job – and for now, this was his.

There didn’t seem to be anyone to the east, and he turned to make his way down the next street then froze. He felt them before he saw them...like little cold needles at the back of his neck and a clenching in his stomach. He ducked into the alley just as a group of maybe twenty Mantriz rounded the corner.

He could handle ten on his own…but twenty…

He forced himself to calm down. He had to relax, keep his thoughts and feelings under control otherwise they’d feel him too. He took deep breaths, feeling his power pool in the palms of his hands in readiness.

Through his haze of repressed fear he could feel Tom touch his mind, and he pushed the feeling completely out of his head. He didn’t want him to know he was scared of dying.

James… came the feather soft question and he sent him an image of his situation and his plan in answer. He could feel the Mantriz coming closer and raised his hand, holding it towards the opening of the alley.

No James…too many…

They’ll find me…nowhere to hide…fight….

No…Walking Dead…

Walking Dead…

He understood. Quickly he pushed Tom and all thought out of his mind. He felt nothing, he thought nothing. His arms fell loosely to his sides, his power dissipating, the tension in his body gone, leaving him limp. His eyes glazed over and his mouth became slack as he let his body wander where it would up and down the alleyway.

If it was convincing he’d live.

If not…

He’d kill himself before he let the Mantriz into his mind.

He felt their shadows touch his skin as they passed the alley. He let his body walk into side of the building, and a few of them snickered. He felt anger surge up in him. He couldn’t help it. He wanted to rip them to pieces.

A couple of them turned back to look at him again as the others continued on their way, and he desperately forced the feelings out of his head.

Blank, blank. Nothing, nothing.

He threw up a wall against the emotions threatening to burst forth and initiate his power.

Blank, blank, Nothing, nothing.

They watched him for a moment longer, and he bumped into the wall again.

Satisfied, they turned away and joined the others.

He waited for a long while before letting himself feel again, letting himself think again, and as soon as he did Tom, Julia, and Sarah rushed into his head.

I’m fine he answered them, Should I follow?

Tom and Julia answered at the same time. Julia said no, and Tom yes.

He listened to Tom.

He was their leader. He knew best.

He followed as closely as he dared, keeping his mind as blank as possible. In a way he was the best suited for this – for tailing the Mantriz. Yes he was rash and prone to outbursts of emotion and power, but when he concentrated, when he really tried, he was a master at keeping his emotions in check, in keeping them locked away almost to the point where they didn’t exist all. And that was important. If they sensed anything from him, any glimmer of hatred, of fear, they would know they were not alone, they would know they were being followed. They would sense him and then reach out with their own set of feelers and identify him, pick his brain dry, and eliminate him.

They had almost caught him in the alley, but that was because he hadn’t been prepared - they had caught him off guard. But he was ready now. He was calm, deadly calm. He was focused. His stone wall was firmly in place.

They stopped suddenly in the middle of the street and formed a small circle. One by one they stepped forward and disappeared. He waited until the last one had gone and went to where they had been standing. There was a circle on the ground that was different in texture from the rest – more blurry, with a little bit of shimmer that was quickly disappearing. He wondered briefly if he should let it close and attempt to open it again himself to see if this was a real door or if it was a temporary one made for a one time entrance. If it was a one time deal he’d lose them. If it was a real door it might be secured and if he opened it it might alert them. If he jumped in now, before the shimmer was gone he might be trapped down there.

If, if, if…

What the hell was this? He wasn’t a thinker – that was Tom’s job. He wasn’t a worrier, he never took precautions – that was Sarah’s. He didn’t prepare, he didn’t plan. Julia did that best. It was one of the only things she had in common with her brother. He was a do-er. As a team they protected each other, they made up for each other’s weaknesses. Alone…

Alone no one was around to save the impetuous ass of the "do-er" if he did the wrong thing. He would be unprotected if he made the wrong decision.

He didn’t care. He barely gave his thoughts a chance to reveal themselves to him before leaping into the circle and abandoning himself to his nature and the fate that waited for him below the surface.

He expected darkness, but there was none. It was so bright it hurt his eyes. He was in a hallway, a long narrow hallway with a white floor, a white ceiling, and white walls. There was no one there. He walked down the hallway, listening for any sign that they had been alerted to his presence. He was too excited to be scared. This was a base. It wasn’t one of their compounds, their fortresses that they broke into regularly topside. This place was different. This place held…secrets…They had made an effort to hide the entrance, to keep it unknown…which meant there were probably a lot of them down here…The leader was probably down here…

If he was caught he’d barely have time to whisper a goodbye to his friends before they’d be inside of him tearing him apart. But he wasn’t thinking about that. He was thinking that this place…knowing about this place would prove a major turning point in the war in their favor.

He flipped his brain into scanner mode, saving everything he was seeing even though it was just walls and whiteness. The hallway seemed endless. He stopped and turned around. He hadn’t walked that far but he couldn’t see the end where he had started. When he had come down there had been a wall at his back. He couldn’t see it anymore. It was like it had disappeared. He turned to look at the wall on his right. He squinted at it, wondering if there was a door somewhere, wondering if it was like how it was with the entrance to this place – if you didn’t know to look for it, you couldn’t see it.

Before he had just been walking down the hall not looking on either side of him, but straight ahead. He hadn’t noticed any change in the texture or color on the walls to signify a door and so he had ignored them. But now he stopped. He stopped and he stared at the wall until he saw them – little silver lines stretching into a rectangle – they glimmered just a little bit – like the circle in the ground. He turned to look at the other wall and he could see them now. Door after door after door stretching behind and before him. He didn’t know which one to choose.

He closed his eyes and let his body wander further down the hall letting his subconscious choose for him. It was something he’d been working on with Sarah – trusting himself, his instincts.

He opened his eyes.

He found the door he hadn’t known he was looking for until now. It looked the same as all the others, but the strands of silver outlining its shape seemed a little brighter to him. Chances where that that was a bad thing. It probably meant that there was a flock of Mantriz in there, or maybe there was only one, but it was powerful. Somehow he still wasn’t afraid. He had chosen this one for a reason.

He placed a hand on the door.

It shimmered in welcome and he stepped through.

There was a human inside. A female. She was hunched over in the corner, her hands pressed to her face. She was crying.

He quickly changed into his human body so she wouldn’t be afraid. She couldn’t hear him over the sound of her own tears and he watched her for a moment, mesmerized. He’d never really seen one up close before. He looked at her. It was amazing…the little diamond patterns on the back of her hands that pieced together her pale skin…beneath it he could see the light threads of blue stretching their way from her knuckles to her wrist, to her arm. He could see the light golden hairs on them, almost invisible. He could see the bones under her skin, under the long fingers covering her face, tangling in her hair as yellow as the sun…

She was made of colors…

Why had he ever thought humans were ugly…

She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

He stepped in a little closer and she finally noticed him. Her eyes were as green as the sky…they were shining as she stared at him. He couldn’t find his voice…her eyes, her lips that curved into a wobbly smile left him speechless and immobile as she leapt to her feet and flung her arms around him.

"Leyx…Leyx is that you?" Those hands, those fingers were on either side of his face and she lifted her head from his chest to look into his eyes. She giggled. "This is so strange…." She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand then brought it back up to his face, caressing it. "You don’t look like you…I can’t feel you anymore…" her green eyes clouded again. "I was so scared…I thought…I was afraid I’d never see you again…" He swallowed, he didn’t know what to say, what was going on. His mind was swirling in confusion and her fingers… so soft…tracing the line of his jaw…he couldn’t think - he could only feel and stare at her, at her face, her eyes. She frowned. "Why are you staring at me…?" She bit her lip and whispered. "I’m ugly aren’t I? I’m hideou-"

"No…" he said hoarsely, finding his voice at last. He was barely aware of the usual tickling sensation that always flooded his throat the fist few moments of human speech. He was staring at her still, and found that his hands were holding onto her even as she tried to step away. "I’ve never seen anything like you…you’re amazing…beautiful…" She shook her head, coming back into the circle of his arms, touching his face again, his lips.

"I was so scared here without you…don’t ever leave me again…I can’t do they want us to do without you…I need you Leyx…" She lifted her face up to his, her breath whispering across his lips.

When they had been changed all those years ago they were not only given human bodies. The Elders had given them human thoughts – memories of things without the emotions attached. He knew what sand was, what it felt like under bare feet. He knew what the noise of an engine roaring to life sounded like. He knew the taste of ice cream, of chocolate. He knew the touch of leather, of cotton. He knew what it was to hug someone. He knew that what she was giving him was a kiss and what it meant to humans.

Such a small word for such an amazing thing – all sensation and color and spinning and dizziness and touch and feeling and emotion. The feeling of her lips and tongue her hands and her hair under his fingers. He had never imagined anything like this existed…the thoughts they had been given...they hadn't prepared him for this sweetness…

He felt his mind fall open with a burst of light, his walls melting, his pleasure surging through his body, his mind, his thoughts tangling with hers…Her mind was open as well and he ran to it, wanting to see, taste, and touch more of her, all of her.

He saw her screaming. He saw the Mantriz holding her down…only she wasn’t a human…she was one of them…

They entered her mind, he felt the searing sharp pain along with her, felt his own eyes fill. He felt her body change, stretch into a new shape – a human shape. He had felt all this before…the first time all those years ago they had changed him…Tom…Sarah…Julia… The agony of that fist time all over again was almost too much to bear and he flung himself away from her, gasping for breath.

He looked up at her and she was staring at him, breathing hard, her eyes wide with fear.

"You’re not Leyx…"

"No…"

She raised her hand. He saw it glow, saw the light seeping out of the skin from each finger and sliding down the length of them, pooling in the palms and getting brighter and brighter, hotter and hotter…She shared his power…she could do what he could. She aimed her shaking hand at him, her ragged breathing tearing through the air, choked with human sobs, and he closed his eyes…

He concentrated. The second she felt him touch her mind she’d let go of the energy she was holding back. He had to be quick. He reached out and found the part of her mind that controlled her power – it was the same part that controlled his. He knew where to find it without searching and he blocked it.

Her eyes widened as her power dissipated with a sizzle and the excess drops of power fell to the ground, burning little holes in it. She looked at him. She knew what he was doing. She closed her eyes and pushed him away sending her voice with it. It tore through his mind and his ears.

"Get out!"

The force of it flung him back against the wall. He turned his body around as he flew through the air, his feet hitting the wall instead of his head and he ran up it, absorbing the momentum, and landed right in front of her, his hand outstretched and seething with his activated power. He looked at her. She looked at him. They were frozen in a standstill – his glowing hand inches from her face and hers inches from his. The orange light illuminated the tear tracks on her cheeks. She was scared, but her eyes were hard. She was determined to stay alive.

"I’m not ready to die yet…" she growled.

"Neither am I…" He saw her swallow nervously as she realized she couldn’t connect to the Mantriz and ask for help. She must have been disconnected like he had been when he went through the change. "No one’s coming to help you…"

He didn’t even give her a chance to answer. He reached out to her mind again and found what he was looking for and squeezed. He dropped to the ground just as her power shot out from her hand skimming over his head and burning a hole in the wall. She collapsed to the ground, unconscious, landing on top of him. He sat there for a moment, stunned. He had been able to navigate her mind so easily…he had been able to find what he was looking for without a seconds hesitation…like he knew her…

It had been the kiss. The kiss had opened a momentary connection between them, and his brain, still in scanner mode had memorized her mind, storing it away so he could use it if necessary.

He looked down at her. He had stopped the flow of air to her brain just for a moment – long enough to knock her out. She’d wake up any minute. He closed his eyes and touched her mind again, finding the place where her power resided and turned it off. That wouldn’t last long either. The next time she tried to use her power she’d know what he had done and just fix it. At least it would give him a moment to…to what? Grovel for his life before she blew him up? She was just as strong as he was…only a little shaky from the change. He'd hate to see what she was like when she was completely focused. He felt her shift in his arms and stopped the airflow again. He wasn’t ready for her to wake up yet but he couldn’t keep doing this. She would die if he did.

What did he care? She was Mantriz. She was scum.

But she had gone through the change. The Mantriz had forced it on her. They were planning something and he had to know what it was.

He got to his feet and hefted her up over his shoulder. He waved his hand over the scorch marks in the room trying to make them disappear but could only manage to lessen the black scars to a murky brown. It would have to do. He stepped through the door, quickly scanning the hallway for any sign of Mantriz, and then ran down the hallway the way he had come. He had to put her to sleep again one more time before he reached the end of it.

He stared up at the ceiling and he could see the silver threads shining in the shape of the circle. How the hell was he supposed to get up there…

He remembered what he had had to do with the door, and stared at the wall until he saw them. Little rungs along the side leading up to the circle. He put one arm around her waist over his shoulder, securing her to him and began to climb. He reached the top and pushed her through, and was about to lift himself all the way up when he felt something grab onto his leg and pull. He slid down a few rungs and looked down. There was another human looking girl there with eyes and hair as dark as the starless night. She was trying to pull him back into the hallway. He felt her try to push her way into his mind, felt her try and stop the airflow but he threw up the stone wall that the other one had melted earlier and blocked her. He pulled himself up escaping from her weakened grasp as her power bounced off of his wall and flew back at her. As the circle closed behind him he heard her calling for the one he had taken.

"Cerise…!"

She stared at them through the glass. She had tried to use her power but couldn’t, and had taken up pacing and throwing them dirty looks instead. Julia had managed to keep her power turned off, and Sarah kept the airflow to her brain low, keeping her groggy and powerless. James looked at Julia.

"This is taking too much out of you…" He said and she smiled with a shrug.

"It’s either this or she melts us…" Sarah frowned in concentration.

"I can’t keep this up much longer – she keeps fighting me and the second she wins she’ll be strong enough to push you out…" The door opened and Tom slipped inside.

"One of us should go in there." He said nodding at the girl. "Enter her mind, find out what’s going on…why she was changed…"

"I’ll do it." James said, meeting Cerise’s eyes through the glass.

"Are you sure you’re up to it…? You’re not as strong at mind searches as we are…" Sarah said carefully and he shook his head at her unable to explain.

"I can do it with her." Tom nodded.

"I’m coming in with you. I’ll watch your back while you’re connecting in case she breaks Sarah and Julia’s hold."

She glared at them as they came into the room, but stepped back until her back was pressed against the wall as they came closer. She was scared. He could see her berating herself for showing it. He wanted to tell her that they weren’t going to hurt her…but he knew that if they had to they would. She was the enemy.

"You aren’t human…" she said.

"And neither are you…Cerise…" Tom answered and crossed his arms in front of his chest, blocking the door.

"Why were you changed?" James stepped in a little closer and she stepped up to him, refusing to be intimidated by him.

"I.Don’t.Know."

"What do you mean you don’t know?"

"I don’t know!"

"I don’t believe you!" She paused for a moment, breathing hard, glancing at Julia and Sarah through the window…

"Get…get them out…of my head…" She looked at him, her eyes tearing. "It hurts…" She whispered and he swallowed.

"Right. So you can use your powers on us? Do you think we’re stupid?"

"I won’t do anything…I promise…"

"And we’re supposed to believe you…?"

She took a deep breath and stepped in even closer. She reached out and touched his face, like she had the first time, and closed her eyes. She showed him her mind, that she wasn’t going to hurt anyone that she was just scared…that she had never felt anything like that before…the kiss…

And suddenly she was pulling away, she was being ripped away from him as she fell and he caught her before she hit the ground.

"Sarah!" he growled at her annoyed, and she stared at him through the glass her eyes wide.

"I thought she was hurting you…I…I didn’t kill her James…"

Tom came to his side and knelt down beside them as her eyes opened. James looked at him. "Tell them to let her go…"

"Are you sure?" He looked at James, then at the girl. He nodded at the window.

"I’m trusting you." James said to her and she took a deep breath as she felt her mind clear.

She sat up, shrugging his arms off of her. She looked at Tom uncertainly, and said quietly, "What are you going to do to me?"

"We don’t know yet." Tom said. "It depends on how cooperative you are." She snorted and rubbed her forehead, glaring at the girls.

"I can’t tell you what I don’t know."

"We know you’re Mantriz…"

"So? I know you’re Sentreye…"

"Stop being difficult!" James snapped and her eyes flashed at him.

"Stop giving me so many opportunities!"

Tom frowned. "Why were you changed?"

"I told you I don’t know."

"Then how were you changed?" James said impatiently. "How did you get to that room?"

"I might ask you the same question." She said coldly.

"Answer his." Sarah and Julia entered the room and came up to them. She stared at her hand, traced it’s shape with her other one.

"They took me."

"Who took you?"

"My People…They grabbed me and told me they needed me. They didn’t tell me for what, they didn’t tell me why…they just took me. They made me into this…this thing and then they put me in that room and left me there. I don’t know anything else I swear."

"Are there any others who were changed?" Sarah asked. Cerise swallowed and glanced over at James before answering.

"No." He knew she was lying. There had been that girl in the hallway that had tried to stop him from taking Cerise and then there was her lover…Leyx…

He knew she was lying about everything else too.

She knew why they had changed her

Tom looked at him and James looked away from the girl who was begging him with her eyes not to say anything.

"She’s lying." He said. "There’s one male named Leyx that I didn’t see and there’s a female – dark hair, eyes – she was changed as well."

"Reyne…you saw her…?" Cerise grabbed onto his arm. "Is she okay? You didn’t hurt her did you…?" Her eyes hardened and her grip tightened. "If you did I swear I’ll –" She glared up at Julia as she was cut off. She muttered something soundlessly under her breath at her and Julia said calmly.

"I’ll give you your voice back if you stop threatening and lying to us…" Julia raised an eyebrow at her in question and Cerise jerked her chin at her in agreement.

She cleared her throat experimentally and crossed her arms over her chest. "I’m done talking anyway. You have a problem with that you can just kill me now."

"So what do we do? Do we believe her? Do we kill her?"

James’ head shot up at the last suggestion. He fought the urge to clamp a hand over Sarah’s mouth as she leaned against the counter beside Tom and looked up at him, waiting for an answer.

"Well if what she’s saying is true…that she doesn’t know anything…then she’s not much use to us…" Julia said coming up behind James and dropping her chin on his shoulder. "Was she telling the truth James…?"

He shrugged, murmuring that he needed more time alone with her…that he needed to sift through her thoughts some more to be able to determine whether or not she was lying about not knowing why the Mantriz had changed her even though he knew she was. Sarah, Tom…Julia…they were his family. Cerise…Cerise was nothing to him. Why should he care if she was alive or not. She was Mantriz.

So why was he keeping her secret? He hadn't made the conscious decision to do so...the words were coming out of his mouth, the words that were delaying her departure from the base, from his life... even earlier, he had ignored every opportunity during the interrogation to confront her when he knew for a fact that she was lying to them...

He didn't know why he was protecting her, and he didn't like it

"She might be worth something to the Mantriz…" Tom said turning away from the window to look at them all. "We could keep her for a while…see if they send anyone to bargain with us. We may be able to get some of our people out…"

James watched Cerise through the window as Tom spoke. She was sitting in the corner of the room facing him, sitting with her legs crossed. Her powers were back and she was playing with them. She cupped her palms out in front of her, and closed her eyes. Thin orange tendrils of smoke appeared from between her fingers and wove themselves together until they formed a miniature animal…what humans called a horse. It ran in place over the plains of her hands and she smiled at it. She lowered her hands and it floated in mid air, the orange glow lighting up her face and touching her hair. She looked up from the glowing horse and met his eyes. They gazed at each other through the orange haze and the shining glass, Tom’s voice a dull murmur in the back of his mind. After a moment her mouth tilted up in a smirk and she made the horse a little bigger and guided it towards the window. James held his breath wondering if he should stop it, but he couldn’t move, he could only watch it coming closer and closer. Julia was facing the window as well but her eyes were closed as she rested her head on his shoulder, nodding every once in a while at what her brother was saying. Sarah was completely focused on Tom as well.

He was the only one who could see what was about to happen. He opened his mouth to yell at everyone to get down as the horse reared up. He saw her out of the corner of his eye, still looking at him, watching to see what he would do. She raised her hand from her lap and snapped her fingers. The fire horse immediately dissipated into tendrils of faded power that floated away from each other up to the ceiling as Tom turned back to the window to look at their captive. She stared back at him innocently, twirling a lock of gold hair around her finger.

"James…?" Sarah was frowning at him. "Are you alright?" Julia opened her eyes and he felt her hand sneak up from his chest and lightly push his chin up, closing his mouth.

He had volunteered to stand watch over their prisoner for the night. Julia had simply nodded and told him to "call" one of them if he got tired, and Tom had clapped a hand on his shoulder, telling him to be careful. Sarah had given him a look though. A long searching look and he wished suddenly that he hadn’t been so quick to nominate himself for the job. He watched them leave the room and turned to the window. He felt Sarah come back in and he looked at her reflection in the glass beside him.

"Don’t let her get to you James…She’s dangerous…I really think one of us should be here in case she tries to manipulate you…No matter what she looks like...she's still Mantriz."

"I can take care of myself." He snapped at her and felt bad about it. She was just worried about him. He started to turn around and apologize, but she had already gone.

He turned back to the window where Cerise was lying on her back with her legs resting against the wall. She was painting little orange spirals into the air above her head. She stopped suddenly, sensing his eyes on her and rolled over onto her stomach, propping her head up on her hands, and stared back at him.

He walked over to the glass door, never taking his eyes off her as he opened it, stepped inside and walked up to her. She rolled over again, onto her back, and gazed up at him from the floor. He saw her suck in her breath but refuse to flinch as he knelt down, and leaned over her, his hands on either side of her head.

"That wasn’t funny." He breathed, still determined not to lose the staring contest, and cursing himself for not sounding more intimidating.

"What?"

"You know what I’m talking about." She shrugged still looking into his eyes, smiling as she remembered the look on his face when she had increased the size of the horse as it charged the window.

"I was bored."

"Bored."

"Yes. Bored. Besides…" She said softly, and he tried not to notice as the breath that accompanied her words brushed his lips. "I like…horses…I like a lot of the stuff they put in here…" She said and tapped the side of her head with her index finger. When she brought her hand back down it brushed his arm and he blinked. "I win…" She murmured.

"No you don’t." She frowned sliding out from under him and sat up.

"I believe you blinked."

"Whatever." She drew her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them looking up at him from behind her knees.

"Was she okay?"

"Who?"

"Reyne…I haven’t seen her…I haven't seen anybody…since...before I was changed..." He frowned, finding it hard to reconcile his idea of the Mantriz – cold heartless killers with her. She was warm. She was worried about her friend. She was scared. She had had many opportunities to kill him and she hadn’t done it. It was disturbing. She wasn’t acting the way she should.

"She was fine." He said gruffly. "I didn’t see your mate…" She flushed and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

"Leyx is not my mate."

"Why would you…greet him like that if he wasn’t?" He asked thinking of the kiss and trying to keep his voice steady.

"Because I was scared...I thought I would never see him again and I was so happy when I did and I remembered that human-thought and it felt right…but…it was different than what I meant..." She swallowed uncertainly. "It wasn't him. It was you…you were trying to trick me."

"No I wasn’t"

"Then why did you make yourself look human?"

