“Sweet dreams, sleeping beauty,” I said, watching his eyes fade, blurry already from whatever I’d just given him.
“Bryn?” he asked, his voice also affected by the drugs.
“Yeah?”
“Could you make sure I don’t sleep past four? I’ve got a paper due in World History and Coach needs me at practice early tonight.”
I swallowed. “Sure. No problem.”
“Thanks, Bryn” he said, his voice heavy with sleep. “And Happy St. Patrick’s—”
His voice cut-off and was almost immediately replaced by the steady breathing of deep sleep. I closed the door noiselessly, thankful Patrick was there—if for nothing more than a distraction.
“Mind telling me why you didn’t show up this morning?” Patrick asked when I rounded the corner into the living room. “We’re never going to complete your training if you don’t show up for the first day.”
“Please, Patrick,” I said, taking a seat on the fireplace ledge. “I was a little distracted this morning and I’m really not in the mood for training at the present moment.”
I sensed something before I heard it and I heard it before I saw it, but my hand worked faster than my senses. I caught the picture frame before it shattered against the fireplace, not sure if Patrick’s intended target had been it or me. “Distractions are everywhere, suck it up,” he said. “And, sorry, Charlie, but you don’t get the luxury of taking a day off because of boy issues or girl issues or whatever other B.S. issues you come up with. Not when you can kill someone as easily as you can irritate me.” He crossed his arms, his eyebrows tilted into a v.
I wanted to argue back. I wanted to tell him to take a hike. I wanted to tell him and the whole Immortal world to go screw themselves, but more than I wanted to do any of that, I knew he was right. There was no luxury of days off, or any luxuries for that matter, for anybody who could kill someone with the ease I could.
“So what’s the plan for today?” I asked, clasping my hands together, putting on my most attentive student face.
He pulled a rolled notebook from his jacket and tossed it at me. “This is Hector’s idea of talent training—individually prepared just for you.”
I thumbed it open, leafing through the first dozen pages, before skipping to the last page of the notebook, assuming the numbered questions gave out somewhere in-between. I should have known better. Hector’s elegant script scrolled to the very last page, even covering mid-way down the backside.
It’s a good thing we had forever because we were going to need it to get through this guide. I sighed against my best intentions not too.
“Where do we even begin?” I asked, thumbing back to the first page, where questions one through thirty-three were listed. Questions inquiring into simple, commonplace details. I couldn’t understand how my great-grandfather’s birthplace had anything to do with my training, but Hector must think it had some kind of bearing or else he wouldn’t have listed it . . . among the thousands of others. But maybe, just like I was, he was at a loss. He was just taking as many shots as he could, hoping that one would eventually stick. I couldn’t blame him; it was more than I’d done to figure this thing out.
“First off,” Patrick said, pushing off the wall “toss that Boredom-lopedia in the fireplace.” He stopped, waiting for me. I looked for any hint of a joke in Patrick’s face, but it was stone serious. I dropped the notebook behind me in the fireplace, letting it fall from my fingertips at the last possible moment, waiting for him to retract his order.
“And next . . .” He pulled a match from the tin container beside me, swept it against his belt buckle, and tossed it into the hearth. The notebook ignited instantly, as if it had been soaked in kerosene. Blue flames fingered around it, shrinking it until the final remnants fell into tissue-paper shards glowing orange around the edges. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, mondo instruction manual to oblivion.”
I felt a little nauseous when the moment caught up with me. We’d just torched the only concrete plan anyone had formulated as to how to approach the delicate topic of my talent training. Probably not one of my best moments.
“Please tell me you have a plan,” I said, watching the last black scraps disappear. “Any plan.”
“I’m not a plan type of man,” he said, sounding proud of himself. “I’ve always considered myself more a man of action and Hector—bless his heart—likes to do things a bit more technically and, well, slowly than I do.”
“I’m feeling so reassured right now, Patrick. Thanks for that.”
