If you have never been bound to a chair with your hands behind your back, you don’t know what “uncomfortable” means. The two thugs who had kidnapped me weren’t loquacious and kept silent throughout a short drive that took us by a lake just outside Davos and then to a small group of scattered houses not too far away. They stopped at a chalet and pushed me roughly inside and down a cold basement, where they had me sit on a hard chair. They then used duct tape to bind my arms and legs to it, all the while refusing to answer my questions or even to acknowledge them.
What really worried me was that they hadn’t bothered to keep me from seeing where we were going. That could only mean that I was not expected to be able to make use of that knowledge, or in other words, that I was not going to get out of there alive. That got me thinking what would happen to the real me if Mary died. Would I die too, or would I be catapulted back into my body, alive and kicking? Given that my knee had swelled exactly like Liv’s—we had joked, comparing them day by day—my guess was that I was done for. I was scared, maybe for the first time in my life, really scared. I had never been in a life-threatening situation before, and even knowing that Quinn was planning my murder hadn’t felt as real a threat as this one was now.
The thugs had been gone for a good twenty minutes, and I started to feel my hands and legs going numb because of the constricted circulation. I am normally not one to despair and give up easily, but I was pretty close to doing that, when I felt something new: a thought popped up in my head. A confused thought, and not one of mine—Mary’s. If Mary was waking up, my troubles would be over. I would be able to break contact, go back to my own body, and resume dealing with my own problems. In spite of still having to figure out how to avoid being killed by my superiors for the apparent crime of being a good telepath, getting out of that basement and away from that chair would definitely be an improvement.
Mary’s thoughts started to come in confused batches. She was waking up, and so I withdrew into the background as much as I could, to let her do that. At first, her thoughts were a kaleidoscopic mixture of snippets of conversations with people back at the office and action with Vlad, and slowly they became more coherent. At last she opened her eyes, which I had closed for her when she had started to come back and gazed around the room, taking stock of her situation.
Where am I? How did I get here? I am a prisoner, but of whom, and why? were just a few of her thoughts as she realized her situation. Mary was levelheaded and rational, and soon she started to think practical thoughts. How am I going to get out of here? That pig, Quinn, isn’t going to help me. He said all along that if I got into trouble I was on my own, and I’m sure he meant it. If I can make it back, he’s dead! This is the last of his schemes that he will ever plot.
It was nice finding a fellow victim of Quinn’s, but not really helpful right then. Mary was fully awake now, so the time had come to say goodbye and break contact, but just as I was about to leave, the door opened and a body was thrown in, landing on the floor at Mary’s feet. Then the door closed again with a metallic clangor.
“Vlad!” she shouted, but he wasn’t hearing. He was either dead or very much asleep. Mary concentrated her gaze on Vlad, and after a few seconds, she noticed that he was breathing, shallowly, but enough to indicate that he was alive. His hands and feet were bound too, so if he came around, he wouldn’t be able to move much.
I had seen enough and wanted out, so I concentrated on the safe place in my mind, in which I imagined lying in a nice, wooden boat that gently lulled me under the pleasant rays of a midsummer sun, surrounded by chirping birds. I let it rock me gently …
Success! I was back in Chur, lying in my hotel bed, in my own body. I can’t tell you how great that felt. I cautiously opened my eyes without turning my head, hoping that it wouldn’t be noticed. Tom was seated in an armchair, gazing out of the window with a coffee cup in his hand. I had to take some time to absorb all that had happened and to plan what to do next, so I closed my eyes again. I needed to decide how to handle Tom, so I visualized his face and started to read him, and that proved to be a real treat.
Tom turned away from the window and gazed at me with a troubled expression on his face, and I dug deeper into his mind. You could have knocked me down with a feather: the guy was in love with me! Love at first sight, like a silly teenager. It had started with a feeling of closeness brought about by our little talk at the top of the hill, back in Flims, and soon love had burgeoned like some mutant mushroom after the rain. His tormented face came with the fear that I may never wake up again. That was followed by an imagined walk in a garden in which he put his heart at my feet and, in his mind, I loved him back.
Secret agents can be romantic, fancy that! I couldn’t help feeling bad for him, but I also warmed up to him a little. After all, he was being a dear, worrying so much about me, and I was surely going to take advantage of that. Yes, you don’t need to repeat that I can be a manipulative bitch at times, but a girl’s got to do what a girl’s got to do. Besides, although I don’t do romance as a rule—it never pays to get all sentimental—he wasn’t at all bad looking, so I wasn’t dead set against cutting him some slack sometime, if conditions allowed it.
I opened my eyes and stretched, making awakening noises. Tom jumped up and gazed at me in awe. “Miss Tessa!” was all he managed to say.
“Hi, Tom,” I responded, looking as innocent as I could manage.
“You woke up!” Tom continued, apparently unable, under his emotions, to come up with a sentence of more than three words.
“Of course I did. Why are you surprised? And why do you look like you’ve just seen a ghost?”
“You … we couldn’t wake you up. And maybe you haven’t noticed, but we’re not at the chalet. It’s a long story, and I need to tell you all about it.”
“I know, but not just yet. Pour me some coffee from that coffee maker, will you? I need it.”