"I thought you were human. I didn’t want to scare you." She swallowed again.

"Why are you in human form now? I mean all of you?"

"We’re more comfortable like this. We don’t really fit into the Consciousness anymore…when we were taken out it changed us and when we were let back in it…it wasn’t the same. We prefer to communicate with each other in this form. It’s easier. We change into our real bodies when we’re with the others…" Why was he telling her all this? It was stupid telling her things about himself, about all of them. She could use it against them…She could use it-

"I don’t know how to do that…" she said softly.

"What?"

"Change back…" she whispered, tears filling her green, green eyes. "I don’t mind though…this is better…being…disconnected is better…I feel like…my thoughts are my own…I’m my own…" he nodded at her, understanding.

The Mantriz and Sentreye…as different as they were, they both communicated through mindspeech, through a form of collective consciousness that resulted in a loss of individuality. It wasn’t something you missed, something you mourned, because it was a part of you…but being ripped away from it…finding out who you really were without the others…there was no way you were able to go back to sharing yourself until you weren’t yourself anymore after that...not after you had that taste of freedom.

"We aren’t all like that you know…" she whispered, brushing a tear from her cheek.

"Like what?"

"Like what you think…Killers. Destroyers." He was silent, watching the tear she had taken from her face as it slid down her wrist. "Do you think I’m like that?"

Don’t let her get to you, James…She’s dangerous…I really think one of us should be here in case she tries to manipulate you…

She's still Mantriz.

Sarah’s words floated back into his head and he stared at her. She bit her lip.

"You don’t…you can’t…" she murmured. "If you did you’d be afraid of me…of being here like this alone with me…you would hate me…"

"How do you know I don’t?" She gazed at him and he felt himself sinking, sinking into that light, into the memory of her mind and the touch that had opened it to him.

"Because I can feel you…It's how I know not to be afraid with you...you don't want to hurt me...I can feel you..." She repeated softly, then whispered, "And if you’d let yourself you can feel me too…" He closed his eyes at her words. She was right…he could feel her at the back of his mind, slowly embracing him, slowly giving him her warmth, her light, her color, her beauty…

He felt her lean forward. He felt her crawl up to him and touch his face. He felt her lips against his…and he saw that the kiss she had given him before…when she had thought he was her friend…she hadn’t meant it to be what it had been…it had exploded and become the joining of their minds because it was him…because some part of her soul recognized his

He felt her surprise and confusion swirl around him in an orange and red haze…the color of the shared power that throbbed in their veins…he felt her desire and his tangle with each other as his mind fell open under her touch. And then he felt her sorrow. He felt her regret.

I’m sorry…

Her voice was a feather soft whisper in his head and suddenly the orange haze was disappearing, taking the warmth with it. Her mind was closing to him, and then he couldn’t feel it anymore...he couldn't feel anything anymore as she reduced the airflow to his brain and her sad face disappeared behind the dark flowers of unconsciousness blooming before his mind's eye…

He felt a tendril of someone else’s mind brush against his and he lashed out, shoving off the thick blanket of unconsciousness that had wrapped itself around him until he hadn’t been able to breathe. His eyes snapped open and he became aware of his fingers tangled in Julia’s long blond hair, pulling her face towards him, towards his glowing hand. He cursed, realizing where he was, who he was with, and his power fizzled. He let go of her and she slumped to the floor.

"Julia…I’m sorry…I hurt you…"

"No…" She got to her knees and leaned over him on the bed. "You just scared me…I was trying to get in to see if I could help you wake up…"

"I could have killed you…" He whispered and she pushed his hair back from his forehead, smiling a little.

"Good thing for me you opened your eyes before you released that energy…" She lifted her hand to her face and healed her cheek that was a little pink from being so close to the heat of his power.

"I’m sorry…" he whispered again and reached out to touch her face when she finished. The skin was pale again, the slight burn gone.

"James I’m fine…" Her face hardened. "What about you? She knocked you out…really out…you were gone for a good twenty minutes…for a second I thought…" She shook her head, unable to voice her fear, and pressed his open palm a little closer to her face.

"She got away didn’t she…"

"Tom and Sarah are out now looking for her…she couldn’t have gotten that far…What did she do to you…?" He swallowed, looking at her, looking at her face cradled in the palm of his hand, and when she reached out and touched him, traced his cheekbone with the tips of her fingers, he closed his eyes wondering why it didn’t feel the same...

It wasn’t the same because Cerise had been manipulating him, making him feel things for her he should only feel for Julia.

The only reason he hadn’t felt those things for Julia was because he’d never touched her like that before…but if he did…he would. He knew he would because Julia was right and Cerise was wrong. He knew if he kissed Julia he would feel those intense emotions swirling through his mind in a plethora of colors…and they would be brighter, more beautiful because…it would be real. He reached out to her, desperate to prove it.

He lifted his head from the pillow, and guided her lips down to his, cupping her face in his palms, feeling her long hair caress his bare shoulders as she leaned over him and…nothing. Softness, yes…but…no light…no colors…no wave after wave of dizzying emotion. She lifted her head and he watched her as she closed her eyes, flipping through her human-thoughts to find the name for what they had just done.

"Kiss." She said opening her eyes and smiling at him. This time the word sounded…appropriate…it’s smallness no longer inadequate. That’s all it was. A kiss.

"Julia…Did you…feel anything when I did that?" She frowned at him and brushed his hair away from his eyes.

"Of course I did, we were touching."

"No I mean…did you…feel me…inside of you…inside of your mind…not reading it, not searching it just…just a part of it?" He tried to keep the hopeful note out of his voice but he couldn’t help it. She shook her head at him, confused.

"Was I supposed to?" She laughed. "Human expressions of love…they don’t open the connection…"

"Never…?" he whispered and she took his hand again.

"James you know how it works…you can only achieve a connection like that if you’re with the one you’re meant to be with and if you’re…doing it the proper way…"

"The Sentreye way…"

"Yes…James what’s wrong with you…why…" Her voice faded as he looked deep into her eyes and she saw the confusion there, the desperation.

"We should try it." He said "We should try to connect…that way…Why haven’t we before…?" She was silent for a moment, before answering him.

"Because we never needed to…" she said softly. "We already know we love each other…I never thought we had to prove it…James what’s gotten into you…"

"I don’t know…I don’t…Julia…haven’t you ever wondered…if we weren’t right for each other? I know you love me. I love you…you know I do but…wouldn’t it have happened…wouldn’t we have connected with each other with that first touch if…?"

"What are you saying?"

"Haven’t you ever wondered if there was something more out there…something more than what I could give you…?"

"I’ve…I’ve never really thought about it I guess…"

"Me neither…" he said quietly. "We just accepted what was right in front of us didn’t we? There were four of us. Tom and Sarah…they’ve been connected to each other for as long as they’ve known each other…and we’ve…you’ve been my best friend…my…sister…for as long as I’ve known you…when did it turn into something more…? …I don’t even remember… It’s like…we decided that it would make sense if we were together…because you and I…no one else could understand you the way that I do and no one else could understand me because of what happened to us… It seemed only natural that since Tom and Sarah…that me and you would…we…we would complete the square…"

Her head was bowed, her hair hiding her face. He gently brushed it away, afraid that he had upset her. But she wasn’t crying. He should have known. His Julia never cried. She was thinking, mulling over what he had said. She looked up at him.

" Maybe…Maybe you…you’re right…we did sort of fall into this didn’t we? Because it was easy…because we wanted…needed what Tom and Sarah have…What made you…?"

James looked at the floor, not wanting to talk about what had happened with Cerise, not wanting to talk about the fact that whatever she had done to him, real or not had knocked some sense into him, made him realize that something was missing.

He heard her sharp intake of breath and met her eyes.

"You did it with her didn’t you? You connected…"

"I don’t know what it was…she could have just been making me think we were connecting to…to distract me…" he said bitterly. "It might have all been a trick….a manipulation like Sarah had warned me about…maybe that’s all all of this is…what I felt…these doubts I’m having about us that I never had before…" She was quiet as she studied him.

"So let’s see if your doubts are right…"

"You mean…?" She nodded and sat beside him on the bed, pulling him up into a sitting position until they were facing each other. They leaned towards each other, closing their eyes as their hands cradled each other’s faces and their foreheads touched. They were both quiet for a moment, holding their breath until she whispered, "Anything….?"

"No…" he sighed pulling back.

"Me neither…" she said opening her eyes.

"Are you…are you disappointed…?"

She was quiet for a moment then said, "No…I…I thought I would be but…No…are you?"

He shrugged. "Maybe a little…" She smiled softly at him.

"You know I still love you?"

He nodded, "I still love you too."

He laid back down on the bed and pressed his fists to his eyes, trying to make sense of everything, and not knowing where to start, not knowing where to find the balance he had lost the second Cerise’s lips had brushed his. Julia laid down beside him and rested her head on his chest.

"What was it like…?" she murmured. "The connection…?"

"It doesn’t matter…it wasn’t true. She made it up, made me think that’s what it was. It was a lie."

"…Are you sure…?"

"Julia she’s Mantriz. She’s the enemy. Our people and hers…they’re different…we aren’t meant to be together…it’s wrong…Besides it wasn’t a connection. It was a trick. I should have expected as much from her…from a Mantriz. I should have been more careful…" he swallowed painfully then remembered Tom and Sarah out there trying to clean up his mess. "Is Tom angry…? That I let her get away?"

"It’s not your fault James…Tom…he was worried about you…he’s angry at himself for not realizing how dangerous she was. It’s so easy to think that because there’s only one we can handle it…But they’re stronger than us…"

"They’re not stronger than us." He said. "They just fight dirty. They use our own minds against us. We’re capable of that. Sarah knows how to do it. But we don’t. Because we’re the good guys." His jaw clenched and she felt his body tense as he remembered how easily Cerise had gotten into his head, how easily she had tricked him. Betrayed him.

"James…?" She lifted her head from his chest to look at him.

"Maybe it’s time we fight dirty too." He said and she shivered at the coldness in his eyes.

After we left the building for the first time in two years we were led to another compound. It was time for us to begin our field training. We were left under the care of The Protectors…our version of what humans call the police…

The Protectors came into being when the first wave of Mantriz came almost eleven years ago. The purpose was to maintain relations between our two races…basically to make sure no one "got angry" with each other, and to clear up any disputes in general.

Eventually the Protectors became our defenders. They worked only for our people and the Mantriz had their own version.

Their Protectors were stronger than ours and there were more of them…

They wanted to wipe us out, they wanted us gone so they could have the entire planet, it’s resources and it’s life to themselves. They began slowly – an accident here, and there – they even killed a few of their own to alleviate suspicion. By the time we all started to catch on to the fact that the Mantriz population was growing and ours was dwindling, they had stopped trying to hide it and started killing out in the open. They’d line up and close their eyes and just…push with their minds and those who were the weakest would drop down in the street dead, empty. Those who may have been of use in determining a way to expedite the extinction of our people were taken, and when they were seen again…they were Walking Dead.

After that first siege the Protectors took everyone who was left in the city and hid them long enough to teach them how to throw up mental blocks to protect themselves, to keep the Mantriz out. We had already changed by this point and were still in the process of adjusting to our new bodies, our new powers inside the compound while this was happening. We had learned of the sieges at the new compound where the survivors taught us, trained us how to focus our energy even more and turn it into something deadly.

All Sentreye have some degree of power, but for some reason ours went beyond the usual telepathy. We knew it had something to do with the change. The Elders had told us all they had done was give us a few human-thoughts and guidance to help our bodies stretch into a new form but that couldn’t have been all they did. All Sentreye can shapeshift, but they can’t change what’s on the inside. A normal Sentreye in the form of a human would not be able to speak. Sentreye do not have vocal cords. If you put your hands to its chest you would not feel a heart beat. Sentreye do not have human organs… But we did. Even when we’d change back to our original forms our hearts, our lungs, our vocal cords our bones were still there, only smaller, compacted. These differences in our bodies, plus our inability to truly become one with the consciousness again, kept us on the outside. Our people tried to accept us, and they trusted us to lead them into battle once our training was complete, but they were always a little wary of us and maybe a little sickened because of what we were, how unnatural we were.

We were hybrids.

We realized this during the training sessions when whenever we activated a power that was not Sentreye we automatically slipped into our human forms.

We went to the Elders demanding to know why this was, why we were so different when they claimed all they had done to us was implant a few thoughts and guide a shapeshift – something that we would have been able to do on our own when we came of age anyway, and they admitted that they had introduced human DNA into our systems. They admitted that the change which we thought at the time had only taken minutes had actually been days…days of taking us apart and putting us back together again into something more than Sentreye and something less than human. We didn’t know how the Elders had managed to change us so completely and they refused to tell us. I think they were afraid of one of us being caught and the Mantriz finding out how to "modify" their own people the same way through the information they’d find during the mindsearch.

Humans are powerful. More powerful than they realize. Our scientists were able to take pieces of the human mind, pieces that the humans themselves had not even begun to understand and use, and meld them to ours. The result was a new type of power that developed the ones we already had, that pushed them to the limit and then beyond.

Tom and James were able to make their energy tangible - it seeped out of their hands and when they used the mental skills they had been born with to direct this energy at a target, the effects…they were impressive. Julia and I discovered we could lift things with a thought, we could break things down from the inside – we could pick apart the brain of a Mantriz and turn it into a Walking Dead in a matter of seconds. But we did have our limitations. After large expulsions of energy, Tom and James would need a chance to recover, to replenish what they had lost and the strain of using our mental powers – especially in interrogating a Mantriz who had so many defenses and so many traps built into their minds…we were often left with pounding headaches that left us immobile for a few minutes. In our world very rarely do you have a "few minutes" to spare before you have to fight again. So whenever we did use our powers in a battle, we used them sparingly. If we had had been more human and less Sentreye we would have been able to use our powers without any problems at all…we would have been unstoppable.

The Elders realized this. They knew that if they had to change us again, had to bring us to the next level, they would not take our Sentreye bodies and add human DNA. They would do just the opposite.

They believed that if we were completely human, with our Sentreye powers still intact, we truly would be unstoppable. There would be no way the Mantriz could defeat us. The only problem was that they could not take us to this level on our own planet. Humans can not survive here for long – as strong as their minds are, their bodies are a different story. If we were changed that completely we would die. This final change was a last resort, and The Elders were not even sure if that step would even be necessary. As it was, even with our limitations the four of us were doing well in battle. Although our victories were never easily accomplished, the Mantriz were slowly being defeated, and it began to look as though our planet would be saved, our people would be saved.

That was until they somehow discovered the secret to our powers, and our Elders’ fear came to life.

The Mantriz began changing their own people, and when we met the Mantriz versions of ourselves…everything fell apart.

I knew someone should have stayed with him Sarah and Tom crept down the darkened street, their eyes and ears open, searching for the girl.

You’ve said that already Tom answered her quietly and stepped over a body, shaking his head sadly as it began to wither before their eyes. It must have just fallen. Sarah took his hand and led him away from it.

We’ll stop this Tom…they won’t win… he squeezed her hand before they let go of each other to search opposite sides of the street.

…I think she did something to James… she said after a moment

What do you mean…?

I’m not sure exactly…it’s just that when he brought her in he was so…quiet… He barely took his eyes off of her…like he was trying to make sure we didn’t do anything to her…I’m just saying his behavior was weird…Whenever we’ve had opportunities to interrogate Mantriz before he…he’d get pretty vicious with them…

You think she was controlling him…?

I don’t know…I just…I think it’s really important that we find her…that we find out what she can do…what powers she has…If she’s part of a new breed of Mantriz we’re in trouble… Besides…don’t you find it a little upsetting that she was changed? The only reason I can determine why she was is if they’re planning o- She cut herself off as she reached the end of a freestanding wall of a broken down building. She had heard something. She motioned for him to join her and he ran across the street, his feet barely making a sound, and they stood there together, their backs against the charred side of the building, listening.

They heard footsteps and a soft affirmative answer to the question, "Reyne…is that you…?".

Tom pressed his hand against the building’s wall and slowly its molecules began to separate from each other until there was a small hole. He looked through it and saw their Mantriz and another one - the dark haired girl Cerise had called Reyne – embrace each other.

"What are you doing out here…?" Cerise whispered.

"I was looking for you…I saw him take you…the human…"

"He was Sentreye…"

"Sentreye…? How…"

"I don’t know. I don’t know how they found the base…"

"How many were there?"

"Four…four were in human form…I also saw a few dozen of the Protectors on the grounds…" She looked around, searching for any sign of them or the "humans". It’s not safe out here alone…where’s Leyx…where’s-"

"I haven’t seen them yet…"

"Not that we’d recognize them if we did…I don’t even recognize myself…"

Sarah looked up at Tom and he nodded at her. They both reached out at the same time, and when their feelers brushed up against the minds of the two Mantriz nothing happened. They had their defenses up and they couldn’t be broken through. Cerise’s head shot up as she felt the probe and immediately initiated her power. The other girl, Reyne, closed her eyes, concentrating, and the small hole in the wall that Tom had created became larger and larger until the entire wall disappeared.

"Two against two…" Cerise growled at them as Tom and Sarah initiated their own powers, simultaneously slipping into their human forms. Tom’s power came from his hands, but was a cool blue as opposed to James’ and Cerise’s fiery orange. A purple hazy mist surrounded Sarah as she initiated hers and she lifted a chunk of a fallen statue in readiness. "At least it’s fair now…" Cerise took a step forward. "Four against one…that wasn’t very sporting…"

"It wasn’t four against one." Sarah said coolly lifting the statue a little higher, daring her to make another move towards them. "It was one against one. You lost and James won. Get ready to lose again."

"He didn’t win the last time…" She murmured, and Reyne risked a quick glance at her, feeling a flash of guilt from her friend.

The purple haze around Sarah turned a deep plumb as her anger pushed the statue up higher until it cast a shadow over the two Mantriz. Cerise’s hands glowed even brighter in response, and the ground sizzled as drops of light dripped from her palms. Then suddenly the sizzling stopped, and the air surrounding her was no longer tattooed by swirls of orange. Cerise looked down at her hands and glared at Tom and Sarah. "You know I wish you guys would stop doing that." She said and closed her eyes as she tried to flip her power back on with an annoyed scrunch to her forehead.

Tom stared at her. "We didn’t…"

"I did." Reyne said quietly and Cerise turned to look at her.

"What the hell fo-" Suddenly she slumped to the ground, and Tom and Sarah stared at the dark haired girl, stunned at what she had just done to her friend.

"I just cut my odds of winning this fight in half. I’m making myself vulnerable to you." She spoke slowly, looking Tom in the eye, sensing he was the one in charge. "I’m not going to fight - I don’t want to hurt anyone. I just need to talk to you." She took a deep breath. "I'm asking you to trust me." The sky green halo around her body faded into nothingness as she deactivated her power.

Sarah still held the statue aloft even though Tom’s hands, once glowing with electric blue fire, dimmed to a softer, lighter hue.

"Why should we?" Sarah asked, glancing at Cerise’s prone body, sickened by how the other girl had cut her down, sickened by her betrayal.

Reyne blinked at her.

"Did you not see what I just did?"

"Yes. I did. I saw what happens to people who trust you." She thought she saw a flicker of shame in the girl’s eyes, but decided she must have imagined it. She glanced up at Tom who had been silent. He was watching the girl carefully.

"I didn’t kill her." She said tightly to Sarah then turned back to Tom and murmured, "I didn’t invite you in." He blinked at her, realizing she had caught him attempting a mindsearch. "I was telling the truth when I said I needed to talk to you. I’ll not subject myself to a mindsearch. I’ve already shown you how serious I am."

"Why do you want to talk to us?" Tom asked her, turning down his power a little more and Sarah stared at him incredulously.

Why are you humoring her? It’s a trick Tom…

Maybe not… He ignored her protests and told her to put down the statue. She ignored him and he sighed turning back to Reyne, waiting for her answer.

She was standing there, looking down at her fallen friend, her hair a curtain across her face, and when she pushed it back her hands were shaking. Her eyes, as dark as the night over their heads, shone with the light of the twin moons reflected in her unshed tears. When she finally spoke, her voice trembled with fear. "Because I'm afraid of them. I'm afraid of my own people." She took a deep breath and looked down at Cerise again. "Look, she is going to wake up soon and she is not going to be happy...and I am not doing that to her again. So make your decision now – either you trust me and take us back with you so we can talk or we continue where we left off." She paused, looking Sarah dead in the eye, and said, "I may be afraid of my people but I am not afraid of you."

Tom nodded at her after a long moment and held up his hands, his power completely dissipating with a gentle swoosh. She nodded back and they both turned to Sarah.

She swallowed then slowly put the statue down. She trusted Tom…even if she didn’t trust Reyne or Cerise…she trusted him.

Something was happening inside of him. Something he didn’t understand, something that scared him.

That something was making him trust a Mantriz.

The moment his eyes had met hers and he heard her voice, calm and confident even though those eyes were begging his for trust and fearful that he would not give it…he felt it…a…falling down inside of himself…and it wasn’t as terrifying as it should have been…this willingness…this need to let his barriers crumble and leave him exposed, vulnerable to her…

Being near her made him feel safe. It made him feel alive and free. It took him a moment to grasp those feelings since it had been years since he had touched them and they felt…wonderful…

He wanted to let her in…wanted to show her his soul and he wanted to see hers, to touch it, to hold it to his and sink into an oblivion of her and escape the pain, the death and destruction of the world around them. He wanted to find freedom from the madness in her. He wanted to feel alive again…free…safe…

As her power swirled around her, vibrant and alive and…her…he had wanted to fall into it, he had wanted to feel it wrap itself around him…

And then it was gone and he was snapped back into reality realizing that she could have struck out at any moment during his little vacation from control and killed them.

But she hadn’t killed them. She had trusted them not to hurt her. She had trusted him and he immediately felt the tension leave his body, the fight sliding out of it, as he lessened the flow of his power.

But he was still curious. A part of him still wanted to see…wanted to know why he had felt this way, why he had wanted to trust her so badly, and he had reached out to touch her mind, just to see if he could get that feeling back, and she had caught him. She had thought she was being searched.

He had wanted to prove to her that that hadn’t been what he meant, that he hadn’t meant to offend her, and that’s why he did it - why he turned off his power, leaving them equally vulnerable. Leaving them equal.

Walking their willing prisoner back to their base, Cerise slung over his shoulder, still unconscious, his mind began to clear. He had been annoyed at Sarah before for remaining on the defensive even after he had made it clear she was to back off but now he was relieved. Relieved that she had ignored his command for the first time since he had become their leader. They had had no real reason to trust this creature, and yet he had. He was relieved Sarah at least had been able to keep focused and alert.

When he and Reyne "talked" he had to make sure she would be present in case the girl tried to cloud his mind again.

"You’re brave…" Tom said softly as he locked the door to Cerise’s cell. Reyne reached out and touched the handle, her fingers sliding over it guiltily.

"I’m cruel." She corrected him, meeting his eyes at last.

"She’ll be fine in there…nothing will happen to her…I promise she’s safe with us."

"For now…" Sarah mumbled under her breath, and Tom stared at her. Reyne didn’t hear and continued with them down the hall.

