Free Love Beyond Sanity by Rebecca Royce

understand something. That was just ridiculous.
    He threw his hands in the air in frustration. "All right. I'll play along. Why not?" He raised an eyebrow hoping it showed his disgust. "Tell me about the Outsiders, the creatures I heard about from Self-loathing who comes here regularly to beat the crap out of me."
    She sighed. Her shoulders slumped. Had she expected an argument, been geared up for one and he'd not delivered? He shook his head. Really, what did he care?
    "The Outsiders are an ancient race, as old as time, as old as the Fates, some would say. Placed here on earth, it was our job to keep order and balance in the universe."
    He smirked. "Little Yin and Yang maintenance, huh?"
    She nodded. "If you like. Sure."
    Her eyes looked so sad he wanted to reach out and stroke her cheek until she smiled. "Go on."
    "If things got out of hand, the Outsiders took care of it. Destroyed the evil, restored the good, kept the order in balance."
    "They're like the universe's police officers."
    "Until it was our parents' turn to take the reins. They got tired of watching the evil return again and again, so they decided to see if they could rid the universe of it once and for all. When their plan failed with a huge blunder, they made it more powerful than ever and unleashed it on humanity. We were born—eighteen of us, each with a pair, a soul mate of sorts that made us stronger and kept us complete—to save humanity."
    "So why don't I know anything about this? Shouldn't I know?"
    Jason tried to picture his parents calling upon evil and ridding the earth of it. The idea was preposterous. His mother, and God knew he loved her, would worry about breaking a nail or ruining her silk suit.
    "Because we were separated. Our parents were killed by the minions of the demons and we were all meant to be sent to a man named Veli to live and survive—to hide until we were old enough to fight back. That plan failed too. I made it to Veli. You didn't."
    Jason's heart pounded. What was it his mother had said to him? He'd suddenly appeared in his mother's life. He assumed she meant he was a surprise pregnancy. If he thought about this story, if he actually considered it, 'suddenly appearing' to his mother might mean any number of things.
    Including the possibility that he had literally appeared in front of his mother as a baby.
    He looked around his surroundings, the strange garden hillside he'd invented as a child. Since he was doing this, it made sense to follow it to its logical end. "What is this place?"
    "It's our garden."
    "Our garden?"
    The blonde goddess nodded and concentrated her gaze at the ground. "Yes, the place where we met in our other consciousness."
    "Where you and I met? As children?" He frowned slightly.
    "Where we were meant to always meet. Our shared dreams. Useful, considering we were separated, for us to always somehow be together. Evidently, it didn't work out that way. You disappeared. It felt like a death to me."
    "It was a death, of sorts. I decided I had to live in the real world, couldn't keep coming here. I could never be all the things that I wanted to be if I didn't stop it."
    She looked up, her eyes filled with tears and his hands shook. He felt like the worst kind of monster for admitting what he had. "So you quit me too. I see." She nodded and he had no idea what she was thinking. He was pretty sure he didn't want to know. "I didn't even know that was possible. Everything I'd understood about this process was that the two couldn't stand to be away from one another. I've pretty much been mourning you for eighteen years." She looked up suddenly. "What is your name?"
    "Jason Randall. Dr. Jason Randall." His cheeks heated as he realized he'd included his title. What did she care if he was a doctor?
    "I'm Charma. It's spelled with a Ch even though it's pronounced like a K."
    "So it's Karma but spelled with a Ch?" The spelling of her name was ridiculously fascinating to him. He wasn't sure why. "That's very unusual.