After taking a shower, Ash plugged the tub and carefully seated herself and turned the hot water on to soak her sore feet and body. It was a scorching bath, the type that it took five minutes to lower yourself into and cooled off too quickly. She let the scalding water redden her skin until she couldn’t bear it any longer and turned the heat down. One of the advantages of hotel rooms was their never-ending supply of hot water.
Scrubbing the tub was a mandatory requirement when checking into a new hotel room. It was one area that housekeeping regularly neglected. But the supersized hot water tank was a blessing and worth the trade-off.
Unless the phone rang and the phone was on the bed. Grumbling, she knew that she couldn’t ignore it. It was either Ling or Mam. Ling she wanted to talk to, Mam not especially, but both would worry if she didn’t answer. She felt like slapping herself upside the head for not putting the phone on the toilet before she got in the bath.
Being telepathic unfortunately didn’t stop her from being a doofus.
Instead she streaked out to the bedroom, wiped her right hand dry on the bedspread and answered the phone, forming a water trail behind her and a pool below her. Sighing, she said, “Hi, Mam.”
“Anything?”
She sighed again. “No, Mam, nothing.”
“Time is ticking away, lovey. Connor’s trial date is in a couple of months, and the public defender is talking about plea-bargaining. As if Connor would kill someone.”
Ash answered with her silence, and recalled the conversation she’d had with Ling. It was just after Connor’s mug shot starred on the six-o’clock news. They’d been curled up on the opposite ends of the sofa, self-medicating with cheesecake.
“Do you really think he could do it—a premeditated murder, Lingy, really?”
With a sadness in her voice, and something else that Ash couldn’t catch, Ling said, “Ash, our brother hasn’t been our brother for a long time.”
Ash allowed it was possible that Connor had killed somebody, but didn’t think it was on purpose. Ling on the other hand definitely thought Connor was guilty.
Ling was the only one who supported Ash when she talked about how delving into people’s psyches would erode her soul. To change someone’s mind, to be so invasive, Ash felt a darkening of her soul every time she did it. She could count the number of times she had done it on one hand. It felt like putting your hand in a hole, not being able to see what you were fishing around for. And when you pulled your arm out at the end, there were dark, black evillooking insects attached. Except the insects didn’t come off. Ever.
Crossing the border, feeling the darkness one too many times, it would change her forever. After a while the insects wouldn’t be creepy or evil any longer. And even with the darkness, there was something exhilarating about it, like a drug that could easily become an addiction. But it was a drug that would kill who you were.
Ash believed that this was what had happened to Connor.
The first time Ash accidentally traversed the line from light influence to compel-ment she was ten years old. They were playing in the small square patch behind their home somewhere near Palm Springs.
She and Ling were playing in the back yard, which was mostly dirt with some gravel and their washer/drier shed. At that time, they’d lived in a trailer court. It was a summer Saturday during the hot season, and a few kids from the park had joined them.
Ash had wanted to play freeze tag, which everyone said they thought was lame, but she read their minds and picked up that they were just saying that. So she pushed it.
But Emily, the ever-bossy Emily, didn’t like other people’s ideas.
Everyone had an Emily from their childhood, maybe even in their adulthood. And Emily always won. She wasn’t a bully, just liked to get her way, obsessively so.
So Ash, wanting desperately to play freeze tag, pushed her thoughts at her, strongly, forcefully—Star Trek freeze tag is fun! Her ten-year-old self wasn’t complex. But her mind pushed it strongly.
And suddenly, bossy Emily said, “Star Trek freeze tag is fun, let’s play.”
It’d freaked Ash out. And she’d felt dirty inside and out. The first blemish on her soul.
When Ash had related the story to Connor, he said, “BFD, Ashy. Big Fuckin’ Deal. You always make something out of nothing. All you need to do is turn that empathy shit off. We have a gift that makes us Gods.”
Her stomach burned all night thinking about it, but by morning, she’d rewritten Connor’s tone of voice in her mind. He was being helpful, not condescending.
Thankfully, Emily didn’t suffer any permanent damage, but she wasn’t quite her dictatorial self for a few days. Which relieved their group of friends, but scared the crap out of Ash.
Emily chose not to hang around Ash and Ling much after that. She was never hostile, not quite scared either. More wary.
Connor. Oh, Connor. “Connor’s always been the dirty fucking apple in the Garden of Eden, Ashy. What changed is he stopped hiding it, became proud of it even.”
