Chapter 18

(Thanks to PapaKilo14 for his editing prowess)

Zoe was stretched out on the bed, stark naked, her skin flush with desire. She had one hand slowly diddling her clit and the other was tweaking her nipples, pulling and twisting first one, then the other.

Sally was laying there on her side, her head propped up on one arm, her shirt nowhere to be seen and her panties pulled partially down, one hand snaked between her legs and obviously busy with her own pussy.

Except where Sally had one leg crossed over and resting on Zoe's ankle, they weren't otherwise touching, but the scene was almost unbearably intimate. They were whispering to each other, talking so quietly that James and Stacy couldn't hear what they were saying from the door.

When James let Zoe know that they had arrived, Zoe leaned her head closer to Sally and whispered again.

Sally's head jerked to the left, her eyes locking on James, and she began to sit up, her free hand coming across her chest to hide her breasts and the hand that was in her panties sliding free and fluttering, as if she was not sure where it should go.

James just smiled and walked over to the bed, taking a seat on the corner and laying a hand casually on Zoe's ankle, where Sally's foot had been moments before.

"She is so sexy, laying there, isn't she?" he asked, letting his eyes roam Zoe's body, but his comment was directed at Sally.

"Yes." Sally's response was so quiet that he almost missed it, except for the wave of fear that follow in its wake.

"Sally, I want to join with you," he paused, jerking back from the pulse of terror that his comment had caused and held up his hands. "Mentally, Sally. Like before, when you were hurting and I came to find you, remember? When we all, all three of us, came to find you."

Sally was shivering now, her eyes wide and her mouth making little gasping movements, like she couldn't decide whether to breath or speak and was able to do neither.

He waited, patiently, his eyes locked on hers, sending her peaceful thoughts, flooding her with love, willing her to trust him, to believe in him.

She shuddered, her whole body shaking, then closed her eyes and seemed to get a grip on herself. When she opened her eyes again, still face to face with James, she nodded.

James smiled at her, still pulsing love and trust, and sent his probe. This time it was easy. The maelstrom had calmed to, reduced to mere hurricane proportions, though there were some ugly threads of fear and pain that made the entire scene macabre.

He easily found her center and pierced it, taking a second to orient himself and to breathe easier, now that he was in the eye of the storm.

He could see her conflicted emotions seeming to battle for supremacy. He could see her memories, her father and tormentor, the way he would beat her until she wept, then force himself on her. He could see that she blamed herself, that she came to invite the abuse, flirting with her tormentor, thinking that it was the only way he could love her, the only way she could be loved.

Inside his own mind, the rage threatened to break free, tried to escape the box he had shoved it into, tried to force its way out so it could vent on the world at large.

He nudged, sending her images of the first time he met her. He saw her interest, her almost automatic flirting. Images of him running, the thrill and terror she felt when he lifted her effortlessly that day. The shame at the attraction, knowing in her heart that she would be adding to her own shame, her own torment.

He found what he had feared when he inserted her mother into the equation. Her mother drunk, beating her, calling her a whore. Blaming her for seducing her husband, turning him against her own mother. Then the drunken fall, the crash of glass. He saw the shard of glass, laying against the woman's throat, a thin line of blood was all. Until Sally stepped down, her slipper-shod foot forcing the fragment deep into her unconscious mother's throat. The spray of blood, the sense of satisfaction.

Then the horror came, the realization that she was every bit the monster her mother had painted her to be. The realization that she was alone, totally, unbearably alone.

Last, but not least, and with many misgivings, James inserted his memory of the night she tried to will herself dead. He appeared in her memory as a shining giant, an angel who glowed so brightly that she could hardly bear to look.

He pulled back then, not out but to the periphery, and waited, thinking, reviewing, deciding.

He pulled Stacy and Zoe into the gestalt, opening his mind and showing them what he had seen, showing them what he had learned. Then he struck. He drove deep, down into her memories, down into the center of her mind, into the core of her being. He struck, he cut and torn, hacked and burned, eradicated every memory of her father's abuse save one. Then completely destroyed the memory of her final act of defiance, leaving only the memory of her mother's 'accident' behind.

Lastly, he gathered together the memories she had manufactured of him as an angel, as a beacon, and he replaced them. He inserted himself as Stacy saw him. He was a young man, fallible, earnest, loving and sometimes juvenile, but ultimately caring and careful. From Zoe, he took her trust for him, her certainty that he would never hurt her or allow her to come to harm. Then he urged her to sleep, forcing her eyes closed, forcing her deep.

When he was done, he turned to his lovers, his mental hand held wide, and submitted himself to their judgment. He hadn't asked for their concurrence, he hadn't asked them to help and he hadn't asked for the memories he took and reused for his own purposes. He despised what he had become, what he had done, using his gifts to force his will on the girl, and he was willing to face the consequences.

When Zoe and Stacy withdrew from the link, he wondered if he could succeed where Sally had failed, and began to withdraw into himself, knowing they had turned their backs on him, condemned his monstrous rampage through the girl's mind.

The slap that snapped his head around and knocked him from the bed to the floor was so unexpected, so sudden that he lost all connections to Sally, coming out from his mental world into the physical with a bang as his head hit the floor.

"Don't you fucking do it!" screamed Zoe, tears streaming down her cheeks, her face locked in a look of horror.

"How could you think that? How could you even think of leaving us?" she screamed, standing over him and weeping.

Stacy jumped between them, wrapping her arms around James and pleading with her sister. "He thought we left him! He thought we rejected him!"

Zoe seemed to crumple, her legs collapsing under her. "We had to, the pain... !" she gasped, dropping her face into her hands, her body wracked by sobs.

"I thought you were horrified. I couldn't do this without you and I thought you were gone. You cut the link..." James said, his voice hoarse.

Zoe pulled away from Stacy and threw herself into his lap, her arms so tight around him that he had problems drawing a breath.

"Don't ever do that. Don't ever think that. I can't live without you. I don't want to live without you. I have never been so scared in my whole life!" she sobbed.

"I am so sorry, little one. What I did to Sally, I didn't even know what the fuck I was doing, wasn't sure if I could even do that without killing her. I might have destroyed her mind. Then I invaded your minds, took what I wanted and gave them to her. So many things, so many ... I thought you would be horrified, disgusted. When you left, I decided I would rather die than face the world without you two."

"We were overwhelmed, we needed to get out. James, you don't understand what it was like for us. You have given us these abilities, but they are a pale imitation of what you can do. It is like comparing a lit match to the sun. What you did in there, the power and the strength, it was ... It was too much, I felt like my mind was going to burn out. We had to leave!" Stacy said, holding both of them.

'I didn't... ' he started to send, but Stacy grabbed him, startling and interrupting him. The two women were shuddering and pale.

Stacy gasped, holding her head in her hands. "Don't! I don't think I can bear it ... it feels like a spike in my brain!"

Zoe just moaned, holding on tight, barely conscious.

James realized that their comment about feeling like they were going to burn out was not hyperbole. Somehow, his actions had fed back on them, had hurt them. What if they could never link again? Had he tried to save one and destroyed two? Had he even saved Sally? He had struck blindly, acting on instinct. It was entirely possible that she could wake up a completely different person, or completely insane.

It was his turn to weep.

The three of them slept, finally, though it was early afternoon. His mother, coming to find out where the four had disappear to, saw all four of them under the covers in James's bed, all of them looking pale and drawn. None of them appeared to have a fever, but she was concerned enough to sit with them for hours, leaving only to get her husband his dinner when he got home for work, and then sleeping on the futon through the night.