Free a Touch of Ice by L. j. Charles Page B

a core dump of every emotion it had been holding since Tony moved in. He was lonely. So very lonely. Tears stung behind my eyes and I wanted to hug him, feed him something besides canned beef stew. My heart hurt with his despair like when I saw pictures of starving children in war-torn countries.
    I sucked in a breath and jerked my hands away from the wall. The room shimmered. I knew it did. Couldn’t see a thing, but I knew it shimmered. Like it was smiling at me. Oh, dear God, I’d lost it. Walls did not feel things, did not store said feelings, and most important, did not share those emotions with…me.
    I backed away from the wall, a scream building in my chest. I bit the inside of my cheek to keep it from escaping and broadcasting our illegal visit to the neighbors. Not. Going. To. Scream.
    A wave of energy tickled my senses, and I knew Violet had returned to the kitchen. “Here, touch my hand.” She positioned her gloved hand under my fingertips. Gloved? When did that happen?
    “You’re shaking.” She was worried about me.
    “Yeah, I…don’t like strange houses.”
    I couldn’t tell her what had just happened. Bad enough I knew that I’d passed from being just plain strange to over-the-top psycho. The warmth of Violet’s hand penetrated the latex gloves, and with it images of the layout of Tony’s house flooded my mind—like a Triple A map with the route highlighted in hot pink.
    It was a normal image. No weird emotions. No walls acting like sentient beings. I clamped my hand around Violet’s soaked up her body heat. Normal. Human.
    It’s a good thing I’d glommed on to her hand, because when we reached the living room I was bombarded with another slew of images, so fast and furious I would have crumpled without her support. Light from the street filtered through the blinds and cast eerie gray shadows over the worn furniture in Tony’s living room.
    “Breathe.” The mint from Violet’s gum scented the space between us. “If you pass out in here I will kill you, chop your body into small pieces, and throw them off the nearest cliff.”
    Right, then. No way was I going to argue with the woman. She sounded as serious as an IRS auditor, and had shown off a number of questionable skills in the last hour. Besides, I needed her normalcy to keep me grounded—and away from the walls. Far away from the walls.
    I dragged in a shallow breath and shut my mind to everything but the images flowing through my head. They needed to be processed in a way that made sense so I could remember them and deliver them to others in an understandable format. Surely I could do this or I wouldn’t be here, would I? Damn, I hate when the universe steps in and messes with my life.
    I struggled to bring my whacked-out emotions under control. The smell surrounding death was new to me and hit my stomach with a sickening roil. I tried to hang on to the minty scent of Violet’s gum, but the odor of decay and death was overpowering. Focus, El. Focus on what you’re supposed to be doing. I covered my nose with the hem of my t-shirt and stepped back from sofa. Tony had died on that sofa.
    The physical movement helped to bring the images into focus. They still flashed through my mind, but more slowly, staying just long enough for me to register each picture before it disappeared, replaced with the next scene. When the slide show was complete, I mumbled to Violet that it was time to leave. We hadn’t been there long, five or ten minutes max.
    Just long enough for me to loose my sanity. That wall thing was too weird. Had to be an anomaly. One of those things like a déjà vu moment. I pushed it firmly out of my mind. Nobody would think to look for my fingerprints on the wall.
    Neither of us said a word on the way home. I had to give her credit, Violet did not ask me a single question. A feat I could never have accomplished if the circumstances were reversed. She did glance at me a few times, I think to assess my mental state, but that