Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
ELLIOT GROANED AT THE feel of soft bedding as he crawled beneath the covers, muscles sore down to his bones, every inch of his skin too tight and heavy.
Even if this mattress was absolutely abysmal compared to those he formerly took for granted, it was several large steps above the cold wooden floor he’d achieved a few grateful hours of sleep on during their mission.
Our successful mission , he corrected, shuffling around until he found the least painful way to lie still.
No sooner had he closed his eyes than he opened them in the middle of a pitched struggle between two ragamuffin boys surrounded by a dozen others. They were in some sort of empty lot, dry dirt and weeds surrounded by tall brick buildings. A city, but not Chicago.
Something recognizable though, somewhere I’ve been. Is this Warren’s dream? he wondered, swiftly followed by, Who else?
“Alright boys!” he called. “Stand down!”
Neither paid him any attention, fists flying, fingernails clawing and grabbing.
Right then. Elliot stuck out a hand and froze the dream.
One of the boys, with a grime-covered face, blood trickling from a gash on his cheekbone, smashed his small fist into the face of the much larger boy to no effect at all.
That seemed to capture his interest, and wide, confused, hazel eyes met Elliot’s.
That was Warren all right. Elliot’s mouth tugged up into a crooked smile. I suppose he’s always been scrappy.
With a wave of his hand, Elliot dissolved the world around them and fashioned it into the parlor in his childhood home.
Light golden wallpaper with cream colored scrollwork scaled the walls lined with dark bookshelves.
Beneath a chandelier sat a beautiful piano.
Comfortable chairs were lined along the wall beneath a large family portrait opposite to the white stone fireplace.
As Elliot lowered his arm to his side, Warren’s form went wispy and he shifted into his usual appearance, glancing around the room curiously.
“Haven’t thought of that in a while,” Warren muttered, rubbing his knuckles though no marks remained.
“Should I ask?”
Warren rolled his eyes. “If you take me somewhere I can collapse first. I’m exhausted. Feels like it’s been one bad dream after another for ages.”
Prickling awareness tingled at the base of Elliot’s neck.
“Of course.” He waved his hand theatrically and they were seated on a plush settee before the gently crackling fire.
Warren slouched instantly, his chin tucking to his chest, arms crossing as if it took all his effort not to melt straight into the padding.
“When you say it feels like one bad dream after another—”
“Hmm? Oh that. It’s nothing. Just nightmares is all. I knew you couldn’t always be here when I fell asleep, but I guess I didn’t think too deeply about how awful it’d feel.”
Elliot’s brow furrowed. He wanted to ask about the dream earlier, but this was troubling.
He couldn’t let another opportunity to discover what was happening pass by.
“Warren, tell me the last thing you remember being awake for.” Raising his eyebrows, Warren looked at him skeptically.
“Please think. It could be tremendously important.”
Rubbing his forehead, Warren’s eyelashes fluttered down in concentration.
“It’s hard to remember. We finished training.
They couldn’t decide where to send us, and then we got our orders.
I’m going to serve at a listening post somewhere near Ypres.
They think I’ll be able to feel when there’s movement from the Germans. ”
A slight trickle of relief seeped into Elliot. “So you haven’t arrived at the front yet? You haven’t been hurt?”
Warren’s lips pursed. Elliot struggled not to be distracted by the display. “Don’t think so. Why?”
“Were you sick at all? Feverish?”
Warren’s brows drew down as he tilted his head, peering at Elliot in complete confusion. “No. I was fine. Anxious because…”
“Because?”
Stroking his thumb along the rosewood arm rest, Warren hesitated.
He drummed his fingers on the thigh of his faded black wool trousers.
“I could feel the pain and despair distantly from where we were training. It was distracting, sort of painful, and we were farther away than I’d ever felt anything before.
I was worried that up close it would be overwhelming.
I mean, it already hurt and we weren’t even near. ”
A new possibility occurred to Elliot. One he didn’t like at all. “When was that, precisely?”
“What do you mean? It was yesterday.”
“The date, Warren.”
Warren’s troubled expression darkened. Displeasure now, beyond bewildered. Elliot didn’t blame him. “Twenty-second of October. What? Why do you look like that?”
Dread shifted into fear. Elliot rubbed at his jaw, the slight prickle of stubble scraping against his fingertips. “I look like this because it’s not the twenty-second. It hasn’t been for days now.”
Warren sat upright at that, arms crossing defiantly. “I don’t understand. It must be.”
How could Elliot jolt Warren out of this? His mind raced, spinning in circles with no answers. “It isn’t. Today is the twenty-eighth, in fact. Or it was when I fell asleep.”
Warren’s eyes widened, paling as his lips parted. After a slight pause he shook his head, disbelieving. “But then why can’t I remember?”
