Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Evelyn wiped her face with her hands. She’d finished organizing the media. Books and movies were in neat, orderly lines on the shelves. But the trembling was getting worse. Her heart was beating a staccato tap in her chest.
Sitting at the desk, she glared at the electronics she’d drained. She picked up the music player and closed her eyes. She concentrated on the energy that filled her body, thrumming along with the beating of her heart, and tried to push it back out. Nothing happened.
She wanted to cry. Having this much power with no release valve in sight couldn’t be good for a human body. The time she’d forced herself to spend in the gym had only taken the barest edge off of the zing in her veins.
Maybe this was one more thing she was destined to fail at.
A gentle knock on the open door startled her. She jumped, the music player hopping out of her palms for an instant. She grasped it firmly and opened her eyes.
Aiden stood in the doorway, idly telekinetically juggling three dry erase markers.
“Sorry about that. I have an idea,” he said. “About your situation.”
Evelyn felt her lips twitch. “You’re a master of understatement.”
“We all have our talents. Why don’t you take a nice long shower and meet me in the lobby when you’re done?”
She grimaced and tried to surreptitiously sniff at herself. “Am I that rank?”
His control of the markers faltered for a moment.
“I mean, if I could smell you from here that would be a problem, but I just thought it would be relaxing.”
Evelyn’s head tilted as she tried to follow his thought process. “You want to relax the power out of me?” She briefly wondered if she could lure him into the shower with her.
Supervised relaxation on that front might actually make my heart explode.
He grinned. “Something like that. I have a . . . two pronged approach in mind.” He walked toward her, grabbing the markers out of the air, then sat down in the empty chair next to her.
“Do you trust me, Evelyn?”
“Yes.” She didn’t need to think about the question. Since the moment they’d met, Aiden had done everything in his power to ensure her well-being and happiness. Even so far as being willing to sacrifice a huge payday to help her.
“Would you tell me if I was doing something to make you uncomfortable or unhappy?” Aiden’s voice was as serious as Evelyn had ever heard it, and she knew this wasn’t a question she could joke her way out of.
She swallowed hard, placing the music player back on the table to give her time. She fucking hated talking about her feelings. She turned to look at Aiden, and her love of the rich, clear green of his eyes canceled out her hatred of eye contact in moments like this.
“Yes. But I’d hate it and may cry.”
He smiled. “Would you like a system in place? One word at a time to let me know if I need to back away?” He picked up the markers, and Evelyn saw the colors on the caps. Her cheek twitched up. Green, yellow, red.
Go, slow, stop.
“Traffic lights. I can manage traffic lights,” she said.
The roiling in Evelyn’s stomach had transformed into a much more pleasant flutter.
Trust Aiden to figure out a way to let her communicate her comfort level without actually making her uncomfortable in the process.
One more thing he’d observed about her and filed away for the perfect moment to make her knees go weak.
He stood up and reached out a hand to her. She took it, and he helped her rise from the chair.
“I think you can manage a great deal more than you give yourself credit for. One thing at a time.”
Evelyn didn’t think she’d ever sped through a shower that quickly, though she did take a moment to appreciate the pulse of the water easing her tight muscles.
Now clean, she put on a pair of loose cotton drawstring pants that swooshed around her legs, a tank, and her ever present cardigan completed the outfit.
Eternal optimist, she had forgone undergarments altogether.
She shoved on sandals and made her way to the lobby.
Tariel was there, playing something on the piano. Evelyn didn’t recognize it, she never did, but she appreciated the soft melody. She paused to listen, standing still for the first time in days. He nodded at her and kept playing.
“I have those papers for you, if you want to snag them later. Nice to meet you, Chloe Taubey.” He winked at her.
“That has a nice ring to it,” she said. “I appreciate you going through the trouble.” She watched his hands dance along the keys, never faltering as he spoke.
Tariel shook his head. “Not a problem. If you’re going to be on this vessel with us, you’d need alternate papers sooner or later, anyway. In some sectors, I’m called Sean.”
“I’d have pegged you for a Mark.”
“What’s the saying? ‘Readers live a thousand lives?’ So do forgers, if they’re good enough.”
Evelyn laughed. “How many are you up to?”
“I haven’t stopped to count.”
“Sensible. Why let math get in the way of a good thing?”
She saw Aiden come out the door that led to the kitchens. He was dressed comfortably, in a long sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants. He crossed the lobby and gave her an apprising look. Satisfied, he nodded.
“You look good. Less frantic.”
“I think the shower did actually help. I’m feeling more like I’ve had too much coffee and less like I’d had too much cocaine. I’m ready to hear more of your brilliant plan.”
“Brilliant plans are his specialty. That’s why we let him think he’s in charge,” Tariel said.
“You let me think I’m in charge because I’m an over-analytical control freak,” Aiden replied, but the smile on his face lessened the bite of his own assessment.
“You said it.”
Aiden offered his hand to Evelyn. She took it, curious where he was leading her.
“Thanks for letting me listen to you play,” she said.
Tariel nodded. “It’s nice to have someone new to play for. They’re all sick of me.”
“You said it,” Aiden said. He was unable to keep the laughter out of his voice.
Tariel rolled his eyes and waved them off.
They headed toward the hallway. The song Tariel started playing sounded distantly like Marvin Gaye.
She was too excited to have finally pegged one of Tariel’s songs to be embarrassed about the implications.
