Page 71 of Shattering Dawn
“You channeled my energy?” he asked in disbelief.
“Just certain currents. With the help of the crystal.”
“How the hell—?”
“We’re wasting time,” she said. “I’ve got an idea. Give me your hand. I think physical contact will help me do this more efficiently.”
“What, exactly, do you want me to do?”
“Go into your psychic senses, but target me, not Katy. Gently. I’m going to see if I can guide your energy to the frozen section of her aura.”
“Why?”
“I might be able to use your talent like a psychic defibrillator and jolt the frozen currents back into a normal, stable rhythm.”
“Have you ever done anything like that before?”
“No,” she admitted.
“Do you realize how off-the-walls your plan sounds?”
“What have we got to lose? If we don’t do anything, she’ll probably wake up, but the hypnotic suggestion will still be in place. She’ll keep trying to kill you.”
“Not,” Gideon said evenly, “if I make sure the nightmares are very, very bad the next time around.”
“Oh, come on, you know you don’t want to drive her mad or put her into a permanent coma.”
“What makes you so sure of that?”
“You’re one of the good guys. Think of Katy as another client.”
“A nonpaying client? I’ve got enough of those.”
“I believe ‘pro bono’ is the correct term. Hurry. We need to do this before the sun comes up.” She paused a beat, struck by a thought. “I sound like some kind of vampire, don’t I?”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
She ignored him, knelt beside Katy, and reached up for Gideon’s hand. He sat down on the edge of the bed and wrapped his fingers around hers. She rested the hand holding the crystal against Katy’s forehead.
“Now what?” Gideon said.
“Give me a minute to figure this out.” She opened her other vision to full strength. “All right, do what you did earlier tonight when you released my memories.”
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Gideon said.
“Do it.”
“Here goes.”
She felt the first brush of his energy field. Fragments of hernightmares stirred, threatening to spill out of the shadows. She suppressed them and concentrated on Katy’s aura, searching for the currents that were locked. Focusing.
Relying on her intuition, she fought to channel Gideon’s powerful energy, manipulating the currents with her own talent and the aid of the crystal.
She knew the precise instant when the frozen currents snapped out of stasis and began to oscillate in a normal pattern—mostly because the blowback struck her senses like an exploding storm.
The jagged shards of nightmares, old and new, roared out of the darkness, sweeping her into a whirlpool of hallucinations. Frantically, she tried to suppress the violent images the way she had earlier. But this time they refused to slink back into the shadows. Gideon’s talent threatened to overwhelm her.
“Amelia.”