From both a medical and a technological point of view, the clinic chair was a thing of beauty. It was convenient for the experts working on the occupant: not only could it be raised up or down with a simple flick of a lever, but it could contort into almost any position imaginable and some that weren't. There were nearby trays upon which to set instruments, there were marvels of medical science dotted around the room with which to scan the occupant in whichever way the expert felt best suited the situation, and there was an entire pharmacopoeia for the expert's use. It was even comfortable for the occupant.

Too bad the occupant wasn't using it.

"Sit down, Shalimar," Adam Kane grumbled, fumbling with the test tube in his hand, trying not to drop the other two. "How can I work if you're bouncing off of the walls?"

"I'm not bouncing!" Shalimar snarled. She glared at her reflection in the transparent plastic of the clinic walls, pacing back and forth. It was clear that she felt trapped in the tiny lab. Of course, anything smaller than the Great Outdoors would have felt too snug for the feral.

"You're not sitting down." Adam was trying to be reasonable. "You're walking around."

"I don't want to sit down. You sit down."

"Shalimar, your mutant genes are getting out of control." Still going for sweet reason. Even scientists could hope for miracles, and Adam was no exception. "I have to get these blood samples from you so that I can come up with a solution. Then I can help you. That means that you have to sit down so that I can work."

"You're not going to come up with a solution, and I'm going to go crazy!" Shalimar yelled. She slammed her fist against the plastic. It quivered; didn't break, but it was a near thing.

"Shalimar, calm yourself or I'll call the others," Adam threatened, his patience finally at an end. "You're only hurting yourself."

Shalimar punched the plastic again. A spot of blood appeared on the plastic, and on her fist. "You think I can't take them?" she screamed, whirling around to face her mentor. "You think I can't?"

End of the road. Adam set down his things and picked up a syringe filled with a clear liquid. "Shalimar, I need to give you this sedative. It will help you regain control—"

"No!" Shalimar shrieked. "No needles! No needles!" She launched herself into the air, intent on tearing the syringe from her mentor's hand. If that didn't work, it was obvious, the feral would be perfectly happy to tear the man's arm from his body. Either solution would be acceptable.

Adam barely had time to hit the panic button before she barreled into him, crashing them both into the bank of computers. Adam whoofed, the air knocked out of him. Not so Shalimar; she jumped back onto her feet, ready for more damage. Which to destroy first? The pesky human on the floor or the nasty machinery that whined in the background?

Brennan was first to arrive in response to the call for help. He unlocked the door from the outside in order to get in, the lock a precaution that Adam had set to prevent Shalimar from escaping and damaging the rest of the lab in her frenzy. "Shalimar!" he called out. "Shalimar, what's wrong?"

First mistake.

Shalimar launched herself through the air, landing somewhere in Brennan's mid-section and taking them both down to the cold hard floor. Brennan tried to defend himself without hurting his teammate: second mistake. Shalimar had no such qualms. She slipped inside his guard with speed that a striking cobra would have envied and landed a blow that sent stars careening through his brain. Brennan fell back.

Free! Shalimar bounded to her feet, eyes narrowed and yellow, rationality completely gone.

Brennan crawled back to his feet a little more slowly. As an expert in martial arts, he was in excellent condition, but Shalimar Fox was a feral. He briefly considered zapping her one, the electrons flickering at his fingers tips, and regarded the lightning bolts mournfully. No, not yet. Too much danger of doing permanent damage, and Shalimar was his team mate and friend. No, this would have to be done the hard way. He advanced.

Emma was already there. "Shalimar, you have to calm down," she ordered. "This is just your mutant genes acting up. Don't make me—"

Shalimar didn't wait for the psionic to finish. She swept the tall redhead's feet out from under and delivered a spinning back kick to help her to the floor. Emma squawked, the yelp cut short by a heavy landing, her head cracking against the edge of a table. She lay still.

"As if you could," Shalimar sneered. She prepared to jump up to the balcony. It was sixteen feet above her head, and she knew she would have no trouble doing it. And that her pursuers would have to take the slow route: the stairs.

