Inhuman by Eileen Wilks Page B

at the clinic looking up "sidhe" on her laptop when Ginger stuck her head in the door. "Good grief, are you still working? It's nearly five. Shake a leg or we'll be late."
    Late? Oh, yeah . "The rally. I'd forgotten. I'm not sure—"
    "You're going," her friend told her sternly. "Come on."

Chapter 8
    THE rally was being held downtown in Centennial Plaza. It was a pretty spot for much of the year, with a fountain perched in tiered stone basins and several oaks slowly growing their way toward stature. In the warmer seasons the trees stood ready to flutter their leaves and freckle the ground with shade.
    Not today, though. Today the trees were bare, the fountain dry. But everything else was full.
    "There's a lot more here than I'd expected." Ginger sounded torn between anxiety and delight. "I expected to see mostly students. And the coven—several of them promised to come. But this…"
    "You did a good job of getting the word out. There must be a couple hundred people here. Maybe more." All of them talking at the same time, all of them revved—uneasy, angry, excited. To Kai, the air was a colorful din. "The TV people showed up, too."
    "Are you doing okay?"
    "I'm fine." Aside from the guilt. Had Kai been a true empath, such a large crowd would have been uncomfortable at best. Kai hated the deceit, hated worrying Ginger for no reason. But not enough to tell her the truth. Ginger would feel sorry for her.
    Kai could handle the sting of rejection—and had, plenty of times. She understood why people feared the loss of privacy. But pity labeled her pathetic, and she couldn't tolerate that.
    In the eleven years since the accident, Kai had moved seven times. In each new place she'd hoped to find friends. And she had, until she tried trusting them with the truth about herself. Whenever she told someone she saw thoughts, they changed. Most withdrew, fearing judgment or invasion. Those who didn't withdraw physically did so in other ways, watching for signs of insanity… because everyone knew telepaths went crazy sooner or later.
    Everyone but Nathan. She didn't know how she'd found the courage to tell him, but she knew why. He didn't lie to her, not even a rosy little social lie. How could she keep lying to him? So six months ago she'd told him. He'd nodded, asked a few questions, and said he'd never heard of a telepathic Gift like hers, but it sounded easier to live with than the usual sort. And that was it.
    "You sure you're okay?" Ginger put a hand on Kai's shoulder. "I need to make my way to the front. I'm supposed to speak after Charley."
    "You didn't tell me you were one of the speakers!" Kai patted her hand. "Go on. I'm going to hang here at the back." She might not have the problems a real empath would, but the excited crowd made her nervous. "You might see if you can calm folks down a bit. They're wired."
    Ginger grinned. "Charley will help with that. He can put a class to sleep in under ten minutes."
    "Hey, I'll bet his students stay awake. They'd want to see if he does." Charley, like Ginger, taught at the local community college. He was actually a wonderful speaker, but so laid-back he looked like he might doze off mid-word.
    Ginger started threading herself through knots of people. The moment she left, Kai dug her nails into her palms.
    She might not feel the emotions swirling around her, but if she weren't careful they'd still suck her in. Kai called it fuguing, the way she could slip away, entranced by the colors and shapes of the minds around her. As a baby she'd apparently been lost in fugue so often that she'd been diagnosed as autistic.
    Grandfather had known better. When she was three he'd taken her to another shaman, and together they'd performed a rare ritual that suppressed Kai's Gift. For eleven years she'd been normal—until the day she woke, weeping, from a week-long coma. She'd had no memory of the accident, but from the instant she awoke she'd known her parents were dead.
    Therapy had saved her in more ways