“Lingy, remember when we were eight and the fair was in town? Mam didn’t have any money, so we were on the grounds watching kids ride the rocket ride? And Connor came up and gave us money and hugs and kisses. He was so kind and that hardened glint in his eyes was missing.”
“Fuck, his eyes have always looked like that.”
“No Ling, you’re wrong. His eyes started to get hard when he became a teenager.”
“Ever think how he got the money Ash?”
Ash didn’t answer, she chose not to think about that and focused instead on scarfing down the cheesecake. What Ling and Ash both knew in Mam’s eyes, Connor was pure and innocent, even despite the history between Connor and the law had always been grey. Got into a little messes when he was twelve and thirteen, and then the bad stuff had started happening—the stuff that you couldn’t cover up by charming the right person. They had moved away in the middle of the night. You couldn’t manipulate or even influence the minds of a whole town.
As the years progressed, Connor had gotten lazy when it came to covering up his tracks. Or perhaps tested how far he could go before he got caught. And now this, a murder of a man.
The prosecution claimed the man had been beaten to death, but Ash’d seen pictures of the dead man. She’d seen that once before, the first time that Connor had killed with his mind. That time, she knew, had been accidental—she’d witnessed it. Connor had scrambled the man’s brain. And after, the death mask had been black-eyed, and bruises all over the face and upper body.
Maybe the high of that accidental kill was too addictive? Ash shuddered and tried to remember the Connor she loved.
Ling, Connor and Ash had been running cons since they were in pre-adolescence. Mam was their Fagin, except in a good way.
Da was always irresponsible with money, always onto the next big deal, the next get-rich-quick scheme. Da being the dreamer he was, Mam had to find ways to refresh the rent money, the grocery money, the utilities. So Mam found work wherever they were. But on weekends she took her children to run cons in the nearest city of whatever state they lived.
Her parents always chose small towns to live in, a short drive away from the city. Just little cons, little grifts. But earning a hundred to two hundred bucks each, that went a long way to refurbishing the Gilt family coffers.
Her mam’s smoke-roughened voice broke through the memory like sandpaper on skin, “You listening, Ash?”
“Things are difficult, Mam. I’m not sure if I can come through for you. I’m wracking my brain, but I don’t know if this plan will work. Ling would have been better bait for the honeypot trap, but we’re stuck with me.”
She heard the whisper of her mam’s lungs as she lit up and inhaled the first drag of a cigarette. There was always enough money for smokes. “Did you find out who the father was yet?”
“That’s her business.”
“It’s my business if we have to bring up a bastard. I can’t believe she cheapened herself in that way.”
Ash rolled her eyes at the hypocrisy. It still dumbfounded Ash that her mam disapproved of Ling’s situation. Her mother was a traditionalist on one hand, but also a con woman through and through. If those two things came into conflict, then the con woman won. So she voiced her disappointment in one daughter’s premarital pregnancy whilst whoring out the other.
Mam sighed. “Ash, I know it’s very hard to prostitute yourself even if it is for family. You’re a good girl.” Meaning Ling wasn’t.
Her tongue itched with unspent words. Mam called her every night. The conversation always left Ash with a racing mind that kept her up all night as the vise around her chest tightened. The time was ticking down.
Ash’s jaw hurt from clenching it, and to add to her list of pains, a headache started playing the bongo drums behind her eyes. Lowering herself back in the tub, she tried to calm herself, but the terseness was evident in her voice when she replied quietly, “I’m doing my best Mam.”
“You’ll have to do better than that.”
Ash couldn’t help the tears of frustration that dripped down her face, banked desperation threatening to erupt. In a hoarse and almost manic voice, sitting up, water swishing around her, Ash asked, “Mam, you tell me how. You fucking tell me how?”
She covered her mouth with her free hand. Ash didn’t swear. And even though Ling and Connor had mouths like soldiers after twenty beers, even they turned it off around their mam.
Mam’s disapproval was deafening in the preceeding silence. Ash would not apologize even though she wanted to. She despised family conflict and usually had the role of peacemaker. But this time she shoved the urge to say sorry down. Mam should be kissing her now lukewarm ass. Didn’t stop the five-pound weight taking up residence above her belly button, reminding her she was being a terrible daughter.
The silence stretched. Ash felt taut. Standing, she got out of the bath, waiting. The slosh of the water made noise when neither her nor her Mam did. She walked to the full-length mirror across from the bathroom. The one where businessmen tied their ties and checked that their trousers were straight and they were dressed to the correct side.
