Chapter 16
Gemma’s eyes darted to the door when it opened. A woman with long, dark hair and hazel eyes appeared, her white coat billowing around her petite frame.
“Ah, so there you are. You’re the one they think is the Guardian, aren’t you?”
Gemma tried hard to make sense of the woman’s words. Now that Cal was gone, she didn’t have his eyes to focus her attention on. That meant the world came barreling back in around her.
“Mars to Gemma, can you hear me?” The woman snapped her fingers in front of Gemma’s eyes, but it didn’t matter. She was too tired, too out of it to hold her focus.
“Either you’re one hell of an actress or you’re really catatonic,” the woman said after a moment. “Oh well, your condition won’t save you from me, little girl.”
The blond took a few steps back, and as she did, her looks changed. She grew taller, dark hair flowing out behind her in waves. Gemma blinked, trying to take in the shift in the woman’s appearance and make sense of it.
It was as if a wind appeared suddenly in the room, the woman’s hair whipping around her. The bed started to shake, a fire sprouting beneath it, flames beginning to lick up the side of the bedsheets.
Strange, Gemma thought. It was as if she were of two minds. One could see the wind, could see the fire. The other saw nothing. There was just a woman standing in the room muttering to herself.
She’s one of them. The one Cal had mentioned. The one who can make illusions with her mind.
But they’re just illusions. Nothing to be afraid of.
Gemma turned over and forced herself to relax. Her breathing evened out. She heard a screech from the woman, but it was as if it came from far away. “You’re going to sleep?!”
Yes. Yes, I am.
And then, the darkness embraced her.
When Gemma awoke, she was alone. She’d slept for hours, had missed dinner, but it didn’t matter. The memory of the woman who’d tried to weave a hallucination around her skittered across her consciousness, and she took a moment to wonder why she’d been able to resist the illusion the woman had spun. But, as usual, her clarity of mind was short-lived.
She could hear footsteps in the hallway, could smell the antiseptics used by the cleaning robots. A whole host of other sights, sounds, and smells battered against her consciousness. It took all her strength to hold them back for long enough to leave the room she’d been brought to and return to her own space. The halls were dim, the wards quiet, but her own brain was in its near-constant riot of information processing.
Knowing that there was a cure for this perpetual state of overwhelming input only made her more frustrated. Gemma wanted it to stop, or at least slow down, so she could savor the parts of the world she chose to savor, instead of dealing with the never-ending onslaught of, well, everything.
She reached her room and entered, glad that she hadn’t met anyone along the way that might have distracted her. Spending a night staring at the floor while being locked in her own mind didn’t sound so enticing at the moment. Gemma sat on her bed and ran her hands through her messy hair. She was restless now, having slept for long enough to fight back the exhaustion that had claimed her. Still, sleep might provide an appealing option even if she wasn’t actually tired. At least when she was unconscious, the endless stream of information was dulled a bit.
And then it hit her. She wasn’t alone.
She could hear it then, rhythmic breathing coming from her own room. Her senses were on high alert in an instant. Quickly, she pinpointed the location, and stepping gingerly from her bed, she crept toward her desk. Crouching beside it, she slowly pulled back the sheet she’d laid atop it to create a haven from the world.
Gemma was pleasantly surprised to see what was hidden within her fortress of sensory deprivation.
Cal resembled a little boy when he slept, his face charmingly free of the anxiety that had recently taken up residence there. His breathing was even, his long limbs tucked around him. Gemma considered crawling under the desk to join him there, but his much larger form was already taking up nearly all the space available.
Suddenly, his green eyes shot open and met her own. Cal gave her a warm smile, then crawled out from under her desk, stretching his limbs with a yawn. “You’re here,” he said simply, then pulled her into his arms.
Just being in his embrace made the world start to fade into the background. He brought her such peace, such respite, that it made it difficult to think that anything else but this feeling mattered.
“Instead of going back to my ship, I ducked in here to hide and wait for you. Juston used his powers on the guard to convince him that I’d left, so he’d call the all-clear on visitors. Then I fell asleep waiting for you.” His grin was adorably sheepish.
“Why?” was all she could manage to get out.
The intensity of his gaze burned her insides. “You still want me to awaken you?”
She nodded vigorously.There is nothing I want more than that.
Cal gave her a tight grin. “These are not at all the conditions you deserve. There should be an orchestra serenading your lovely countenance, and a million candles, and a bed full of silks and satins, and a—”
Gemma put her hand over his mouth to stop his speech. “All I need… is you.”
