Fifth Quarter Read Online Free PDF Page A

stay."
     
    "We share?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "My body?"
     
    "Yes… Till we get… my body… back."
     
    To have Bannon in her body. And isn't that what you've been wanting ? she asked herself, desperately clamping her will around a hysterical desire to snicker. To have Bannon be a part of her. Know everything she was. Everything. No. But weighed against the only alternative, against going on alone…
     
    "Vree?"
     
    No time left to decide. Her heart slammed against her ribs and sweat trickled down her spine. She could smell her terror and his death. "Do it."
     
    Invasion! A kaleidoscope of images tried to force an entry into her mind.
     
    Vree fought to pull the barricades down. This is Bannon! Let him in or he dies ! A crack appeared and then another and then he was in, and she nearly lost herself in a maelstrom of shared memories subtly skewed and alien emotions; of being just for an instant, someone else and knowing what they knew, feeling what they felt. She struggled to hold on, to accept, to not fight it although every instinct demanded she defend herself.
     
    I trust him with my life. He trusts me with his life. I trust him with ...
     
    "Vree? Vree! Wake up! We haven't got time for this!"
     
     
     
    She could feel the dry, dusty fibers of the carpet pressing into her cheek. Smell the poison mixed with wine spilled out onto the floor. Hear…
     
    "Slaughter it, Vree! Wake up!"
     
    "Bannon?" Eyes opened, all she could see was a pale hand curled up like a great, bloated, dead spider. When she tried to lift her head, her body felt as though it no longer quite fit. "Bannon?"
     
    "I'm here."
     
    "It worked?"
     
    "Don't be an idiot, of course it worked. Now get up. Aralt, that carrion eater, is getting away."
     
    The muscles in her thighs began to spasm. Her legs jerked and kicked and her feet scrabbled for purchase against the floor. "Bannon, stop it!"
     
    "Vree, no!" Bannon's voice rose to a near incoherent shriek that slammed against the inside of her skull. "Don't."
     
    Panting, she forced herself to relax, to not expel the invader. Her brother. Gradually, she gathered all the bits of her body back under her control and, slowly, got her hands under her and pushed herself up onto her knees. "Just let me do the moving. Understand?"
     
    "Yeah." He sounded subdued, but she knew it wouldn't last. "I understand."
     
    Ignoring the corpse sprawled beside her, Vree stood. Every movement was surer than the one before as, with every movement, she reclaimed more of her scattered self. Although constantly aware of Bannon's presence, as long as he remained a passive passenger, she felt she could ignore him enough to manage. He had, after all, always been a constant presence in her life. Kind of like ignoring a nagging toothache …
     
    "I heard that."
     
    "Not now, Bannon. We haven't time for…" Which was when she realized that she wasn't speaking aloud. "Shit on a stick! Do you know everything I think?"
     
    "No. You have to put it into words, then I hear it the way you hear me."
     
    Because the alternative would be unbearable, she believed him. "But you can hear me when I speak?"
     
    "I can hear what you can hear. And I see through your eyes. And I feel what you touch."
     
    "It's like the opposite of what we always had while we worked—two sets of senses, one directing will."
     
    "I guess."
     
    She felt her shoulders rise and fall in a gesture she had no control over. "Bannon!"
     
    "Look, I'm sorry, but it's hard."
     
    "I know…"
     
    "No. You don't."
     
    Yes, she did, because she felt his bitterness and his pain and his fear of dying. Like a wave she barely managed to keep her footing under, his emotions rolled over her and retreated. Fists clenched, she ground her teeth in anger. Aralt had a great deal to answer for, and she'd enjoy making him pay. "We'll get your body back," she murmured as though Bannon still stood beside her. "And we'll cut Aralt loose to shriek in the darkness."
     
    Tentatively,