“You wanna hear what I came up with or not?” he asked, gliding over to the wall of windows.
“Since I don’t really have any other options at the moment,” I replied, gazing longingly into the fireplace.
He crossed his arms behind his head and stared at the snow-blanketed mountains glittering in the morning light. “I’ve got a theory as to what triggers your gift. I don’t have anything scientific or historical to back it up, it’s just a hunch.”
His words were slow, carefully selected. So unlike Patrick that I knew whatever path we were going down was nothing short of legendary.
“That theory being?” I asked, eager to hear an outsider’s perspective, but dreading it at the same time. Nothing could be worse than the conclusions I’d arrived at . . . hopefully.
“So both times—that we know of—your gift manifested itself was in the Council chambers at Townsend Manor and that day in the clearing back home.”
Hearing him say home made something deep within ache. “Yeah. So?”
“What do both of those instances have in common?”
“Other than me killing, or nearly killing, a handful of Immortals?” I asked darkly.
He looked back at me. “On both occasions, your life was threatened.”
My brows wrinkled.
“If I’m right, and I often am,”—he grinned—“your gift is triggered when your life is threatened. Like it’s some kind of self-preservation thing hard-wired into your system. At the first sign of danger, it activates”—he smiled apologetically at me—“and eliminates the perceived threat before it can do the same to you.”
I stared back at him, letting this simmer. I suppose it made sense, but I’d never thought of my gift that way. It seemed more dark and evil to me than something that was for self-preservation purposes.
Self-preservation . . . I couldn’t escape selfishness. As if it was embedded in every pore and was now so extreme it exterminated anyone who threatened me.
“What do you think?” he asked me when I stayed quiet. “Sound logical?”
“I guess so,” I said, sounding more doubtful than certain. “But where does that put us? What good does a theory do us when there’s no way to test it? And even if we could test it, what good does that do us if I can’t train it?” I was growing more crazed sounding over each word, so I decided now was a good time to shut my mouth.
“I need you to take a deep breath and promise you’ll stay sitting right there,” he said, raising his finger.
“What—”
“No questions. Just promise.”
I rolled my eyes, my legs already bouncing. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He blew a loud breath through his mouth. “There actually is a way we can test my theory out,” he began, sounding careful again. “Since I have experience compacting and generating energies from my glamorous stint at Townsend Manor, I’ll attempt to pull energy from you.”
“Are you crazy?” I said, my eyes popping in horror.
“Only the tiniest bit imaginable—just enough for your body to switch into self-preservation mode.”
He’d misunderstood where my fear was directed. “I could kill you,” I shouted. “Or at the very least put you into a coma for a few days, just in case you don’t remember the last time your skin came in contact with mine when it was buzzing like a downed wire.” I shot up, not caring if I was breaking my promise of staying seated. “If you think I’m going to go along wit
h this, you must have been lobotomized at the same time you were zapped by John’s men.”
He put on an unimpressed face. “Thanks for the concern, but I can handle myself. Especially against a newbie. Besides, I’ve got a theory about that too.”
“What a relief!” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “Is this one as asinine and crazy as the first? Because you’ve got the market on stupid cornered today, Patrick.”
“You’re just a barrel of monkeys when you’re upset, you know that?” he asked, looking as if my pacing and nail-biting were as amusing as a one-legged duck swimming in circles. “If you care to know, I don’t think you’ll be able to give me more than a quick zap, if anything.”
“You ever heard that saying that goes, ‘Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me?’ . . .”
He smiled tightly at me. “I’ll be expecting it. I believe being able to anticipate it will give me the edge I need to break contact as soon as I feel your inner terminator charging ahead.”
“I don’t see how you think anticipating death will help you stop it, but we don’t see eye to eye on a lot of things.” I narrowed my stare at him.
