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I thought we deserved a lighter column after the events of the past months, a chance for all of us to catch our breaths…so let us dig into the topic of sex.

Yes. S.E.X.

I know, you’re all yelling that, “Jaya, I had basic sex education in elementary school!” But I’m here to tell you that sexual reproduction as taught in Psy education under Silence, and sex as it pertains to the messy entangling of emotions in the post-Silence world are two wholly different things.

The WindHaven healer got fluids and nutrients into Bram while he sat shirtless and unconcerned in a large infirmary armchair. “I’m going to hook you up so we can monitor—”

“Don’t bother,” Bram said, his eyes still on Dahlia, who was standing there wearing his misbuttoned shirt.

She was all tumbled hair she’d somehow managed to get into a knot with nothing, kiss-bruised lips, bare feet, and long legs, and he could look at her to his last breath.

“There’s no coming back from what’s happening. ”

“Don’t say that,” Dahlia ordered, a hot red flush on her cheekbones. “Eleri is Adam’s mate .”

He hadn’t known that; now, the knowledge crushed the part of him that was still the boy so determined to protect his friends.

All this time, Eleri could’ve had a life happy and extraordinary with a man who said her name like a benediction.

“If I could do something to help her, I would,” he said.

“I want Adam to pluck a miracle out of the air, but in strict Psy terms, Eleri no longer has anything on which to build a shield—and soon I won’t, either. ”

He was so susceptible to Dahlia that he’d allowed her to talk him into the vehicle, then bring him here. But it had been a mistake. His mind clear, he saw no way out…and he didn’t want to die in a cold hospital room, or even this infirmary.

“So that’s it?” She put her hands on her waist, a Valkyrie whose eyes were of a falcon wild. “You’re just going to give up?”

“There’s nothing I can do,” he argued back.

“If I could have donated my shield to Eleri, I would have.” He’d been fighting for Eleri, Saffron, and Yúzé since the day he’d met them, but he’d failed and he’d take that failure with him into death.

“At this point in time, we—every J about to hit Exposure—are all alone.”

Dahlia scowled, but before she could snap back a retort, the healer interrupted. “Actually, there might be something you can do.”

Bram forced himself to look away from the woman who crazed him. “I’d be happy to, whatever it is. As long as you”—he turned to face Dahlia—“promise you’ll take me outside when it’s my time to go. I want to die with the outside air on my skin.”

A wildness in her eyes, Dahlia said, “Did you not hear me? You are not going to die. I refuse to live with the jokes afterward.” She pointed a finger at him before turning to the healer. “What do you need him to do, Naia?”

“Act as a test subject. Saoirse’s trying to create an artificial shield for Eleri. Probably go faster if she has a Psy with a similar brain on whom to test her theories.”

Bram didn’t say anything, unwilling to snuff out the hope on their faces, but he’d used his contacts to stay abreast of the Human Alliance’s attempts to engineer a shield for their people. They had been trying for a long time—but humanity was still out there unshielded.

This Saoirse the healer had mentioned wasn’t going to succeed in a day…

which was all Bram had left—at the most generous estimate.

But if it would make Dahlia happy for him to try, then he’d try.

He owed her for bringing pleasure and softness into his life right when he’d believed he’d fall into the abyss with nothing but memories of evil as his companions.

···

Two hours later, a woman of medium height, with skin of a deep brown that held coppery undertones, her curly hair twisted into a knot at the back of her neck, walked in with a box of items. Bram wondered if she was planning to run the no-doubt-necessary litany of blood and DNA tests right here…

then she pulled out a literal tinfoil helmet.

Bram stared at it. He understood jokes, but given the tension in the room, it was obvious this wasn’t one.

Which left only desperation. “I’m sorry,” he said bluntly, his patience dead at the thought of spending his last hours on something this idiotic.

“But if that worked, the human prophets on street corners would be the most protected people on the planet.”

The woman—Saoirse—glanced over at Dahlia, who’d changed into jeans and a T-shirt, to Bram’s great disappointment. “He always this much of a smartass?”

“How should I know?” Dahlia scowled.

Shrugging, Saoirse said, “I mean, I’m no vulture or bear, but even I can smell you on him. And those look like talon marks on his shoulders, and oh gee”—a tone dryer than the desert—“that’s either a hickey on your neck or you need immediate medical attention.”

Dahlia shot the other woman the finger.

Apparently unbothered, Saoirse held up the ridiculous tinfoil creation. “This is not what it looks like.”

Bram rubbed his face, suddenly understanding what humans meant when they said it was their dicks that had led them astray. “What is it, then?”

“A new alloy we’re testing for jet heat shields,” she said. “Flexible and extremely strong. Protects against radiation, so I figure why not try to see if it protects against Psy energy?”