"She’s terrified of you...all four of you…"

"She didn’t seem afraid of us at all…" Sarah argued stepping between the girl and Tom. "It took two of us to keep her from melting the compound."

"She was afraid…" Reyne sighed as they stepped inside a room, empty except for a few chairs and a couch. She sat down on one of them, watching as Tom sat down in front of her, and Sarah took a seat near the door as though she were expecting her to make a run for it. "Cerise doesn’t think when she’s sacred…she acts…" Tom nodded, thinking of James, then drifted back to his thoughts of her...her hair...how it shone under the harsh lighting, like a black sea with moonlight glinting off the waves around her face. He blinked at her, trying to shake her out of his head, terrified at how difficult it was to do so. "Besides…" She continued giving Sarah a pointed look, "She was defending herself. Your people took her – you picked the fight here, not us…"

Sarah stared at her, her voice deathly quiet. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me."

"You "picked the fight"!" she exploded, shaking with anger, near tears as she thought of everything she'd heard about from her parents as a child, everything she'd seen since being led out of that building all those years ago to face their dying world and the ones who were killing it. "Your people did – they started everything…all the killing, the destruction! How dare yo-"

Sarah… Tom called her name softly and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath.

I’m sorry. I know screaming at her won’t help us. It won’t happen again...

That’s not what I was going to say… She stared at him from across the room and he thought to her, I wanted to make sure you were all right… He was concerned. Sarah never let on how she felt about things. Whenever he'd ask she'd tell him it didn't matter and that he should concentrate on how the enemy was feeling instead. She kept everything inside, never showing him how their life, their station in it, the things they'd seen, the things they'd done affected he-

Stop thinking about me, and think about our prisoner – she told us she wanted to talk so let her talk. I won’t interrupt anymore. He started to push her a little and she glared at him until he gave up and turned back to Reyne.

Her face was white, her fingers tangling in the hem of her shirt, and clutching it in her fists.

"You’re right…" she said softly, looking up at Sarah, who blinked at her. "This is all our fault…you’re completely right to hate us – me…but I…I’m telling the truth when I say I didn’t know."

Sarah snorted again in disbelief and Tom looked at her, beginning to doubt her words for the first time.

"How could you not know?" he said.

"Because they didn’t want us too." She swallowed, and slowly unfurled her fingers from her clothes, flexing them a little, trying to calm herself so she could speak without bursting into tears or ripping into her palms with her fingernails. "Our consciousness is different from yours. You…Sentreye share everything…you’re all a part of each other, what one knows all know…You’re one being with many parts…" she looked up at him and attempted a crooked smile. "Which is why I’m assuming you have such strange names…they gave you human ones didn’t they? Because you didn’t have any of your own…" he nodded and she went on. "It’s a little different with us…we have names, we have individual identities…but our thoughts are shared too…well…monitored really…and our consciousness…it has the ability to control us…make us do things we may not want to do…But the thing is, I didn’t realize what was happening here until I was disconnected after the change…They made us all believe that we were the innocent ones here…that we needed help and you let us in under the guise of friendship and then…and then tried to kill us all…I know now that that wasn’t true…that it’s just the opposite They made us see what they wanted us to see…"

"How did you learn the truth? I’m assuming you didn’t learn it from your Elders…"

"No…the Council…they don’t know I know…that Leyx knows… He's a friend of mine who was also changed" She explained.

Sarah stood from her chair by the door, cautiously taking the one beside Tom and leaned towards her, malice no longer coloring her eyes, her voice, as she asked, "Why were you changed?"

Reyne looked at her, and frowned.

"To fight the four of you of course. To kill you."

"I figured that was what it was…" Tom said quietly. "When James brought in Cerise…I realized that your people must have figured out how to do it, make the change…She’s so developed at her powers…she has so much of it…how long were you all in training?"

"A year…but we haven’t seen each other until today…they trained us each separately…Today was the end of our sessions though… Kieran and I – he’s the fourth…his father is one of the heads of the Council…and so is mine…"

Sarah sucked in her breath and shot a look at Tom.

She’d be worth a lot if we bargained

"I know what you’re thinking." Reyne told her. "It won’t work. They’d kill me first and just find someone to take my place. And I’m willing to bet the one who replaces me won’t care about the truth – they’d do their "job" no matter what and come after you… But ah…as I was saying…Kieran and I were brought before the council earlier today and they explained to us what our new…positions were… They didn’t bother to bring in Leyx and Cerise since we - Kieran and I, are expected to lead them and our Protectors… and I was fine with it then…with fighting all of you…but when I went off to find the others I ran into Leyx and he said he…he had been practicing on one of your people that we had captured…reading his mind and…he saw everything… He saw the truth…" She took a deep breath, wrapping her arms around herself trying to shake off the chill of discovering everything she was taught to believe in, expected to give her life for was a lie…that she had agreed to change herself for a lie… "He feels the same way I do about all of this…he was so angry and… He was upset. I told him I’d go find Cerise and tell her what he’d learned and when I finally found where they were keeping her I saw your friend, James, taking her. I went back to Leyx and told him to cover for me if Kieran or anyone asked where I was and I went to look for her…and ah, she found me and then you two came along and here I am… I wanted to talk to you to make sure it was really true…what Leyx said…" Reyne looked at Sarah, her eyes shining. "I know now it is…I am so sorry…"

Sarah swallowed, fighting back her own tears. "Thanks but that doesn’t really help us does it?"

"Unless there’s some way you can get your people to see the truth…maybe then they’d stop fighting us…"

Reyne shook her head. "No. Everyone would have to be disconnected to be free of the Council’s influence and the only way they can do that is if they’ve been changed…And as you know that’s a long and painful process so…" She sighed, "Besides…I don’t think it would matter to some of them… They’d keep fighting…Like Kieran…he’s not evil like the Council…but this is all he knows…he’s given up a lot to be who…what he is…and his father…His father’s powerful and he does what he wants…"

"We’re still stuck then…this war…it’ll go on forever…or until one of us is dead…"

Reyne nodded at Sarah and said, "We’ll make sure it’s the right side that stays alive. I’m willing to help…"

"You’d betray your own people…"

She looked at Tom and said softly, "After what they’ve done I want no part of them – neither does Leyx…and I’m sure once I talk to Cerise she’d feel the same way…and if you win…if you find a way to defeat the Council…shatter the consciousness…maybe there’d be hope…hope for all of us…I’m willing to risk my life for that…"

"Then I was right the first time." Tom said softly, looking into her eyes.

"About what?" she asked, her own voice just as quiet.

"You are brave."

She awoke in the white room. She knew where she was and for a moment concern for her own safety was overwhelmed by her fear for Reyne.

And then she remembered what Reyne had done. She remembered that her best friend had betrayed her.

She slowly got to her feet, her entire body shaking, and she wrapped her arms around herself, trying to stop it, trying to stay calm as she searched the room. Her eyes found the door and she knew it was locked. She couldn’t unlock it with her mind - that was Reyne and Leyx’s forte but she could melt it...

She didn’t even try.

She was too exhausted, too drained from the amount of energy she had used today. Leyx and Kieran didn’t know where she was, had no way of finding her and Reyne had betrayed her, had handed her over to the Sentreye to do what they wished to her. She was alone. She was trapped. She was scared.

She couldn’t stop shaking. She leaned against the wall for support, pressing her forehead to it, and closed her eyes as tears slipped down her cheeks.

She knew they would kill her. It was what they had wanted to do in the first place. If they came…if he came to do it, she wouldn’t have the power to fight back, to defend herself.

She had been so close to safety…Well as close as one of her kind could get – which was away from the Sentreye. Despite how she had acted around the four of them earlier she had been terrified the entire time.

Her people were afraid of them...The Four…

Based on what the Mantriz Consciousness had let her see, in the early battles victory had come easily...but that all changed when The Four made their first appearance on the battlefield...

The Mantriz were worried, scared of them… and they had instilled that fear in their people, in her, hoping it would fuel their hatred, hoping it would make them fight even harder… And it worked – the fear did that – it made her blind to everything but overcoming it and facing them head on, lashing out with all she had…but afterwards…afterwards she was left breathless and shaking.

Her father had been massacred during one of the battles and the consciousness had shown it to her. That’s why she had agreed to let them do what they wanted to her…why she let them turn her into this…thing…because they had said it was what her father would have wanted. It was a way for her to avenge him.

But she was still afraid. She was still haunted by the image of his charred body, his mouth open in a silent neverending scream…but the Mantriz Consciousness didn’t know that. She had been disconnected – her fears were safely hidden. The only ones she had ever confessed to were Reyne and Leyx – not Kieran. He was her friend too but he would have told, he would have suggested they replace her with someone less…cowardly.

The war meant more to him than friendship.

She hadn’t realized she was in the presence of one of her greatest fears…a Sentreye…one of the actual Four…until after she had kissed him…touched his mind and realized it wasn’t Leyx…and then fear-fueled-survival mode had kicked in and she had lashed out without thinking about why she had been able to connect with him like that…why she had kissed him like that when all she had meant it to be was a friendly little joke – greeting her human-looking friend in a human way.

But it hadn’t been her friend...it hadn't been Leyx…it had been him…James…it had been his lips…his hands in her hair…his mind swirling and tangling with hers…

She had known the second their lips met it wasn’t Leyx…and she hadn’t cared… She hadn’t felt endangered…she had felt peaceful and safe…warm, and shivery…content…happy…understood…found…

And then she had a flash of him at a compound surrounded by Protectors and other Sentreye who were urging him to find his power, his energy and focus it. She saw it leave his hands in a flood of light, she felt his pain, and when he stopped the flow and looked down at his hands she saw them too. They were burnt. Burnt to blackness. He had healed it himself, assuring the others that he was fine, that this had happened before…which wasn’t entirely a lie…his hands were usually always a little fried after a discharge but it had never been that bad before…it had never hurt so much...

She herself usually had sore hands whenever she used her powers but nothing like that had ever happened to her…but of course she had never been able to achieve a blast like that…he had leveled the building they had been practicing on…

Her concern for him, her desire to protect him from any pain had flooded through her, blindsiding her for a moment until she saw other memories…memories of three others…memories of being taught by Protectors, being welcomed by Sentreye, being hailed by them as heroes...

That was when she finally forced herself to acknowledge who he was...what he was...

It wasn’t until she was alone in that room after they had questioned her that she began to really think about what she had felt and seen.

She realized she had connected with him…connected with him in a way that left no doubt in her mind about who he really was to her – he wasn't a Sentreye…he wasn't one of The Four…He was James…her soulmate…

She had been sickened at first…sickened that she had been bonded with him…with an enemy…with one of the killers of her people, her father…but then the memory of his touches came back to her…so soft and gentle and uncertain…the memory of his memories…how painful almost all of them were…and she ached for him…she ached for that boy who knew so little of happiness and love…and so much of death and loss. She understood him…his memories mirrored her own…his soul knew hers and that was how she knew she would be safe with him. He wouldn’t hurt her. To hurt her was to hurt himself.

When she touched him again she had done it because she had wanted to feel him again, she had wanted to make him see what was right in front of him…that that warmth in the back of his mind, that tenderness, that trust had been her…

And then she broke it. She closed herself off from all the things he was sending back to her, she put him to sleep because she saw a chance to escape.

It wasn’t that she didn’t trust him, trust that what he was telling her with his heart, his mind, was true. It was that she didn’t trust the others. She was still scared of them and so she ran, she escaped, until Reyne had brought her back. And this time it was even worse. James would not be there to protect her from the others. He would let them kill her if he didn’t do it himself.

And she wanted to be angry at Reyne for her betrayal, for thrusting her back into her worst nightmare, but she couldn’t summon up the emotion, because her betrayal had been worse. She had betrayed her soul and for that she deserved whatever he wanted to give her.

Reyne was silent when Tom told Sarah to find the others. She was silent when the door clicked shut and they were alone and she felt his eyes on her. She wasn’t afraid. She was something else…

Talking to them…going with them had not been planned, and she was a firm believer in plans.

You had to have a plan.

She had left the safety of the Mantriz compound with the purpose of finding Cerise and bringing her back, of telling her what she and Leyx had learned, of coming up with a plan to do something about it.

She had felt him before she saw him…like a tender breeze slipping across her skin in a gentle caress… She felt him, she knew where he was and she broke down the wall, found the hole he had made and made it bigger until she saw him through a haze of swirling brick particles and the world stood still for a moment as their eyes met.

Everything suddenly became so clear…she could see ash and dust floating through the air in the darkness…she could see the paths of moonlight sliding down from the sky to meet them…she could see the wind touch his face and lift his hair away from his eyes…his amazing human eyes… she could hear the wind’s sad whistle…she could hear his heartbeat and it matched her own… she could hear the crackle of a power being charged into life…snaps and pops and fizzing sizzles and she was yanked back into reality with her best friend beside her preparing to battle him and one of his people.

She knocked her out.

That hadn't been part of the plan.

She made herself vulnerable to Sentreye.

Also not part of the plan.

Her mind had shut off, reveling in the memories of what she had felt just moments ago when she had looked into the eyes of the Sentreye boy…the leader of the Four…and saw her soul. Her mouth went ahead without her and things were coming out of it that she had never admitted out loud – that she was afraid…that she was afraid of her own people…and ashamed…so ashamed that she was a part of something so evil…

"Reyne…" He said her name and she wanted to hear it again, wanted to watch his mouth as he said it. She looked up at him, waiting for him to stop the silence that was saying far too much. He was nervous being alone with her like this. She was too. "How were you chosen…I mean all of you…?"

"All of our parents were on the council so we were the obvious choices…"

Kieran and Cerise had been the first to agree to it – Kieran hoping to gain his father’s respect and favor, Cerise because she was in pain, because she needed revenge for what had been done to her father, because they had made her believe it was what he would have wanted. Leyx had agreed for reasons unknown, but she suspected it was because he didn’t want to be left behind. He didn’t want to lose them.

She herself hadn’t really had a choice…the moment Kieran had said yes it was decided. She was his fiancé. She was expected to stand by him and if she didn’t they would kill her. So…actually she had had a choice – death or the change. It hadn’t been so difficult to make at the time…she had believed in the cause, was willing to fight, to defend her people…but that was before she found out the truth…

If she had known then what she knew now she would have gladly chosen death…

In a way she was doing that now by deciding to help the "enemy"… She was trying to make up for the mistake she had made. She was trying to make the right choice this time...

They would rip her to pieces when they found out.

They would tear into her mind and shred it slowly…but she wouldn’t scream for mercy – they would not give it, and she would not give them the satisfaction of hearing her beg.

She would stand silent until she fell.

"It won’t happen…" Reyne looked up at the sound of his voice. He was leaning towards her, his hand finding the edge of her seat and holding onto it because it was as close as he could get without touching her. "They won’t hurt you…I won’t let them…You’re willing to fight for us…what makes you think we won’t for you…?"

"You knew what I was thinking about…"

"Yes…" he said softly, "But I wasn’t searching you, I-"

"I know…I…I can feel you too…"

"You know what I’m thinking?"

"Yes…you’re wondering where I got this from." She lifted her wrist from her lap and looked at the burn on it. "Training session. This morning. I haven’t had a chance to heal it yet." That had been one thought of his…but there were others…others where he contemplated the curve of her mouth, the dark crescent moons her lashes made on her cheeks as she looked at her hands instead of at him…the way that one lock of hair kept falling into her eyes no matter how many times she pushed it behind her ear… He thought about pushing it away for her, thought of his hand brushing her cheek as he did it. He thought about touching her lips with his own and feeling more than her mouth, feeling her soul.

She was thinking the same things about him…

She was thinking that if she only took one memory with her into the afterlife it would be of his eyes…his beautiful eyes and the way they were looking into hers right now with such wonder and acceptance and love…

Love...

How could she love him? How could he love her? They were different…they barely knew each other…

I know you…

They were enemies.

How did they know it wasn’t a trap…that it wasn’t a lie…

Because my heart knows your heart…my soul found its place within your soul…my body beside yours is where I was meant to be…

They leaned closer to each other, barely aware that they were doing so…being drawn towards each other as the thoughts that whispered through their minds became one…one that spoke of a love that would never die…

"I’m not doing this…" she whispered against his lips, "Are you doing this?"

"I’m not making this happen..." he murmured back, his lower lip brushing her upper "It just is…"

"Because it was meant to be…"

"Because we were meant to be…"

Their lips met and the world left them alone for a moment as the war faded into the background. The pain of who they were and what they could never be was swept away by the swirling of two minds falling open to each other and two souls being forever joined...

James walked briskly down the hallway knowing exactly where she was without having been told. He could feel her still in the back of his mind and he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it because he liked it…

He wanted it gone.

He wanted her gone.

It was a lie – all of it – it was a trick so she could escape.

He refused to think about why she hadn’t just killed him, why she had let him live.

He almost wished she had killed him. That would have been far less humiliating than this…picking a fight with a prisoner because his pride was hurt and he was embarrassed at how easy it had been for her to get inside of him and make him believe…

She was going to pay for it.

If she wanted to get out this time she would fight him face to face, hand to hand. No fake connections that tempted him to lose himself in her…just the cold certainty that only one of them would be leaving that room alive.

He reached the door and shoved it open.

She was facing the wall, her hands pressed against it on either side of her face. At the sound of his footsteps she lifted her head and slowly turned it towards him. He faltered when he saw her cheeks stained with tear tracks and she ducked her head into the crook of her arm wiping them away before turning to face him.

"Fire up" he said and she stared at him. He swallowed, suddenly not wanting to do this anymore. She looked…different…she looked tired and sad… "Do it…" he said his voice a near whisper and she shook her head at him.

"I’m burnt out…I don’t have any energy left…"

"Fine." He said tightly needing to get this over with before he changed his mind. "I’ll give you some of mine." He stepped in even closer to her and held his hands palms out in front of him. "If I’m going to fight you, it’s going to be fair."

He wouldn’t attack her while she was weak, vulnerable, like she had done to him. It wasn’t his way. As much as he hated her he wasn’t going to stoop to her level to insure a victory. She nodded understanding all of this and tried to ignore the dull pain in her heart as she came to him and placed her palms against his and...

And nothing happened.

She let her mind brush up against his, and all she felt was the coldness of stone.

She should have known he wouldn’t let her in…it was stupid of her to try.

She looked at their glowing hands, trying to concentrate instead on accepting the energy he was feeding her body…his energy…

It was too intimate…sharing his essence with him...she couldn’t not look at him…

She lifted her head from their hands and met his eyes. His face was hard, but she saw a muscle in his jaw clench and a flicker of something hot smoldering behind his cold eyes.

He was arguing with himself…trying to decide whether or not he should just kill her now during the transfer by giving her too much energy and letting it burn her up...having it be over, having his revenge…

She closed her eyes, waiting for the pain, for her death, and then she felt him…felt his mind touch hers like rays of sunlight creeping through the chinks in a stone wall…more and more until his mind broke through and met hers…

He couldn’t fight it anymore…

Their fingers parted and slipped in between each other’s, tangling and griping, pulling each other in closer…

He felt her breasts brush against his chest and opened his eyes with a sharp intake of breath. Hers were still closed, her head tilted back slightly, her lips gently parted and waiting…

She was beautiful…her skin glowing with an inner fire…shimmering with their power…he was feeling it himself…waves of heat undulating throughout his body and exploding in his brain, exploding in memories of what her lips had felt like…her fingers in his hair and the tentative caress of her tongue…

The warmth was pleasant at first…the way it made him shiver…the way it tumbled through his blood, making him feel alive…

And then it became even hotter…painful…and he realized he was still transferring his energy to her and the pain he was feeling was her own, but she refused to let him go because feeling him through the pain was better than not feeling him at all.

He pulled his mind away, desperately trying to stop the flow, and yanked his hands from hers before he hurt her anymore. When he finally regained control he looked up at her sick with the loss of her mind, her hand, in his.

There was a sheen to her skin…like gold liquid moving just beneath it…she was golden…a shining golden goddess…looking stricken with her hands empty and in the air.

He couldn't take this anymore...he couldn't stand this confusion... this insistent longing for something he could never have...for something that was wrong...

"Fire up…" he said it again, his voice crumbling into a broken whisper.

"No…"

"Please…"

"I can’t…" she cried, tears streaming down her cheeks flushed with energy and the memory of him. "You first…"

He stared into her eyes breathing hard, lifting his hand…

And he couldn’t do it.

She took a shaky step towards him and he didn’t back away, he didn’t fire up his power. He stood silent and still, feeling her in his head and in his blood. She stopped right in front of him and he looked down at his hand that had somehow found hers and saw that it was glowing too.

He felt her trembling fingers touch his face and he gently traced the path of her tears down her cheek to the corner of her mouth with his own. He lowered his lips to hers, her fingers sliding to the back of his neck and urging him closer, closer…

They sprang apart as the door opened, gasping for breath and control against the urge to blast Sarah out of the room and melt the door shut.

"Meeting down the hall…" She said quietly, taking in the sight of their flushed skin and the charred circle surrounding them on the floor. She stared at James. He looked away first and she turned on her heel leaving the room and shivering a little at the sudden coolness of the hallway after being surrounded by the warm air of the cell.

Julia sat down in the chair beside her brother’s. Sarah had called to her in her head a little while ago to find Tom and Reyne. When she had stepped inside the two of them had been sitting together on the couch, their heads bowed, close together. She cleared her throat and Tom’s head shot up before he slowly moved away from the girl and to the chair in front of her. They didn’t say anything to her as she sat down and waited for Sarah to return with James and Cerise.

She looked from her brother back to the girl again.

They were communicating with each other.

They weren’t talking but they were saying something to each other with their eyes, with the way they never left each other’s faces. Julia knew she should be disturbed by this…upset…wary as Sarah would have been if she were here, sitting here and witnessing this…

But she wasn’t disturbed.

It was beautiful.

The air around them was beautiful, the gentle looks, the parted lips…were beautiful…

She was in awe of them…of the power that floated around them in a blue and green shimmering cloud that made her hold her breath and yearn for a part of that peace, that tranquility…that love…

They were barely aware that she was there.

When the door clicked open and Sarah stepped inside, the cloud dissipated and they looked away from each other. Reyne stared at the floor, a faint blush to her cheeks and Tom blinked at Sarah like he had forgotten she existed. Sarah sat down on the arm of his chair, not noticing anything was wrong, not noticing that Tom couldn’t look her in the eye.

Sarah's attention was focused on James and Cerise, and Julia tore herself away from Tom and Reyne long enough to see what she was staring at.

Their skin glowed and they looked equally willing to run away and to each other as James leaned against the wall, watching as Cerise made her way to the couch and sat down beside her friend.

Julia stared at the girl…the golden girl that had made James so furious and happy all at once… She had sensed what he felt for Cerise when he had spoken to her before and now she could see it. It was similar to and so different from what she had observed between her brother and Reyne. She could see their feelings swirling around them reaching out in tendrils of orange and red mist then pulling back as soon as they brushed up against each other… They were cautious, afraid…but Tom and Reyne…they had accepted it the second it had happened, they had given into it, surrounded themselves in it…

James and Cerise were fighting it...they were fighting each other…whenever it looked as though they were beginning to give in they fled again, pulling back almost frantically, trying to ignore the fact that they needed...that they wanted each other.