Not wanting to look, but needing to remind herself of the stakes, she looked at her naked body. The main bruise was still developing on her stomach. There was another on her arm. She would have to cover up the welts around her wrists with bracelets and scarves tomorrow.
This was why she was letting the silence stretch. Ash was crying out for help, hoping Mam would do something. Her mam knew something was wrong, something smelled off. But wouldn’t ask. Don’t ask, don’t tell.
It was like the gut-slap that had caused her newest bruise, knowing that the money was more important to Mam than her daughter.
Mam put Connor first. Her eldest son. The apple of her eye, the pie in the sky, every cliché in the world Connor was to Mam. Ash and her sister Ling? They were treasured and loved. But if there was a scale with Ash and Ling on one side and Connor on the other, Connor would win.
Ash examined the bruises and raised skin. Turned, in profile, the ones on her hip had a yellow hue now. The one on her stomach smarted. She’d put a bit of arnica on them, and hoped they faded a bit by morning.
Six months ago when the scheme had started, it’d been fun. Meeting Charles and using mild mind magic to get the job, and then the slow job of using her powers to make Ash more desirable to him. Getting him to chase her. Influencing him to look at her as a woman instead of his assistant. It’d been a high. Even though the plan had changed, starting this con had had her bursting with energy and happiness. Charles embodied her idea of dynamic and adventurous. She’d found it endearing that Charles Appleby was a true public servant in so many ways—he wanted to do good in this world.
This was her first long con. The cons in her past had been sprints instead of marathons.
And when the affair first started, it had been vanilla and fun. She’d welcomed the feeling of victory as he charmed her and seduced her. That her minor manipulations had influenced him to do so. And then it got a little bit kinkier. And now...
Mam finally broke and Ash swallowed a sigh of relief, a tendril of hope forming in her heart. In a more conciliatory voice, Mam said, “Honey, we need the money. You’re going to have to find a way. You’re going to have to use your mind magic. Not the stuff you use everyday. Ash, it’s time to use the big guns, lovey.”
So much for help. The thought of using her powers that way made her shudder. “I’ve explained this to you, Mam.”
Her family’s reaction to Ash’s beliefs about the use of her powers was disbelief and derision—the part of the family that even believed in mind magic. Da didn’t, but he was a null. Magical or parapsychological or whatever you wanted to call them, the powers that she and her siblings were blessed with were ineffective when he was near. He was like a cell phone blocker for powers.
The snort came through the phone. It was an involuntary one, because her mam was trying in some way to make peace with her. Making a tacit apology, whilst still expecting her to carry through. Not a position that Mam was used to. She was used to ruling the roost, letting Da think that he did.
The guilt was getting to Ash. She’d always had a low guilt threshold. In the family anyway—outside of the family, she rarely felt that emotion.
It wasn’t Mam’s fault Ling had gotten pregnant. And if Ling were the lover, she would have been perfect. Ash knew that. Ash didn’t have the looks for a honeypot scheme. The only way she was pulling this off was by dolling herself up and exuding a sexiness that wasn’t her default mode. And using her powers to manipulate Charles into finding her hot. Although she had been successful in getting him, it’d been exhausting.
Ling, on the other hand, her fey blonde looks exuded sexiness. Not like Ash’s slightly mousy dark brown hair, which now sported artful highlights to compensate. Ash was twenty pounds too heavy, too, all carried on her butt and bust.
Ling’s body was lithe and strong but delicate. All the things men usually liked.
So they’d compromised when they found out about Ling’s condition. It became imperative that Ash be the trap. She’d used her powers to ensnare Charles, to beguile him, to do little influence-ments.
Conflicted, a part of her relieved that Ling didn’t have to go through this. The other part of her wondered if Charles would have treated Ling in this way? Initially she knew that Charles had found her pleasant to look at but not tempting. Layer by layer, she’d nudged him in the male direction of thinking with his penis instead of his upstairs head. Sometimes she wondered if this was Charles’ subconscious punishing her for her influence.
Influencing people sounded weird, and it was. Even stranger was the method. Ash tasted people’s emotions, the flavor of them as variable as the person feeling it. Sweet, sour, tangy. Some tastes were subtle or masked, pushed below layers of defense. Unless she had to, she left masked or shielded people alone. Too difficult. But not impossible.
She didn’t lick them or anything like that. The flavor just was there when she was in someone’s proximity. Eating in public when she was younger had been a learning curve.
But she didn’t just taste emotions—if she dug deeper, she could nudge herself inside the psyche and vicariously experience them. And if she dug even deeper in the murkier depths, she could trace the thought behind the emotion. And in the blackness at the abyss of the psyche, she could change that thought. By manipulation, or worse, by force.
