Three hours later, she found herself sitting inside the alpha pair's aerie surrounded by Sascha and several changelings - Vaughn, Clay, Lucas, and a blond sentinel who'd been introduced to her as Dorian. There was something angry in Dorian's blue eyes when he looked at her, a cold rage she couldn't understand, not when he hadn't participated in the hunt. A changeling word. A changeling punishment. Delivered by a Psy mind. That Psy had disappeared afterward and she was glad. She owed him for what he'd done, but Judd had a tendency to push Vaughn the wrong way.
Everyone else was considering how to keep her safe, but she was thinking about that morning's events. She'd ordered the destruction of a mind, a decision that should've filled her with guilt. But though she felt sorrow, she also felt a sense of rightness. Marine could now rest in peace, safe in the knowledge that no other woman would die at the hands of the darkness.
Vaughn walked over from where he'd been standing talking to Clay. "Up."
"What?"
Scowling, he simply lifted her up off the large cushion on which she sat and settled back down with her in his lap. She curled into his warmth, conscious of the others sitting or standing mere steps away, but not caring. Cats lived by different rules and she was adapting.
"Sometimes," Vaughn said, "blood has to be spilled."
She could still hear the raw anger in his voice and it worried her. "But I can't not think about it. That would make me a monster, too."
He just held her as she made her peace with what she'd done. Some time later, she was about to join in the conversation going on around her when she felt a prod at her mind. Instead of reacting with a defensive strike, her ability took over and opened a telepathic channel.
Hundreds of images of flowers waterfalled through that narrow band.
"Oh." Faith's hand clenched on Vaughn's upper arm.
Her cat was instantly on the alert. "What is it?"
"Shh." She closed her eyes and tried to figure out a way to send her reply without affecting the others, but couldn't. "Everyone who can receive Tp thoughts, ignore this." Then she shot back a single flower, layering it with sheer joy and excitement.
A complicated set of images answered her.
Deciphering the message, she endeavored to tune her mind to the right frequency, one so unusual, she knew no other sentience that used it. "Sascha, can you see this?" She sent out a test image.
"No."
But the NetMind had seen. It sent her another flower. Smiling at having worked out how to broadcast to it without telling everyone her thoughts, she considered the best way to ask her next question.
An image of the PsyNet, with a bridge connecting it to her.
The image came back devoid of the bridge.
Frowning, she sent confusion.
The PsyNet. Her. A night sky-colored glow passing from one to the other.
"Of course. You don't need a bridge," she whispered. "Because this is what you were born to do." Trusting her instincts and putting more than her own life on the line, she showed it a snapshot of the Web of Stars.
What came back made her gasp aloud.
She understood. She told it so. It gave her back sunshine. Happiness. But then it followed with rain. Sadness. Images of the PsyNet with rivers of unrelieved darkness running through it, places where it could not go. In the darkness, she saw nothing alive. Death ruled.
She sent it a teardrop to wash the darkness away.
In response, it sent her images that made no sense ... until she realized they were the memories of a child, but one who was more ancient than she could imagine - pictures of the PsyNet as it once was, rainbow-hued and alive. Then it showed her something else, something that stunned her into silence.
Barely able to think, she answered its good-bye sunshine with a flower, and opened her eyes. Vaughn was holding her, but he was relaxed.
"I felt something touch you." He frowned. "It wasn't bad. Like a cub isn't bad. But different."
"The NetMind." Her answer set off a cacophony of questions from the others.
"How - ?"
" - a leak?"