Julia looked at Sarah, shocked at what was happening all around her…shocked that she was witnessing from the outside what she had dreamt of, what she wanted for so long and hadn’t been able to find with James…the Connection…the joining of minds and hearts and souls to the one you were meant to be with…

She saw it happening to James and it wasn’t with her…she saw it happening to Tom and it wasn’t with Sarah…

Julia looked at her and saw that Sarah didn’t know. She couldn’t see it… She had her hand against the back of Tom’s neck and was running her fingers through his hair absently…something she’d done countless times before…but Tom wasn’t smiling up at her now, he wasn’t closing his eyes at her touch. He was staring at the floor, his shoulders drooping with guilt…and Sarah didn’t know…she didn’t see what was right in front of her…

Tom did not belong to Sarah any more than James did to her.

Julia sat still, frozen with shock and a hint of jealousy as the girl who had stolen her brother’s heart away from her best friend proposed her plan.

"…The three of us…Leyx, Cerise, and myself…one of us will come here to you every few weeks…reporting what we know, what we’ve learned…anything that might help you anticipate an attack from…from us…anything that can help you evacuate an area the Council has it’s eye on…I don’t know how long it will last before they find out…but this will have to be good enough until we can think of something better…Leyx and I can try and work on our people since we’re the strongest at dealing with the interior barriers that may have been put up by the Council to block out the truth…maybe we can find a way to disconnect a few of them…get them to help us… I was told with Kieran this morning that you’d be assigned to recruitment Cerise…" Reyne’s voice softened when she spoke directly to her friend, obviously uncomfortable with what she had done to her earlier and unsure of how she was feeling about everything she had told her about their people and what they had done.

Cerise hadn’t looked up from the floor once since she had sat down and Reyne had related to her, James, and Julia what she had already told Tom and Sarah, and when she finally did look up, her eyes were glistening with tears.

She met Julia's gaze and they stared at each other.

"Cerise…?" Reyne continued gently, "You’d probably be doing most of the runs over here…The Council will be watching me and Kieran closely…making sure that we’re…doing what they want…leading the way they want…You and Leyx can get here with less of a chance of being disco-"

"Leave me out of it." Her voice was hoarse, and she swallowed, licking away a stray tear that had slipped down her cheek. She finally looked away from Julia to Reyne, who blinked at her.

"Cerise…Cerise did you not hear what’s been happening…do you not understand what we’re a part of…that we have a chance to fix this…"

"I understand. But I can’t help…I…I won’t…" She said quietly, closing her eyes as she heard James shift near the door.

"I thought you weren’t what I thought…" he said bitterly.

"And what was that?" She whispered as another tear escaped from beneath her lashes.

"A killer, a destroyer..."

"I’m not…I’m not…" She shook her head and angrily wiped her cheeks with the back of her hand. "I’m not killing anyone…I don’t intend to go out on a mission and destroy a town full of innocent people…I can’t do that…I don’t know if I ever could have…but…I can’t help you. I will not help you hurt my own people – especially if it’s like you said – that they don’t know…I can’t betray them…I can’t betray him…" Cerise spoke to Reyne, knowing that she would understand, knowing that she knew that the him was her father. "And I can’t have this be for nothing…" she stared down at her human hands, still tender from the transfer, still alien to her own eyes after a year of seeing them glow, seeing them burn.

"Then what do you want to do?" Reyne asked quietly, "Do you want to live your life serving them…the Council…fighting for a cause you know is corrupt, wrong? I know you’re in pain…I…I know you loved your father…He was a good person…better than most…Cerise…fighting for what’s right would not dishonor him…had he known what we do…he would have helped…"

You don’t have to be afraid…I’m not… Tom looked at Reyne…hearing her thoughts to Cerise, and James’s head snapped up as he heard Cerise’s answer.

I’m not you Reyne…You don’t know what I saw…what they did to him…

They stared at each other for a long moment. Cerise looked away first and took a deep breath.

"What are you going to do?" Sarah asked, leaning forward, frowning at the girl, unsettled that her attitude was so different from Reyne’s. Cerise slowly lifted her head and met her hard gaze with one of her own.

"I won’t tell anyone where you are. I won’t tell anyone about the alliance that’s being created here tonight. Whether or not I will help Reyne and Leyx…I don’t know. I need some time to think…but I will never lift a hand against any of you…That’s all I can promise for now…"

Sarah narrowed her eyes, a "that’s not good enough" getting ready to erupt from her lips, but Julia gently touched her arm, looking at the girl once again.

She understood her reluctance…she had every right to be confused, every right to feel cornered…They had basically tried to force the decision on her.

Julia looked into her eyes…the eyes of James’s other half and knew that she would find her way, that she would make the right decision.

Reyne and Cerise stood from their seats. It was time to leave. Reyne nodded solemnly at them, wordlessly promising that she would keep her word and do what she could. Her eyes lingered on Tom’s face before she turned away.

Cerise followed her to the door but stopped when James caught her by the wrist. They stared at each other for a long moment, neither saying a word, until finally James let go. His fingers trailed down her hand as she stepped past him, through the door without a look back.

There are no definites in this life, no security, no promises that "everything will be alright". There have never been any murmurings in the darkness to ease our fears, our nightmares away when we were children and dreamt of what the awful Mantriz could and would do to us.

We were never promised that what was done to us would be worth it in the end, that we would win.

No definites.

No security.

No promises.

There was a bit of ragged hope here and there, but not much else besides the belief that no matter what, the four of us would be together.

We all believed that.

We all believed that even if one of us fell, the spirit, the essence of our fallen friend would still be there – not in the hidden labs that were prepared to make a new body and start all over again, but there in our hearts, in our powers that would throb into action and swirl around us burning away the smell of blood and death.

All our lives we had depended on each other, loved each other. We held James the night he discovered both of his parents had been destroyed, and he held us when the same thing happened to ours. Only Tom and Julia’s mother had survived and we clung to her even as she concentrated all of her efforts on helping the Elders, the Scientists (including my father who was not dead, although after the change I preferred to think of him that way) into turning us into killing machines.

We never saw her again after the change. Julia had said that she was still alive, but waiting until we came back to her…back to one of the labs where we would be reborn…where we would rise from the ashes of our former selves only to lead the same lives of fighting a never ending battle.

We did what we were instructed to do. We went to our training sessions, we learned to use our powers. We fought, we killed…and the only thing that kept us going, that kept us sane was each other, and the knowledge that even though we knew there would never be a definite victory, that there would never be a night where we felt secure enough to sleep with both eyes closed, or a time where we would be comforted by a promise that the good guys always win, we knew we would always be connected to each other, would always belong to each other, and would always find each other again, in every world, in every life.

We were soulmates.

Julia and James.

Tom and I.

We all believed it.

We all believed it unwaveringly until we let ourselves be infiltrated. Until we let ourselves trust Mantriz.

Things changed after we decided to work with them, after we decided to let them feed us information.

Tom and James changed.

James became even more silent and withdrawn than he already was, and not even Julia could snap him out of it. She would merely smile sadly whenever I suggested she get into his head to see what Cerise had done to him and repair the damage, and say softly that it wasn’t necessary. I would have done it myself except for the fact that I was worried about Tom.

Ever since we were children our minds were open to each other and now he was closed. He made a conscious effort to block me out as though he were afraid of what I might see. I went in to his mind that night, the night the two Mantriz girls had left our base to return to their own, and I found her there. Reyne. The girl with the night in her hair and the stars in her eyes.

She had made him believe he was in love with her…that he had connected with her on a level that we had never come close to reaching.

I didn’t believe it for a second.

She had made him doubt his heart, and I suspected that Cerise had done the same to James.

I didn’t confront Tom about any of this. I worked on him, took away his thoughts of Reyne a day at a time, refusing to feel guilty about sneaking into his head because I was just repairing the damage she had done. I was healing him. I was not doing it because Tom was my lover…I was treating him the same way I would have treated any of my people infected with a Mantriz power.

He never even knew I was there, we were so used to having each other in our minds… He didn’t even notice me despite the block he had put up because he was thinking of her...

And for a while it worked. The walls came down, the block disappeared and things between us were back to normal. It lasted until she came back.

She was there again in his mind the second she stepped onto the grounds, before any of us had seen her, before our Protectors brought her before us, and I realized that the only way to remove her from him was to not have them see each other any more. But I couldn’t do anything about that. Even though I suspected her of attempting to break down Tom from the inside, of trying to influence him little by little until he became her pawn I couldn’t voice my fears that ultimately she would betray us – that this whole set up was an excuse for her to get close enough to work on us, to break us down one "visit" at a time. I couldn’t accuse her of any of this without getting heat from the others because the information she gave us was true. We were able to save the lives of hundreds of Sentreye because of what she told us.

And it wasn’t as if Tom were lacking in his fighting skills…and neither was James for that matter. They fought as ferociously against the Mantriz Protectors then as they ever had…but I couldn’t help wondering what would happen when we were face to face in battle with Reyne - when we weren’t fighting the stooges of "The Council" but their own no-longer-secret weapons that Tom, James and even Julia seemed to believe were ours as well...

Reyne.

Cerise.

Leyx.

She wasn’t exactly sure when she had lost the ability to dream in color but she supposed it must have been sometime after they had made their first foray out into the world after being holed up for all that time.

She used to dream about the sky at night when she was alone in her windowless room, trying to recall the vivid green of it and the way it would melt into that thick black color that looked so soft and so gentle as it cradled the bright stars that danced around the sister moons glowing with a white fire. Her dreams could never do it justice, could never improve upon any of it. Because it was already perfect. Their world was perfect. It was blue and green and purple and orange and yellow and white and…and beautiful…but now…

Black and white.

Brown and gray.

And occasionally an obscene red that dried to a cruel rust.

She couldn’t even take comfort in the fact that the sky remained the same because she could no longer allow herself to look up at it. It was too dangerous.

She had to keep her eyes on the ground at all times, always be aware of what was in front of her, beside her, behind her, otherwise they would get her. They would capture her, they would kill her. Those who looked at the stars now could only do so from their graves, and although she missed her sky she was not willing to pay that price. She was needed here on the ground among the blackness, the whiteness, the brown, the gray, the red.

The only colors she saw now were the colors that came from them - Tom’s cool azure, Sarah’s deep, glowing purple, James’ fiery red-orange, and her own blinding white. That was the only thing she had loved about their training sessions, and the only thing she loved about their battles…when their powers would pulsate and throw their light on the ground, spreading through the stagnant air and making everything, for a moment, look alive again.

She dreamt in black and white – she wasn't able to replicate the colors of their powers anymore, and eventually she stopped trying because it only made her sad…

It hadn't used to be so hard. When she was in the compound during those first few months when she was still able to remember her world and all it's beauty, she had been able to easily conjure up Tom’s azure...

She only had to tell her self...

Tom’s essence is like the earth…solid and blue, a thousand different tiny crystals, every one a different shade, under our feet, pushed together to form our ground…like what the humans called "sand"…

Sarah’s essence is like the ocean tumbling over itself, it’s purple waves so dark they almost look black, but capped by lavender…

James’ essence is like fire…strands of red and orange and gold and yellow, twisting together to become a warmth, a burning, waving in the white wind but never extinguishing…

Her own essence…it was that white wind…gentle wisps that floated through that green sky, that cooled that blue earth and soothed that tumbling ocean…that calmed that ferocious fire…

When she dreamt of their powers in those early days she had been able to recreate them all because of her memories of what her beloved world had looked like…but now they were gone…she had no reference…only black and white…and sometimes red…

And then one night she saw the sun again...and it wasn't black or white...

It was yellow.

The night after they had returned from evacuating Cedrigal, a neighboring city, thanks to Reyne’s information, Julia had fallen asleep to find herself in a dreamscape that she did and didn’t recognize as her own. For some reason her dreams always included one thing – a piece of a statue she had seen once when she was a child and then again when she was older, after it had been broken. It was a hand – a large hand lying palm up on the colorless ground, it’s fingers gently spread, waiting to catch something, to be given something. She didn’t know why it was always there, she didn’t remember what the rest of the statue looked like…she just remembered the hand…and she remembered thinking as a child the fist time she had seen it how nice it would be to curl up in it, to be lifted up and away, sheltered by the slightly curled fingers from all harm…

Being held…

There were never any people in her dreams other than walking dead, wandering aimlessly among the rubble, and most of her time on the dreamscape was spent running after them and trying to heal them. Which of course she never could. Occasionally there were battles where she and shadows of her friends fought a faceless black cloud that always won in the end...

But that night there was someone different there - not a walking dead, not a shadow, or a cloud...but a boy who looked as human as she did.

It confused her at first. Her dreamscape never had humans in it - Sarah's did sometimes though - they were usually strapped to tables and screaming. She had wandered into Sarah's dreamscape once just to see if she could and hadn't gone back since. She wondered if she had done that now, accidentally entered Sarah's dream but...no...it must be hers - the statue was still there - it was her touchstone in the dream world, her anchor. And there was a human on it.

He was standing on the palm of the broken statue's hand, and she watched as he stepped onto the first finger then hopped to the next, then the next, then the next and then back again. While he was hopping from each of those four fingers he was tossing bright yellow balls of light, of power, into the air around and around in circles, humming a tune to himself.

She was entranced by the yellow color, so bright and vivid as it traveled the air, met his palms, and returned to the air again, until he noticed her and dropped his game.

Her face fell as the balls hit the ground, melting into a puddle, and he immediately took a step towards her murmuring, "Don’t worry I can make it come back…"

When she finally raised her eyes and looked at him instead of the puddle of gold light on the ground, she saw that he was in color too – just as she was. Not as bright as the puddle had been but color all the same…

He had blue eyes and they searched hers for a moment, trying to determine if she was scared of him or just sad that he had stopped juggling. His hair was a rich brown that fell into those eyes as he bent his head to his fist, blowing lightly into it, and then uncurling his fingers one by one. When his hand had opened there was another yellow ball floating there between them. A mist of a lighter version of the color swirled around it, and an old long forgotten memory pushed its way to the forefront of her mind. The sun. She remembered the sun. It looked just like that ball. The next time she was outside, if she dared to look up, let her guard down just once long enough to look up…she’d see that that was what it looked like.

He smiled as she reached out to it and another appeared from the mist, and another and another and another. She watched as he guided them up, higher into the air, over their heads, and then joined them until they were one big yellow ball that glowed and swirled and warmed.

"The sun…" he whispered. And she nodded staring up at it in awe, unafraid of attack, unafraid of him. "You miss it…" He sighed as she nodded. "I miss it too…" he said. "I guess it’s the only thing that stays the same…no matter where you are…what planet…what life…it’s always there…always the same color, the same size and shape… Sometimes the sky that holds it is a different color though…" He smiled and she looked at him, cocking her head to the side curiously. She had obviously made him up. She had been so lonely lately, especially after realizing she didn’t have a soulmate…that James belonged to someone else…Cerise…so it made sense that she had created someone for herself in her head to ease some of the loneliness…

What didn’t make sense was that her dream friend was in color, and the power she had come up with for him was too.

She wasn’t going to ruin it with too many questions. She was just going to accept it and hope it lasted a while. It was the nicest dream she’d had in years.

"What color was your sky?" she asked.

"I don’t remember…" He stared up at the sun he had made blinking back tears…or maybe it was just the brightness. "I was too young when we left…This is all I know…" he said quietly with a gesture towards the black and white rubble and broken buildings that surrounded them. "They said it was beautiful here…"

"It used to be…" she whispered.

"Show me?" She bit her lip and looked down at her hands.

"I can’t."

"Sure you can…"

"No I…I can’t remember the colors…" They were quiet for a moment, sitting together in the statue’s palm, and he reached out and gently brushed a tear from her cheek.

"Show me your power?" she frowned at him and he smiled at her again softly. "Trust me…" She nodded slowly, and closed her eyes. She did trust him.

She pushed with her mind, and when she opened her eyes again her white glowing power swirled in front of them in the shape of her body. It was a different kind of white from the black and white around them. It was bright, it shimmered, it-

"It‘s beautiful…" he murmured.

It was like a glass shadow without any of the darkness.

Rays of his light slid down from the sun he had created to tentatively touch her power, and when it did…

An explosion of color streamed forth from her glass "body" – reds and blues and oranges and greens and purples and yellows… They swirled around them, sweeping away the rubble, pushing the buildings back together, coloring in the whiteness, the blackness that had haunted her dreams for too long…

And suddenly she was a child again looking down on her beautiful world cradled in the hand of the statue of her father that now stood tall and proud, unblemished by fire, by war.

"The colors were inside of you all along…"

"How did you know…?" He smiled shyly.

"White - it…it um…it’s made up of all the colors there are…It was a human thought I had in here…" he tapped a finger to the side of his head.

"Thank you…" she whispered and he blushed, smiling out over the blue landscape, at the blazing flowers of fire that lined the roads and reflected off of the tall silver minarets as the peaceful purple ocean kissed the shore.

"We ruined it all didn’t we…" he murmured sadly, and she took his hand in hers.

"No…The Mantriz did…"

He raised his eyes from their joined hands and frowned as he met hers.

"That’s what I meant…"

She awoke slowly to the sounds of Sarah getting dressed. She was on recruitment detail this morning, scouring the broken city for any Sentreye in hiding, hoping some of them would be brave enough to fight with them. She was glad she had gone yesterday because it would have killed her mood if she had to get up now and face that… She felt so good she just wanted to lie in her bed and feel this tingling, this warmth, forever.

She had had another one of those dreams last night…one of those dreams about the boy with the brown hair and blue eyes that she could actually see were blue and brown because he had brought her color…he had helped her find it in herself. It gave her hope.

Reyne was coming today…and she would be bringing them more bad news – some of which they could do something about and some of which they couldn’t… They couldn’t act on everything Reyne told them…it would look too suspicious if they showed up at every "secret attack". Julia hated that. Doing nothing…but they had to protect Reyne and anyone else who was helping them. Drawing suspicion to the girl would only hurt them in the end. This was the only way.

She sighed, starting to feel her usual rotten mood creeping back in, shoving away her thoughts of the dream boy and his smile…

"Julia…? Are you awake?"

"Unfortunately…" She mumbled into her pillow as Sarah paused from opening their door.

"Reyne will be here soon…" she said quietly. "If I don’t get back in time could you please keep an eye on Tom?…and James too of course…just in case?" Julia propped herself up on her elbows and looked at her friend standing beside the door, clutching her jacket closed, suddenly looking very young. Young and scared.

"You still don’t trust her do you?"

Sarah opened her mouth to answer then closed it and shook her head.

"Just…please make sure they’re careful…I’m worried about them." She nodded, then flopped back down on her bed as Sarah slipped quietly out of their room, shutting the door gently behind her.

There was no reason to be worrying about Tom in her opinion. He actually seemed…at peace for once…almost happy for the fist time in years…especially at the end of the two-week mark when Reyne usually made an appearance.

She made him glow.

The thought of her made him happy and she was happy for him, not worried at all…

If there was anyone to be worried about it was James. He most definitely was not happy. Cerise hadn’t accompanied Reyne on any of her visits and James refused to ask after her. He was short with everyone when he wasn’t silent and brooding alone in his room where he usually retreated to and stayed in for as long as he could until his stomach forced him to come out for dinner.

Julia didn’t understand that – Cerise’s refusal to come. Julia hadn’t imagined what she had seen in her eyes – Issues or no with the "situation" between their two races, she wanted James. What’s more, she needed him. Julia was willing to bet she was just as miserable as he was.

I’d die for what they have with each other and they don’t even want it…I know life is unfair, but this is just cruel…

A knock on the door.

"Come in James…" She could feel him on the other side of the door waiting for her to answer. He seemed relaxed - usually he was bouncing off the walls whenever Reyne came to speak with them. He must have abandoned the idea of Cerise joining her once and for all.

He peeked his head in.

"You’re not up."

"I’m awake…that’s a start…"

"You sleep too much…" he mumbled pushing the door open and stepping inside. "She’ll be here any minute and I’m not going to be in there with those two alone without anyone to gag with."

Julia smiled softly and stretched once before finally sitting up and swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

"You’ve noticed it too?"

He gave her an Are-You-Kidding-Me look and leaned against the wall crossing his arms in front of his chest.

"It’s a good thing Sarah’s not here."

"I think she’s worried Reyne’s trying to influence him." Something flickered in James' eyes and she knew he had wondered the same thing.

"I think she’s worried Reyne's gonna fight back when she tries to tear her hair out." Julia snorted, then said seriously. "You don’t think she is, do you?...influencing him? I mean I know you think that Cerise might have done that to you…" he was silent, suddenly very interested with the floor, and she went on gently, "I don’t think she made it up James…what you were feeling…She was feeling it too…it was real for her…" He looked up at her, forcing a blank expression onto his face.

"How do you know?"

"I saw her James. I saw the way she looked at you… It was the same way you were looking at her." He blinked and swallowed, his face still impassive.

"It doesn’t matter. I’ll never see her again."

"You will." Julia said quietly and he stared at her. "You’ll see her because you won't be able to ignore this for much longer. You can’t ignore each other. It doesn’t work like that."

"What doesn’t work like that?"

"Love…"

He snorted.

"Love is a human concept…and I don’t…love her. I don’t even like her."

"No, it’s a human word - Sentreye feel love…we just don’t have a word for it, and yes you do." She stood from the bed as he started to argue and kissed his cheek before shoving him out the door so she could dress. "I’m a telepath remember? Another human word – it means I can read your mind, and if I do right now, I am one hundred percent positive that I’ll see her there." She shut the door on his scowling face as he started to object again and began to rummage for a shift that wasn’t stained with Mantriz blood.

Julia trotted down the hall to the room where they were waiting for her. She pushed open the door in a wide arc, prepared to greet Reyne and get down to business, when she hit something on the other side of it and heard a muffled ooomph. She carefully peaked around the door at the person she had rammed into and the boy…the boy from her dreams looked up at her from the floor holding both of his hands to his nose. His eyes widened as he recognized her and a surprised grin eased across his face, partially hidden behind his hands. She grinned back at him feeling her cheeks flush, confused but more than willing to just accept the fact that he was real and he was here and he was just as happy to see her as she was him even though she had nearly broken his nose.

"Are you alright?!" She fell to her knees beside him and he removed his hands, sniffing once experimentally and scrunching up his nose. "I didn’t break you did I?" He laughed and she smiled again.

"I’m okay. Nothing…broken…" he trailed off as she carefully brought her fingers to his chin, tilting it up so she could see. She wanted to make sure he was alright and not pulling a James by pretending he was okay and then slinking off to suffer in private. Well that and she wanted to touch him.

"Julia – Leyx, Leyx – Julia…." Julia reluctantly let go of his chin as Reyne introduced them and stood, holding out her hand to help him up. He sprang to his feet and shook it with another grin. She’d never seen anyone smile so much. It was infectious. She felt her lips curling into another smile and fought back an urge to giggle as he wiggled his nose again.

She turned to face the group. Reyne and Tom were sitting beside each other and James was sitting in the chair across from them looking up at her and Leyx by the door curiously.

