Free Tremble in the Dark: A Gwen Farris Novel by P. S. Power

time they'd met the man had caused her horrible pain. Chances were he was
there to do it again too.
    "Katherine
just took over my mouth, to complain about you coming to torture her. That's
the first time she's ever done anything like that." She stared at the boy
and then shrugged. He was a little super-soldier, still in training, but he
wasn't a regular kid. He could handle it, if he had to take action, she bet,
based only on her own hallucinations.
    Because
that was a firm place to stand, wasn't it?
    "The
woman that stole me from my own reality is still inside my head. She'd killed
me, over there, in the process, so I'm stuck here. That's the best guess
anyway. If she tries to take over, we'll probably have to do something like
this to keep her down. If that doesn't work..." She flipped a single palm,
still making direct eye contact with Peter. "If that happens, then I'll try
to kill myself. If I fail, it might fall to you to do it, so pass that word to
Adam, so he can make certain you're armed all the time, if you're working with
me."
    Instead
of gasping in shock, or even looking away, the boy just nodded.
    "On
it. I already got word that I should report to you for that training. Manly is
going to help you set it up. I have to keep up with the rest of my studies too,
but it sounds more interesting than what they had me doing, which was, for the
next few months, nothing much at all. I'm on a healing rotation, after my last
training session. Telepathy. I don't have a full state for it yet
however." He didn't seem shy or embarrassed about it at all, and scooped
up the spheres from the rather nice table. He cradled them all in the crook of
his left arm for a moment, using his right hand to pull out a cloth sack from a
pocket on the leg of his blue Westmorland day uniform. It was black, and made
of a dull cloth, but held the baseball sized objects easily, with room to
spare. They were metal after all, and just pushing the button wasn't enough to
make them work. A person had to do it.
    He
waited for a bit, so Gwen smiled at him. "Good to hear. This shouldn't
impact magical functions too much, so you can finish healing at the same time.
I'll run that all by Manly. Do you want to bet money that he thinks my plans
are far too soft and lazy for you?"
    The
boy crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out a little, making himself look
stupid.
    "No.
I don't have any of that, I don't think. You mean lucre, right? Mets? Anyway,
trainees at my level don't have things like that, and if I did, I'd keep it and
not just toss it away on a stupid gamble like that. Manly is a trainer. He has to think he's being too soft on the rest of us. He doesn't have a choice."
    The
man himself started to unpack a medium sized case that he had with him, but she
waved her left hand at him.
    "Not
here. I think we should try for a room in the East wing, away from everyone
else, so the screams won't bother anyone this time."
    Without
even looking up, he fastened the case closed and started toward the door, as if
letting her know that time was more of a factor than Beth had mentioned. It
might not be that, of course. It could also just be that giving her more
time to think about what might be coming wasn't going to help anything at all.
    She
stood up, and resisted the urge to pat Peter on the back. That would be
improper enough here that most people, even Westmorlands, might look at her
funny. Possibly not, but just in case, she didn't let herself do it. Instead
she looked at the kid and managed another really good wink. It was twice in one
day and everything. She'd thought she had it down before though, so
didn't count it as perfect yet. For half a year she'd been going around
scrunching up half her face in a way that was highly lascivious to most of
these people. Beth had finally let her in on that one. She hadn't told her,
because she thought it was funny, watching people try to not react to it.
    Which
Gwen had to give her.
    It
was hilarious. Now that she knew at