Heart of Obsidian

However, the error didn’t speak to the skills of the testing staff but to the stealthy nature of what existed inside her—to the extent that she herself hadn’t become aware of it until she was twelve. And then, she’d learned to hide it, because it made her a target.
    “If you don’t need my backsight,” she said to Kaleb, “then why am I here?” Regardless of her question, she was dead certain he knew what she could do—there could be no other reason he’d gone to such lengths to find and capture her.
    The black depths of his eyes devoid of stars once more, an endless night that threatened to suck her under, he rose to his feet and, placing his hands on the table, leaned toward her until she could’ve reached out and run her fingers along his freshly shaven jaw. “You are here,” he said in a tone that made her heart thump wildly against her ribs, “because you belong to me.”
    * * *
    TEN minutes later, Sahara sat on the edge of the bed that was her own, Kaleb’s words gleaming against the wall of her mind. They made as little sense now as they had when he’d spoken them. One thing, however, was patent.
    She was not free to leave this house. Neither was she free to enter the PsyNet.
    Considering those facts in the abnormal calm that insulated her from her perilous situation, she decided she didn’t want to do either at present. The instant she slipped outside the obsidian of Kaleb’s mental protection, she exposed her naked, vulnerable mind. Further, she had no idea of where she’d go, what she’d do upon escaping him. As proven by the hazy distance between her and her emotions—until it felt as if she were looking out at the world through a wall of water—her mind remained bruised, her thinking processes flawed.
    NightStar.
    An option for sanctuary, except, with her fragmented memory centers, she had no way of knowing if her clan hadn’t in fact worked hand in glove with her captors to harness her ability to their own ends, giving her up to soul-destroying loneliness. The guards in her prison hadn’t seen her as an individual, hadn’t even seen her as a sentient being. She’d simply been a task, nameless and without identity.
    Had one shown her even the smallest kindness, would the labyrinth have begun to unravel? Sahara would never know, because the instant the individual in charge of her incarceration had discovered the labyrinth—too late to halt the process—her normal guards, who occasionally spoke to her, had been replaced by men and women so icily Silent it had never occurred to them to deviate from their assigned duties . . . whether those duties were to force-feed her or to strip her to the skin while lowering the room temperature to freezing.
    Kaleb, in contrast, had thus far done nothing to cause her harm. He’d given her
privacy
, free access to clean clothing and a shower, as well as food that made her taste buds sing and her parched soul shudder. Neither had he commented on or challenged her broken Silence. It would be stupid and premature to leave his protection until she was in a better mental state, able to judge friend from foe.
    As for Kaleb himself . . . the responses he aroused in her were raw, disturbing, painful. Even now, the knot of tears lay rigid against her breastbone, as if simply waiting for her to surrender to an emotion that was wholly without reason. To cry for Kaleb, she would have to know him, and he was a stranger . . . who knew she adored cherry-flavored drinks and that she felt the cold more acutely than most people. It hadn’t escaped her notice that the entire sprawl of the house was now at a temperature she found most comfortable.
    Taking a deep breath in an effort to fight the compulsion to go to him, to demand answers to questions she couldn’t articulate, she picked up the book he’d given her the previous night and decided to walk to the terrace. The sunshine, the cool autumn wind, she craved it against her skin . . . as she craved contact with another living being, her body starved for far more than food.
    Her thoughts scattered when she caught the fleeting reflection of a woman with a tangled dark mane. Blinking, she stared at the window, but it wasn’t the best mirror and only served to frustrate. Since her room had no mirrors—a vague memory of shattered glass, shards slicing a fine, bright line across her cheek—she walked back down the corridor and entered the room across from her own.
    The clean, fresh scent of soap and