Telepathy, the inadequate definition of Ash’s power, gave the power to influence emotions along with being able to compel and manipulate memories. But although she had conned people all her life, Ash had a conscience, contrary to some people’s belief. The farthest she went was to influence, not compel.
Her mam was asking, but in actuality demanding, that she compelled Appleby.
In the shadows of Charles’ bedroom, when the pain started, a chunk of her soul didn’t seem like a large price to pay. But then Ash slept on it, and couldn’t force herself to compel him. He was so different in the light of day. Charming and a force for good. And using her mind magic in the bedroom, well, there were complications.
There were so many facets to her powers. When Ash physically touched a person, she could feel the lightness or darkness of their soul. 'Darkness of the soul' sounded corny and trite. It's how she saw it though. Just like she felt the dusty tar attaching bit by bit to her soul every time she went down into the abyss and manipulated a mind.
The manipulations on her soul scorecard so far had been trivial and few. This would be deep, and the price? Unsure. Even though her body was paying a dear price and it was worsening every time.
She didn’t know why both she and her brother Connor had this type of mind magic. Just like she didn’t know why her twin Ling only had a small psychic ability.
Charles’ soul had felt like sunshine when she shook his hand and tasted his emotions for the first time.
At least when she’d first met him he did. A person’s soul could change due to events or experiences. It could start light and go into shadow; a soul was light or dark or somewhere in-between.
Emotion-wise, a person didn’t have one flavor, it altered when their emotions did—it could get stronger, weaker; it could have acidic, bitter, or sweet overtones.
Mam hadn’t any mind magic herself, so how her offspring had these innate abilities was a puzzle. But being brought up as an Irish Traveller she’d a deep-seated belief in the mystical and recognized their abilities at an early age. Mam knew people with mind magic, and pushed them to explore theirs.
Irish Travellers were a very close-knit and closed community. How Mam had ended up in America with Da, who was not a Traveller, was a part of their family history that was glossed over and not talked about. Neither was Mam’s past. They would get scraps and tidbits now and then, but the subject was verboten.
What Ash did know was that Mam had made a new start, with Da, away from her Traveller clan.
Ash got off the phone with her mother, “I’ll try to think of something, Mam. I’ll only use that as a last resort.”
“Think fast Ash.”
Influencing him to tell her things? Recently, the only times that they were alone were during their little rendezvouses in the hotel room. The frenetic schedule they kept barely allowed even for that.
In the beginning they’d had fun sex, interesting sex, sex that was as pleasant as warmed baby oil rubbed into sore muscles.
But lately he scared her. She didn’t know whether this was becoming an abusive relationship or she was overreacting. It had started out as sex play. Who hadn’t read Fifty Shades of Grey? Who didn’t find being handcuffed, or being tied up, or being lightly spanked fun?
Ash didn’t mind. She wasn’t a prude, she’d experimented with this sort of thing before. Not as intensely, but still the same sort of stuff. At first, she’d thought she could perhaps find a way to blackmail him for that. And she’d thought about it. But the whole honeypot scheme was a stupid, idiotic idea. Because one of the main facets of a honeypot scheme was to trap a man in the honey. And having proof was, well, duh, important.
Getting proof would be easy for most people. It would have been if Ling was the woman who had set the trap. But with Connor’s and Ash’s powers, there was a little quirk. Video, photos, pixelated images, and even electronics went a little bit strange around her. Ash’d learned to back up her data, as computers could decide to commit suicide around her. Not with great frequency, but it wasn’t uncommon. But digital cameras? Video cameras? Something about her type of mind magic did not mesh with them. Which at the moment was very inconvenient.
But conversely, had been very convenient for her criminal brother.
Still nude, she plopped on the bed and exhaled loudly. Not gorgeous, but comfortable with her body: the pooch on her tummy, the little bit of sag in her heavy breasts—hey, she was a real woman. Not perfect. At least she had a bit of time before the wrinkles started setting in. She still had a youthful glow, albeit enhanced with cosmetics.
She was never going to be as pretty as Ling. But blessed in many other ways. Just right at this moment her life was royally screwed up.
Having the whole family rely on you to be their savior, their lifesaver? Ash was used to being the person they all turned to and was depended on, but this was too much. Most of the time, she just wanted to run away and hide.
But Connor’s trial was soon, and Ling’s baby was about to arrive. At that thought Ash picked up the phone and dialed.
