“Yeah, of course,” I agreed without hesitation. “The only person who might find out is–”
“Ms. Rosetti,” Winter interjected, finally breaking her piercing gaze to look back at the blonde sprite. “But you were already aware of that.”
Mrs. Knight nodded, giving me her attention again. “Anyway, I wanted to say this earlier, but especially now that you’ve received approval from my niece, I’m fine if you want to call me Liz instead of being so formal.” She abruptly held up her finger. “As long as you continue with this respectful attitude of yours. Being disrespectful because I look young is the number one way to get on my bad side. I can’t even begin to tell you how many little shitheads I’ve almost suffocated for treating me like a kid.”
As she spoke, the part of her invisible shield that I could still see began to shift and move, tensing in spots similar to how it had done to stop that agent from punching me when he was showing it off. It immediately caused me to understand her words in a different light, realizing she probably meant she could use her shield to suffocate people, rather than implying the threat would be accomplished with her hands.
“So, you can see it,” Winter commented, sounding like she was speaking more to herself.
“Umm, yeah…” I agreed, still feeling odd knowing she was actively hearing my thoughts, and also kind of wondering why she was only now realizing it, unless she hadn’t been reading my mind right away. “And while I’m thinking of it,” I said out loud. “I just want to apologize in advance, Mrs. Fowler, for anything I might–”
“Miss,” she corrected me. “And Winter is fine. I appreciate the consideration, but it feels weird having someone your age refer to me so formally.”
Lovely, now I felt old. I mean, I knew I was old – way older than most other people alive, including even the oldest people I was about to meet, not counting Mrs. Liz, but still. I’d never really felt my age before, especially when my body still looked like I was about twenty-five.
Surprisingly, for the first time ever, Winter smirked slightly.
It was cute – her smile. And part of me wanted to return the gesture, because I knew she was just teasing me now, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Between my stress and the fact I barely knew these two people, despite the fact that this extremely lean goth girl apparently trusted me enough to share such personal details about her family, I just couldn’t crack a smile.
Even if she felt a little more comfortable with me, that didn’t mean I felt entirely comfortable with her. Certainly, she had determined that she could trust that I wouldn’t share unnecessary information, but could I expect the same of her? I mean, that was kind of why she was here – to discover and divulge my secrets.
Granted, when I really considered it, the information she’d shared really wasn’t that personal in her own perception. She’d grown up her whole life likely knowing that her mom had a unique relationship with her father, Mr. Fowler. And if Mr. Knight was anything like me, then he probably viewed this young woman like his own daughter, or at least some form of family, despite her not being his biologically.
Unexpectedly, Winter burst out laughing, cackling hysterically like she’d lost it, her hands grabbing at her extremely flat stomach.
The behavior was so unanticipated that Liz looked at her in surprise.
“Sorry!” she giggled. “You’re just so respectful . It’s hilarious.” She took a deep breath as she stood fully upright again. “Okay, Mr. Archer, I’ll level with you. But you’ll have to keep this to yourself too.”
I was even more confused.
She smirked, revealing her teeth some, causing me to wonder just how much lipstick she was wearing, since I didn’t see even a hint of pink. She lowered her voice as she continued. “I’m a little older than I look,” she admitted. “Not as old as you , but my appearance is a little deceptive. And my lips are naturally this color,” she added with a fuller grin. “No makeup on right now.”
Shit. Was she serious about her age? Because out of everyone I’d met who was older than they looked, like Freya and even Mrs. Knight here, this girl was probably the first who I would have guessed was sincerely in her early twenties. She had a similar feel as Heidi did, like someone’s little sister, who broke into her mom’s makeup and went wild.
Though apparently that wasn’t the case if her lips were naturally this color.
Winter just laughed again. “You, of all people, should know age is just a number,” she giggled. “If you go out to a club, half the people there are going to be in their forties and fifties! A lot of them will look younger from taking those expensive pills they have nowadays, but I’ve met plenty of people in their twenties who acted like old farts, and those in their sixties who acted like teenagers.”
She laughed again, glancing back at Mrs. Knight while still speaking to me. “You should see my aunt sometimes! You’d never guess she was over seven-hundred!”
“Okay, that’s enough out of you!” Liz hissed with a playful glare. “Keep that up and I’ll knock you over!”
Winter was grinning ear to ear now, like she was a kid at an amusement park, having the time of her life. “Like, just a month ago–”
Instantly, it was as if an invisible sumo wrestler shoved the lean woman, causing Winter to jerk roughly before gracefully taking a few steps down the stone stairs to avoid falling, still giggling her head off. “See?” she continued, now much closer to me. “Look at her face!”
Liz just rolled her eyes, and huffed. “I swear, I don’t know what’s gotten into you.”
Winter tried to collect herself, before smiling widely at me again. “Oh, and no I’m not wearing some kind of exotic lingerie.” Her expression abruptly became serious, her smile vanishing, her pale green eyes narrowing. “It’s fur. I get it from my mom. And if you look again, especially if my aunt’s not around to blur that extra vision of yours, I won’t hesitate to punch you in the face.”
