CHLORIS

4. COMPANY

Living in a top secret government facility gets boring after awhile. There are a few facilities you can enjoy with the guards eye on you 24/7 like the indoor gym hall or the shooting range. Even all of those facilities, you'll need to request a day-pass access.

Colleen stopped by a bar on the other side of the town where could drink in peace to get away from Charles's mental radius. In her right hand, a pint of Irish beer and her other hand flipping through the pages of a book on advanced DNA studies archive. When Erik was there, she could smell every road she passed through to get there and knew he was following her.

"Did you take the wrong turn on the 22nd or are you following me?" Colleen continued reading the third chapter of her book. In a few minutes, she's going to need another pint.

Erik let out a little chuckle, "Irish beer?" He asked.

"Lass mich raten... Deutsches Bier?" 

"Hast dich viele Deutscher Freunde?" 

"Nee, habe ich einiges gelesen." She did not take her eyes off the page she was reading.

Finally, he asked, "Und Charles? Er ist keiner deiner Freunde?" He had her full attention now.

She sighed and put her book down. This was about the time that she needs another pint. "You could at least buy me that beer first." Erik signaled the bartender who arrived to get his orders. Two pints of their finest German beer. Once it was served, she began to talk.

"I thought I was alone until I met Charles," she said. "We met in university. He was studying Genetics and I was studying this." She pointed at the book she was reading; Plant Biology.

"How did Charles get inside people's heads?" He asked. 

It seemed to her that Erik felt his privacy violated by the telepath. Before she revealed to him the simple truth, that it was his mutation and that he was the only known telepath in the world who had the strength of his mind, she shrugged. "It's nothing personal, Erik."

"He knows things from my past, even things that I didn't think I remember. How?" He wondered. Blue eyes searched for something he can't find. 

She continued, "Hm, maybe that's why he's so charmed by you, Erik, his brain works like a magnet for tragedies."

He gazed at her side profile in awe. Of course, in the distance that they were sitting, he noticed her perfume. His brain now registered it as a new scent and associates it with something fond. A strange longing for companionship. She was a rare creature and Erik had to have her.

"He can't help it," he understood. She nodded. Then, he confessed something that was new to Colleen, "There was another telepath with Shaw on that ship.".

"The more reason you could use Charles's help." She suggested. "Listen, about this guy, Shaw... If going after him is going to make you sleep better, then I suggest you do, but think it through. He's a dangerous man."

"He's a powerful man." He insisted. "What about you? Sometimes people suffocate you, why are you still here?"

She finished another pint. "Don't you want to know what the CIA has planned for others like us?" She made an excellent point and felt like she's had enough for the night.

Outside by the parking lot, she had a cigarette before driving back to the base, but for this one, she didn't quite plan thoroughly. Erik walked out of the bar approaching her car. The passenger's door has already been unlocked for him, not that he couldn't unlock it for himself.

He couldn't tell if it was the natural pheromones emitting from her skin or it was the way she has been looking at him all day. For a moment, she tried to resist him, but when she turned her face away, Erik turned her fiercely back. He held her flawless face still with both hands. They gave into each other.

When he kissed her, somehow it made him forget about the murders and vengeance. For the first time in a while, no telepath or Nazi psychopath was probing around inside his aching skull.

With each strand of his fingers through her hair, there was that scent that drove him wild. He was not going to forget this one quickly even if Charles read it out of him. When she was finished with him, he would savor the smell of her Tobacco that lingered on his skin.

"Colleen..." He murmured her name.

She brushed her hair back and fixed herself, "Don't worry, won't happen again."