She loved her little sister and wished she could unload on her ding-a-Ling-y, but her sister had enough crap of her own to deal with. Being pregnant and alone, facing single motherhood, it was going to be hard for her. And then having Mam’s hypocritical judgement about the pregnancy. Ling got daily phone calls from Mam, too.
“Hey, Ashy, how the fuck are ya?”
Ash sighed, but with a slight smile in her voice, “When are you going to pop, girl? When am I going to be an auntie?”
Ling laughed. “If you can get this fucking baby to come out, I would say yesterday, but this baby loves its womb time. It likes hanging in the womb, dancing on my bladder and kicking the fuck out of me. I’m telling you, this girl is going to be a ballerina football player. Kick, kick, kick.”
Ash laughed, but sobered. “Ah, I wish I could be there, honey. But you know, we’re in pre-campaign mode, so we’re traveling all over the state right now. We won’t be back to Portland until the end of the month. Hopefully before Ling version two comes.”
“I know. I miss you, Ashy. I miss your hugs, and I need my feet massaged. Thank heavens I’m not living with Mam and Da, but you know...” Changing the subject, Ling said, “And pretty soon Mam has to fly out to New York.”
“Yeah, and how am I going to come up with money for that if I don’t come through?”
In a dry voice Ling replied, “Ah, there’s always identity theft, I guess.”
Ash laughed at the sarcastic comment. One of Mam’s big rules about cons was not to do anything too illegal. Identity theft was a felony. The sweetness of the long con was to get someone into a position in which going to the police would be just as bad for them as it would be for you.
Identity theft was traceable and easy to lay charges on. The Gilt trio of siblings had been taught short little cons. Ling had a little stall in the market fortune-telling, a legitimate con. Ling did good business. She had a small but pretty accurate psychic ability. And if she didn’t see anything, she could fill in the blanks by reading the client’s face, body and appearance. She wasn’t any Sylvia Browne, but who would want those fingernails anyway?
“So did she ask the baby daddy question again?”
“What do you think?”
“She stopped asking me. But Mam is as stubborn as fuck.”
“Get some vocabulary will you?” It was an old argument.
“Fuck is one of the most fucking versatile words. It can mean fucking anything, thank fuck.”
“I said fuck to Mam tonight.”
“You fucking didn’t!” Ling laughed, “Oh I wish I could have fucking heard her perfect daughter swear in front of her...”
Ash didn’t say anything, just picked at the edge of the bedspread. Being naked on top of a hotel bedspread being probably unhygenic and unwise.
“Ashy, I just realized, you swore at Mam.”
“Yeah, Ling, I think I just told you that. Is this a pregnancy brain thing?”
Ling weakly laughed, “Fuck off.” In a softer voice, “Are you okay?”
“I’m okay.” Ash deftly avoided any talk about Charles.
“You can forget about this, you know. You can come home. Connor deserves what he gets, and Mam will get over it eventually. I thought she’d give up this stupid honeypot scheme once I told her I was knocked up. But no, she gets you to do all the work.” Ling sighed, paused and then said, “You’re not coming home are you?”
If only she could give it all up and come home to Ling. “Not yet.”
After an extensive description of Ling’s aches and pains and the size of her feet, and a digital picture of Ling’s bump, they said their goodbyes.
“You’re half Ashy.”
“You’re half Ling.”
They were halves of a whole. Fraternal twins, they couldn’t look any more different, but they were connected forever.
The camera only went fritzy with Connor and Ash. Ling didn't screw up cameras, which is another reason why she would have been a better candidate for the femme fatale part of this job. Which was yet another reason why Ling getting pregnant pissed off Mam to no end.
The cameras would have worked, blackmail would have been easier no matter what. Ash got off the phone and sat in the dark. She hadn’t turned the lights on and the sky peeking through the crack in the curtains was the dusty purple of twilight.
She again tried to think of a way to get out of this mess. Then her mind drifted to the new guy, Lee. He’d given her that look. The stare policemen gave her, the one that said, I know you’re up to something but I can’t prove it yet.
Most people thought butter wouldn’t melt in Ash’s mouth. But there were a few people whose emotions were hard to taste. The shielded ones. It took a little more work, a bit more finesse, to get a soupçon of their flavor, which was usually enough. Some of these people were more suspicious of her, sensing she was up to no good.
And this Lee person, Mr. former-black-hat-hacker-turned-corporate-spy? This guy? She hadn’t found a way to taste him. So for the moment she had to be like almost everyone else on this planet and not know what he was feeling.