“That’s an understatement,” he mumbled, his eyes creasing in the corners. “Listen, I don’t have all day to go round and round with you—entertaining as it is. I’m your instructor and this is my plan. Either we do this”—he took a quick look at his watch—“now or you’re on your own.”
My feet, fingers, and legs were tapping and swaying from the nervous energy begging to be released. “Can I at least think about this? Call me nuts, but I need more than a few minutes to agree to risk both our lives.”
“No time for that,” he said, putting the frame he’d “tossed” at me back in its place. “Besides, I’ve got a tee time in an hour and I’ll need a few minutes to recover from your electric touch.”
I stared at him, not able to understand how he could look so at ease with this whole thing. From his relaxed posture and expression, you’d have though we were going to be doing nothing more exciting than studying books all day.
I didn’t want to do this, not even in the slightest, but I knew Patrick was as stubborn and strong-willed as I was. If I didn’t play by his rules and go along with this, he would walk away and I’d be left to figure this out on my own, which would never happen.
“I can’t believe I’m going along with this,” I said, hanging my head.
“I can. I’m impossible to say no to.” He winked. “You wouldn’t be the first woman to think so.”
It was infuriating, he was making jokes now. Death was waiting to meet him, a mere few minutes away. He was as crazy as an inmate whistling Zippity-Do-Da en route to the lethal injection chamber.
“So how are we going to do this, Professor?” I asked, rolling up my sleeves.
His face flattened minutely, as if he was relieved. He hadn’t been as confident I’d go along with this as he’d acted. He was a good bluffer.
“Why don’t you lie down on the sofa since you’ll feel pretty rough when this is done and I’ll sit on the coffee table next to you.”
“Why don’t you take the sofa?” I said, moving towards the doomed furniture with heavy feet. “I think you’ll be worse off than me when this is over.” I made a silent wish that he’d still be lucid enough to feel pain when this suicide mission was finished.
“Thanks, but no thanks,” he replied, removing his wide leather-banded watch. “I don’t want to be stuck on a couch with no where to move—or collapse—if that’s the only way I can break contact.”
I bit my lip, taking a seat on the edge of the sofa. “That makes sense. You really have thought this through.”
“Was that a hint of a compliment I just detected, Miss Dawson?” he asked, tipping his ear dramatically towards me. “Couldn’t be.”
“Can we just get this done?” I closed my eyes and laid back on the couch, crossing my arms over my stomach. “Because I really can’t take any more of your sarcasm.”
He kneeled beside me, shrugging out of his jacket. “A woman of action . . . a girl after my own heart,” he said, thumping his chest with his fist.
I sucked in a breath and held it in while Patrick situated himself on the edge of the coffee table. He tossed one of the couch’s pillows behind him. “To break the fall, if need be,” he said, answering my silent question.
“I thought you were tough.”
“I am on the inside,” he said, reaching for my arm. Out of instinct I flinched away, but he caught it and pulled it towards him. “On the outside, I’m a delicate flower. You think I’d look this good if I let myself take a serious beating whenever the occasion arose?”
“Stop stalling,” I said with an edge, already damp from the clamminess coating my skin. “Let’s do this.”
“Commencing ignition sequence,” he said theatrically, lowering his voice an octave. His fingers ringed around my trembling wrist. “Ten, nine, eight, seven—”
“Patrick,” I said, my voice breaking. “The instant you feel anything—ANYTHING!—you break contact. You hear me?”
He leaned his face over mine, so close I could feel the warmth of his breath breaking over my face. “I’ll be alright, don’t worry. I can recover from your touch. It’s my brother who can’t.”
My skin prickled as he looked to the side. Before I could ask for further clarification, his voice boomed. “Three, two, one. Hang on.”
I felt a dull ache, something that was exponentially less intense than how it’d felt when John and his six other Council members had been pulling my energy from me, but it was still severe enough I couldn’t think about anything else. Severe enough I felt like I was watching the scene from an outsider’s perspective.
