Free Terminal Point by K.M. Ruiz

eyelids. When Jael brushed against Ciari’s mind, all she got was a tidal wave of emotion. Jael flinched.
    â€œThe OR,” Jael said. “Now.”
    Everyone rushed to obey, the medics and nurses working to stabilize Ciari’s physical form as they hurried to the operating room. Keiko followed in their wake, the telekinetic pale-faced and angry, a futile emotion, Jael thought.
    Don’t die on me now, Ciari, Jael thought grimly as she let her crew pull the hover-gurney into the operating room. We still need you.
    Jael thought for a moment of a time just hours ago when she’d had Ciari on her operating table for a different sort of procedure. Shaking aside that memory, Jael spared a moment to look over at Keiko, the telekinetic standing just outside the tiny sterilization room. “Do you need medical attention?”
    â€œNo,” Keiko said, voice tight. “They didn’t touch me.”
    Jael nodded. “Then wait outside. I’ve got work to do.”
    The door slid shut and Jael continued through to the operating room. She still had to scrub in, standing shoulder to shoulder with some of her nurses and assistants. For all that this was psi surgery, a physical operation was involved as well.
    â€œMarguerite,” Jael said. “Deal with the bleeding. I’ll deal with her mind.”
    Jael’s second-in-command nodded and began barking orders. A nurse cut off Ciari’s uniform, another hooked her to an IV and other machines to monitor her vital signs. Electrodes were adhered to her skull, pulling up Ciari’s chaotic mental readings on an EEG machine and overlaying it with the baseline in her medical records. Jael closed her eyes against the organized chaos of the operating room as she curled a hand around Ciari’s own lax one. She dropped all but a single mental shield and sank her telepathic power into Ciari’s traumatized mind.
    A maelstrom of agony greeted her on the mental grid, jagged edges cutting into her own mind, psionic pain bleeding through her power. Jael worked to hold on to her own sense of self. She let a little of the pain seep in, needing to know where it stemmed from. The brain was a link between the body and the mind. The neurotracker that every Stryker carried was capable of doing enough damage that sometimes death would have been the preferable option.
    Jael focused her power, splitting it through the burned-out pieces of Ciari’s psyche. She went deep, letting herself be drawn into the other woman’s subconscious mind. Jael knew that Marguerite would be putting Ciari under with as many drugs as her battered body could handle. Consciousness would be a slippery thing to grasp right now, and sometimes healing worked better as a suggestion than as an order. Sometimes it didn’t.
    Ciari, Jael said, piecing together the woman’s shattered sense of control one thought, one heartbeat, at a time. I need you to turn off the pain.
    Raw emotion flowed over her, no control in the response. Jael struggled to find an answer in a sensory overload where words weren’t even an afterthought, but simply forgotten.
    Turn it off.
    Of all the psions, empaths were the best at altering how they felt pain. It was nerves and tissue, mind over matter, the concept of pain, of an ache that could carefully be denied. Jael used every bit of her power and concentration to guide Ciari into changing how her body felt, so it would change how her mind felt. It was almost a relief when the pain switched off, that all-encompassing drag on Jael’s mind disappearing.
    â€œICP at twenty-one mm’s,” Jael heard a nurse say. “Scans are showing possible brain herniation, definite epidural hematoma.”
    â€œPrep for decompressive craniectomy,” Marguerite ordered. “Map out placement of the neurotracker for the operation. We can’t take any chances with her.”
    The hum of a laser saw was a hideous background noise. Conversation