I gulped, a little embarrassed that she knew I’d taken a peek underneath her clothing. I mean, it wasn’t like I was checking her out or anything, but I could understand why she might be irritated that I’d done so.
“Good,” she said in response to my thoughts. “Then I think we’ll get along just fine.”
“We should probably head inside,” Liz interjected before I could respond, glancing up at a helicopter landing, which I realized I couldn’t hear at all. “Don’t want to be the reason he’s late to his own party.”
Shit, I’d forgotten about the time. Yanking out my phone again, I was glad to see we were still doing fine. Still, it was bizarre to see a helicopter up above and not hear it even a little.
“Let’s go then,” Winter agreed, gesturing for me to follow her.
However, as I started walking up the steps, my brain finally registered what she’d just said about her fur. Except, this time I decided to just keep my question in my thoughts, in case she wanted to ignore it, since I assumed she’d be able to hear me.
‘Wait, what did you mean about getting the fur from your mom? Superpowers can’t be inherited from parents.’
She automatically dropped back a step to walk at my side, prompting me to realize she was exactly the same height as me, not looking up as she answered under her breath. “My mom is a little unique. The fur isn’t technically classified as a superpower, and can be passed on like any other trait, even though it was caused by the same mutation that created powers. But her real superpowers are super-strength, speed, and making people piss their pants.”
She burst out laughing again when I looked at her like she had three heads, with her not seeming as if she had any intentions on elaborating.
“Nope!” she agreed out loud, laughing even harder.
“Okay Winter,” Liz said firmly, holding open one of the glass doors for us to enter the lobby. “Time to be serious again.” She focused on me. “Oh, and Mr. Archer–”
“Sam is fine,” I interjected, finding it strange she continued to refer to me by my last
name after having just offered for me to call her by her first. Then again, I supposed I hadn’t made the same offer until just now.
She nodded. “Sure. Sam, we’ll obviously be in this meeting with you, but you should pretend like we aren’t there. Don’t expect us to help with your negotiations or anything like that. Our role is to simply keep all those little pricks safe,” she explained, scoffing.
I finally smiled a little.
“Okay, granny,” I retorted without thinking.
But I supposed I’d gone too far – gotten too comfortable – at least, if getting smacked by an invisible sumo wrestler was any indication.
At least I had Winter practically rolling on the floor with laughter, gracefully stepping out of the way at lightning speeds as I fell hard on my ass.
4: Negotiations
Lexi Stockton
April 10, 2735 – Current Day – Morning
Lexi sat at her desk in her secondary office with her elbows on the table, her hand covering her forehead as she stared blankly at her monitor. She felt stressed, wanting this meeting to go well for Sam, but concerned that it wouldn’t. If her boss, Jackie Hendricks, was the only person making the decision, then she was sure the woman wouldn’t try to lowball him at this point.
And she would have been the primary decision-maker if Sam’s demands only involved money and more standard requests.
But the others involved?
In particular, Connolly, a woman who used to be more commonly known as the Dark Miasma, and Pennington, a man known for his shrewd legal tactics, were both major hard-asses.
Sam probably wouldn’t get everything he wanted without a fight, except that he was new to all this, which meant he didn’t even fully understand how to play the game. Lexi did her best to prepare him beforehand, giving him tips on how to deal with certain questions or concerns that might come up, but there really was only so much she could do.
Technically, she hadn’t been entirely sure who all was showing up until she saw the list only five minutes ago. Otherwise, she would have warned him about those two people in advance.
But all of them were top brass.
People with the highest levels of authority in the country.
She’d never heard of a CDS negotiation involving all these people.
Never.
Not even for Blaze.
But she knew Sam’s case was different than others, and clearly these people wanted to exert as much control as possible in how the situation turned out. If anything, it was probably because he was immortal – a powerful immortal – and they wanted to set the tone for how their future contractual relationship would work.
They wanted to intimidate him and exert their authority.
Assholes.
All of them were assholes.
Taking a deep breath, Lexi flinched when someone knocked on the door to her second office. Her normal desk was out in the open, next to everyone else’s, but she also had a separate workstation so that she could get away in the event she was stressed – just like now.
It wasn’t favoritism though.
It was out of necessity, since Lexi might unintentionally fry someone’s computer or phone if she was anxious enough. In fact, while she was expected to work at her normal desk whenever her emotions were stable, she was likewise expected to leave immediately to her ‘safe space’ if she was in danger of losing control.
Safe, because she could literally explode in here and do little to no damage to the rest of the building, whether that explosion involved an EMP blast or eruption of electricity. Not that she had ever actually exploded like that, but they didn’t want to take any chances.
She groaned when the person at the door opened it up anyway, only to groan louder in annoyance when she glanced up and saw who it was. A tall handsome man with black hair and green eyes.
“What do you want Radley?” she snapped, keeping her forehead in her hands to hide her eyes.