“I suspect you’ve been unconscious. You’re always here when I fall asleep no matter when. Yesterday I thought something might be wrong.”
Warren’s cheeks suffused with a bit of color, dark brows drawing down over sparking green-bronze eyes. “Unconscious from what? I was fine!”
This was tricky. “You mentioned concerns surrounding the potential for overwhelming pain. Is it possible your mind recoiled when you were brought nearer to the front?”
“I’m not a weak little coward,” Warren growled, body tensing as if he was preparing to launch to his feet. “You think I’m too afraid to fight? I’ve never ducked out of a fight in my life.”
Elliot gripped Warren’s forearm to stop him, to reassure him. “Of course you aren’t. I know you’re not. Moments ago I watched you wallop a boy twice your size and you couldn’t have been more than eight.”
“Six,” Warren corrected. “I was big for my age.”
“Yes. I wasn’t, and I reacted much poorer than you did in similar circumstances. So believe me, I realize you’re anything but a coward. I’m discussing a physical response to the massive trauma inflicted upon your mind by the bombardment of pain and suffering.”
Warren seemed mollified as he contemplated it. “If that’s what happened, they’ve got no way of knowing what’s wrong with me. What if I’m trapped here till I die? They can’t keep me alive forever if I’m not gonna wake up.”
“They damned well better keep you alive,” Elliot muttered, heart suddenly pounding, chest tight, face hot. “I’m not an expert on any of this. I might not even be correct. You’re the first empath I’ve been this close to.”
There was a tight silence that stretched longer than Elliot would have liked, but Warren never dropped his gaze from Elliot’s.
“It feels true,” Warren finally whispered, looking away, shoving a hand through his hair and leaving it in disarray. “I think you are right. If that’s the case, this is going to be difficult to solve. But maybe if I…”
“What?”
Warren seemed uncertain. “I’ve never tried it on this scale, so I wouldn’t swear to it, but my sensitivity to despair is exaggerated.
When you experience certain things as an empath, it opens a deeper level of feeling.
It’s as if you discover new ways to feel pain.
” He sighed, a bone deep weary sound. “And even if I wasn’t absurdly attuned to despair, the weight of feeling everyone at once is hard, you know?
I can never close everything out, but I can dampen some things if I’m focusing enough.
Mostly I don’t bother ’cause it wears on me, trying to control it.
Dividing my energy between keeping an emotion away and working the rest of my magic turns into a balancing act.
Once I recover, if I make the wrong move out in the field and I pass out, I’ll be a sitting duck.
And whoever I’m supposed to be working with, they will be too. ”
“I don’t like the sound of that,” Elliot said. He noticed he was still holding onto Warren and released him, staring up at the ceiling, reaching for alternatives that simply didn’t exist.
“Me either. And all of that is if I can find a way to wake up in the first place. I don’t have a damn clue how to get myself to be alert long enough under all the pain to realize what happened, isolate the emotions keeping me under, and tune it out as much as I can.”
Elliot watched the flames dance as he considered something. He’d never attempted it, but it might work. He had to make it work. “Tonight might be something new for both of us. What if I jolt you awake? Could you do it then? And will whatever you do last? What happens the next time you sleep?”
“Don’t know. Like I said, I never tried it on this scale, but in theory? I think so. I’ve numbed myself to feelings for a while in the past. It’s always hard when they come back, hurts worse. But…”
“But you don’t have much choice.”
Warren pulled a face. “I hate not getting a choice.”
That petulant tone made Elliot smile softly. “I know.”
“He stole my friend’s papers,” Warren announced, a non-sequitur Elliot didn’t follow.
“Who?” he asked.
“The older boy, Sean. He was bigger than us, and I wasn’t there when he got to Michael, or else I’d have protected him.
I wasn’t great at illusions then, but I’d gotten us out of a few scrapes with them before.
When I found him, Michael had a black eye and a busted lip, he didn’t even have to tell me who did it.
I was angry enough to storm over to Sean and pick a fight. ”
“So, you’re telling me at six not only were you selling papers, but taking on all comers?”
Warren grinned ruefully. “Told you I was big. Ma always said I was too clever for my own good. I fudged my age when anyone had the brains to ask, and I bought my papers fair and square like anyone else.”
“Did you win the fight?”
Warren’s laugh shook his shoulders and lit up his eyes. “No. Didja see the size of that lug? But I got in enough good hits that Michael and me weren’t worth the trouble after that.”
“Brave boy.”
Warren smirked, lifting one irreverent shoulder. “Been called worse.”
They smiled at one another, and then Elliot turned serious.
He reached over to cup Warren’s jaw in one palm and brought their foreheads together, shutting his eyes, wishing he could pass on whatever strength he had.
“Braver than I, by far. You can do this. I know you can. You told me once I wasn’t allowed to die.
Under no circumstances are you allowed to die on me either, Warren. Do you hear?”