Julia self-consciously made her way further into the room and sat down in the chair beside James. She hadn’t told him about her dreams. She hadn’t told anyone. As far as everyone knew she and Leyx were complete strangers.

He sat down on the arm of the couch Tom and Reyne occupied and she fought the urge to ask him to share her chair with her. She wanted to touch him again.

"I don’t really have anything to tell you…" Reyne began, pushing her hair behind her ears. "They’ve been talking to Kieran without me a lot lately…I may be able to get him to tell me what they’ve been discussing with him but…I can’t come here as much anymore…They’re starting to notice. Leyx and Cerise have had to cover for me a few times…"

James’ head shot up at the mention of Cerise’s name and Julia threw him a smug look which he ignored.

"I brought Leyx here so you all could meet him – he’s going to be coming here in my place for a while…"

"Of course…" Tom said quietly, trying to hide his disappointment. "You’ve done so much for us already…we wouldn’t want to put you at risk…They don’t…they don’t suspect you do they…?"

"No…" she said quickly, looking just as heartbroken as he did. "I’ve been asked after a few times when I was out…It looks strange if I can’t come when I’m called – especially since I’m not in charge of recruitment or training sessions like Cerise and Leyx are…It’s just easier for them to slip away without any questions being asked…"

"We understand." Julia said, feeling bad for her and her brother but pleased that Leyx was their new contact. Reyne took a shaky breath and stood.

"That’s all I wanted to do today…" she murmured. "Introduce you to Leyx…I’ll send him back as soon as I learn anything…" James nodded and got up from his chair, looking from Leyx to Julia one last time before leaving. "Leyx…" Reyne turned to him and bit her lip. "Could I meet you outside? I need a word alone with Tom if that's alright..." Julia nodded at her, understanding, and stood from her seat.

"I'll wait with him in the hall..."

The boy followed her to the door and gave her a pointed look as she opened it for him and gestured for him to go through. He scampered to the other side as though he were afraid it would hit his backside and she couldn't help herself this time. She giggled and clapped a hand over her mouth, catching a glimpse of her forlorn brother as she shut the door behind her to give them some privacy.

"Tom…"

He didn’t say a word. The moment the door clicked shut he pulled her to him and held her, his head burying itself in the crook of her neck, her cheek against his heart, feeling it pound, feeling it cry out in pain with hers.

"This isn’t the end of us…" she whispered against it. "I’ll come again…I don’t care…I don’t…"

"Shh…" he murmured, trying to keep his voice steady, trying to keep his tears from falling until he was alone. "If they found out…if anything happened to you…I don’t know what I would do…I don’t think I could live if…"

He pulled back to look at her. He took in her dark eyes swimming with tears, and brushed his lips against one that began to slip down her cheek. He followed it’s trail to her parted lips and his fingers tangled in her hair as she pressed them against his, instinctively knowing what to do.

The part of him that was always at the back of her mind rushed to the forefront overwhelming her senses with him… his eyes, his mouth, his hands, his mind, his soul, his heart…they were all hers…she was his blood throbbing in his veins, rushing under his skin as it met hers, she was his heart pounding against her searching hands, she was his soul swirling in a blue mist that made love to hers…

Their powers shimmered around them, cocooning them in a blanket of green and blue, the threads one color instead of two.

Sarah had never been able to do it…to remove Reyne from his mind…he had known all along what she was doing to him and it was easy to make her think she was succeeding. All he had to do was show Sarah what she wanted to see – a mind devoid of her, of Reyne.

He kept her in his soul instead, where she would always be with him, where he would always be free to love her.

Reyne wasn’t a thought in his head, she was a part of him. None of Sarah’s mind wipes could do anything about that. If she tried to take away the memory of her hair beneath his fingers he would store it in the night sky. If she tried to take away the memory of her eyes, he would place it in the stars. He would keep the memory of her skin in the water that soothed his fevered flesh and washed the pain, the blood away.

They pulled back slightly for breath.

He would keep the memory of her kisses on his lips.

"We will be together again." She said softly, caressing the side of his face. "I won’t be trapped forever…and neither will you. This will all be over someday and if I don’t touch you again in this life...I will in the next…"

"We’ll never be apart." He murmured into her hand, kissing the palm. "You are my soul…"

"You are my soul…" she repeated quietly.

"With you is where I was meant to be…"

"With you is where I was meant to be…"

"From this life and into the next…"

"From this life and into the next…"

"I am for you as you are for me…"

"I am for you as you are for me…"

"I bind myself to you for eternity, neither death nor another can separate us…."

"I bind myself to you for eternity, neither death nor another can separate us…."

"You are my soul…"

"You are my soul…"

She breathed the words against his lips and claimed them once again before pulling away one last time. He closed his eyes as the door clicked shut with a finality that tore at his heart.

But this wasn’t the end.

It was just the beginning.

They had pledged themselves to each other with a vow that had come from the depths of their soul.

They were one.

"Neither death, nor another…nor distance can separate us…" he whispered to the empty room and was answered only by the brief caress of her mind against his before she let him go.

When Julia turned back around to face the boy, she found him lounging against the wall, a yellow ball of his power dangling by a "string" of light which he tugged on, causing the ball to roll up and down it.

He smiled at her, shaking his head in awe as the golden light played across her face.

"How are you here…" she murmured, watching his wrist dipping up and down in time with the ball. She looked up into his eyes and grinned at him, feeling as though she were about to burst. "I thought I made you up!"

"I thought I made you up…" he laughed and captured the ball in his hand, stepping away from the wall as it disappeared. He looked at her, his eyes gently searching her face, "I’m still not convinced I didn’t," he said softly. "You look like something out of a dream…" He blushed slightly and ducked his head. "Maybe I should pinch myself just to be sure." He mumbled.

"Pinch yourself?" she asked, blushing a little herself.

"It’s a human thing…"pinch me I’m dreaming…"…"

"But if the dream’s…nice…why would you want to wake up…?" He shrugged, catching her eye again and said softly, "Because…maybe the reality’s even better…" his face colored again and he bit his lip, embarrassed. "I dunno…I don’t really understand all of these human thoughts…they’re interesting though…"

"Yeah…" They were quiet for a moment, just looking at each other, until Julia finally spoke again. "They don’t suspect Reyne do they? She isn’t in trouble is she?"

"Oh, no…" he said quickly. "I think the Council’s a little annoyed that she isn’t at Kieran’s beck and call but other than that…no. She doesn’t give them reason to be suspicious. She’s very careful – she never leaves until she’s finished her duties, and she always makes sure to check with either me or Cerise before she leaves so we can cover for her…"

Julia frowned. "If she’s not under suspicion then why can’t she be our contact anymore? Not that I’m sure we won’t be completely satisfied with you…" she added quickly.

"She…she told me that they aren’t waiting until after the war…"

"Who’s not waiting?"

"The Council…"

"What aren’t they waiting for?"

"The marriage…" Leyx said quietly. "They want Reyne and Kieran to speak their vows soon…They were going to wait until all of this is done with, but I suppose they’re starting to worry that they won’t win after all…"

"Marriage…" Julia frowned at him, and he blinked at her.

"She didn’t tell any of you? She and Kieran have been betrothed to each other for…well for as long as I’ve known either of them."

"No we didn’t know…" Leyx was silent for a moment, then said, almost as if he knew what she was thinking, "She has to stay away from Tom…she’s afraid she won’t be able to go through with the marriage if she doesn’t…"

"Why does she have to go through with it all?" Julia argued, her heart breaking for her brother who was undoubtedly in there right now, professing his undying love to a girl who had already promised herself to someone else.

"They’ll kill her if she doesn’t. She won’t be able to help him - any of you - if she’s dead Julia…She’s going through with it for Tom - because she loves him and she wants to keep him safe..."

Cerise entered the compound, ignoring the suspicious looks of the Sentreye Protectors who lined the perimeter. They liked Leyx. They liked Reyne. They didn’t like her.

It probably had something to do with the fact that she had singed a few of them when she had broken out of here almost half a year ago.

She stepped inside the broken down building, making her way under and over collapsed awnings until she reached the secret door that led to their base hidden beneath the rubble. She navigated her way down the dark hallway, looking for the room where the meetings usually took place.

Leyx had said third door on the right, down the second hallway, which was supposed to be at the end of the first.

Not too complicated…

She sighed as she followed his directions further down the hallway, but stopped suddenly before turning onto the second one. The last door at the end of the first hallway, facing the opening of the second…the one she had her back to…it was his.

It was his door. She knew it was. She could feel him behind it, twisting in his sleep, his mind a riot of jumbled images. They were bothering him, keeping him from his rest.

She turned slowly, taking a shaky step towards his room, her fingers reaching out and caressing the doorknob.

She hadn’t seen him in months…she hadn’t asked Leyx how he was…she had been afraid to.

She had been afraid that he was as miserable as she was…or worse, that he was happy without her…thrilled that he never had to see her again…until now…

Leyx hadn’t been able to leave the compound today and Reyne had come to her, pleaded with her to take the message to the Sentreye. The Council was trying to locate their base. Luckily they didn’t realize how close it was to the Mantriz base – they were concentrating their efforts on the outskirts of the city instead of the interior. That was why they had detained Leyx – he was in charge of organizing the Mantriz Protectors and assigning them to sections of the city. He would of course prevent them from concentrating on this area for now, but it wouldn’t be long before the base was discovered.

It needed to be evacuated as soon as possible.

Cerise was the only one of them free to go.

She told herself that she was just warning them so that they could protect themselves…that it wasn’t like she was revealing the location of one of their bases and leading the way for a massacre of her people… She was just warning them.

She had wanted to get in, and get out (preferably without having to look James in the eye) and then make sure that Leyx would be free to go himself next time.

She should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. She hadn’t even seen him yet. There was a door between them and she was already affected, already feeling herself spiral out of control just like she always did when he was near.

She needed to see him, touch him…

She needed to wake him from the nightmare that had him whimpering like a frightened child in his mind as his body curled up into a ball on the bed, his power swirling protectively around him, and not being enough.

Only she would be enough to soothe him, to calm him, to keep him safe…she couldn’t not go to him…not when his soul was crying out to hers…

Her hand closed over the doorknob…

"Cerise?" She jumped, letting go of it, and turned. Sarah. "The meeting’s down here," she said jerking her chin down the second hallway.

After a moment’s hesitation where she briefly brushed her hand over the doorknob, Cerise followed her.

"He’s not coming." Sarah told her stiffly, guiding her away from his door. "Where’s Leyx?"

"He couldn’t come today." Cerise returned just as coolly, wondering why James wasn’t going to be at the meeting, why nobody was in there with him, calming him, holding him… She almost ran back down the hallway to him, but suddenly Sarah was opening a door and shoving her through.

Julia and Tom waited on the other side, and Julia sprang to her feet, a radiant smile on her face that faded a little when she saw that it wasn’t Leyx.

"Cerise…" Her smile came back – a polite one, edged with a touch of nervousness as her gaze flickered over to the door. "It's been a while..."

"James isn’t coming today…" Sarah said, catching the look. "He said he needed to rest after what happened…I think maybe he just knew she would be here…" she mumbled under her breath as she took a seat.

Cerise felt her heart tighten in her chest, and bit her lip against the urge to scream at them until they told her what had happened.

"He’s alright…" Julia said quietly, noticing the tension that had filled the girl’s body. "He was on recruiting detail this morning and got ambushed…"

"He dropped a building on them." Sarah added leaning her elbows on her knees and looking up at her. "He got six of them…"

"Only six?" Cerise asked tightly, "I bet you were disappointed…"

"You have no idea…" she growled back and Tom stood, stepping in front of her and offering Cerise his chair. She glared at Sarah before taking it, and nodded a thank you at him as he settled himself into the chair in front of her.

"Leyx couldn’t be here because of what I have to tell you…"

"He’s okay isn’t he?" Julia asked, and Cerise looked at her, remembering how she had assured her of James’ safety just moments before.

"He’s fine…" she said gently. "He had to work with our Protectors this afternoon…The Council is having him send them out in groups…"

"To do what?" She looked at Tom. He seemed tired. His eyes had that same sadness in them that Reyne’s did, and she looked away from them before they broke her heart.

"To search the city. They’re looking for you. You’re starting to worry them…"

"So?" Sarah said, frowning. "They’ve searched before and haven't found us – and anyway Leyx is in charge – it’s not like he’s going to lead them to us - if anything we're more protected now than we've ever been."

"It’s different this time." Cerise argued. "The stakes are higher now. Before when they searched they weren’t overly concerned with finding you – it was more to pick up some Sentreye that they might have missed in the earlier raids. They weren’t scared of you then…but now…because you’ve "stumbled upon" so many secret missions and foiled them, they’re beginning to worry. This time when they search they will be thorough – no matter what Leyx tries to do he can’t stop it – it would jeopardize him, and Reyne and I are not willing to do that."

"Neither are we…" Julia said quickly.

"You’re right." Tom agreed. "We would never expect him to refuse to do his job – it would be too suspicious. We don’t want anything bad to happen to him Cerise – to any of you…" She swallowed, avoiding looking into his eyes again and trying not to think about the moaning in the back of her mind that was coming from James. She closed her eyes, trying to fight back his tears.

She had to ignore it.

She had to.

She had done what she had come to do. She had warned them.

Now she had to go.

"You should leave this place…" She said with a slight gasp as she felt him cry out again. She got shakily to her feet and made her way to the door. "Find a temporary base outside of the city until the search is over and they’re satisfied…" She pinned Sarah to her seat with a look as the girl began to argue. "If you stay they will find you…" She turned to go then stopped when she remembered what Leyx had asked of her. "Julia?" The girl looked up at her. "Go to sleep early if you can." Julia blushed but met the curious looks Tom and Sarah threw her innocently enough and smiled a thank you at her.

Cerise stumbled out the door and leaned against it for a moment, hearing them talking on the other side, trying to decide what they were going to do, before walking slowly down the hallway, his door coming closer and closer.

She stopped directly in front it. She couldn’t feel him crying anymore. Maybe he had woken up. Her stomach fluttered at the idea – half in hope, half in fear.

She had to go.

She really had to go before she did something, before she reached for the doorknob again...

And suddenly she was doing it...

Her fingers barely brushed it before the door whipped open and a warm hand clamped down on her wrist, pulling her inside.

She was standing in the darkness barely breathing as he reached past her and locked the door behind her. He was careful not to touch her when he did it. His mind was guarded, not ready to let her in yet.

Hers was wide open, letting him know that it was okay – that he could trust her this time beyond a shadow of a doubt - that he could believe that she was his, that this was more real than anything else in their lonely world.

She could feel his breath whispering across her cheek, tangling with her own. He was standing so close her breasts brushed up against his chest when she breathed, and she could feel the warmth from his bare skin on her arms, her neck, her face.

Touch me…

She reached up slowly, not sure if it was his thought or her own, but he caught her wrist again, stopping her before she reached him. His fingers stayed around the cuff of her shirt, purposely avoiding her skin that was emanating the same heat as his. He pushed her hand down to her side and she drew in a sharp breath as his own hand slid away from her wrist, resting on her thigh for a moment before slipping up to her hip, pulling her in a little closer.

She tilted her head back to look at him, to do something she had been afraid to do since she had set foot on the Sentreye grounds less than an hour ago.

She looked into his eyes.

Suddenly her back was pressed against the door, her shoulder blades grinding against it. His hands were in her hair, twisting the strands between his fingers before he slid them down her neck, caressing the hollow of her throat as he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her…

He ran his hands up and down her arms, gently raking his fingernails down them, making her shiver, before settling on her hips again and then sliding around to the small of her back pulling her even closer.

She moaned against his mouth, her own hands cradling his face, her fingers tangling in his hair.

She had missed him so much…

For months she had felt so scattered…like her skin was the only thing holding her together, her bones the only thing holding her up. Inside she was crumbling, she was crying, she was aching for his touch, haunted by the memory of him filling her body with his power, his soul, haunted by the memory of how wonderful it had been …how right it had felt to give herself to him, to show him who she was…

She had felt like a part of her was missing for so long. She knew now that that part was him…and she wasn’t about to let it go ever again…

She reached out with one hand to find the lock and melt it to make sure they wouldn’t be interrupted this time, and she found his hand already there, already melding it shut. Their fingers tangled as they stepped away from the door, never letting go, their bodies pressed tightly together, their power rolling off of them in orange and red waves, lighting up the room and chasing away the coldness with their love.

She cried out in surprise as she felt his hands against her back suddenly on her skin. He had burned his way through the material of her shirt. He pulled away looking down at her his eyes dark and wide.

"I hurt you…"

"No…" she whispered smiling a little…"You just ruined my shirt…"

"I’m sorry…" he murmured, playing with the buttons on the front and melting them off one by one.

"No you’re not…" he gently pushed the material off of her shoulders and took a deep shaky breath before holding her to him.

"We shouldn’t do this…" he murmured against her hair, but did not lessen his hold.

"Am I going to have to kick your ass again?"

"Excuse me? If I recall correctly I kicked yours fir-"

"Shut up.…" She growled and wrapped her arms around his neck, capturing his lips with her own, relishing in the sizzling of their bare skin pressed against each other and the sounds he made against her mouth.

She felt him finally open his mind to her, and her soul sighed happily as it met his and danced with it singing, weren’t we stupid to have put this off for so long? To try and deny this…?

She gasped as the light from before rushed towards her, his light, his being, bathing her, loving her and she cried out his name. She heard him call out hers in her mind even as it left his lips and joined with their sighs, their breath coloring in the sparkling air.

She closed her eyes, feeling his mind swirl around her, feeling his memories...

She saw him earlier this afternoon, wandering down the street, looking for Sentreye but consumed by thoughts of her…wondering if she was alright, cursing the fact that he couldn’t stop thinking about her, couldn’t stop worrying about her…especially after last night when she had torn herself from sleep to escape a nightmare and sobbed all night long…her mind replaying the images of a burnt corpse over and over again as she wailed in pain…

He had stayed awake all night with her trying to soothe her, but not knowing how to reach her…

You felt me then…

I felt you always…

I didn’t know…I…I blocked you out… she confessed guiltily. I had Reyne help me because I couldn’t do it myself…she didn’t want to…but I made her…I told her I couldn’t stand it, having you in my head, feeling you…I told her that it wasn’t like how it was with Tom…but that was a lie…I blocked you out because I thought you hated me…and I couldn’t bear to be reminded of that…reminded of what I did to you to deserve it…

I didn’t hate you…how could I… all I’ve thought about since you left is…you…

She saw that it was true…she saw his disappointment every time he walked into one of their meetings and didn’t find her there…

She saw him lying awake at night allowing himself to feel her for only a moment, and then forcing himself to ignore it, to block her out of his mind, just as she had tried to do to him… But he hadn’t had help like she had, and whenever he least expected it she came rushing back…

And he hated himself for welcoming her…because she was a distraction, she made him think that maybe there was more for him out there in the world than his duty, and that went against everything he’d been taught to believe in.

No matter how much he fought it, fought his own soul, she was still there…and the part of him that resented it was overshadowed by the bigger part that breathed a sigh of relief whenever he got a glimmer of feeling from her…because it meant his half-hearted efforts to rid his mind of her had been in vain - she would always be there no matter what.

This afternoon when he had been attacked…he had gotten caught because he had been thinking of her and not paying attention to what was going on around him.

She saw his memory as she held him in her arms…she saw him thinking about not fighting back, considering letting them kill him because nothing mattered now without her.

She felt them begin to tear into his mind, and that's when he exploded.

She watched as his power shot out from his hands accompanied by a shout of rage, of pain, and it sliced into the base of the building behind the small group of Mantriz that had thought they had won. He kept them in place with a ring of fire blazing around them until it and their cries of terror were silenced by the crush of the building as it fell.

"Is that what was upsetting you before…?" she whispered stroking her trembling fingers through his hair. His head rested on her stomach, and his own fingers had been tracing circles on her hip, imitating the spirals of power floating lazily through the air around them, casting a warm glow on their skin. Now they stopped. "What happened this afternoon…?"

He was quiet. She could feel a little flash of anxiety from him as he remembered what it had felt like – having his mind invaded, torn open. He’d felt it once before…

"When?" she asked.

His reaction to it had been the same as before – lash out with everything you have, drain yourself if necessary, burn all the skin off your hands if necessary. Cut a building in half and drop it on them, watch it fall and kill them all…

"James…"

They’d trained him to do that, to respond like that, to hurt himself to hurt them, to do whatever it took…

He sat up abruptly, his back to her, and he felt a wave of guilt wash over him. It was hers. She felt bad for asking.

"My parents were killed." He said softly. "Their minds were violated, ripped open…when it happened they were still connected to the Consciousness and they felt everything. They made me feel it one day too…"

"Why…?" she whispered.

"It was during a training session…I was being difficult…I didn’t want to do it anymore...fight, train…I just wanted to go home. That’s when they told me I didn’t have one anymore – that my parents were dead. I didn’t believe them and that’s when they made me feel it…what they felt…It…it was too much…I lashed out, like it really was happening to me, to defend myself…so much power…too much. The wreckage above us? That collapsed building? I did that. I destroyed it…and when I felt that again this afternoon…when I felt them try and rip me apart it happened again – it was like I couldn’t control myself…it was an automatic reaction…"

Cerise was silent, remembering that first memory she had ever found in him…The Sentreye Protectors had been excited about what he had done and they were all around him, telling him to find that power again and focus it, telling him to use the memory they had given him, the memory of his parents' pain to guide him. And he had, he listened, because if he didn’t they would force it on him again. What he had was a copy of it – what they had was the real thing and he knew it was much much worse than what he remembered.

He leveled the building and the next time he looked down at his hands they were charred – black almost and red with blood. Tom had healed him and all that had been left after a few hours were the scars.

He had forgotten about it until this afternoon…and the second he felt them in his head, it all came rushing back – the pain and the power.

He looked down at his hands, still a little tender – he’d ignored the pain earlier, forced it to the back of his mind as he ran his hands all over her body…because he wanted to feel her and nothing else. Now he was paying for it. The scars on his palms, each in the shape of a ragged star that had been there since he was a kid had been ripped open and had only been partially healed by the time he’d…he’d touched Cerise. Now they were sore again.

It had been worth it.

He turned his head to look at her, lying in his bed, her body decorated with shadows of his touches, shimmering on her skin, her eyes gentle and shining with compassion, her hand reaching out to him, wanting him to come back to her so she could comfort him, so she could take some of the pain away the only way she knew how - by holding onto him and refusing to let go.

He remembered suddenly all those months ago, during the transfer how she had clung to him even though it hurt, even though it was burning her up inside.

Because feeling you through the pain was better than not feeling you at all…

"Is that how it’s always going to be between us?" he murmured, "Feeling each other through pain, holding on until it kills us…" He felt her move behind him and closed his eyes as she wrapped her arms around him, resting her chin on his shoulder.

"I don’t know…" she whispered "All I know is that I will."

"What?"

"Hold on."

"So will I…" he whispered. "Forever and longer…"

She followed them down the hall, careful so they wouldn’t see her. She watched them part at the stairs after a long gentle kiss, their hands still joined as she began to climb them and he had to let go.