Her history was clean. She’d never been arrested. Her records were unremarkable, her resume was fairly true; everyone lied on them, so fudging dates wouldn’t have brought up any red flags. The lies made her look more instead of less normal.
But he made her nervous. When he joined the staff, she’d given him the orientation and introduced him around. She could fake attraction to people, but rarely found someone truly attractive. Lee was stupidly attractive in a way that added to her nerves. He was almost ugly. His facial features didn’t fit together properly. He was tall, lanky but wiry in a tensile strength way. A nose that had been broken and not set, a rough look that didn’t mesh with his erudite and wealthy background.
His eyes and his smile. Lee’s eyes were piercing, powerful and disturbing, almost. When she showed him around, they hadn’t exchanged any small talk, but their eyes kept meeting and caused electricity to shimmer inside her. They made her yearn for something, but she didn’t know what that was. Her ankles felt wobbly in her high heels and she’d sounded like a ditz as she lost track of what she was saying multiple times.
Lee’s smile was bright and lit up his face. On one of the many times she’d spied his movements through the office, she’d seen him smile from a distance and if she’d been the recipient, she would have melted into the floor. He’d made her warm and flustered as it was. He was really, really hot, the asshole. And genius-class smart. Intelligence was such a turn-on for her.
Charles and Lee had been friends for years. Or at least from the same part of society. Hoity-toity, the rich Portland upperclass. And rich Democrats, a rarity.
She stood up and decided to stop feeling sorry for herself. It was possible she could come up with a solution by morning. Just like she wished every night. But pity-parties weren’t her style. Ash would come up with something, she had to. Her family needed her, and if, in the end, it meant giving up a chunk-sized portion of her soul? It was a last resort, but she could do it. Maybe.
It wouldn’t turn her into Connor. Yet.
She’d been working on an alternative. A man in the office, Jensen Bowen—her age, but barely out of diapers he was so fresh. He was attracted to her, so she’d been influencing him to be more attracted. To maybe let her confide in him.
She didn’t know how to get to the next step though. She couldn’t engineer him to burst in and witness what Charles was doing. Hotel doors were secure. Connecting doors maybe? They’d only been in one hotel so far that had those. There were all sorts of accommodation, good and bad, on the pre-campaign trail.
After doing her night-time routine, she thought about her powers and the way she used them. And the way that Charles was starting to use her. And how those two factors didn’t mix well. Back when they were having fun with sex she could do a little mental push, a little influence-ment to change his behavior.
But lately the game had changed from a bit of discomfort to more than a bit of pain. And pain brought fear. Ash did not like pain, and was a bit of wuss with pain. It wasn’t an aphrodisiac for her. She could pretend up to a point, but the gentle spanking had morphed and the result? The marks on her belly. And where the crop was used, there were little welts all over her, bruising. She panicked when the pain came. And the shitty thing about panic and fear? Her powers blanked out. It was like the electricity was interrupted, or the power or however it worked.
She didn’t have a fricking clue as to how it worked. Mind magic didn’t work when she was shaking inside and out, nor did it work when her skin screamed from the strikes of the crop or hand. She’d breathed, used calming techniques, she’d attained a lower level of panic, but not normalcy. There was a short in her system until she was truly calm. None of the relaxation techniques worked. Ash couldn’t get past the acrid taste in her mouth and the pressure compressing her lungs and ribs, the feeling that she was going to die. Death wasn’t even a possibility, but her mind couldn’t be coherent and rational then.
At least not in immediate danger of death. Uncertain in the long term because of the dichotomy of Charles. Charles’ soul had been sunshine when she first met him, and during the workday, his soul still warmed and cheered her. All souls changed, but they weren’t bipolar, switching from darkness to light like a frickin’ switch. Or they weren’t supposed to be.
The light disappeared out of his soul during their bedroom games, and his emotions started tasting woody and astringent—cedar, musk, a dry musty taste of sawdust, maybe even ashes. Which was ironic. Mainly ashes and cedar. And there was another taste in there that she couldn’t describe. It just tasted... wrong.
Ash usually relied on her taste of people’s emotions to get her measure of a person. Or if she touched them, she could see what type of person they were. And when she’d first met Appleby, the sunshine gave her hope. That he was really out to do good.
It was almost like there were two Charleses.
Ash hoped sleep would come soon and tried to think of more pleasant things, like Ling’s baby. About being an auntie and how she was going to spoil that kid. She thought about that, with intermittent images of Lee Hierne sneaking into her mind, for a long time until her brain shut down, the insomnia let go and she finally fell asleep.