Painted in Blood

Above__Present

Echo Vyn P.O.V

I wait in the room silently, it is dark, waiting for my next client. Workers here can request up to ten minutes of downtime in between clients, but I ask for one. One minute just for me. Just to breathe. Ten minutes would give me time to cry. Time to break, to snap in half. Fail every client who comes to rely on me. The lights fade on slowly, comfortably. Stemming from around the new person who walks in cautiously. This is not a repeat customer, she is new. Only 15 years old at best, which is when I started this job seven years ago. The girl has wise, curious yet guarded and aggressive eyes that scan the room quickly and sharply, like twin green lasers. Her eyebrows are arched and knitted together, and her mouth is near expressionless put just slightly thinned and pulled down at the corners. Her hair is bright fiery red waves ending in a sharp-angled forward cut. Her body is thin and wiry, muscle twisting and coiling around bone. Her arms extend slightly from her sides like she's ready to fly or fight. She is so much like me when I was her age that it hits me like a wall, but that wall has help from her emotions that are sharp and reeling around with distrust. The chunky red metal bracelet around the girl's wrist says she was aggressive and out of hand and has been court ordered to get emotional help. This is going to be one of the long cases I can tell already. I look at the two purple rings around her bare left upper arm telling me she's a level two teleporter. A level three telepath working outside the two-way mirror walls alters how the girl sees the room to her safe space, and a level three telekinetic working with the STEM matter they can mold into just about anything works to make the place a little more physical. The girl's happy place happens to be a cool dark night alight with stars and a full moon. Cool blue prairie grass about a foot high and speckled with fireflies dances to a subtle breeze. Everything is fuzzy around the edges, the girl is trying to block her thoughts. She squeezes her eyes shut and then finally speaks.

"Stop! Please make it stop, put me back in the room." She nearly begs but there is an iron undertone to her fear, mark that, terror in her voice.

"This is the real room." Zildjian says kindly, but he is not one with words, or the knowledge of how to calm minds, even when he is in them.

"Get out of my head. Show me the real room. Don't touch me, get the hell away from me now!" the girl snarls practically spitting. I sense Zildjian's confusion and call him out,

"Zildjian, Emrok, leave. Let the room be." I say protectively.

"We can't leave you without protection-" Emrok starts but luckily for him Zildjian must have cut him off. I hear his voice go out suddenly with an 'oomph' I c**k my head and rais an eyebrow questioningly.

Zildjian covers for Emrok but says "you're doing the paperwork for this one" then I sense the absence of the boy's emotions and I hear a door open and shut.

I consider the girl curiously with what I hope is kindness on my face. Her safe place dissolves back into a barren room with nothing but two fluffy chairs and a coffee table in between them. The girl moves with a quick fluidity that blows a few strands of hair from her face then she takes a seat in the chair across from me, too quickly and too perfect to be human. I've heard of teleports bein irregularly graceful and fast but this is beyond a level three grace. Someone tampered with her, possibly even gave her incarnate blood doses. I shudder regardless, no wonder the girl is unstable and in need of help.

"Do you mind telling me your name?" I ask finally, breaking the silence.

"Your telepath already knows" she retorts without even the effort of aggression as she continues to scan the room disinterested and not giving me eye contact.

"I don't let him tell me those things, I'd rather anything I learn about you be from what you've told me, not someone else"

"In that case, I'm not telling you my real name. I know your client's names all go in a little journal you probably have hidden somewhere nearby. Creepy little things. Call me Ashielt if you have to call me anything" she retorts, still not looking me in my eyes, though she's sized me up multiple times now.

"Why were you sent here?" I ask bluntly.

"You know why" she retorts brandishing her cuff.

"No, I know of. I know you were sent here because you were aggressive and somehow incompetent at something, not performing as you were supposed to in your job. None of that tells me why you were sent here" This makes Ashielt pause.

"You empaths really are as annoying as they say" She snaps. I wait for an answer while she glares at me, having finally made eye contact. "And freaks too, willingly giving up your entire lives for strangers like me. You have no reason to help me, no incentive other than you smell pain like a freaking dog and it's like it attracts you like a moth to a flame. You have no attachment to me, no way to even know that I supposedly need you other than the fact that I'm in here right now. Not by choice might I add. I don't want or need your help and you have no other reason other than my presence to help me so why don't you just fill out the paperwork and we part ways" Ashielt rants.

"I have reasons to help you other than your presence." I respond, fighting for an even tone. I twitch a little when Ashielt scoffs. "For instance" I continue, "I know that you must have come from some illegal underground operation because you've clearly been spliced with incarnate DNA and you exhibit signs of PTSD like a med billboard. You act like a little soldier and someone who was basically trained to be a weapon. Judging from your long sleeves and pants, you are probably covering up scars from, let me guess, schooling, but you haven't been schooled for a while now have you? You're coming to me in a legal form which means you've been sold, trafficked, and if by some loophole legally that means you were stolen as a child and branded as an orphan. You were sold quickly though and it's your first time. You're still skittish, not hardened, that's why you were deemed incompetent. Also, the underground that took you musn't have actually orphaned you as they were too carefully cautious yet sloppy. They probably threatened your parent's lives and paid them to keep the cops off of you and the neighborhood you were in probably won't mourn or fuss over your loss too much if at all will they? That's why your eyes are a little hopeful yet aggressive and not dead yet. There are no official names for the undergrounds or places that 'indenture orphans'" I say letting the last two words drip with individual emphasis and disdain. "But there are names floating in the wind. I'll wager a year's earnings the group that stole and sold you was the Shadows. The Crows would have made you a much better weapon than you are now. If I'm right the Shadows main buyers are the military, who generally don't care where soldiers come from so long as they've got a couple half decent papers bullshitted to their names that will all soon disappear in the system along with the actual person and no one will care. Once you've gotten that far people are usually already broken or get that way fast but you started out half c****d and pissy so you get sent to me which means the Shadows are slipping and the military is pissed so you're scared but this means if we team up with the police we could nail the Shadows. However one, you don't trust the police and two, you've already gone through this in your head. You're in a military-run city and no way they'd let us cut out one of their main drafting resources in the middle of a war against worse undergrounds like the before mentioned Crows. You're in a jank ass situation and you don't see a way out so what is some dumb empath b***h who can't possibly know what she's talking about do to help you right?" I finish not having moved or changed my expression the entire time. Ashielt looks a little green in the gills.

"I'm not a telepath and there isn't one near enough to sense either of us. I just so happen to know a little about what I'm talking about and I've barely started."

"Aw, that's cute. Any skinflint in this city and probably the next five surrounding could figure that stuff out. The problem is the easiest part, and for some, that's all I am, but I really am curious. What is a 'dumb empath b***h' like you going to do to solve that problem huh? You going to spout a bunch of s**t about how you're there for me?" Ashielt hisses venomously.

"that's exactly what I'm saying" I whisper then urgently. "If you ever need help, get to this place," I hand Ashielt a little bottle from inside my vest with a little forest swamp location inside. "Your time is up Ashielt, see you next time." I say in a regular tone then. With one last skeptical glance, Ashielt walks out quickly without another word. I sigh in relief as the room goes dark again.