Her eyes filled at them, at James… She’d never seen him so gentle…so content…so happy.

He loved her.

He loved Cerise.

A Mantriz.

She swallowed and stepped out of the shadows. He was still facing the stairs, and she saw his back stiffen when he heard her. He turned around slowly and met her eyes. His never left hers as he walked towards her, and then past her without a word.

She stood there alone in the dark hallway, wrapping her arms around herself to warm the coldness in the pit of her stomach.

It had to stop – all of it – James and Cerise, Julia and Leyx…

It was all wrong, it was all a lie… If she could just make them see…make them understand that it wasn’t right, that it wasn’t safe…

She had to find Tom.

She had to find him right now and tell him what was going on. She had been able to save him from Reyne, she had extracted her and her influence from his mind… He was free and safe. Surely now that he was out from under her spell he’d understand, he’d realize what they were doing and help her stop it.

They would listen to Tom…

He was studying a map when she found him, marking the areas high in Mantriz activity with his power, looking for an area that would be safe for them to relocate to for a while. He motioned for her to stand beside him without lifting his head from the map.

"What do you think of the Majdlyn region? There isn’t much activity there – it’s still primarily Sentreye inhabited right now…We could recruit some more fighters. It’s far from the Mantriz base though...It’ll be difficult to meet with Leyx and Cerise, but I'm sure we’ll find a way."

She didn’t answer him, but continued to study his profile as his eyes searched the map.

He looked tired.

He still seemed as determined and strong as ever…he was still their rock, but for the first time she noticed the cracks in him…scars from past hurts, past losses – not all of them his own. Some were hers, others Julia’s, James’. He always took everything onto himself. He carried them all when they thought they could no longer move. No one had ever carried him...except for her. She had protected him from Reyne, and she would continue to do so until the day she died.

He looked up from the map, finally meeting her eyes.

"What’s wrong?"

"It’s James and Cerise…"

"What about them?"

"He thinks he’s in love with her."

He stared at her for a moment before looking away, before turning back to the map. The blue swaths blurred together until the entire map disappeared beneath them and disintegrated under his power. He blinked at it, just then realizing what he had done.

"Maybe he is." He said softly.

"No…It’s impossible to love a Mantriz…"

"It’s not impossible."

"She’s an enemy!"

"She’s an ally."

"What if it’s all one big manipulation? What then?"

"It’s not."

"You don’t know that!"

"I do." She stared at him.

"She still has you doesn’t she?" she whispered, "She’s still influencing you…"

"Reyne has never influenced me. She has never tried to control me in any way. I can’t say the same about you…"

"I’ve never-"

"I know Sarah. I know how you looked for her in my head, how you hunted down my memories of her, my thoughts, so you could destroy them…"

"I was trying to keep you safe…"

"You were trying to keep me yours." He turned away from the table, facing her. "I didn’t do this to hurt you Sarah…That’s the last thing I would ever want to do…but I can’t help what I feel…"

"It can’t be true…" she murmured tearfully, "We’ve…we’ve been bonded…we connected…"

This wasn't happening...this wasn't happening...

"I can’t explain it Sarah, but it’s real. What I feel for her…It’s real. I still love you Sarah…You’ll always be a part of me but we…we don’t belong together…I’m sorry…"

She shook her head at him, not wanting to believe any of it. What did she have if not him? She had nothing…she was alone…

It was all her. She was making him say these things, feel these things.

"It doesn’t matter how you feel about her!" she choked out. "It doesn’t matter because you can’t be with her Tom!"

"When this is all over-"

"It’s never going to be over! You’ll always be different!"

"That doesn’t matter to me…"

"It might to her husband though." He blinked at her. "That’s right Tom – She gave herself to someone else, to someone who is like her, who understands her in a way you can’t…"

"It’s not true…"

"It is Tom. Ask Julia…and if you don’t believe her ask Leyx the next time he comes and he’ll tell you the truth…After she said goodbye to you she wed herself to Kieran!"

"No…"

"It’s the truth! I’m telling you the truth and she lied to you…" she whispered.

So why do you still want her? Why am I not enough?

He stared at the floor. He hadn't heard what she had thought to him.

Their connection was gone.

Julia fell asleep with a smile on her lips. She couldn’t wait to see what Leyx had in store for her tonight. Last time it had been a field of yellow flowers – daisies and daffodils, buttercups and roses… He had spent all afternoon flipping through his human thoughts to find them and recreate them. It was so beautiful…the golden flowers glowing among the blue, purple, red, and white of the dream world he had helped her rebuild...she'd never seen anything like it before...

She awoke in that world and found him leaning against their statue under the shadow of the stone hand over his head. He was staring at the ground. He looked upset.

"What’s wrong?"

"Julia…" he pulled her into his arms, holding her so tight, she could barely breathe.

"Leyx…" He let go of her, taking a step back, embarrassed at having held onto her so hard. "You’re upset about something…"

"They’re getting close to your base…"

"We know – Cerise told us last time. We’ve found another place to go…We’ll be alright…And as for the meetings…we could…you could tell me here what Reyne finds out… I mean I kind of I liked that this was a place where we could forget about all of that stuff…but if this would be safer-"

"No," he said quietly, "No it’s not safe…Julia…I can’t come here anymore…"

"What? Why…?"

"They’ve found a way to reconnect us to the Mantriz Consciousness," he said flatly. "After tomorrow we’ll be under their control. You’ll be safe, " he reassured her quickly, "they won’t know what we’ve been doing, but…they’ll be able to monitor us now. If we leave the compound without clearance they’ll know. We can keep them out of our heads to some extent, they can’t see our thoughts, our memories, but they’ll be able to sense us, sense our feelings…whether we’re awake or asleep...they’ll know what I feel when I’m with you…they'll know that I..." he swallowed painfully, his throat working furiously to keep himself calm, under control, unaffected. "We can’t meet anymore…any of us… It's over…"

Julia stared at him, shocked. She should have known something like this would happen – they couldn’t expect them to feed them information forever but…she didn’t think she’d never be able to see him again…never be with him again…

"…Reyne and Cerise…They asked me to ask you to…to tell Tom and James how much they love…" His voice cracked and he turned away from her unable to finish, unable to say what he wanted because it was too much…all of it was just too much…and there wasn’t time.

"Stay…" she whispered "Just for tonight Leyx…please…" She went to him and rested her head on his shoulder as she wrapped her arms around his waist, trying to keep him from leaving her.

"It’ll only make this harder…" She bit her lip and blinked back tears, feeling her heart break in her human body. She nodded, knowing he was right.

She let him go.

She watched him walk away.

Then she watched him stop and turn.

He ran back to her and embraced her one last time, pressing his lips against her lips, tasting her tears. He rested his forehead against hers for a moment…and then it happened.

She felt him…

She saw him alone in his cell after the change more scared for his friends than for himself…

A year of being alone, being trained…

Being lonely.…

Missing Reyne and Cerise and Kieran.

Practicing his mind searching abilities on one of their Sentreye prisoners and learning the truth…

Reyne coming back with Cerise after that first encounter almost a year ago…

Her showing him what had happened, her giving him her memories of it…

The image of her, Julia, sticking in his mind long after the others had faded…

Waking up one night in her dream…

For the first time feeling the loneliness in him recede when he looked into her eyes…

She felt him in her mind and opened herself up to him as much as she could, sharing everything, her memory, her body, her power, her soul with him.

The dream sky exploded into stars of their power, yellow and white, dripping down on them like rain, like his kisses on her skin.

We’ll find each other again…all of us will…

He pulled back, meeting her sad eyes with his own, and gently brushed his lips against hers before backing away and disappearing into a soft golden mist, streaked with white caresses of her power.

"Leyx…"

Her whisper floated across the empty dreamscape, and she forced herself awake.

She couldn’t be there without him.

It was their place together. She didn't want it without him.

It was doomed from the start. They should have known that…Why didn’t they when I saw so clearly what was happening, what was going to happen.

They came into our lives under the guise of friendship, pretending that they wanted to help, and then they weaseled their way into my friends’ hearts, their dreams, their souls…

And I knew why they were doing it.

They were preparing for the future.

They had to know we’d meet on the battlefield sooner or later. They were attempting to insure a victory for themselves by making certain Tom, James, and Julia would not lift a hand against them, would not hurt them.

I wanted to believe it was over when they left us, when the meetings stopped, when we moved our base.

I wanted to believe that the next time we saw them my friends would see who they were, what they were, and fight back.

We relocated to Sydger, in the Majdlyn region. It was different there…there were more of our people there, and more of them were willing to fight because they had not yet seen how destructive the Mantriz could be. They’d never seen anything like where we had come from…Where there wasn’t a building left standing, where the ground was stained with blood and the bodies of fallen Protectors from both sides…Where Sentreye hid among the death and rubble, looking for a chance to escape or just waiting to die.

In that year we were in Sydger, our ranks swelled. We had the entire city on our side, ready and willing to stand with us even as thousands more filtered in from all areas of our torn country.

The ranks of the Mantriz were growing as well even though raids were less frequent. They were attempting to lull us into a false sense of security. They were planning something. They were waiting for the right time and place.

We decided to beat them to it.

We decided to attack their base before they attacked ours.

Before we left, we visited Tom and Julia’s mother at the original compound where we had been changed. After all that time it still had not been found by the Mantriz. It was located in the heart of our city – buried beneath the rubble of the statue of Tom and Julia’s father.

We were able to enter the city undetected, which unnerved me, and their mother met us with open arms and tears in her eyes when we entered the compound. The reunion didn’t last long.

Almost as soon as we had stepped inside we were taken one by one into separate rooms just like the first time, and I had to fight the urge to blast my father away from me when he strapped me down and the gossamer threads shot up from beneath me, wrapping themselves around my body, snaking into my ears and mouth, under my eyelids and fingernails. It didn’t hurt as much as the first time, but it felt strange. I felt as though I were being drawn out of myself, I felt as though the threads were pulling me apart then slowly putting me back together again, leaving me feeling a little cold, but otherwise unaffected.

When I opened my eyes I saw that the threads had released me and were in the process of forming a pod on the table next to me. They took it away, and I didn’t see it again until all four of us were with their mother again in the main lab.

There were three other pods besides mine cradled into a stone setting that was surrounded by a circle of our people holding hands. We watched as the pods and their setting grew smaller and smaller under the Sentreye power until they let go of each other satisfied with its new size. One of them stepped forward. I recognized him as one of the leaders of our Protectors. He gently lifted the pods, holding them carefully in his hands and left the lab with them.

Tom and Julia’s mother explained that he would protect us in our next life, that he would be our guardian, our advisor, and that he would serve us in any way he could.

She then showed us The Book.

I held it in my hands and felt the power there, felt the history that would lead us in the future, the history that would tell us who we are and what we left behind, what we must do. We turned the pages with shaking fingers, seeing the truth there, seeing our lives written out in our language.

I knew that we would be alright in the next world because we had it. The Book would keep us grounded. It would keep us focused, together.

I saw that the last few pages were empty, and when I asked why that was she told us that it would not be completed until it was time for us to leave. If we survived the battle, The Book would have a happy ending, and if we perished…it would wait for us on earth to complete it.

She kissed each of us goodbye, and she hugged James and I like we were her own children. She told us that she had faith in us, that she believed we would prevail and save our people from the Mantriz.

The Protector who was to be our guardian in the next world came back to the lab. He nodded at us and took the two orbs Tom and Julia’s mother had been working on before we had come to say goodbye. She handed them to him along with a brown pouch filled with healing stones, and we saw that she had inscribed the symbol of our galaxy on both of them. She touched Tom and Julia’s faces and told them that this was not goodbye, that she would see them again, that she would see all of us again. She told them she loved them and wished us luck.

I left the compound with the others without a word to my father. All I needed I had with me. I had Julia and James. I had Tom.

I took his hand as we stepped out into the bleak sunlight to start the biggest battle of our lives, knowing that if we failed, the next time we saw each other we’d have different names, faces, and would be living in a different world, waiting for the chance to defeat the Mantriz once and for all.

He’d done this before. He’d crept down this very street, hid in this alley. He had watched from this very spot as a group of Mantriz disappeared beneath the ground. Over a year ago he had followed them and found his soul locked in a room in the depths of their base. He wondered if it would happen again. If he would find her again.

His heart tightened in his chest at the thought of seeing her…Her with her green eyes like the sky and her gold hair like the sun, lips parted and saying his name, her hands touching him, holding him, her mind meeting his and freeing him from the prison he had built around himself to keep sane without her.

It had been too long…too long.

He had assured Sarah that she was not the reason why he had volunteered to infiltrate their base. He had nominated himself because he had been there before, and so it made sense that he would be the one to go. It was a flimsy reason – any of them could have borrowed his memory of the place and gotten in and navigated it with as much ease but no one had brought that up. Sarah had been tired of arguing with him about everything and Tom and Julia…they understood. They knew that while he was there he would try to find her. How could he not?

They would be looking too. To borrow the human expression, when all hell broke loose they would be searching for Reyne and Leyx with as much desperation and hope as he was now for Cerise.

Cerise…just her name caused his human heart to beat a little faster, his skin to flush and his fingers to itch with the anticipation of finding hers.

He hadn’t seen her since that night… that night they had given themselves to each other, loved each other, became each other. He held that memory the closest, he let it replace his fears, the pain of losing his parents. He let the memory of her soft kisses on his blackened palms burn away all the hurt that had come from being who he was to his people – the second in command, the walking time bomb.

It was another reason why it made sense that he should be the one to go, perhaps the only reason why Sarah had not fought him on this. If he was caught, the second they tried to rip into him he would explode. His power would come pouring out of him, and, ideally, he would do nothing to control it, to stop it. His training dictated that he would let his own power kill him if it meant it would all be over.

A year ago he wouldn’t have had any reservations about it, about going on a possible suicide mission, but now… If she was there when it happened, when they tore into him…he would do everything he could to hold it back. He would burn from the inside out and not release a drop of energy if he could help it. He would die before he hurt her.

And of course that was what Sarah was afraid of. She had told them all as much before they had set out. She had asked them to remember what was at stake here, as though any of them could ever have forgotten. She had not so subtly told them that if Reyne and Leyx and Cerise were aggressive, either for the benefit of their people or not, she expected that they would stand with her and fight back.

They all had agreed.

Tom, Julia, and himself…they believed without a doubt that when they saw their lovers again, they would drop the charade and join them in the siege against the Mantriz council. They would all fight as one and Sarah would see – she would finally see how wrong she was.

The street was clear, not a Mantriz in sight.

He stepped out from his hiding place and looked down at the ground searching for the opening, then closed his eyes, letting his memory guide him. When he opened them again he was standing before it – a ring of pale light shimmering on the dirty ground.

Now to see if it was open or not…

He knelt down, placing his hand in the middle of the circle and met resistance. It was closed. He pushed with his mind and ran a finger along the edge of the light, inside the circle, imitating its shape with his power. He lifted his hand and watched his liquid red energy eat through the "door". The circle of street fell landing with a clatter, and he jumped in after it hoping no one had heard.

The second his feet hit the floor he felt her. She was in the air, in the walls, in the ceiling, the ground. If he tried, if he reached out he’d be able to find her, he’d be able to find her mind and touch it with his. For months they had blocked each other out because through the new connection, the Mantriz would have been able to sense their feelings through Cerise.

Neither of them would have been strong enough to keep their feelings in check. The second their minds would have brushed up against each other it all would have been over – the Mantriz would have known. It was almost painful keeping that wall up now, when he was so close to her, but if he knocked it down, if either of them pulled it apart and ran to each other all would be lost. They’d be betraying Tom and Julia and Sarah who were waiting to hear from him, who were waiting for his word that he had found the main hall.

Stick to the mission, find the hall and open the doors, flood the base with Sentreye before the Mantriz know what hit them.

He forced his body into a new shape until he resembled one of them. He looked down at his silvery green hand and felt his stomach lurch.

If someone found him it was only a matter of time before they discovered he wasn’t one of them – all they had to do was attempt to communicate with him and when he wasn’t able to understand they would do a quick scan, run up against his wall and they’d know. His disguise would only buy him so much time…

Still, pretending to be one of them for even a moment was making his skin crawl.

He started off down the hallway.

Find the Main Hall, find Cerise and wait for it to begin. It was his mantra. He repeated it over and over and over again to himself as he made his way down the hallway, relying on Cerise’s memory of the base he had found the night they were together.

He hadn’t meant to see it. He hadn’t purposely sought it out with the intention of breaking into the base again. It was just suddenly there when they had been sharing themselves – a big open room with a control center that could lock down the base, or blow it open, and he had instinctively held on to it.

His step faltered. If she knew that she had helped him do this, destroy her people, even unintentionally it would kill her.

He continued down the hallway, suddenly hoping he didn’t run into her until it was over...

He paused. Something wasn't right.

He attempted to call to the others and couldn't.

He tried to fire up and...nothing.

His powers had been turned off and he hadn't even realized someone had come into his head. Only one person could have done that - been inside him without him realizing..

He blinked as his vision began to blur, the walls, the ground, and the ceiling melting into each other, chased by a smoky darkness that swallowed it all until all there was was blackness and he fell to the ground unconsciousness, Cerise's name on his lips.

"He should have gotten there by now…" Julia bit her lip and said nothing. "He’s gone after her…" Sarah continued her voice taut with anger. "He went to find her instead of the main hall-"

"He wouldn’t do that." Tom cut in sharply.

"What if something happened to him? I know we agreed not to contact each other until he reached the room but…I’m starting to get worried…"

"We can’t Julia…They’d feel the activity – if James had to use his power to get in…that was already a risk…"

"I know…" she said softly. "I’m still worried…"

Tom was quiet for a moment, his jaw set, eyes narrowed. It had been taking too long. He didn’t believe Sarah’s reasoning. James would not jeopardize their entire mission, the fate of their people for love. That was something he would consider, but not James. No…he agreed with Julia. Something must have happened.

"We’ll give him a little while longer. If we don’t hear from him by sundown we each take a door. There are three besides the one that James already opened." He took a deep breath. "We each take a door and burn through it…It takes away the element of surprise which would have been an advantage…but if he’s been discovered…"

"There are a thousand at each door ready and waiting for your word…" Sarah said softly. "Whatever you want to do Tom…"

"Sundown." Was all he said.

He was aware of a hand on his head, fingers gently weaving themselves in his hair, then caressing the side of his face, urging him to open his eyes without words. He did.

"Why did you knock me out?"

"No "hello"?" she smiled softly, but he could see the fear behind her eyes. It overwhelmed the sensation of her arms around him, it overwhelmed the realization that she was here with him, that he could smell her skin, feel her hair against his cheek as she leaned down to whisper how much she had missed him.

"Why?" She lifted her head and stared at him.

"You don’t trust me…"

"Answer the question Cerise." She glared at him, taking her hands away.

"Because I knew he’d get to you before I did and that you’d fight back."

"Who would get to me?"

"Kieran."

"How did he know?" He stared at her hands, wanting them to come back, wanting to hold her to him…

But he had to know first. He had to know if Sarah was right.

"I felt you the second you stepped onto the grounds. I couldn’t hide it…how happy I was…and then…scared that you’d be captured. Kieran noticed something was…different with me. He thought I might have picked up on the thought pattern of an intruder and he wanted to go investigate and I knew that if he found you…he’d kill you."

"I’d have killed him."

"I know you would have…" she whispered, tears coming to her eyes. "That’s another reason why I knocked you out. It doesn’t have to be like this James…It doesn’t…Kieran isn’t bad…he just doesn’t know-"

"It’s too late for that. Everyone’s outside."

"Outside…"

"Ready to attack. This is it Cerise." She closed her eyes and he watched as a single tear slipped down her cheek. She nodded.

"I told him I’d get rid of you…I think he believed me…I’ll take you where you need to go…"

"The control room…" she nodded again and he caught a tear, tracing her cheekbone with it. She pushed his hand away.

"You thought I’d betrayed you…"

"No…"

"Yes you did…what do I have to do to make you believe-"

"I do…I do…Cerise…I’m sorry…I’m sorry…" And he was. He should have known she would never betray him. He'd let Sarah's fears become his own and he hated himself for it. He didn't know how to make it better, how to show her that he knew he was wrong to have suspected her, to show her how all those months apart had nearly killed him and that all he wanted was to hold her and never let her go ever again. He reached out to her and she backed away.

"I LOVE you you idiot!" she growled at him "I would NEVER…"

"I know…Cerise…"

"It’s been MONTHS and THIS is how you say hello?"

"I already said I'm sorr-" She rushed towards him, clapping a hand over his mouth and stared at the door, listening.

"He’s coming!" she whispered, letting him go. "Look afraid of me!"

"You’ve got to be kidding…" he mumbled and his eyes widened as she held a glowing fist to his face, so close he could feel it singe his lashes.

The door swung open and a human boy stepped inside. His face was hard.

"You haven’t done it yet?"

"I thought I’d try and get him to talk first…" Kieran stepped forward and picked him up by his collar. James glared at Cerise as she flipped off his power again, making sure he wouldn't try anything.

Please… she whispered in his head and Kieran stared at her, frowning as though he had heard.

"He won’t talk…" she said quickly, meeting his eyes. "I’ve tried to get in there but I can’t – he’s of no use to us, let me take care of it…" Kieran was quiet for a moment, still watching her, and she glared at him, trying her best to look annoyed, but James could feel her fear – fear for him rolling off of her in waves.

Kieran could feel it too.

"Alright." He said, letting him go. He walked to the door, kicking it closed and leaned against the wall, his arms across his chest. "Do it Cerise." She swallowed and opened her mouth to snap at him, but he cut her off. "Save it. I know Cerise…I can see it…" he gestured at them with a sickened look on his face. "I can feel it in you right now. You love him…you’ve…you’ve bonded yourself to him haven’t you?"

She blinked at him and he closed his eyes taking a deep breath.

"If they find out they’ll kill you Cerise…you gave him our location…you betrayed us…"

"No she didn’t" James said finally getting to his feet. Kieran didn’t even look at him.

"Destroy him now and they’ll never know. I promise I won’t tell if you do this…Cerise please…" he was pleading with her and she shook her head at him.

"I can’t…" she whispered.

"You can’t save him anyway…He’s evil! His people killed your father!"

"I can’t…" she said again.

"Then you’ll die too…" He forced a hardness into his voice, cruelness into his eyes. "I gave you a chance Cerise…you did this to yourself." He opened the door to the cell. "Don’t think about trying to leave. You know I’ll know if you do." His throat was working furiously. "I’ll kill you myself."

"Goodbye Kieran… " she whispered as he shut the door behind him, and closed her eyes as the lock slid into place and he melded it shut with his power.

They were both quiet for a long moment. James slowly came up behind her and stood there at her back, not touching her.

"How’d he know…about us…"

"I didn’t tell him if that’s what you mean."