I really needed it, and I drank it quickly, nodding eagerly when Tom offered a refill. He watched me drink, unable to decide how to tell me what had happened to me. I smiled, reading his thoughts and how he worried that telling me might unsettle me. Little did he know that short of serious mayhem involving myself, nothing had the power to unsettle me anymore. I had to decide how to approach him and, knowing his feelings for me, I chose to come clean—well, at least a little. I emptied my second cup of coffee and looked him in the eyes. Every time I did that he blushed, which I thought was adorable.
“Look, Tom. I know everything, okay? I know more than you do, but before I tell you, I have to know if I can trust you, because I am in real danger.”
You can trust me with my life, he thought, and I knew that I had an ally. “Of course you can trust me,” he said out loud.
“You must know that what puts me in danger comes from within this organization, the one that you have sworn to obey. There are potent people in it who want to do harm to me. If I tell you about it, and you decide to help me, you may have to break your oath and work against direct orders. If you don’t think you’re up to it, it’s best for you if I don’t tell you anything. I could really use your help, but I will do it on my own, if I have to.”
Tom hesitated for only the two seconds needed to think I will never let anybody hurt you, before saying: “I’m on your side, no matter what. You can tell me anything.”
“I trust you,” I said. I thought that a little encouragement was in order, seeing that he was about to receive a real shock from what he would hear, so I got up from the bed on which I was sitting and went to stand by him, near the coffee maker. He was much taller than me, so I had to stand on my toes to reach him and kiss him. His heart was beating so fast and noisily that I feared it would jump out of his chest, but after taking a moment to realize what was happening, he responded to my kiss. And he was not a bad kisser either.
“Wow! I mean … wow!” he managed to say when I finally pulled back.
“You are too cute,” I said—probably an odd thing to say to a taciturn Secret Service agent.
“But …”
“Now be a dear and give me a second. I need to think,” I said, cutting off whatever niceties he was about to say. I’m all for not talking about relationships, feelings, and all that blah-blah, particularly when things are complicated, and my situation was as complicated as it gets.
He nodded, swallowing the cheesy declaration of eternal love that he was about to spurt out, and I sat again on the bed and considered the situation. I knew that Mary was in trouble, perhaps even in mortal danger, but was that any problem of mine? I didn’t think so. On the other hand, after having spent time inside Mary’s body, I felt a connection with her. I recalled the feeling of being taped to that chair in the basement and how scared she was when she woke up, and as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t be entirely indifferent to it. Damn it! I thought, spending too much time inside someone’s brain comes with a price.
And there was something else: if I ever wanted to go back home without having to hide and watch over my shoulder all the time for Quinn’s assassins, I had to do something about it, and I had no clue of what that something would be. I needed a powerful ally, someone with access to the organization, and Mary could perhaps be that ally.
“We have to leave now; I’ll explain on the way,” I said, getting up.
“But we can’t. We must wait for Undersecretary Payne to come back. Our instructions are to stay here until she does and to let nobody in or out.”
“Mary Payne is not coming back, believe me. She is in danger, and we have to go and rescue her.”
“But Miss Tessa, I think you are a little confused. You were asleep when she left and gave us instructions, you can’t know. She is not in danger.”
“First of all, Love, after that kiss, I think you can drop the ‘Miss.’ Second, Mary is in serious danger, believe me. We are the only ones who can help her.”
“I believe everything you say, but you were asleep when she left. There is no way that you can know anything that happened while you were out. You’re just confused. Perhaps you need to rest a little.”
I saw his point of view. I was obviously imagining things, or so he thought. Extreme situations require extreme solutions, so I had no choice. I closed my eyes, reached out for his mind, and, as soon as I was in, I opened my eyes again and gazed up at him. When I control a target I am in full control of my body and don’t actually need to close my eyes, but closing them somehow makes it easier to get in.
“Don’t be afraid of what you’ll experience in a moment, okay? It’s going to be weird, but nothing bad is going to happen,” I said, speaking softly and smiling encouragingly. I took control of his muscles and slowly brought him down to his knees. I don’t think I ever saw someone look that frightened before. I felt the need to comfort him so I went down on my knees too. “It’s okay, don’t worry, it’s me doing that.” I kissed him lightly and then pulled back. “I’m going to let go of you now, okay?” I said, getting up.
I let go of my hold on him, and Tom jumped to his feet, looking seriously spooked.
“How … how did you do that?”
“That’s one of the things I can do. It’s too complicated to explain now; I’ll tell you all about it when we have the time, but now we must hurry. I was in Mary’s head, just like I was in yours right now, and I know she’s in danger.”
“In danger how?”
“Two ugly thugs are holding her prisoner in a chalet, not too far away from here. I was with her when she was taken, and I know the way there. I don’t know what they plan to do with her, but if we don’t help her now, it may be too late. I can control one of them, as I did with you now, but dealing with two at the same time could be a challenge. That’s why I need you. Will you help me?”
“I would go to the end of the world for you,” he said, speaking seriously. I still was in his head as he said that, and I knew for sure that he meant it.
“Thank you,” I said. I couldn’t help warming up to him some more. I got near him, gazed straight into his eyes and kissed him again, a long, warm and wet kiss, until I felt that he was getting a bit too excited, and then I pulled back. “Don’t forget your gun,” I said, and went for the door.