Strong arms encircled her: Jesse! Shalimar hissed. She could get out of this. She'd done so in numerous bouts with her 'little brother'. All it would take was a backward head butt and a twist of his arm to escape and she would leave this cavern of misguided misfits behind. All it would take was—

The strong arms got stronger: Jesse phased to solid rock. Shalimar head-butted and nearly knocked herself silly. She twisted at his arm; the diamond hard limb didn't move.

"No fair!" she shrieked in rage. And it wasn't; she'd beaten Jesse Kilmartin routinely in practice matches. But this time he cheated. He used his own mutant powers to trap her within his grasp.

"I'll show you," Shalimar growled. "You have to stop phasing sometime. Then I'll grind you to a pulp—"

"Hold her," Adam ordered. He plunged the syringe into Shalimar's arm, heedless of her screams of defiance, helping to hold the feral until the sedative took effect. Shalimar slumped in Jesse's arms. He eased her into a more comfortable hold, gasping for breath and returning to normal density, Brennan coming up to handle his share of the feral.

"Thanks," Jesse said gratefully. "I was about to lose it."

Adam motioned to the door of the clinic room. "Bring her in here. I'll administer another sedative, one that will last longer. Hopefully when she wakes up she'll be under better control. Emma, you all right?" he asked, noticing her holding her wrist uncomfortably and looking dazed.

"Just a sprain, Adam," the psionic replied, blinking. "She took me by surprise. I should have been faster."

"Nobody's faster than a feral," Adam told her. "You took a pretty good knock on the head. I'll check you for concussion as soon as I deal with Shalimar. Put her here," he directed Brennan and Jesse, who obediently and gently deposited the feral onto the clinic bed and took up the restraints. "No, you won't need those."

Brennan just looked at the scientist. "She crunched this room, she took down all four of us, and the only reason we got her under control is because we ganged up on her and then drugged her. And now you're saying that we don't need to tie her down? Are you crazy?"

"Brennan," Adam started, and then sighed. "All right. But someone stays with her at all times. And when she comes out of this, we let her up. The worst thing for a feral, for Shalimar's state of mind, will be to be cooped up and trapped."

"Deal." Brennan tightened the restraint over Shalimar's wrist. "Just as long as Shalimar understands that her part in this mess includes not ripping my head off, either figuratively or literally."

Jesse also moved in. "Adam, this is the third time in as many days. What's going on with Shalimar?"

Another sigh, this one heavier. "Wish I knew," Adam said. "It has to be her mutant genes. I never saw this coming. Other symptoms, yes, but not this lack of control, this…" He cast around, at a loss for words.

"Ferocity?" Emma suggested, looking up from holding her head in her hands.

Adam grimaced. "That'll do."

"Face it, Adam, Shalimar's a feral," Brennan said. "More than that, her mutant genes are based on carnivores. Of course she's going to get more fierce. We've been lucky that she's been able to keep it under control as long as she has."

"That doesn't help," Jesse admonished him. "We need answers, answers to how to help Shalimar get back to normal."

"But what if this is normal?" Brennan asked insistently. "Are we all going to end up like this, powerless against our mutations?" He flicked his fingers. Little flickers of electronic light bounced between like a miniature Jacob's Ladder. "I've been out of control, Jesse, and it's not a fun place to be."

"Then this is just Shalimar's turn," Jesse said stoutly. "We fixed you, Brennan, and we can fix Shalimar. Right, Adam?"

Adam gave him a smile, bright and false. "Right." Then he turned serious. "I will come up with a solution, just as I did for you, Brennan. I'm not giving up without a fight." He looked ruefully down at the unconscious tiny blonde woman on the clinic bed. Even in her drugged sleep, Shalimar lifted one corner of her lip in a feral snarl. "I just didn't expect the fight to be so literal."

Emma wandered into the clinic area, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Her wrist was in a wrap, but other than that, she showed no evidence of the fight that happened mere hours ago. That, Jesse knew, was because Emma had carefully draped her bangs over the nasty bruise on the side of her head. Jesse wasn't fooled, but Emma pretended that he was. "How is she? Did she wake up yet?"