"Cerise…"

"The connection. We were all reconnected…The Council can pick up on our feelings…but with the four of us…it’s more with us… Sometimes if the feelings are really strong…we can feel them ourselves…That’s how he knew how I…how we…Kieran felt what I felt for you and that’s how he knew." She whispered at the door, still not facing him. "I thought if Kieran found you and you were…passive…he wouldn’t see you as a threat and would let me deal with you. I didn’t think he’d come back so soon…I thought I’d have enough time to get you out of here…I was so sure that he was too surprised about seeing a Sentreye in our base to notice what I was feeling… I thought it would be okay…I thought I could save you before he realized…" He reached out to run his fingers through her hair, to calm her, to sooth her. She closed her eyes at his touch and took a deep shaky breath. "He knew what I felt for you because my feelings were too strong. My heart betrayed us…betrayed you…so in the end you were right…I did betray you…"

"Don’t say that…don’t even think that…" he pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her close. "Turn around…" he whispered. "Cerise look at me…please." She turned around slowly and buried her face in his chest. He stroked her back, murmuring softly in her ear, "Everything’ll be alright…I’ll call to the others and tell them what happened…this’ll all be over soon and we can be together…we won’t have to hide how we feel…we can be together the way we were meant to be…"

"No James…" she lifted her head to look at him. "You don’t understand…We aren’t getting out of here. Ever. You can’t reach the others from here…It…it’s the cell – it was designed to hold Sentreye – you can’t connect from in here."

"Then we’ll blast the door down – together." She shook her head.

"They’ll know the second we fire up…"

"What are you saying…We’re trapped?"

"They’ll come soon…to take us before the Council. They’ll use me to get to you…" she cried against his heart. "They’ll take what we have with each other…they’ll take the connection we have and they’ll use it to get inside of you…They’ll know everything. They’ll destroy Reyne and Leyx…They’ll know everything James…and it won’t just be them ripping into you this time...It’ll be me…they’ll use me…" He cupped her chin in his hand, tilting it up so he could look into her eyes.

"Then we’ll get away…We’ll go somewhere where they can’t touch us…" He brushed the tears off her cheeks with his lips. "Someplace where we’ll always be together…Do you remember…?"

"The Transfer…" He closed his eyes, pressing his forehead against hers, and they remembered together…

…waves of heat undulating throughout his body and exploding in his brain, exploding in memories of what her lips had felt like…her fingers in his hair and the tentative caress of her tongue…

…it had been him…James…it had been his lips…his hands in her hair…his mind swirling and tangling with hers… she had felt peaceful and safe…warm, and shivery…content…happy…understood… found…

…he felt his mind fall open with a burst of light, his walls melting, his pleasure surging through his body, his mind, his thoughts tangling with hers…Her mind was open as well and he ran to it, wanting to see, taste, and touch more of her, all of her...

…so soft and gentle and uncertain…the memory of his memories…how painful almost all of them were…and she ached for him…she ached for that boy who knew so little of happiness and love…and so much of death and loss. She understood him…his memories mirrored her own…his soul knew hers…

"If I have to die…I want to be in your arms…I want the last thing I see to be your eyes…I…I want to feel you in my mind…I want to feel you inside of me again and I want to be inside of you…I want…I want to love you the way I’ve been aching to love you since the day you left…"

"I tried not to think about you…and it was even harder than the first time…I was so stupid to have stayed away…to have wasted all that time we could have had…"

"Shhh…we’re here now…we’re together. They can’t hurt us Cerise… I won’t let them touch you…" his voice cracked and he swallowed, trying to be strong for her, for himself. "I never thought I would ever find this…find you…Julia used to tell me about it…about loving someone so completely you forgot where you ended and they began…about being willing to die for a touch…a whisper…I never believed in that kind of love until I met you…I found a part of me I never knew was missing in your eyes…I found a happiness I never knew existed in your arms…and I don’t want to let you go ever again…I can’t…Living without you isn’t living…You are my heart, my soul…"

He felt her hands gently cradling his face, and he opened his eyes to gaze into hers.

"You are my soul…" she murmured, and his heart tightened in his chest knowing what this was, what they were doing. He repeated the words back to her, feeling tears come to his eyes, tears of happiness, of hope…

"You are my soul…"

"With you is where I was meant to be…"

"With you is where I was meant to be…"

"From this life and into the next…"

"From this life and into the next…"

"I am for you as you are for me…"

"I am for you as you are for me…"

"I bind myself to you for eternity, neither death nor another can separate us…."

"I bind myself to you for eternity, neither death nor another can separate us…."

"You are my soul…"

"You are my soul…"

I love you James.

I love you Cerise…always…

Promise me we’ll find each other again…

I promise you…

They held each other, breathing one breath, their tears falling into their kisses as their hands left each others faces and joined at their sides, their fingers sliding together and glowing with power, a red and orange power that swirled around them growing stronger and stronger, hotter and hotter, burning away all the mistakes and the misunderstandings, burning away all the pain of what had never been and what could never be in this world.

Leyx was making his way down the corridor when he felt her. He had just finished a training session that made his head ache. He hated it – he hated instructing his people on the various ways to rip into a Sentreye mind and take what they needed before the Sentreye Consciousness caught on and destroyed their victim…

It felt like a betrayal…

It was a betrayal.

All he wanted to do was take advantage of the half hour they had allowed him and just go to his quarters and be alone. He didn’t want to find Reyne or Cerise - their sad eyes would only remind him of his own loss.

He wouldn’t sleep once he was alone because then he might dream and the fact that he would not find her in it was too much to bear right now.

He had been doing a good job of keeping level headed – focused on the job at hand. It was a distraction. And now he was regretting throwing himself into his appointed work.

He didn’t want his people to win anymore than Tom or Sarah or James or…or any Sentreye did so why was he still doing this? Why didn’t he just end it all?

Because there’s that chance…that chance that you’ll see her again…

So he kept on going.

He kept on breathing, working, and hating every minute of it.

It was an ache – a physical ache that was almost crippling at times, and he tried to pretend like he didn’t notice it, didn’t know why he sometimes felt…empty, and so desperately…sad.

He hadn’t been with her long…they had met each other in their dream world only a handful of times but that was all it took to know…

When Reyne had come back that night and she had allowed him access to her memory of her meeting with the Four, the moment he saw her his breath left him and there was this warmth…this recognition that spread throughout his body…and all he could think was "It’s her…"

That first time when he had found himself in her dream…he thought it was his, and that the vision he was talking to was not really her, but his ideal of what she would be like if he were to ever meet her… And then he did meet her and it was real – it was all real.

The only happiness he ever found was when he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep and met her in that place…that magical place that they had built together…

Their dream world…it was the closest he had ever come to finding heaven…They had been free to be themselves there – not fighters, not Mantriz, not Sentreye, just Leyx and…

…and he couldn’t even say her name.

It hurt too much.

He had been about to step through his door when he felt a warmth flood through his body, and without any say from him his power started swirling around him, dripping from his fingers into little suns that swooped around him before speeding off down the hall the way he just come.

He had to follow.

He knew instantly that his power was leading him to her.

To Julia.

Julia was pacing.

Back and forth, back and forth.

When she turned left she saw the expectant faces of hundreds of her people watching her for her signal. When she turned right she saw hundreds more. She could feel Sarah on the other side of the compound, completely calm – ready to lead her group at Tom’s word. Tom was tense. He was as worried as she was.

It was almost sundown.

No word yet from James.

She thought about reaching for him – letting her mind seek out his just for a moment, just to see if he was alright… There were two reasons why she ultimately decided against it. The first was that Tom was right – it would alert the Mantriz – that extra unrecognizable current of power would put them on the defensive and that was the last thing they needed when they were attempting a surprise attack. The second reason was that her mind wouldn’t only seek out James…but Leyx as well. She wouldn’t be able to control it - it would just happen. Her mind would touch his and she wouldn’t be able to think about anything else except finding him, seeing him with her own eyes, touching him with her fingers, clinging to him and not some memory she had been holding onto for months.

She knew she would see him soon, and for now she could wait. She had to concentrate on the mission, on leading her troops into enemy territory, into the final battle.

When it began she’d see him, and he’d come to her. He’d fight by her side, and then everything would be alright. Reyne and Cerise would join them and Sarah would realize that they had been nothing but trustworthy all along and her mother could inscribe their history in The Book and it would say that it was over. The Mantriz were defeated and they were free to live and love in peace. Free to rebuild the world, free to bring back the color, the light. Free to stare up at the sky without being afraid of what’s waiting on the ground. Free to gaze at the stars with a lover, a soulmate, without the fear of discovery hanging over their heads.

If that’s what would come out of this she could wait a little longer.

She felt a collective glimmer of anxiety from her troops and turned back to them. The door she was posted at was shimmering. It was being opened.

She cupped her hands together, her power flaring to life in a white burst of light and waited. She felt her troops tensing behind her, readying themselves.

Before he even stepped through the circle she knew.

Leyx.

The door exploded, thousands of gold suns tumbling out of it. She calmed the troops with her mind, telling them that it was alright.

He climbed through the door and for a moment they just stared at each other. And then he smiled.

She had missed that smile so much…that smile as bright and warm as the sun. She threw herself into his arms and he held her so hard she could barely breathe just like the last time.

She felt his body tense under hers and she pulled back to ease his fear at seeing so many of her people armed and ready to fight, to assure him they wouldn’t hurt him.

But that wasn’t it.

He cried out suddenly, tears streaming down his face. He was staring off into space, an expression of shock replacing the happiness that had colored his features just moments before.

She was about to ask him what was wrong when she felt it – a tearing inside of herself, like something was being ripped away. She felt a burning, a searing pain, and then nothing, an emptiness.

A part of her had died.

James… She screamed his name, no longer caring about the Mantriz.

Nothing.

It had been him, it had been him…their connection was lost.

He was gone, he was gone…

From across the compound she could feel her brother, she could feel Sarah, could hear her own cry of pain echoed in theirs and repeated still in the murmur of the troops as James’ death touched them through the Consciousness.

A second later a surge of red and orange light, braided together into one cord, burst through all of the doors of the compound, blasting them open. A flood of Mantriz followed bringing with them the smell of death from below – the death of those who had not escaped the blast and the death of those that had caused it.

Waves of Mantriz…rising up from the depths of the broken compound, thousands and thousands pouring out in a neverending stream from the doors, mixing with throngs of Sentreye…

Screaming in his head, curses and cries, echoing, echoing as his people killed, as his people fell. …

He desperately tried to push James to the back of his mind even as his departure left him gasping.

He had never thought one of them would actually die.

Why was that? He had seen so many perish – had seen Sarah’s mother crushed, James’ parents left empty by mindrape, his own father burned beyond recognition…Why had he thought he was invincible – that they all were?

Why had he never really considered the possibility that they might lose?

Yes, he had participated in the "back up plan", but he had never really thought it would be necessary – he had thought it was merely a standard precaution.

As he heard the screams of his people being torn into, crushed, it finally hit him that there was the very real possibility that none of them would make it – that he wouldn’t make it…and in all likely hood the next time he saw James, Julia, Sarah – it would be on another planet, in another body.

Was it wrong to be glad of that? Glad that if they didn’t win here, now, he would get another chance? That he would get to see his friends again? That he would have the chance to do everything in his power to keep all of them alive and safe?

He shut his mind off. It was ridiculous to think about the future, and it was wrong to depend on it. This was his battle, right here, right now.

He would not have James’ sacrifice be for nothing.

He would not die today and neither would Sarah nor Julia.

They were going to win.

They had to.

He would not allow himself to think about anything else except the enemy in front of him and the task at hand.

He would not think of James, his second in command, his friend, his brother.

Block him out.

He would not think of Julia. Julia was strong, Julia could survive anything. He made himself believe that that included the loss of James.

Block her out.

He would not think of Reyne, the woman whom he had given his heart to. The woman who had given hers to someone else.

Block.

He would not think of Sarah, the woman he had married because he couldn’t have her.

Reyne…

Block, block, block!

It didn’t matter anyway.

Love didn’t matter.

Block everyone and everything out and concentrate, dammit.

Only this mattered.

She used her pain. She turned it into rage, bloodlust. She tore into their minds one by one and tossed them aside, laughing at how inadequate some of them were when she felt them attempt to get inside her and fail. Her power glowed with a deadly purple fire, seething with hatred for these things…these Mantriz that had invaded her planet, her home, her lover.

That wasn’t important anymore.

She had won. Tom had married her - he’d chosen her. He never even spoke of Reyne and when they shared themselves, their minds, she never saw her there.

But…she never saw herself either.

It wasn’t the same as it had been before Reyne had corrupted him. At times he seemed so far away, and there was always a part of him that was closed off to her… She refused to dwell on it. They were together the way they were meant to be – they were joined – nothing could change that.

She flipped another Mantriz out of her way and caught sight of Tom, long thick needles of icy blue energy shooting out from his hands, piercing the mob. He was making his way toward the opening of the compound. She followed and called to Julia to get inside as soon as she could. She felt the sting of Julia’s pain, her disorientation over loosing James and told her to focus, to not think about it. It was the only way they could get through this – they had to stay strong. Thinking about James… Her heart ached and she felt tears come to her eyes, but she forced them away. Thinking about James would not help them now. He had done his part. He had gotten them access and had given his life for it. He had done his job and she knew even though she could no longer feel him within the connection, even though she knew he was gone, she knew that he would not want them to waste the opportunity. He would want them to go on and finish with the Mantriz once and for all. He would want them to put aside their grief and continue with the plan.

Get inside.

Find and destroy the Council.

Shatter the Mantriz consciousness.

He had been hoping she would come to her senses. He didn’t want Cerise to die, he cared about her. She was like a sister to him, but he had to tell the Council. It was his job.

Besides, he had given her a chance to set it right and she hadn’t taken it.

He refused to feel guilty.

Even as he felt the tearing he would not allow himself to cry. He heard Leyx and Reyne – felt their shock and pain shudder through him but he continued down the hallway.

She had betrayed them – betrayed them for a Sentreye. His stomach twisted as he remembered what he had gotten from her, the feelings of love, devotion, fear for what he, her friend, might do if he found out about the two of them. It was disgusting, wrong. He didn’t understand how it had happened and he didn’t want to.

If he hadn’t found out, Leyx or Reyne would have, and they would have protected her and then he would have been forced to turn them in as well. It was better this way.

And he had given her a chance.

She had made her choice. She did it to herself. He was only doing his job.

Dammit Cerise...Why…

The blast lifted him off his feet and flung him through the air. He held his hands out in front of him and instinctively activated his power. It blew a hole in the wall before him, and he twisted his body as the power behind him pushed him through it. He landed in another room, tucking his body under him and rolling. He collapsed on the ground, breathing hard. He hadn’t broken anything but his back was badly burned and there was still that pain from Cerise’s broken connection that left him disoriented.

Get up…

He forced his body into a sitting position, his muscles screaming in protest, his head swimming, making him dizzy – it had taken a lot to break down that wall in such a short amount of time.

His vision was a little watery. He blinked back his tears trying not to be affected by what he had lost. And then he felt her, Reyne. He felt her more strongly than he had in months.

The day she had told him that she couldn’t marry him, the Council had taken her away. He had pleaded with them to spare her life, knowing that something else was wrong and that maybe she just needed time. He himself had felt rushed by the whole affair as well, but he knew that it would be alright. He knew Reyne loved him and he loved her. If she was having doubts he would not let her die because of them, especially when he knew in his heart in time she would realize how silly she was being and come back to him. But the Council had been offended, angry and suspicious when she had been unable to give them an answer as to why she refused to be joined with him.

He hadn’t seen her since that day, that day they had led her away and he had pleaded with his father not to destroy her. He had told him that it was illogical to dispose of her, and that his case was based solely on the fact that she was needed for the attack they had been planning for next month. They had received information that led them to believe that the Sentreye leaders were occupying the Majdlyn region, and they needed Reyne to get into it – they needed to be united – Reyne, Leyx, Cerise, and himself – Kieran. They were stronger together than they were apart.

His father had listened to him, and her life was spared, but he hadn’t seen her in months. He felt her sometimes though, at the back of his mind, but he hadn’t pursued her, hadn’t asked after her, because then his father, the Council, would know that he wanted her alive because he didn’t think he could live without her.

Those kinds of feelings were considered a weakness.

He knew in his heart that he’d find her again. Even if they didn’t release her until it was time for them to raid Majdlyn, he would still find his way back to her, find a way to be with her, and maybe by that time she would be ready to accept him as her husband and they would return to their base and stand before the council with news of their victory and of their resumed engagement. He could wait for that, for her. He could wait forever if that’s what it took.

He felt a cry of pain within the Consciousness and tore himself away from his thoughts of Reyne.

Something was happening above…

They were being attacked.

He called out to Leyx, demanding to know what was happening on the grounds but he didn’t answer. When he delved deeper he could feel Leyx’s pain over Cerise and something else, something forbidden. He felt from him what he had felt from Cerise before she had chosen a Sentreye scum over him, over their people.

He stood there for a moment, frozen in shock at the fact that not one but two of them had been controlled by Sentreye – because that’s what it had to have been. The Sentreye were making them believe it was love, they had gotten inside of their minds and tricked them… They were supposed to be too strong for that, their minds too secure against attack to be overcome like that. Kieran took a deep breath, his eyes narrowing. It was them. The Four. Only they would have had enough power to truly be of any threat to them.

The Sentreye in the cell with Cerise…he must have been one of them too…Even though he looked like a Mantriz, and Kieran knew as soon as he saw him that it was a disguise…he should have sensed his power… He supposed he had, but he was too concerned over the strange feelings he was receiving from Cerise to realize that he had in his grasp one of The Four and not just any Sentreye He would have done the job himself, rather than sending someone else if had known…

He had to get topside. He needed to get Leyx away from that control and dispose of it, so they could stand together and defend themselves, their base. There were only three of them now.

He felt her again suddenly, so strong he almost swore she was in the room with him. He turned away from the door, knowing that he should be up there fighting with his people, protecting Leyx, but she was too close, for the first time in ages she was so close. And something was wrong – They were being attacked – surely the Council would have released her from her punishment long enough to help fight back…

He followed her essence, closed his eyes and let it lead him. When he opened his eyes he was facing the wall, opposite of the one he had blasted through. She was on the other side of it.

He pressed his palms against it and concentrated until the particles of stone shrunk into themselves and fell to the ground in little beads, leaving a door big enough for him to crawl through. He was starting to feel tired. He was using his power too much, power that he should be conserving for the fight above.

He didn’t care. He had to find Reyne.

He stepped through the hole and stood there for a moment gaping. She was there, chained to the wall by her hands and her feet, curled into a ball on the ground, there was a sickly gray aura around her head, like a halo.

That was how they’d been reconnected to the consciousness, he realized. They’d done it through her…they’d ripped into her mind and used her connection with the three of them as a conduit. He fell to his knees beside her, touched her dark hair with shaking hands, pushing it gently away from her face.

She blinked up at him slowly tears still falling from her eyes.

"I didn’t know…" he whispered, "I didn’t know that they did this to you…" She closed her eyes at his touch, her voice hoarse when she whispered Cerise’s name. "She…she’s gone Reyne…she betrayed us. They’re outside…we’re being attacked…" She nodded, murmuring that she could feel them, their people, their pain as they died and their rage at being ambushed on their own grounds. He felt it all too, but he had pushed it to the back of his mind the moment he had felt her.

What are you doing here? Kieran’s head shot up as he heard his father’s voice. He was standing in the doorway. He was angry. You’re needed! We’re under attack, Kieran!

"How could you do this to her!" His voice shook with anger, with hatred for his father for authorizing this.

Get up there NOW

Release her! His father regarded him coolly then glanced over at Reyne, who had tried to stand by his side when his father had come into the room. When he looked away she slumped lifelessly to the ground.

He couldn’t feel her anymore. He searched for her mind, searched for a soothing breath of thought and found nothing. She was lost to him.

"No!" Kieran lunged at his father, silver lightening leaping from his hands, cutting the air in jagged streaks headed straight for him. And then they stopped. The bolts froze in midair then fell to the ground and shattered. He felt himself being lifted up and hurled out the door, being pushed up, up through one of the breaks in the compound Cerise and the Sentreye boy’s final release of power had made, hearing his father in his head, screaming at him to do his job before he really did destroy her.

He let himself feel relief that Reyne was not dead. He didn’t care if his father felt it from him. He already knew that she meant more to him than the Council ever would, there was no point in hiding it now.

She was still alive.

And he would win this battle for her – they all would, and maybe then they would free her.

He flew through the air and landed on the battlefield surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Sentreye and Mantriz tearing into each other, ripping each other to pieces. He blasted a few dozen Sentreye aside and saw him.

Leyx.

He was standing beside one of the Four, a beautiful girl with long gold hair and a white sheen of power that surrounded the both of them in a milky haze, shielding them as Leyx fired into a mob of Mantriz.

She had him, she was controlling him. She was making him kill his own people.

He held out his hand and sent a bolt sailing through the air towards them. It hit the shield and it dissipated, falling to the ground in little drops like rain, coating the fallen bodies under their feet in pearls of white light leaving them exposed. He raised his hand again, aiming for her, and released his power.

He felt an immediate tearing in his mind, as Leyx stepped in front of it, shielding the woman’s body with his own. He watched in slow motion, his mind on fire, as his friend fell to the ground, little suns of the last of his power tumbling from his fingers, sinking into the blood soaked ground.

They stood there for a moment, staring at each other, Leyx’s body between them, and he wondered for a brief instant if he had been wrong about her and what she had been doing to his friend. She looked away from him, not seeming to care if he attacked. She was staring down at Leyx, then kneeling beside him, her shaking fingers running through his hair, her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

What had he done…

He’d killed him.

He’d killed Leyx…He’d killed Cerise…

Kill her!

He gasped as his father’s voice filled his head, the scream echoing, echoing until he thought he’d go mad.

And suddenly his hand was being raised again, his power was being activated against his will. There was a burst of deadly silver light and when he regained control of his body and was able to turn it off he saw the girl, her long blond hair splayed out over the stained earth, her body cradled against Leyx’s, her white power draining from her body and melting into the gold puddles of light Leyx had left behind glimmering sadly beneath them.

He cried and sank to his knees before them, his heart an inferno of guilt. It had been a mistake…This was wrong, this was all wrong…

He felt his father, felt him commending him on the killing he had been forced to commit. A day ago his words would have meant the world to him. Now they were empty, they were all empty.

He had nothing now.

Only Reyne.

If you don’t finish this… the cold, cold voice of his father warned, backed by the murmurs of agreement from the other council members, then she will be taken from you as well…

He had no choice.

He had to protect the only thing he had left, or die trying.

He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe, his world was falling apart…Julia was gone…James was gone…focus dammit!…Julia…Focus!

Tom jumped down into the jagged hole in the earth revealing the pale sterility of a white hallway. He landed with a soft thump and ran down it a haze of blue power surrounding him, leaving silvery burns on the walls. He ignored the tears streaming down his face for his sister, for his friend, for them all, trusting that James’ memory of the layout would lead him to the main hall – the control room was no longer a concern, they were in, but the main hall – that’s where they would be… the Council. He had the strength of the Sentreye who were still alive outside and fighting with all they had behind him, in his mind, protecting it, giving him their power to add to his own. He would need every ounce of it.

Only he and Sarah were left to face the Council.

