Page 61 of The Edge of Dawn

Wait… why was he asking permission when he’d never bothered to before?

“You can.”

I’ve been protecting you from them. But I can’t do that forever. You need to learn how to make a basic mental shield.

And how the hell am I supposed to do that?

Imagine. Picture, in your mind’s eye, a container. It can be of whatever shape or material you like. But it must contain your own thoughts and feelings and nothing else. It must contain you. Nothing is allowed to invade you.

Oh. She was acutely aware of him as she leaned against him, as he so effortlessly took her weight. The alien voices made constant chatter in the back of her mind. I don’t think I can do it. I have no idea how. And even if I did, I don’t see how imagining it would…

You must. If you want to survive, you have to try.

Fine. Jade let out a deep sigh. She couldn’t believe she was doing this.

She tried to picture what he’d told her to—a container—but the damn thing failed to solidify in her mind. Was it round or square? Thick-walled or flimsy? Hard or soft?

It doesn’t matter. Whatever your subconscious tells you.

My subconscious? I can’t…

You can.

That’s when she felt him, and he was no longer being gentle. This was his presence: the sheer, overwhelming pressure of him, all hardness and promised violence and terrifying dark energy—pressing against her with tremendous force, trying to get into her mind.

I could devour you if I wanted. Right here, right now.

No!

Had he gone mad? Or was this his true self? Is this what he’d wanted all along?

The thought that she couldn’t trust Dragek—the only one she thought she trusted in this strange alien world—was somehow more disturbing than the fact that he was using his psychic energy to violate her thoughts.

What if she was deceived? Delusional? What if she’d been watching him through rose-tinted glasses, and he was nothing more than a brutal, cruel killer?

No.

Get out of my head.

Her thoughts were spilling out, but she gathered them and put them back into the jar of her mind.

That’s what she imagined it as—a simple glass jar with a screw-on lid. Transparent but impenetrable. If only she could get rid of this dark, malevolent presence that was Dragek.

Get out!

Panic rising, she did the only thing she could.

She took his advice and tried to cram everything into that imaginary glass jar.

Her thoughts.

Her memories.

Her self.

Push them inside, screw on the lid.

There.

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