Page 43 of Border Control

She startles, then scowls, red eyes snapping away from me. “I’ve got it, it’s fine.”

“I want to help and…” I glance at the farmhouse but it’s quiet, the only light on in Ellen and Ilia’s room. “I desire to talk to you, if you are willing.”

Her red lips twist. “I’ve been busy, not to mention worried for Arabella. I hate that we don’t hear anything… anyway.” A huff of breath puffs out like steam from her flared nostrils. “I haven’t been in the mood.”

I don’t know what that means, but she is certainly inamood. “I’m not pressing to talk about carnal activities,” I reassure her. “I… I just want to say, I’m a strong Base.”

She blinks slowly at me, her countenance remaining stern.

Words fumble out of me as if my lips have turned to betrillium under the hard ice of her gaze. “I… I provide a strong foundation. Good support for Nevare. I can… I can try to do the same for you, Law-rah, if you wanted it.”

“Like, mentally crawl inside here?” She points to her head and snorts. “No. That’s a hard border for me.”

“No, no, I only sense auras if I’m close, I can’t read your mind, only my Apex can?—”

She swings to face the shadowed lean to. “And is he? Because I don’t fucking consent.” Vibrating with anger, she’s terrifying despite her tiny size.

And I want to wrap her in my arms to shield her from whatever drove her to such fiery rage.

In her proximity, with only the flimsy metal pole of the umbrella separating us, I can feel the spikes Nevare mentioned, cold ones pressing all over her psyche, driving her onward like pain does for me. Each grows like a needle making newpathways of mental anguish. As I watch, another one spears straight to her heart.

She rubs her temples. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to take my anger out on you.” Her voice is remarkably calm for the level of torture I can see pressing into her from all sides.

“You need caring for,” I tell her. “If Nevare was half as tired, stressed and upset as you, I’d force him down and sit on him until Arik managed to get food in him. Then we’d lay next to him to keep him down until he slept.”

Her eyes flash up at me. “Sounds… hm. I don’t entirely hate it.”

My grip on the umbrella pole softens. “Let me do something equivalent for you. You don't have a Base to help stabilise you, and you seem… more alone than the other humans. More independent. It's a positive thing, of course, but… You can get relief from me. Let me be your Base for a few hours.” I hold eye contact, willing her to see what a strength I could be to her, if she’d let me in.

“Okay,” she allows, and my hearts rejoice.

Rain patterson the roof of Law-rah’s vehicle as we drive along the plascrete rivers that wend their way through the land. As we approach lit areas of habitation, more vehicles with two lights on the front and red ones at the back appear, each containing their own humans.

“My windows are blacked out, so no one can see in,” Law-rah says. “Still, this is insane. I’m taking an alien for a joyride.”

“I can camouflage myself.” I change my scales to a darker shade, matching the jacket Law-rah wears. She has a crisp white shirt that glistens like her hair, and I replicate that as well.

She glances over, looking at me in the artificial light from the poles set along the road. “That’ll be okay at a distance, but close up you look like you painted it on yourself. Which, actually, might start a new trend in Bristol.”

Questions swirl around me, like how many humans there are and whether they have predators, about the tall gray buildings that flash past, and the craft Law-rah pilots so skillfully, but mainly I want to ask about Law-rah and the spikes I can feel in the short distance between us.

Starting, however, is another matter. With Arik and Nevare, I don't have to say anything, Iknowhow they're feeling and what's bothering them so I can fix it without asking. Law-rah’s problems are enigmas to me, because she’s so far above me and not even from the same planet as I am.

But I want to learn.

‘Go to her.’Was that an echo of Nevare’s voice, or him actually reaching out to prod me again?

I take a breath to speak when Law-rah says, “Here we are.”

She pulls away from the rows of short white and cream buildings speckled with windows onto a road with fewer lights, and then directs the craft to a smooth stop. Pulling her jangling set of keys from the ignition, she sits with her hands in her lap. The interior light comes on, outlining her red-rimmed eyes and the shadows under her cheekbones.

She points out the wide front viewing port. “In the daytime, you’d see this huge gorge where the river Avon wends its way out of the city to the sea right at the very bottom. We have a famous bridge, the Clifton suspension bridge, connecting the sides, but before it was impassable.” Chuckling, she says, “Supposedly it was made by giants. Two giants fell in love with one woman,Avona I think, giving the river its name. Apparently, she asked them to drain a lake, and one chose to dig one way in a frenzy while the other chose this way. The latter was the more industrious and paced himself, never giving in but never going all out either. He was the winner.”

“And he got his mate?” I ask.

“Yeah.”

“Then his strategy was superior.”