She was right behind him. He could feel her biting back her own pain, determinedly keeping pace with him, her own power a thick purple mist that swirled with his offering comfort and the promise that they would do this, they were strong enough. It would all be over soon. They were strong enough.

And then he stopped running.

Reyne.

He felt her. Sarah slammed into him and they fell to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Sarah looked down into his eyes from on top of him.

"What is it?! Do they know we’re here…" she leapt to her feet and offered her hand to him.

"No…" He pulled himself up and started off down the hallway again, then stopped. She was here, she was close. And she was calling for him, she knew he was there, she needed him. He turned back around and started down the second hallway.

"Tom…what are you doing? The main hall is this way…"

"I know…it’s…"

"It’s her isn’t it?" Sarah spat out bitterly following him up the hallway and grabbing his arm, forcing him to look at her. "Just say it Tom! Reyne is more important – all of this means nothing! All of our training, all of the sacrifices that have been made for us to get here, for this moment mean nothing because she’s still the only thing that matters!"

"She’s in trouble Sarah!"

"We’re in trouble Tom! Last time I checked there were only two of us left! It’s a fucking miracle that we made it this far and you want to throw it away!"

"Sarah we need her to fight with us! We need all the power we can get!"

"We don’t know if she’ll-"

"She will Sarah! She will stand with us and fight by my side, by your side. You’re going to have to resign yourself to the fact that if we want to win this we need her!" He turned his back on her and made his way toward the silver-lined hole in the wall where he could almost see her essence, green like the cloudless sky, as calm as his heart in her hands, tumbling out of it.

"Promise me you’re not doing this because of what you think you had with her." He turned his head to look back at her as he began to climb through the hole.

"I’ll be back as soon as I find her. I want you to continue on. I’ll meet you at the hall. Don’t go in with out me Sarah. Wait for us. We’ll face it together - all of us." And then he was gone.

She stood there for a moment, all alone in the empty hallway. He had left her. She turned, stumbling down the hallway in the direction they had been going. She couldn’t believe it. She felt like her heart was breaking. She wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that he wanted her with them to make them more powerful but she knew that wasn’t the only reason. He had not been able to promise her, and his silence told her more than any of his words could. She had his hand, Reyne had his heart. That was the way it would always be.

She heard someone around the corner, the hard click of heels on the floor, and flung herself through one of the doors hoping there was no one inside. A part of her almost hoped they’d catch her, put an end to all the heartache, all the disappointment that they had imposed on her all her life.

They had taken away the one thing she had always thought would be hers no matter what.

She had nothing without him – only this, only the cause, and without that, without him…who was she?

If she died…if she was caught right now – if whoever was out there in the hall found her here would he even care? Would he look away from Reyne’s eyes long enough to acknowledge her death with a whispered goodbye…?

She pressed her back against the wall as the footsteps came closer, stopping just outside the door. She held her breath, all of a sudden feeling very lightheaded… but it wasn’t an unpleasant sensation…it was actually rather nice…

Her entire body suddenly flooded with a warmth that crept into her heart, easing away some of the tension, some of the ache. She felt as though she were floating. She had the strangest urge to step through that door and see who was there. She was sure that that was where the feelings were coming from, and she felt drawn to it, like she had to see…like if she did, everything would be alright, everything would make sense again.

She was standing in front of the door, could almost see him through it…a gentle silver shadow that touched her, imprinted itself on her body, sinking deeper until it found her soul. She saw him step forward, sensing her there in his room, wanting to see her as well, but then he stopped. She ran to the door listening to her heart that was telling her to go after him, to not let him leave her yet, forgetting that she was supposed to be careful, forgetting that this could very well be a trick...

She froze when she heard his voice on the other side. He was talking to someone.

"…Yes…I think they will break soon…There are more of us…Yes…Yes…Two of the Four are…dead and…Yes I know…No…No we haven’t found them yet…"

She could only hear the boy’s tight answers. The other party was speaking to him with mindspeech and he was refusing to answer him in that way. He was angry. His voice was harsh, his aura a darkened silver that she could see in her mind as clearly as she saw her own.

She wanted to stand by him.

She wanted to help him destroy the…the thing he was talking to because she knew he wouldn’t do it himself even though he wanted to…he wanted to so badly he could taste it…she could taste it.

"How could you…" he choked out, his cold demeanor melting a little under an intense wave of emotion that almost made her gasp. "Don’t you tell me that! I’ve done my "job" and I will continue to do it but you have to let her go now…" she could sense that he was getting no response, and the coldness crawled right back into his voice as he tried another approach. "I need her to help with the other two. Leyx is…Leyx is dead…Cerise is dead. She’s all we have left. I can’t fight them alone – you didn’t make me strong enough for that…."

Still no answer.

"If you don’t release her and I fail, it will not be my fault – it will be yours, and you know I am not the only one who will see it that way."

She felt a burst of relief from him, his aura softening a little but still streaked with jagged gray bolts of worry, as he received the answer he wanted. He turned on his heel, intending to go and "release" the prisoner he had been fighting for, then stopped again at the door.

A wave of fear chased away her relief that he had not forgotten her. What was she thinking? She was vulnerable like this, all alone with no back up...and here she was welcoming him…whoever he was…

Kieran…

Yes…

She felt her mind start to reach for his, call to his then sharply cut it off, forcing into his head a suggestion that he hadn’t felt anything from in here instead. She told him that it was a mistake and he needed to continue on his way. She held her breath waiting to see if it had worked, and heard him murmur something as he turned away from the door and started off again down the hallway.

"I’m coming Reyne…"

She swallowed.

So he was in love with her as well…

Was there no man on this planet that didn’t belong to her?

Sarah bit her lip, trying not to cry. It was stupid to be jealous…in fact everything she had been feeling, everything she had been thinking for the last twenty minutes had been stupid and so unlike her. She had never felt anything like that before...not even with Tom...

Tom.

Tom was with Reyne.

And Kieran was coming for her…

Without another thought she launched herself through the door, no longer caring if anyone saw her. She had to warn him. She ran down the hallway calling to him, screaming for him in her mind but he didn’t answer.

He crawled through the silver lined hole in the wall as Sarah’s light footsteps echoed down the hall. It was true what he had said – they did need Reyne’s help if they wanted to survive. He wished that was the only reason he was coming after her. It would have been so much easier on everyone if it was. It would have been far less painful.

The moment he had felt her mind brush up against his he wondered why he had ever tried to forget the peace that came with it, the instant recognition, the love, when it so easily broke through all the haphazard barriers he had put up, that she had helped him put up. He knew she’d been helping him along with forgetting, with letting go. She had done her best to keep herself away from him, her mind closed off to him. And it had worked - he hadn’t so much as felt a breath from her for months…but all the work that they’d put into blocking each other out was pointless. He’d always remember what it had been like… holding her, kissing her. He’d ache for it, for her, forever.

But he had obeyed her wishes anyway even though his heart was screaming at him for it. He had done his part to stay away knowing all the time that if he reached out just once he would have been able to get through to her, he would have been able to reform their connection. He would have been able to get her back.

But he hadn’t reached out.

Not once.

It wasn’t out of respect for Sarah’s wishes that had kept him away, and it wasn’t just because Reyne had made it clear that that was what she wanted. He hadn’t reached out because it still hurt.

He knew she loved him, he knew that she had to do it to please her people, her parents…he understood why she gave herself to Kieran…it was part of the reason why he had given himself to Sarah. It was expected.

He was hurt because she had not told him herself.

He didn’t want to think about why, didn’t want to come face to face with the possibility that she loved this man, this Kieran, loved him more than…

He shook his head and scanned the room, letting her lead him to another hole in the opposite wall. None of that mattered now. All that mattered was that she was in trouble and he could help her. He could save her the way she had saved him when she had shown him how beautiful something could be even in the middle of a war. She had given him hope. And if he could no longer give her love, he wanted at least to give her help.

He crawled through the final barrier, and stopped short.

No…

His heart dropped out of his chest.

Reyne…

His breath left him, and he stumbled, falling to his knees, falling to the ground beside her.

She was lying there, motionless, barely a breath stirring the dark curtain of hair that covered her face.

He frantically called out to her with his mind, lifting her off of the dirty ground and cradling her in the circle of his arms. She was so cold…

He pushed her hair away and felt her shallow breath against his fingers. She wasn’t gone…She was still alive, he could feel her mind feather soft, trying to break through the haze that kept her so weak. He stroked her hair urging her with his fingers, with his lips on her cheeks to open her eyes and see him, know that he was here and that he would never ever leave her. He saw what was wrong, saw the sickly gray halo of power that wasn’t hers keeping her captive.

He tried to push it away with his mind, his power, and nothing happened. She still did not stir and the dark power did not fade.

Reyne…can you hear me…? Can you… He didn’t know what to do, how to free her. He held her close, he brushed his tears from her cheeks and kissed her, sending her all of the love he’d been trying to hold back for so long, sending her his memories of the first time he had seen her, touched her.

A…falling down inside of himself… it wasn’t as terrifying as it should have been…this willingness…this need to let his barriers crumble and leave him exposed, vulnerable to her…

Being near her made him feel safe. It made him feel alive and free.

He wanted to let her in…wanted to show her his soul and he wanted to see hers, to touch it, to hold it to his and sink into an oblivion of her and escape the pain, the death and destruction of the world around them. He wanted to find freedom from the madness in her.

He would keep her in his soul, where she would always be with him, where he would always be free to love her.

He buried his head in her neck, crying for her, for what had been lost, crying because he wasn’t enough, his love wasn’t enough to save her…

I loved you the moment I saw you…my heart recognized yours and I knew we were meant to be…come back to me…come back to me Reyne…

And then he felt fingers in his hair, gently running themselves through the strands soothing him. And then he felt them on his face, brushing the tears away, tilting his chin up to see.

She was smiling down at him, tears in her eyes, and her power, a deep serene green swirled around her kissed by feathers of his own, as together they forced the dark power away and fell into each other’s arms as it faded into nothingness.

She murmured his name between kisses and he touched her face, her hair, held her so close…

How did this happen to you…it was me wasn’t it? They found out about us and-

No… she whispered feeling a tide of guilt stir in him. No…they never knew…I kept you safe…I kept what we had…what we have ours…They invaded my mind…they never thought to look in my soul…I kept you mine…

Why didn’t we know…why didn’t I feel you…

I didn’t let anyone know…Not Cerise, Leyx…not Kieran…I didn’t want to risk them coming after me…I kept you away for the same reason…I wanted to keep them safe. I wanted to keep you safe…I blocked you all out as best I could…but when you came here…when I felt you enter the compound I couldn’t stop myself…I had to let you in…my soul…my heart is stronger than my mind…I had to listen to them…I had to call to you with whatever part of me I still had left…

"You’re free now…" he whispered caressing her face, kissing her tears. "You’re safe…"

"Because you’re here…"

"I still don’t…why did they do this to you if it wasn’t because of me…?"

"Because I wouldn’t do it…" she murmured, "I couldn’t…"

"Couldn’t what?"

"Give myself to Kieran…"

He stared at her.

She hadn’t…

"It’s okay…" she whispered, holding him close. "I know…I know about her…Sarah…I saw everything…"

"I’m so sorry…" He choked, "I never would have…"

"No…I understand Tom…you did what you felt you had to do…I pushed you away…I gave you no reason to think we could ever…"

"But we already are Reyne…we’ve been bonded…I gave myself to you the moment I laid eyes on you…I think…I think Sarah knows this in her heart…"

"Is she here…?"

"She’s waiting for us…" Reyne nodded and brought her lips to his.

"I’ll stand with you today…everyday."

"I’m not letting you go ever again…I’ve missed you so much…Not a day has gone by…"

"I know…" she whispered. "Me too…I love you Tom…"

"I love you Reyne…with all my heart…"

"With all my soul…"

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her, letting his power fill her, urging her to take some of his strength until her own power glowed with renewed fire…blinding blue braided together with shimmering green, one cord, one power, one bond, one strength…

Kieran raced down the hall, trying to shake off the strange feelings from before. He didn’t know how to describe them…what they were…what they did to him…all he knew was that for a brief moment he had felt safe…He had felt…loved. He didn’t understand it. It scared him because he didn’t know what it was, where it was coming from.

He forced it out of his mind, convincing himself that he was just tired from using so much of his power all at once. And his mind had agreed that there was nothing there in his room. He wasn’t sure he believed it but he went anyway. Because he had gotten what he wanted. They were letting him free Reyne…he would save her and they would stand together and finish this…and maybe then they really would be free…

He turned the corner and ran down the hallway, following her essence. She felt stronger now…maybe she knew he was coming…

He climbed through the first hole and then the second.

One of the Four was with her…

He had his arms around her, his power, a sparkling blue surrounded her…

He saw glimmers of her green but he was overpowering her…

No…He couldn’t lose her now…not now after everything…

He had to protect her.

He fired up and neither of them saw, he raised his hand waiting for the perfect moment, where she would be out of harms way and the Sentreye who was trying to hurt her would be destroyed and then there would only be one left…

One…

Her image filled his mind…a girl he had never seen before…a sad girl with blond hair, and determined blue eyes…a girl that would do anything to protect the ones she loved…

He felt her power hit him from behind. He crumpled to the ground, drowning in a swirling purple sea that some part of him recognized and called to. It had been her behind the door.

It was her…The One…

He smiled at her through the pain, through the confusion that was clouding his vision, and she looked down at him, her still smoking fist trembling into open fingers, her face contorted in shock at who he was and at what she had done…

He saw tears streaming down her face and he wanted to touch them, to kiss them away and say that it was alright…that he forgave her…He wanted to ask her to forgive him for everything…for not understanding until now everything that had happened between their people…

He wanted to tell her that he was sorry for listening to her when she had told him to walk away…because he knew she had wanted him to find her there in his room… He knew she had felt what he had…and he knew that it wasn’t the end, not here, not like this. He promised her with a gentle whisper in her mind that somehow felt like home to him that he wouldn’t run from her next time, and he closed his eyes.

Sarah fell to her knees beside Kieran’s body, crying out in pain as she felt the tearing. It was echoed in Reyne’s sob as she collapsed against Tom.

She didn’t look at them, at her husband who was holding the Mantriz girl so tenderly, who was cradling her against his chest. She only looked at him…Kieran…

She had seen his power and she had fired up because she knew what would happen if she didn’t. He would destroy Tom because he didn’t know…he didn’t understand. She had forced all the feelings out of her mind that had been telling her that he was The One, that she mustn’t hurt him but hold him close forever because he was The One…

She had forced them out because she didn’t believe it. Because she loved Tom and would until the day she died. Because she did not believe that her love for this Mantriz boy was real… She refused to be taken in in the same way everyone else had – She had to stay strong for Tom’s sake. And so she had denied it. She had attacked him, she had killed him, she had unleashed her power upon him even as tears streamed down her face because she didn’t want to do it, she didn’t want to hurt him.

She didn’t realize until it was too late that it wasn’t a lie. She was the one who had been lying…lying to herself. She felt the tearing and forced herself to face it, what she had done…and it was worse than the tearing away of James and Julia…because now she was broken. Now a part of her soul was missing.

Reyne lifted her head from Tom’s chest, wiping the tears away. Kieran was gone. Cerise and Leyx…everyone…

This had to end.

She looked at Sarah sitting there on the floor beside Kieran, her face shining with tears, the hardness that had so long defined the girl for her was gone, shattered. She wanted to go to her, put her arms around her and tell her she was sorry but she didn’t think she had the right.

Reyne let go of Tom and he went to her. He knelt down beside her and tried to hold her. Sarah shook her head and gently stopped him with her hand. She stood, wiping the tears from her eyes and looked at Reyne.

"I’m sorry I didn’t believe you." She said. Reyne nodded and the girl took a deep breath, trying to center herself. "We have to do this soon…I think…I think the Council might know that we’re here…Do they know about…about….him?"

Reyne shook her head. "No…Kieran was connected to the Consciousness through me…Tom and I broke out of it…so no they don’t know he’s gone…I can’t sense them anymore either – I’m completely disconnected."

"Then…when we destroy them you’ll be alright?"

Reyne nodded at the girl. "I think so…and hopefully it will release their hold on our people…Everything will be alright… Sentreye…Mantriz…we’ll be alright…no more fighting, no more death…because finally they’ll know…they’ll all know…"

"We have to do this now." Tom said. "The three of us together…It’s time to end this…"

They were waiting for us. They knew we were coming. I don’t know how they knew but they did. We burst into the Main Hall, a haze of blue, green, and purple power. They were surprised to see Reyne with us. And angry. They spoke to her for a moment. I can only assume they were attempting to get her to betray us, to stand with them and destroy us. All we heard was her answer – "No." It reminded me of standing behind that door, listening to half of the conversation, being proud of the strength and will he had to stand up to his father…

They asked about Kieran.

She told him he was gone. They said something else to her – something that caused her eyes to widen with fear. Tom felt it, knew what was happening and he called out her name as she crumpled to the ground her own power consuming her.

The Council had killed her, had turned her own power against her.

I heard Tom’s cry, the anguish, the fury, and I locked my mind onto his, adding my own to it. We joined our powers, we added the strength of those who were still outside, still fighting with everything they had and we used it. Our power shot out of our bodies, two streams of blue and purple fire, crackling with pain and anger for everything they had taken from us – our bodies, our home, our parents, our friends, our loves… We used everything that was inside of us, and we didn’t even allow ourselves to feel joy, satisfaction when the first and second waves of the Council that had been coming towards us disintegrated.

We remained focused, only concentrating on one thing - on destroying what was left of the Council.

We were strong, but not strong enough. Our power began to dwindle and then recede. My head throbbed and my entire body burned. I felt blood pouring down from my forehead into my eyes, and my hands were slick with it. I could feel Tom’s physical pain in my body, his emotional pain in my head and I knew he could feel mine.

We had almost done it…but we needed Reyne. We had come so close and we had failed.

The Leader…Kieran’s father…He came toward us, motioned with his hand at the few remaining members and they took hold of us. We were too weak to shake them off. Tom was staring at her…Reyne, lying on the ground, her hand outstretched, trying to hold him one last time. I watched him struggle against them, trying to reach her. He used the last of his power to blast them off long enough to touch her face before he collapsed, completely drained.

They led me out of the hall, away from Tom. They locked me in a cell.

The only thing keeping me company is the promise that they would be back soon.

I know I will die and I’m not afraid. I’m not sitting here weeping for my life, for all the mistakes I’ve made, I’m not thinking about him…Kieran…because I know if I do I will not have the strength to finish writing this, my mind will be filled with him and what I did instead of concentrating on inscribing my words into the stone pages of The Book that has already left this planet and is traveling to Earth. And I have to do this, I have to let you know what happened to us. I have to let you know that we weren’t strong enough apart. We needed each other. We lost each other and we failed.

After everything that has happened…even though I know now that they truly did want to help us…I still blame them. I can’t help blaming them because I know if we had never met them we would have been together – The Four of us. James, Julia, Tom and Sarah. We would have been able to defeat them once and for all.

I’m writing this so we will be stronger next time, so we will know how dangerous it is to let someone in, no matter how much we want to. Stay focused on what you are, hold fast to your purpose and don’t be distracted, don’t let each other go.

They are too dangerous, too strong…They have no soul, no mercy. We have seen that proven… We have seen it in the tortured eyes of our parents as they gave us up to the cause… We have seen it in the memories of those at the compound, the fighters, the survivors who shared their painful experiences with us so we might learn from them…We have seen it in the cold, dark, emptiness of the Walking Dead who wander the streets waiting for a release that we can not give…

Everything the Mantriz touch dies. There is an inherent evil in them – a need to destroy, to conquer…Ryene would have us believe that it was only the Council who were like that, that her people were good people who would never have hurt us if it wasn’t for the influence of the Council. But we’ll never know if that’s true.

Tom would cite Reyne as an example, Cerise and Leyx. He would tell me that they were good, that they were like us, and I would argue tha-

…

…

Tom…Tom is gone…I felt him go…I’m alone…I’m next…They’re coming for me now…

They won’t have me.

I won’t let them tear into my mind. I’ll end this myself.

I’m not afraid to do this, to die because I know what’s waiting for me. I’ll see Tom again, I will love him again because I will not be able to help it. I’ll see Julia again, we’ll reclaim the friendship that has comforted me throughout most of my life. I’ll find James and argue with him as I always have, and know that we challenge each other to be better, stronger.

This time I won’t let go of them. I can’t.

Maybe when this is over, when we are freed from the expectations and hopes of our people, when they are safe and we are free to live our own lives maybe then things will be different. Maybe then I’ll find Kieran again. Maybe we’ll all find each other again.

But we have to fight first. We have to win.

So until then, be strong. Stay together – let no one come between you… It’s the only way to survive.

It’s the only way to defeat them.

She stared out the window, twirling a blond curl around her finger. They’d been driving for days. He hadn’t even told her where they were going. She stopped arguing with him about things like that a long time ago. It was pointless. He would do what he wanted, tell her what he wanted no matter what she said or how much she yelled at him that it wasn’t fair. He didn’t care about fairness. He didn’t care about what she wanted. He didn’t care that she was lonely, that she felt all the time like a part of her was missing, like she was floundering and just waiting for someone to throw her a life preserver. It wasn’t going to be him. He’d probably just let her drown rather than inconvenience himself.

Jerk.

She turned back to her novel as he climbed back into the car after filling up the tank. He plucked it from her hands and glanced at the cover. It was a romance novel. Admittedly a trashy one but at least it was entertaining. The same could not be said of him. He’d barely spoken for hours. He tossed it into the garbage can and closed his door. She stared at him as he buckled up his seatbelt.

"I can’t believe you! I was reading that!"

"It’s trash."

She glared at him and slumped back against her seat, turning back to the window. She decided that the next time they stopped she’d buy another just to spite him.

Besides she had to have something to do. This landscape just was not doing it for her…although the desert did feel a little familiar, like she had been here before.

She asked him if they had been in this area of the country before, not really expecting him to answer her because he never answered her questions.

"This is where I found you." he said.

Oh.

"Oh…You don’t think he’ll try to look for us here?"

"No. He will. Eventually."

"Then why…?"

"Because it’s time for you to meet them. It’s time for you all to be together again."

She stared at him and frowned. What the hell was he talking about?

She watched as he opened his bag in the backseat with his mind and pulled something out of it. It looked like an old book made out of some kind of stone. He floated it towards her and dropped it on her lap.

She picked it up and felt a little shock from it. She flipped it open and stared down at the strange designs decorating it’s pages. She didn’t understand it but she knew she had seen it before.

"You know I can’t understand the language yet." She complained shutting it. He never looked away from the road, but opened it again for her.

"You’ll remember it."

"But-"

"Do not argue with me, Tessy. Read it and remember. Know who you are." She sighed and closed the book again. He was getting angry.

"I’ll read it later." She promised, "I want to sleep a little first. I barely slept last night." Motel Six didn’t exactly have the most comfortable beds.

"We’ll be there soon." Was all he said, and she took one last look out the window as the golden desert rushed by, empty except for a tall sign by the side of the road that said "Welcome To Roswell", before closing her eyes and drifting off to sleep, her fingers absently tracing the design on the cover of The Book.

The End

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