Devour

Chapter 22 - Errol

Eventually we settle the kids down and to bed. Well, Pasch doesn't go to bed he goes out to check on his cow and falls asleep out there in the hay like a ruffian. Cora opts to leave him for a bit as he's had a hard day. Also the two of us want to talk about what has transpired, with him well away.

"Anything you gleam from her mind that you haven't told me?" Cora asks, we are in her room, me sitting on her bed while she unpacks her bag and cleans her various weapons she has to be armed with and fusses with charging tasers.

"No---that's the thing,-----other than surface thoughts I couldn't get anything----which isn't typical," I say.

"In your file it says only recent memories," Cora says.

"Yeah my file---is----only so accurate---anyway, for example, you're looking at that nice gun you've got there you remember you got it when you were first assigned here and you thought it was stupid since you weren't going to shoot a child and I am proven to be able to stop bullets," I say, leaning back against the footboard and sinking a bit more into the footboard.

"Even though I wasn't directly having that memory---you were able to access it because I was looking at the gun," Cora nods.

"I couldn't tell you where you got that watch because you weren't thinking at all about it---now you are since I've said it so I could," I explain.

"Which is what made you such a good interrogator," she nods, "If they mention the murder you can tell if a suspect did a murder."

"Yeah, pretty much---I wasn't getting any of that with her," I say, "It isn't always easy but---I was trying."

"Yeah, you're not bleeding now you were then," Cora says, frowning, "Okay---why?"

"I don't know. Some people are a bit harder than others. Mostly---specifically---if they know what I'm doing. But not that hard. I should have gotten something, I didn't. It was like I was being blocked," I say.

"By another telepath?"

"Yeah, it's happened a few times before—during the war---but unless Beale was putting one over one me for fun which he would've teased me about by now---"

"And he wouldn't do that—"

"And he wouldn't do that---then someone was blocking me. What do you want to bet she or the father is telepath? An undocumented, and now that the kid's been document they're pissed," I say.

"That might explain her desperate behavior," she says.

"It might explain Pasch's if they're talking to him telepathically or have at some point," I say.

"I feel bad then---I don't want him going into a situation we and more importantly he isn't comfortable with and we can't control," Cora says, instantly feeling sorry for the boy.

"No, but it's technically illegal for me to do mind sweeps, so," I say, shrugging.

"And that's the only reason we know something-----it ought to be legal to do mind sweeps to make sure they're going to all right places they can't expect us not to care after all this time," Cora says, leaning against her dresser and not really getting ready. She's wearing cargos and a tank top she had on underneath her sweater but it's warm in here now. As always she's wearing her chest holster taser.

"Does it get uncomfortable to sleep with that on?" I ask, frowning.

"If I slept with it on I'm sure it would," she laughs.

"They told me you would be sleeping with it on in case I decided to murder you in your bed while standing within tasing range," I say, shrugging.

"Well I don't because it isn't--- it's within grabbing distance should there be threat to anyone's safety," she laughs.