Jesse stretched, staying seated on the hard stool that he'd dragged over to the clinic bed where Shalimar lay sleeping. "Not a peep, not a snore. Not a word."

"No dreams." Emma stared at Shalimar for a brief moment, scanning. "She's resting. Her feelings are peaceful."

"Good. At least one of us is getting some sleep. Even if it took one of Adam's magic potions to do the trick." He glanced at his watch. "You sure you're up for this? I can sit with her. How's your head?"

Emma smiled gently. "I'm fine, and it's my turn. Besides, this is the time of night when it's easiest for me."

"Fewer thoughts to fend off?"

Emma nodded. "Pretty much. Easier on my psychic barriers."

Jesse yawned. "All yours, then. 'Night."

"'Night," Emma echoed, seating herself on the stool that Jesse just vacated. She waited until the molecular had left the room before turning her attention back to Shalimar. She rubbed her temples briefly, trying to persuade the ache to go away. Contrary to what she'd told Jesse, she did not feel up to this. But that didn't matter; Shalimar was her teammate, her friend—and her 'sister'. A small thing like concussion didn't enter into the matter. And then there was the mystery of the little stray thoughts that she'd thought she sensed when going after Shalimar earlier in the day, the thoughts that she hadn't shared with Adam because she wasn't certain that she'd felt them—or that Adam would believe her. "Now, let's see just what it was that I picked up this afternoon." Eyes going hooded, she stared down.

No normal human would have seen what went on next, and most mutants wouldn't have, either. Only a very talented psionic would have seen the psychic link that Emma aimed at Shalimar. And only a very talented and lucky psionic would have known what she was about.

Emma delved into Shalimar's mind, gently touching the dream that lingered there. It was a pleasant one for the feral, one that was filled with tall green trees above her and bushes that she could slink through in search of prey to be hunted down. Even as Emma 'watched', Shalimar leaped and sprang, the small animal writhing in her predatory grasp. Emma hurriedly withdrew before she could experience the rest of Shalimar's dream. It was all a natural part of the cycle of life but that didn't mean that Emma had to share this part of it with her teammate.

And Emma was after something else. It was that little inkling of thought, the briefest hint of an idea that seemed to be streaming into Shalimar's mind when the feral was so out of control yesterday afternoon. No one except a psionic could have noticed it, and even Emma herself wasn't quite certain of what she had 'seen'. So now, in the early hours of pre-dawn when almost no one was awake, Emma began her own hunt.

More prey animals, scurrying in the bushes of Shalimar's mind; Emma avoided those. Not what she wanted. Not the cliffs to be bounded up, not the treetops to prowl through, not even the feral sight narrowing down to a single object to be pounced upon. Shalimar's thought were all the peaceful ones that she experienced every night, whether she remembered them or not. There was nothing foreign, nothing that Emma hadn't seen many times over when casting about at night, hunting down psionic influences to protect Sanctuary.

Reluctantly Emma withdrew. There was nothing there, nothing beyond the ordinary. Whatever Emma had seen earlier, it wasn't there now. Emma wasn't certain that she had actually seen anything at all. It had been such a fleeting thought, such a slender wisp of an idea that she easily could have imagined it. Psionics was not an exact science, she reminded herself. There was a reason that it was associated with tea-leaf readers and tarot cards. And even though her powers had become stronger and less prone to error, that didn't mean that she was infallible. Emma sighed.

No, wait: there it was. The merest tendril of a thought, the tiniest hint of—

Bright eyes looked up at her: Shalimar was awake with the suddenness of any forest creature. No gradual drowsy appearance of consciousness, simply: awake. "Emma?" A little voice, scared.

Emma hurriedly withdrew. It was all right; her head ached something fierce from the fight. "I'm right here, Shalimar," Emma reassured her. "How do you feel?"

Shalimar thought, swiftly searching through every part of her body with only the knowledge that a feral could have. "Why am I tied down? What did I do?"

"You were out of control," Emma told her. "You wouldn't let Adam take any samples."

