Mind of My Mind Read Online Free PDF Page A

grounds.
     
    "This is his house," said Doro.
     
    "Damn," I muttered. "He owns it? The whole thing?"
     
    "Free and clear."
     
    "Oh, Lord." Something occurred to me suddenly. "Is he white?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "Oh, Doro. Man, what are you trying to do to me?"
     
    "Get you some help. You're going to need it."
     
    "What the hell can he do for me that you can't? God, he'll take one look at me and . . .
    Doro, just the fact that he lives in this part of town tells me that he's the wrong guy. The
    first time he says something stupid to me, we'll kill each other."
     
    "I wouldn't pick any fights with him if I were you. He's one of my actives."
     
    An active: One of Doro's people who's already gone through transition and turned
    into whatever kind of monster Doro has bred him to be. Emma was one kind of active.
    Rina, in spite of her "good" family, was only a latent. She never quite made it to
     

 
    transition, so her ability was undeveloped. She couldn't control it or use it deliberately.
    All she could do was pass it on to me and put up with the mental garbage it exposed her
    to now and then. Doro said that was why she was crazy.
     
    "What kind of active is he?" I asked.
     
    "The most ordinary kind. A telepath. My best telepath—at least until you go
    through."
     
    "You want him to read my mind?"
     
    "He won't have much choice about that. If you and he are in the same house, sooner
    or later he will, as you'll read his eventually."
     
    "You mean he doesn't have any more control over his ability than I do over mine?"
     
    "He has a great deal more control than you. That's why he'll be able to help you
    during and after your transition. But none of my telepaths can shield out the rest of the
    world entirely. Sometimes things that they don't want to sense filter through to them.
    More often, though, they just get nosy and snoop through other people's thoughts."
     
    "Is it because he's an active that you won't take him? No moralizing this time."
     
    "Yes. He's too rare and too valuable to kill so carelessly. So are you. You and he
    aren't quite the same kind of creature, but I think you're alike enough to be
    complementary."
     
    "Does he know about me?"
     
    "Yes."
     
    "And?"
     
    "He feels just about the way you do."
     
    "Great." I slumped back in the seat. "Doro . . . will you tell me, why marriage? I don't
    have to marry him for him to give me whatever help I'm supposed to need. Hell, I don't
    even have to marry him to have a baby by him, if that's what you want."
     
    "That might be what I want once I've seen how you come through transition. All I
    want now is to get the two of you to realize that you might as well accept each other. I
    want you tied together in a way you'll both respect in spite of yourselves."
     
    "You mean we'll be less likely to kill each other if we're married."
     
    "Well . . . he'll be less likely to kill you. The match is going to be pretty uneven for a
    while. I'd keep low if I were you."
     
    "Isn't there any way at all that I can get out of this?"
     
    "No."
     
    I felt like crying. I couldn't remember when I'd done that last. And the worst of it was,
    I knew that, as bad as I felt now, it was nothing to what I'd be feeling when I actually met
    this son. Somehow, I'd never thought of myself as just another of Doro's breeders—just
    another Goddamn brood mare. Rina was. Emma was for sure. But me, I was special.
    Sure. Doro had said it himself. An experiment. Apparently an experiment that had failed
    several times before. And Doro was trying to shore it up now by pairing me with this
    stranger.
     
    "What's his name?"
     
    "Karl. Karl Larkin."
     
    "Yeah. When do I have to marry him?"
     
    "In a week or two."
     
    I would have put up more of a fight if I had known how to fight Doro. I never much
    wanted to fight him before. I remember, once when he was staying with Rina, an
     

 
    electronics company out in Carson—one of the businesses that he controlled—was losing
    money. Doro had