Free Immortal Flame by Jillian David

connection. She floated in a protective bubble as the visions swirled around her; the numerous voices blended into a deafening cacophony of sound then receded until all she could hear was a soft roar, like a constant, blowing wind.
    Peter’s strong, firm grip enveloped her shaking hands. He tightened and relaxed the pressure several times as if he was holding back, like a car revving with the brakes still on. The wind continued to roar, but she felt safe and protected.
    His brown eyes had turned onyx-black, boring into her soul. She couldn’t move. When she lost focus for a moment, the visions began to hurt, but she gritted her teeth and made her mental wall stronger.
    Peter took a deep breath and held it for a second.
    The burning receded once more and Allison relaxed her guard.
    His lips moved, but no sound came out. Frowning, she strained to hear. Bit by bit, his voice penetrated the blended wind of voices. Like tuning into an AM radio station, she finally heard him.
    In his static-laced voice, he asked, “Is this hurting you?”
    She shook her head, optimism beginning to grow inside.
Maybe I will be free
.
    Through their joined hands, his warmth flowed up her arms and into her chest. New emotions flowed into her mind—Peter’s emotions. Concern for her safety and desire for her was paramount in his thoughts, but a mist cloaked a portion of his mind.
    Could she truly be in his consciousness? What about that part she couldn’t see? Was he hiding something? Curious, she probed into the unclear area of thoughts, separating out and clarifying the visions of him one by one.
    The woman Allison had seen before … the lady’s cute bobbed hairstyle flattened into a sweaty mat of hair on her forehead. The woman wasted away. Suffered.
    Crushing sadness lanced through Allison’s chest. When the woman opened her mouth to speak, only a stale, mechanical puff of air came out. The taste of bitter regret in Allison’s mouth was tangy and sour. Her heart ached, poignant, painful, and empty.
    Then a debonair man with shiny, curled, black hair appeared, dressed in fine, old clothing, velvet trimmed with lace, like something out of a French painting. His smile didn’t reach his coal-black, frigid eyes. She—no, Peter—shook hands with the man. Searing heat scalded her palm pressed to the man’s hand. Then the man grinned, a rictus of a smile twisting his thin mouth into a hole of hellish laughter.
    She plunged into Peter’s emotions, experiencing hope, despair, followed by emptiness. Then … war? She flinched at nearby explosions, her ears ringing.
    An Asian soldier died by Peter’s hands, her hands. The sudden, driving urge to vomit seized every muscle in her body as she sensed the give in a man’s flesh when the knife penetrated the soldier’s ribcage, blood erupting. Brief elation spiked through the knife and along her—no, Peter’s—arm. Her heart swelled with his hope, then crumpled in despair.
    A swarthy man in a headscarf with a wound in his chest fell lifeless to the ground, blood squirting in pulses from a shredded heart. Again, the ever-present knife plunged into the crater of the wound, severing bloody flesh. Once more, her heart soared with hope, expectation, and then squeezed hard as crushing despair washed through her veins.
    Peter clamped down on her hands, wrenching her out of the visions. His detached voice cut through the roaring wind. “What are you doing?”
    “I see … ” she whispered. “I see … all of you … inside ... ” She dug her nails into his hands. Peter’s eyes narrowed. His darkness became a heavy, black cloak that settled on her shoulders. She suddenly weighed a million pounds. Couldn’t move. Didn’t care.
    Then the weight lifted and the power of their connection surged; mainlining coffee wouldn’t feel this good. She had become part of his emotions. His heart soared with the lightness of breaking free from prison, but it was much more. Elation, like water springing up from a