"Oh." Shalimar reddened. "I think I remember." Then, "—and?"

"You got a little wild."

"Oh." Shalimar noticed the brace on Emma's wrist. "Me?"

"You didn't mean it," Emma hastened to tell her. "You were just…"

"Crazy?" Shalimar suggested bitterly. "On a killing rampage?"

"It wasn't you," Emma said firmly. "Look, Adam said to take off the restraints as soon as you woke up." She reached for the first wrist.

Shalimar stopped her with her eyes. "Are you sure you can trust me?"

Emma nodded soberly. "I can always trust you, Shalimar."

Adam tossed Shalimar a vial of small white pills, trusting, as always, that the feral could snatch it out of the air. He wasn't disappointed.

"What are these?" Shalimar wanted to know. Behind her Brennan and Jesse also looked up with interest.

"Tranquilizers," Adam said soberly. "Until I figure out how to fix what's going on inside you, I want you to take those. Take two every four hours. They'll help you to stay in control."

Shalimar made a face. "Put me to sleep, you mean."

Adam shook his head. "No, they'll just take the edge off. Yes, you'll probably feel tired for the next few days, but I have hopes that I'll have licked this thing before too much longer. Then you won't need them." He wagged his finger at her, trying to make a joke of it. "Correction: we won't need them to prevent becoming your next catch of the day."

"Right." Shalimar tried to smile. It didn't quite come off.

Adam recognized the signs. "I mean it, Shalimar. Look, I could go through all the genetic mumbo-jumbo, but would it really mean anything to you? Anything beyond 'I can fix this'?"

"I'd really like to be able to hear that for real," Brennan put in.

"And you will, Brennan." Adam turned to the elemental, grateful for another person in the discussion, grateful for the distraction. "I need some more time. I've come up with solutions before, and I'll come up with one now. Shalimar, your part in this is to keep your cool. Those pills will help."

"All right," Shalimar sighed. She looked around to ask for a glass of water, only to find Jesse already pushing one into her hand.

He grinned. "It's either this or I can practice holding my breath until you calm down. And since I'm already up to three minutes, you'd better opt for the pharmacist's approach."

Shalimar sniffed, and swallowed her medicine. "What about working out?" she asked Adam. "I'll go crazy if I can't do something to get rid of the heebie-jeebies."

Adam shook his head. "We'd better put limits on that, too. No hand to hand. Somebody lands a bell-ringer and you'll forget what's going on. You can run laps," he suggested. "Go out in the woods. Sniff some fresh air."

"Stick to tracking," Brennan advised. "Look, I'll even go with you."

"Into the forest?" Shalimar was amazed, and touched. "Brennan, you hate the Great Outdoors."

"I do not," he denied.

"Do, too."

"Do not. Don't confuse my liking for hot showers and clean bed linens for a dislike for fresh air. I like being outside as much as the next person."

"Unless the next person is Shalimar," Jesse snuck in. Brennan glared at him.

Adam intervened. "Actually, that's a good idea, Brennan. Shalimar, I agree, you need to do something with yourself. If you're kept cooped up inside Sanctuary it will only exacerbate your condition. Getting outside to roam around will work off the excess energy and stress. Taking Brennan along will keep him out of my lab asking about progress every thirty seconds."

"What is this, pick on Brennan day?"

Adam ignored the elemental. "I'd offer the other two as well, but I need Jesse in the lab with me and Emma is off doing Emma type things. Hopefully she's sleeping. That was quite a bell-ringer you gave her yesterday, Shalimar."

"She's not sleeping this time, Adam. She's being mysterious again," Jesse clarified. "Said she needed to search the upper planes of existence. Me, I think she just has a sappy romance novel that she wants to read without anyone making fun of her."

That pushed a weak smile out of Shalimar. "Okay, guys, you win. I'll go out and work out some of the kinks. C'mon, Brennan. The way I'm feeling, you're going to have to run to keep up."

There was a groan from Brennan but Jesse's quip put it into perspective: "Just wait until the tranquilizer kicks in. Then we'll see who's running."

