A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 27 The Mind-Link and The Kiss

Chapter 27

The Mind-Link and The Kiss

The door to his room violently shook in its frame, cracks appearing along the edges by the door handle. The thunderous sound brought Callin back from the memory flooding through him, due to the mental block failing.

He saw Carmen's foot come bursting through the door, right at waist height, and part of his mind faintly analyzed the path and position of her foot, and knew she had threw a spinning back-kick at the door. The undisputed most powerful kick of all martial art disciplines. He wondered how she had learned to throw that kick with enough precision and power to kick through a solid wood door.

Then Carmen threw the door open and stopped short, seeing him on his knees, covered in blood, his face streaked with tears. Her face paled as he met her eyes. As she caught a glimpse of the raw misery he was feeling.

"Callin...what happened?" She whispered.

He shook his head slowly, his thoughts still scattering back and forth from the present, to the new flood of images of Mirage. He felt like his heart was being ripped in two as he thought about her, trapped in the labs still, brainwashed and under control of the telepaths there. He dazedly wondered when this boiling cauldron of emotions would snap to uncontrolled insane rage, when he would just let go and run, when he would go after the labs with every last wall, every last block, gone. With his power fully unleashed.

Carmen turned to face Raina, who was climbing to her feet out in the hallway, her face wet with tears and her entire body shaking, her arms wrapped tight around herself.

"Raina?"

Raina hiccupped once, wiping away the tears with the back of her hand, then met Carmens eyes. She took a long, deep breath before she answered.

"A block broke. He remembers a girl...a girl he knows very well. She's still trapped in the labs. And there's something...something connecting him to Ahleena. And he's utterly, completely terrified of it." Raina said, her voice cracking with emotion at the end as she momentarily relived his terror.

Callin heard her. He abruptly realized Raina had been experiencing everything he had been going through. That his walls were so weakened that her empath power had been tracking his emotions and sensations, deep enough for her to deduce what his memories of the lab had been, on a high level. He was stunned she wasn't unconscious, due to the sheer depth of pain he had felt when he was trying to rip the mind-link out.

He snatched at his walls, desperately pulling deep at his willpower. He hated the idea of being spied on in any way, especially now, with the hurt and the guilt of leaving Mirage behind gnawing on his very soul at the moment. His walls were in tatters, but they were still standing. He pulled them high, burying his emotions, his memories of Mirage, and his confusion behind them. The moment he was safely behind them, blessed calm, coolness swept through him, displacing the memories he couldn't bear to witness right now.

Raina tracked it all. She let out a choked gasp, her hand covering her mouth, her large, dark eyes shining with misery as she stared at him.

"Don't...don't do that. Don't hide from yourself like that." She whispered brokenly.

He climbed to his feet, feeling trapped and vulnerable and hating every second of it. Like an animal, he peeled his lips back, exposing his fangs, and when he spoke, his voice was just a low hiss.

"You don't get to track me! You don't get to spy on me! One person in my head is more than enough!"

Carmen turned to face him, confused and feeling defensive for Raina.