“An external shield?” Bram looked up, interested despite himself. He’d never even considered a prosthetic of sorts—everything about the Psy came from the inside.

Saoirse’s expression was grim. “It has to be external. Even if I had the best idea on the planet for an internal shield, there’s no time. Adam’s just taken off for the hospital—Dr. Czajka says Eleri’s declining.”

Bram’s shoulder muscles locked. “Go, do your test.” Already, the pressure of the people nearby was beginning to impact him. He couldn’t hear anyone, but the murmur in the background was a constant.

Sooner or later, the murmurs would break through, crush his mind.

He wanted to be gone before then, did not intend to leave this world a raving lunatic. “Wait—do you know if Saffron and Yúzé are still at the hospital?”

“No, the doctor mentioned her friends left an hour prior to help another J, but told her they’d return the instant they’d pulled their colleague out of a high-risk situation.”

That was what the Cartel had vowed once they’d all slipped into Sensitivity: that if there was a way to help a young J, a J who might make it, they had to take action.

Now, Bram said, “Good.” Better that the two most fractured members of the Cartel didn’t see Eleri die; they were going to be messed up enough as it was losing both Eleri and Bram at once.

“Dahlia says your shields are thin?” Saoirse’s direct tone was that of a scientist. “I need a baseline—or you do—to judge the functionality of my attempts.”

“There’s pressure on my mind,” Bram admitted. “Hundreds of murmurs, from the Canyon and around Raintree. I can’t hear anyone, but if you put an unshielded human in this room with me, it won’t be murmurs, it’ll be words breaking through.”

Dahlia sucked in a breath. “I’ll take you outside,” she said, her voice rough. “If it comes to that, I’ll put you in the car and drive you out into the middle of the desert where the only other mind is mine.”

Bram held her gaze, so dark and lovely. “Thank you.” Then he turned to Saoirse. “If the murmurs cut out or fade, it’s a success. If not, a failure. Trust me, I’ll notice any fluctuation.”

Nodding, she took the ridiculous helmet and placed it on his head, doing something to seal it around his skull. “So?”

“No change.”

“Damn.” With that single word, she removed the helmet and put it to one side before pulling out a square of an unknown material from the box.

“I only had time to make one actual helmet, chose the material that seemed most apt to work, but I have samples of other materials. If I hold them against your skull, will you be able to tell if one works as a blocker?”

“I don’t know,” Bram said honestly. “But we can attempt it.”

Seven samples later and the entire room was dispirited…

and Dahlia had come to stand by him and run her fingers gently along his scalp, through the hair he kept buzzed military short.

It had gone gray when he was only twenty-five, after two brutal reads in a row that involved a total of seventeen murdered and dismembered victims.

“I look that bad?” he asked her, his eyes closing under the pleasure of her touch.

He didn’t even care that the ripple of sensation was destroying even more of his shields.

“Be quiet,” she said, but her voice was soft, and she leaned down to whisper in his ear. “If Saoirse figures out a solution, then I owe you another round.”

His skin prickled, a pumping beat in his blood. “It’s a deal,” he said, though he was all but certain he’d never get to collect. Still, it was a nice dream to have for the last minutes and hours he’d spend on this planet.

While Saoirse and Naia were talking at the other end of the room, near the box of supplies, he cupped the back of Dahlia’s thigh with his palm and just drank her in. Another moment of lush softness with a woman unlike any he’d met in his life. “I could touch you forever.”

She gave him a lopsided smile. “You’re really good for my ego.”

“Thanks, sweetheart,” Saoirse said just then, after accepting a second box a teenage girl with curls the same shade as her own had just pushed over on a cart using one hand; her other arm, Bram realized, was strapped up with a highly effective and fast-acting compound designed to help bones knit together.

“Gen-seal?” he asked the healer after the teenager departed. “I noticed the slight glow to the cast.”

Naia nodded. “I’ve found that using Gen-seal in conjunction with my own abilities ramps up the healing in our children by a significant margin. Doesn’t work as well with adults, but with how many broken wings we handle in the fledglings, I’ll take it.”

“These,” Saoirse said, having opened the box, “are samples of materials we rejected because they seem to serve no shielding purpose—but who knows with psychic powers? Let’s just try.”

It was only once she was close to him—and Dahlia had moved away so he could focus—that he saw the grief in her eyes, the way lines had formed around her lips.

“Why do you care so much about Eleri?” he asked, wanting to understand why this stranger to him was fighting so hard to save part of his family.

“She saved my baby girl by giving herself to a monster,” was the soft answer. “And Adam? He’s my younger brother.”

Bram understood. Saoirse had to try everything, even when the chance of success was less than zero. Bram would try with her; perhaps between them, they could save their siblings.