Patrick’s furrowed brow, his body shaking in its effort, his forehead beading with sweat, my entire aura emitting desperation that whatever was deep within wouldn’t roar to the surface and vanquish the life of the man sitting beside me, who was trying to help me—everything played like a slow-motion movie, reel for reel.
Seconds passed, or minutes—it was impossible to know—and nothing changed. Patrick’s brow stayed concentrated and my teeth stayed gritted . . . and nothing. The dull ache moved up a few notches to where it was a debilitating kind of pain, but still nothing like what I’d felt a few months back—and my monster didn’t excise itself.
Patrick’s face flattened at the same time his eyes opened. He leaned back, removing his hand from my arm and studying me like I was something as confounding as an ancient rune.
“Are you alright?” I asked, popping up. I wanted to run a hand over him, but I didn’t dare. I hadn’t killed him during our experiment; it would be my luck I would now.
He surveyed his body, side to side and up and down, like he couldn’t believe he’d made it through whatever we’d just agreed to unscathed. “Impossible.”
I shook my head. “I’ll take impossible if it means you’re alright.”
He shot me a look. “I meant impossible in that, impossible I was wrong. I’m never wrong.”
I heaved a sigh, running my fingers through my hair. “Thank goodness you were wrong.”
“How are you feeling?” he asked, moving his attention to me. “A little worse for the wear?”
Certain he was alright, I took an introspective moment, regretting it immediately. I winced, ringing an arm around my stomach, and crashed back down on the sofa.
“That bad, huh?” he said, a hint of an apology in his voice. “I shouldn’t have held on for so long, but I was so certain that this would work.”
“Are you sure this little idea of yours wasn’t some twisted plan to get a little payback in?” I asked, trying not to move anything but my mouth. Everything else was tingling in that fresh fry-pan burn kind of way.
He grinned too angelically to be innocent. “I’ll never tell,” he said, ruffling my hair, which felt more like he was tearing out every strand from the root. I gritted my teeth.
“You look pretty ba
d off. You want me to find you a Tylenol or something?” he asked.
“You find me a magic pill that cures whatever I’ve got and I’ll take that. Actually, I’ll take two, just to be safe,” I said, looking over at him. To say I was relieved Patrick was alright was obvious, but it went beyond that. It almost felt like there was some newfound confidence, or assurance, growing from the knowledge I’d controlled my gift, although I had no idea how I’d done it.
“That would make my job far too easy and I love a challenge,” he said, repositioning his watch. “Why take the easy route when the hard one is so much more fun?”
Instead of it dulling as pain does with the passing of time, it suddenly spiked. The muscles in my neck tightened. “Are you sure you don’t possess a gift similar to mine?”
“I suppose we would have found out if I held on any longer . . . but no, I’m quite certain the universe couldn’t handle more than one being in existence that’s a walking, talking grim reaper.” I managed something of a glare at him. “Besides, that would ruin my reputation with the ladies and the world just isn’t that cruel.”
“So what’s Plan B?” I asked, looking at him from the side.
“It’s circling around up here,” he said, tapping his head. “Genius can’t be rushed. You think Einstein would have come up with relativity if he had someone breathing down his neck tapping their watch?”
“Yeah, well I don’t remember anyone going to Einstein and asking him to come up with a solution to death,” I said, deciding I’d try sitting up again. “So hurry it up, Einstein.”
He glanced at his watch. “At present, I’ve got to hurry it up to my tee time, otherwise they’re going to start without me.”
I grimaced my way to a seated position. “Who are you playing with?”
“My brothers,” he said over his shoulder as he headed into the kitchen. I heard him retrieve a glass from one of the cabinets. “William’s finally back and since we can’t get away to Pacific City, we figured we’d all surf the fairways to kill some time.”
I gripped the sofa cushions. I was jealous that Patrick would be spending the afternoon with William while I was halfway around the world waiting for my friend to die. “Why do you say finally? I thought you said he’s been home for awhile now.”