Adam could be very patient when he wanted to, and even when he didn't want to. This was one of the times when he didn't want to, but disturbing Emma in a trance was something that he wanted to do even less. He recalled the last time that had happened: he'd spent a week cleaning up the lab, not to mention three weeks' worth of data lost in the explosion that took out the computer in his lab. It would have been twice as much if Jesse hadn't backed up the hard drive.

So he sat on the chair in Emma's room, watching the red-headed psionic sit lotus-fashion on her bed, looking deep inside herself. The only movement in the room was Brownian movement of air molecules and damn little of that, he decided.

He coughed. A small noise, yet it might be enough for Emma to come out of her trance and talk to him. Hopefully without blasting him out of the room, of course.

It worked. Emma gave a deep, cleansing sigh, and opened her eyes, swaying a moment before catching her balance even on top of the bed as she was. "Adam."

Adam smiled crookedly. "Find what you were looking for?"

Emma deliberately didn't answer the question. Her head was pounding. "Have you been here long?"

"Long enough." Two could play at that game. Let Emma decide how long 'long enough' was. He leaned back in his chair, trying to look at ease, trying not to wonder how far Jesse had gotten on the computer program that he was running for Adam. And then he frowned; Emma still looked wiped out from the fight yesterday with Shalimar. He shouldn't have let her stay up with the feral through the night; that had been a mistake.

Emma smiled from underneath wickedly grinning eyebrows. Even without her powers she could see through her mentor. She let him stew.

Adam gave up. "Find anything out there?" he asked again.

"I'm not sure," Emma finally admitted. "Yesterday I thought I felt something—no, someone—who was trying to get at Shalimar. It wasn't much, and it felt like I was imagining it. It disappeared as soon as I noticed it. So I tried again last night, when I sat with Shalimar."

"And…?" Adam prompted.

Emma shrugged. "Nothing. Nothing that I could feel." She shrugged her shoulders again. "It was probably my imagination." She turned away from the topic. "Are you getting anywhere with a solution for Shalimar?"

Now it was Adam's turn to shrug. "You know how it is. You push at this end, pull at that…" He trailed off.

"You're not finding anything, are you?"

"I can't hide anything from you," Adam said bitterly. "Have you told Shalimar?"

"I didn't use my powers," Emma reproved. "It's written all over your face. Even Shalimar can see it, Adam. That's why she agreed to go outside, so you wouldn't have to look at her. And feel guilty."

Adam sank deeper into the chair. "I don't even know where to begin, Emma. All the tests I'm running are coming back normal. I've run every test—most of them twice—and some that shouldn't tell me anything. There's nothing wrong with Shalimar, and yet there is!" He looked back up. "I don't know what to do, Emma. I don't know how to help her. Which is why I was hoping that you'd found something. Something that will explain what's going wrong with Shalimar."

Emma nodded soberly. "I'll keep trying."

Adam stood up, shoulders slumping. "So will I." He didn't have the heart to tell the psionic to rest. Neither of them would until Shalimar's problem was solved, no matter what the cost.

Brennan envied the easy way Shalimar trotted along the dirt-packed path. She was almost a foot shorter than he, with legs significantly smaller, yet she kept on going, and going… She made the EverReady Bunny want to curl up its toes and go home crying to Mommy. Brennan himself was made more for short sprints, sharp bursts of speed and energy, and while he was in top physical condition there was no way he was about to outdo the feral on the trail.

He could at least enjoy it. Jogging behind her, he could admire the way the blonde curls bounced, the ebb and flow of leg muscles propelling her forward in denim shorts that left just enough to the imagination. All in all a very pleasant outing, and best of all it was Shalimar and not Emma. The psionic was just as drop-dead gorgeous in her own way but the thoughts that Brennan was feeling would get him pounded the moment Emma opened up her frontal lobes.

He followed where Shalimar led, content to let her break trail. She had an uncanny way of figuring out which way the path would lead, had already come across a herd of timid deer. She'd even approached to within a scant yard of the buck, a fine looking animal with six point antlers that suggested an old man of the forest. But the buck allowed the feral to come to him and almost permitted a gentle caress before snorting disgustedly and moving his family back into the forest. Shalimar tossed Brennan a gleeful glance before trotting back onto the path, not even looking back to see if the puffing elemental was following.

