"You are Talks to Spirits."
"No, actually, my name is …"
His sharp look made me clamp my mouth closed. My chest was tight, and I had the urge to cry, since I wasn't able to run. Recalling my mission in the past, the hope of saving a million people over the next two centuries, I took a deep breath and offered a small smile. "Very well. I am Talks to Spirits."
"Did the wind bring you?" he asked.
"Sort of. I had a … dream about this place and so I came."
He was gazing at me intently. I hoped he wasn't debating how to kill me, but his mind was too twisted and dark for me to make sense of. How would it be to live with a mind like his? Some memories I was able to make out, like the fact he hadn't spoken to anyone in a month or left his cave except to hunt.
"You're alone here," I assessed. "You have been for a while."
"My spirit speaks to you?"
"A little, yes."
"What does it say?" He leaned forward. "I cannot understand it. My spirit and mind are strangers to me."
And there it was - full-formed pity for a serial killer who comprehended how screwed up he really was without knowing why. How was I born with a heart bigger than my common sense?
"It says you're lonely," I murmured. "That you keep the spirits with you for this reason."
He lowered his eyes to the fire. He had no other real emotions I was able to read, nothing but the darkness clouding his mind.
"You came from the sky, like the others," he said.
"What others?"
"There are six of you. My brother is one, and so are you. The others I do not know."
Brother? Interest replaced part of my fear. Was he talking about Running Bear or did he have more brothers?
"The spirits are never happy." He glanced to my left, where a whisper originated. Not the loudest of the memories from the dead, it was the closest to me.
I had a microchip in my brain. What was his excuse for hearing the whispers?
"Maybe they want to be free," I said.
He glared at me.
"I mean, I know why you keep them, but maybe if they were free, they'd leave you alone."
"They're mine."
I jumped at his sharp growl. He was tense again, agitated, the shadows in his mind churning.
"I understand." I raised my hands in a sign of surrender. "Don't be upset. I don't think there are many of us who can hear them." I began to realize that I'd never be able to tell anyone about my empathic memories with the exception of Carter. Hearing Fighting Badger talk about the whispers that didn't exist outside of us made me realize how crazy it sounded.