“Smart ass,” Aiden muttered.
Evelyn followed Aiden down the hallway toward the kitchen, but before they reached the end of the hall, they made a left through a door she hadn’t noticed before.
The door lead to another hallway, lined with three doors on either side.
Aiden opened the last door on the left and gestured for her to precede him into the room.
His room.
The fluttery feeling in her stomach returned at full force as she gazed around Aiden’s quarters.
The walls were paneled with thin wooden planks stained a rich, walnut brown.
The floor was tiled in faux terrazzo hexagons.
To the left of the door were two armchairs in a rich, honey-brown leather, with teal throw pillows that popped against the upholstery.
A small round table sat between the chairs, holding a stack of books that Evelyn noticed had to have been borrowed from her stash.
A small, possessive part of her she hadn’t known existed liked the look of her books on his table.
The other side of the room held Aiden’s bed and a walnut brown dresser set.
Framed pictures were scattered on the dresser’s surface, interspersed with the clutter that accumulates in bedrooms, and above it hung a viewing screen.
His headboard was the same bright jewel teal of the throw pillows and reminded Evelyn of an inviting overstuffed chair.
Crisp white sheets were tucked precisely under a soft white linen duvet.
She realized she was squeezing her thighs together in anticipation and gave herself a silent rebuke.
Nightstands in the same walnut as the rest of the furniture flanked the bed.
Aiden gestured to the chairs. “Have a seat.”
Evelyn walked to the closest chair and curled up in it, hugging the pillow to her chest. Giving it a quick sniff while his back was turned, she detected the cedar and rosemary scent she was becoming addicted to.
He sat in the other chair, elbows on his knees, as if he wanted to be as close to her as he could get while still in his own chair. He cleared his throat.
“I’ve done some research,” he began, “into your, um, situation.” The tips of his ears turned red. “The sleeplessness. The energy.” He didn’t know where to start. Evelyn was loath to bail him out; he was entirely too adorable when he didn’t know what to say.
“That was quick. Did L.I.N.D.A. help you?” Evelyn wondered if she could get the entirety of his ears to go red. For science.
“I was not consulted. I had no such information in my database until a few hours ago.”
Aiden cringed. “Thanks, L.I.N.D.A. Engage privacy mode. Emergency notification protocol.”
There was a soft beep, and Evelyn felt a faint sense of pressure in her ears. She swallowed to clear them.
“The room is now completely soundproofed and computer intelligence proofed,” Aiden said, rubbing his own ear.
“Did you just get busted by the ship?”
She saw the tips of his ears flush darker red. “Yup.”
She grinned. “How embarrassing.”
“Tell no one. I don’t know how my reputation will ever recover.”
“Your secret’s safe with me. So, research?”
“Less research and more I called Vinnie and freaked out on her for not giving you more detailed instructions. Or any safety protocol whatsoever.”
Evelyn’s eyes widened at that. She didn’t think she’d ever heard anyone yell at Corvinia. And that Aiden had berated the most intimidating woman Evelyn knew on her behalf was doing nothing for the infernal fluttering that was happening in her abdomen.
“Was she helpful?”
“She said something that gave me an idea.”
“Alright, I’m listening.”
“She suggested we try to essentially reboot your senses.”
Evelyn blinked. “You made a wormhole comm call to an unhelpful near stranger who suggested you reset me like a router? And this was helpful?”
The blush had started to creep up his cheeks.
He picked at a nonexistent piece of lint on his pants.
“It got me thinking. You’ve spent so long suppressing the ability to borrow energy, I suspect some part of you is still fighting the instinctual ability to release that energy that’s been stored,” he said.
Evelyn appreciated he avoided using the dreaded “siphon.” “You’ve also spent most of your life using your psychic abilities to power up other people’s skills.
Did it wipe you out when you first started to Amplify? ”
Evelyn nodded. She was constantly passing out on convenient surfaces when learning to Amplify. “It did. I needed lots of snacks and naps. It still does if I do it for a long enough time or pull too much power from the universe at once.”
“I have a theory. I’m the only person on the ship right now you can Amplify.
Why not try and work off the energy you’ve got pent up by using psychic energy?
Maybe if you Amplify me enough, that might exhaust you to the point where your body will start to use the borrowed energy inside you to balance it. ”
She fiddled with the zipper of the pillow and tilted her head to the side as she followed his train of thought.
The idea made sense. Physical activity may have burned off a little of the siphoned energy raging through her body, but it had definitely not put any sort of meaningful dent in the supply she’d taken from the practice electronics.
And Amplifying did tire her out. When her family did their rounds, they were always accompanied by a physician and a nutritionist who monitored them closely so that they didn’t go overboard.
The amount of energy her body expended being a conduit of Universal potential was tremendous — Emil had had to completely reengineer the stasis pods to support the additional life support she needed for maintenance.
It was actually sort of a genius idea.
And she was very, very glad in this moment that she had never let it slip to Emil that she could siphon. The implications of what he could do with the amount of energy she suspected she could pull from the universe with even this much siphoned power was best left unconsidered.
“So you want me to Amplify you while you, what, put me on a treadmill?”
His eyes took on a feral glint that made her stomach clench.
“Dollface, I can think of far better ways to exhaust you.”
Evelyn’s mouth felt suddenly dry. She licked her lips. Fucking finally.
“Green.”