If this is what she's like when she's on tranquilizers, I'd hate to try to cope with her alone when she's not.

Shalimar finally allowed him to rest in a sunny clearing, three large boulders set out in the open. A few yards away was a cliff. Not too long ago something—probably another boulder—had taken down part of the cliff edge, giving it a newly sharpened look. Brennan resolved not to get too close. He wasn't afraid of heights, but neither was he stupid. The cliff had fallen once, it might do it again.

"Chicken," Shalimar giggled, jumping up on top of one of the boulders. She stopped to caress his jaw in a way that Brennan found very disturbing—and enticing. She hopped away onto another tall boulder, showing off both her mutant abilities—and herself.

Brennan refused to get either excited or annoyed. That would be taking advantage of the feral when she wasn't herself, and that would have consequences later on that neither of them would want to cope with. "Nope. Smart."

Shalimar bounded from one boulder to the next, making leaps that no normal human could even contemplate. She even turned a flip mid-air, just to make it interesting, onto the boulder closest to the edge of the precipice. Pebbles and a handful of dirt cascaded down the cliff face. She allowed her blouse to slip down one shoulder, looking sideways at Brennan to see if he'd noticed.

"Want to keep it safe there? I didn't bring a rope to haul your broken body back up the cliff," Brennan called out. "Can't you jump on rocks farther away from the edge?"

"Chicken," Shalimar called out again. More dirt leaped away. Brennan couldn't hear the stones hit bottom, which suggested that the bottom was very far away. He elected not to look over to find out. But that left him staring at Shalimar who was deliberately undressing herself in front of him.

She looked up, and her mood changed with feral swiftness. "Maybe a timid bunny rabbit," Shalimar suggested, getting tired of her game. "Want to be called 'Mouse'? Squeak, squeak, squeak, Brennan."

Hm. Not good. Now Shalimar was deliberately trying to goad him into an argument. Brennan almost preferred the vamp. "Hey, Shalimar, you got any more of Adam's pills with you? You're starting to sound like the first one is wearing off."

"I don't need any of his pills!" Shalimar went from giggling to snarling in a flash. "And I don't need you!" She leaped off of the boulder, heading up hill.

"Shalimar!" Brennan hauled himself upright and launched long legs into a weary run. "Shalimar, wait!"

Shalimar whipped around. "Don't follow me!" she hissed. Brennan could have sworn that the blonde ringlets were standing on end like an angry cat.

"Shalimar, come back! Dammit," Brennan finished, watching Shalimar's backside again. Only this time it was disappearing over the hill. He brought his comm. ring to his face. "Adam? Adam, Jesse, Emma? Anybody there?"

"Brennan?" It was Jesse.

"Shalimar ditched me." It took only a moment to update the molecular. "I lost her, Jesse. Can you track her with her comm.?"

"Hang on a sec." Brennan could hear the tap-tapping of Jesse's fingers as he turned the computer in front of him to the new task. "Okay, I've got two green dots, one moving and one stationary. Can I assume that you are the stationary dot?"

"Want me to jump up and down?"

Jesse ignored the quip. "I've got Shalimar about a mile away from you, moving west by north west."

"A mile?" Brennan whistled. "She's moving."

"You must have pissed her off something fierce."

"Not me, bro. It's whatever is going on inside her. Happy one moment and raging the next. Adam come up with anything?"

"Not sure. He's not talking, which could mean anything. He could be close, or he could be floundering in the dark. Want to take bets as to when he solves this?"

Brennan considered. Every time he put his faith in Adam, he won. If he couldn't keep track of Shalimar, he could at least win something from Jesse. "Sure. I'm taking close. You?"

"Hey, I wanted close."

"No fair, Jesse. You're doing the computer work for him. You're more in the know." If Jesse wanted close, then so did Brennan. Mrs. Mulwray hadn't raised a fool for a son. "You brought it up, I get first dibs. What do I get when I win?"