“Hey now,” he replied softly, leaning against the doorframe. “No need to be like that. I just stopped by to wish you happy birthday and give you your gift.”
“I don’t want a gift from you,” she retorted.
“Come on,” he pressed in a smooth voice. “It’s been almost a year since you and Blaze split, so why don’t you give us a chance again?”
“Not. In. The. Mood,” she hissed, emphasizing each word.
“Oh, come on, baby–”
“Shut up!” she snapped, sparks flying out of her body. “Or else I’ll fry your workstation,” she added, trying to calm herself down.
He scoffed, attempting to call her bluff. “They’ll just replace it, and it’ll come out of your salary.”
She finally pulled away from her hands to glare at him, her tone ice cold. “Yeah, but I know you’re working on something big – some personal project. Have a backup? Because I could fry it from here.” She then leaned over toward the outlet for emphasis, reaching out her hand while still glaring up at him.
His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”
“I am not in the mood,” she repeated, her expression darkening, sparks unexpectedly crackling around her hand.
“Bitch,” he muttered, whipping around to leave. He then stopped and took a step back to grab the door aggressively, slamming it shut behind him.
Good. Saved her the trouble of having to do it.
Lexi sighed heavily, and then folded her arms on the table to rest her head, tears springing to her eyes. Not because she was sad or hurt, but simply because she wished she could do more to give the man she loved everything he wanted.
Instead, all she could do was watch from the sidelines…
In every possible way.
❖ ❖ ❖
Sam Archer
April 10, 2735 – Current Day – Morning
As we crossed the extremely large lobby, which had plenty of furniture but no people present, both of my escorts finally began acting serious for real. Winter especially did a one-eighty, her chipper smile fading completely to what I’d seen when I arrived, a sort of neutral goth-punk expression on her face.
Honestly, I kind of wondered if she was the sort of chick who would have worn black lipstick anyway, if her lips weren’t naturally that color, though I had to realize it was possible she was lying about that. Then again, if the lingerie-like pattern on her body was truly fur that resembled a white tiger, then maybe she was being honest – after all, even though tigers had lighter colored skin, they always had black lips. A lot of animals were like that, including dogs, wolves, and even a lot of horses.
Either way, she didn’t react to my thoughts at all. Neither confirming nor denying my assumptions as she’d done so freely only seconds ago. Part of me briefly wondered if she might be offended by my thoughts, but I had to remember that she’d likely heard it all and then some. And it wasn’t like I had a negative opinion of her appearance.
Far from it.
When we got into the elevator, just picking the closest out of a whopping eight of them, I decided I wanted to try asking Mrs. Knight one more thing while I had the chance.
“Forgive me if this is offensive,” I whispered to Liz, who was standing with a hard expression on her youthful face. “But are you really over seven-hundred years old?”
She nodded once sharply, not looking up at me. “You know the virus that killed off most of the world back in the 2090’s?” she asked.
I nodded, recalling Freya’s mini-lecture on the subject. “Yeah.”
“I was born about eighty years before then,” she replied evenly.
Damn.
“And how exactly are you immortal?” I wondered politely, knowing she could easily refuse to share this information.
She finally looked up at me then, her expression pensive. “Do you know what causes aging?”
I nodded again. “Yeah, I mean, it’s just a symptom of DNA being damaged, right?” I hesitated then, when she raised her blonde eyebrows, as if the answer should be obvious. “So, I gues
s if it’s impossible for it to become damaged, then…”
“Correct,” she confirmed, focusing straight ahead again at the closed elevator doors. “My superpower is actually a lot stronger than it was when I was really young, but even back then it was impossible for me to be harmed, even on a cellular level. My power keeps my body in pristine health.” She glanced at me again from the corner of her eye. “And no, before you ask, it’s not possible for superpowers to get stronger like that – at least, not usually. Sure, they can be developed to their full potential, but my situation was a special case, the details of which I can’t share.”
I nodded again, focusing up at Winter. Damn the height difference between the two women was extreme. Basically a foot difference. “And what about–”
Winter immediately cut me off without looking. “Classified.” Her tone then softened a little, though she still kept her pale green eyes forward. “That’s not information we can share with you, so don’t ask again.”
“It’s not something we share with anyone,” Liz added. “Even the people we’re about to see.”
Well, shit. I wondered if that meant they were hoarding a ‘fountain of youth’ super like Heidi, or something else altogether. Either way, I had no problem respecting that decision.
If anything, I was just curious.
After all, they were making it seem like there were a lot more immortals than I initially thought, and I was very interested to know more about them. I mean, who wouldn’t be? I felt like an idiot in hindsight, but I’d gone most of my life assuming I was the only one who couldn’t die.
Unexpectedly, Winter spoke up again, responding to my thoughts.
“Most people in your situation assume as much, since we usually keep out of the spotlight. Plus, supers with longer than average life-expectancies are very rare, and those who are truly unkillable are even more rare. The fact that you’re associated with someone like Ms. Rosetti is…fortuitous.”
The Powerful Pride of an Immortal (Immortal Supers Book 4) Page 6