"Hm." Jesse pretended to think. "Dinner at Chez Robert."

"For four?"

"Two."

"Four. If I'm going to Chez Robert, I want something attractive and sweet-smelling on my arm, and you don't qualify, bro."

"Hey! I resent that. I used my deodorant this morning." More tapping on the computer keyboard. "And if I win?"

"Dinner at Antonio's. For four."

"That dump? Even the pizza is bad."

"All right, how about Pietro's?"

"The house wine is crap."

"With a bottle from their cellar, then."

"Done. If Adam comes up with a solution before noon tomorrow, you win. Deal?"

"Deal," Brennan echoed, wondering suddenly if he'd gotten the short end of the stick. Jesse had allowed him to choose the alternative entirely too easily. "I'd better get after Shalimar. Adam is not going to be a happy camper if I let her get lost in the forest."

"True," Jesse conceded. "She's up to two miles, Brennan. Either she's in a car, or she's running flat out."

"Trust me, a car wouldn't get three feet in this terrain," Brennan assured him. "Point me in the right direction. Northwest?"

"By northwest."

"Brennan." Adam's voice cut in on them. "Is Shalimar with you? I can't reach her on her comm. link. I want her back here."

Brennan winced. "Uh, little problem here, Adam. Shalimar got a little frisky. She's about two miles down the road." Yes! Did this mean that Adam had a cure? Brennan wondered if lobster was in season at Chez Robert's.

"Two and a half miles by now," Jesse chirped from his end. If the comm. link had been equipped with a two way digital camera, Brennan's glare would have fried the molecular.

But Adam didn't appear particularly eager to blame the elemental for losing Shalimar, seemed to think that it would have happened no matter what Brennan did. "I'm sending Jesse out to help track her down. Get her back here, Brennan. In this state, there's no telling what she will do." He paused. "Let me re-phrase that: I have a pretty good idea what she'll do, and it will be very hard to keep it out of the local newspapers. And keep Shalimar out of jail."

"Um, Emma with a mental whammy would be nice," Jesse tentatively suggested. "I can stay phased only just so long."

"Emma is resting," Adam informed them. "I think she's got a mild concussion from when Shalimar jumped her. Jesse, come down to the lab. I'll give you a tranquilizer gun instead. That should even the odds."

"The sights on that thing are awful," Jesse tried to complain.

"Then let Brennan do the shooting. He's got a better eye than you."

"Does not," Jesse started to object, but they heard the distinct click as Adam signed off.

Brennan let the grin touch his voice. "You heard the man, bro. Get your tail out here with that trank gun. And don't forget the darts."

"Get me a pad of paper!" Emma's voice sounded anguished. "Hurry!" She all but snatched the paper and pencil from Adam's hands, sketching in the blurry features of the face that she 'saw' in her mind. One pencil, then a second as the first became dull, and the outlines of someone started to come clear. Emma was no artist, but for this she didn't need to be. She simply allowed her hands to bypass her conscious will and the scene flowed down onto the white paper.

Adam could barely keep still. This was the break that he had been waiting for. It wasn't his lab technique; that was being proven now. There was someone outside of Sanctuary who was attacking Shalimar psionically. Emma had doggedly pursued that stray tendril of thought, and had now zeroed in on her quarry just as if it were Shalimar tracking her prey. More than one kind of hunting…

But Emma threw the paper from her with an exclamation of disgust.

"Emma?" Adam went to pick it up, watching Emma turn her face to hide the tear that trickled down her cheek. When he looked at what Emma had drawn, he understood her frustration. Understood that they were almost—not quite, but almost—back to square one.

It was a picture of Adam himself.

"Emma?" Adam asked again. "Emma, what is it?"

"It's me!" she burst out bitterly. "Adam, I wanted so badly to come up with a way to cure Shalimar that I imagined that some psionic was attacking her. That's why I couldn't find who it was. There was… no…one…" She trailed off, her head spinning.

"Emma?" Adam caught the girl, eased her back onto the bed. "Emma!"