“Yep.” Jake huffed as he came into the room, then hefted a bag of potatoes onto the counter by the sink before turning back to the rest of us. “And I get to wear a tie.”
“You wear a tie every day to work, dad.” Sam laughed.
He shrugged. “Deal’s a deal. You kids stop complaining. It was hard enough to get mom to wear makeup.” He winked at me, even as he grabbed my butt and gave me a kiss.
“Eww.” Sam scrunched up the side of her face. “It’s still gross when you do that. You two know that, right?”
“No.” Alan scraped his tongue on his teeth. “It’s much, much worse now.”
“So, you don’t have any homework?” I turned to Alan as Jake left the room, but he just shook his head. “Good. You can help me with this tray. Can you come open these olives?”
As the afternoon wore on, I slowly roped the rest of my family into helping me prepare for dinner. Within an hour, I only had one hold-out.
“Nicole!” I called into the living room a second after the sound of the doorbell echoed through the house. “Can you get the door? It’s probably Kiara.”
I popped a marshmallow into my mouth and scooped a dollop of sour cream into the mashed potatoes as the sound of the television in the other room cut out. A minute later, I heard Nicole and Kiara’s voices over the noise of the mixer as they came into the kitchen.
“Kitchen’s off limits.” I turned to face them and waved the rubber spatula in my hand in warning. “Unless you’re working.”
“Why do you think I came in here?” Kiara smiled and rolled her sleeves up. “Where do you need me?”
“Yeah, where do you need us?” Nicole’s eyes darted to Kiara as she spoke. I wasn’t sure of it, but I had the strong suspicion she was also a fan of Cherub.
“Kiara?” Jake poked his head into the kitchen from the dining room where he had been helping Sam set the table.
“Jake?” She tipped her head to the side, a hint of incredulity in her voice. “Is that...?”
“Yeah.” He laughed and set the plates in his hand down on the table before turning back to her. “It’s been way too long!”
“You can say that again.”
Kiara gave me a bit of an uncertain smile as he swept her up into a hug. For my part, I smiled before turning my attention back to the mashed potatoes. I hadn’t thought about the changed dynamic between the two of them, since they hadn’t seen each other since the swap, but now, I started to wonder. I hadn't missed the way his eyes swept over her when they had first seen each other, or that his eyes kept darting to her whenever he thought she wasn’t looking. For her part, she seemed oblivious to the extra attention she was earning, but I didn’t find that particularly comforting.
After another half hour of preparation, we were ready for dinner. Although I had offered to put the rest of the Charger’s game on as we sat down to dinner, I was almost immediately outvoted. Alan came to my defense, though it took only seconds for the glares from everyone else around the table to cow us both into submission.
“So.” Sam looked over at Kiara after we had said grace. “You used to work with dad, right? And now you’re working with mom?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “You guys know how the whole internship process works, right?”
“Sure.” Alan picked up a roll, then narrowed his eyes as he looked at her. “So, who’s the better Gravita? Mom, or dad?”
“Jake, no question.”
“What?” I demanded.
“He asked me a question.” She winked at me. “Jake had thirty years of practice, both with fighting and with his powers. Though, I must admit, Amber, you’re quite a bit more... expressive... with your powers than I think Jake was.”
“Expressive?” Jake cocked his head to the side and glanced my way.
“Yeah.” She looked like she was holding back laughter. “Did Amber tell you all what happened with that escaped criminal we found on top of that girl?”
“We were stopping a rapist,” I mumbled, spearing some turkey onto my plate.
“Wait, I think I remember reading about that one.” Nicole snapped her finger. “Didn’t you end up... castrating him, mom?”
“And then some.” Kiara snorted.
“Hot hell.” Alan shifted uncomfortably.
“Language.” Jake scowled.
The rest of the evening passed by better than I thought it would, with the notable exception of when Kiara pulled out her phone, at Sam’s request, some time after dinner. Although I didn’t remember any of it, apparently she had recorded most of our car-ride back to the hub after our scuffle at the lab. Because of course she had.
“I have to get a copy of this.” Nicole’s voice carried in from the living room as she watched, for the third time, the video on Kiara’s phone.
“Yeah.” Jake winced next to me, barely able to keep from laughing as he handed me another dish. “I guess I should have warned you about opioids.”
“This is the best part.” Kiara’s laugher carried into the room as clearly as Nicole’s had.
“Nah.” Sam grinned as she dried the plate I had handed her. “Now, you know for next time. Plus, that video is pretty amazing.”
“Oh yeah.” I nodded. “So funny to see one of your parents higher than a kite.”
“Was it...” She bit her lower lip and glanced at me. “Was that a pretty close call?”
“What?” I frowned at her.
She sighed and slung the dishtowel in her hand over her shoulder as she leaned against the counter. “I guess I’m just trying to get used to you being an arbiter. You looked pretty beat up and bloody in that video.”
“It was kind of a rough one,” I admitted as an image of the two wolf-bears snarling flashed in front of my eyes. “But I’m no worse for the wear.”
To prove my point, I lifted my blouse up to show my side where the three gashes had been. My skin didn’t have so much as a mark on it.
“But...” She frowned, her eyes on my side. “You still lost a lot of blood, right?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Is being an arbiter going to kill you?”
“I don’t know,” I said after a long pause. I put the glass I had been rinsing onto the counter next to her. “It’s one of the most dangerous professions in the world. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t any risk.”
“But then, why...?”
I glanced at Jake, who met my gaze with an uncharacteristically somber expression, before I put my thoughts to words. “There’s a lot of evil out there in the world, and it’s not a static thing. All it takes is not enough good people standing up against it for evil to creep in and take over. I have the chance to do a lot of good, a lot more than I ever could do before. I don’t think I could just stand by and do nothing when I could be doing something.”
“I guess that makes sense.” She wiped a stray tear away from her cheek. “Just... promise me you’re going to take care of yourself?”
“I promise.”
“Okay.” She gave me a small smile.
The day after Thanksgiving found Jake and me back in the hub for one of the first times since I had started training to become an arbiter. Nicole had dragged Sam and Alan to the mall for some Black Friday sales, giving the two of us a rare chance to go in for training. Given the abysmal results of my last run in with the Syndicate, I had jumped at the opportunity.
“Wrong,” Jake repeated himself for what had to be the twentieth time. He took a step back and wiped away the sweat on his forehead with a gloved hand. “Amber, you’re fighting like a man. You can’t do that.”
“What?” I hissed. “Fighting like a man?”
“Punch me.”
I had been trying with mounting frustration to land a punch on him for the past twenty minutes without success, so I didn’t need any more prodding to slam my gloved fist toward him. I grit my teeth as he held his hand out and absorbed all the force of my punch with the apparent effort of swatting away a fly.
“You’ve got
to stop thinking you can just power through your opponent.”
He ducked low to the ground and swept his leg out in a circle that knocked my feet out from under me. I flailed backwards, only just able to slow myself with a pocket of gravity before I would have crashed into the ground.
“What was that for?” I demanded as I pulled myself to my feet.
“You have to be ready to react to anything.” He jabbed a fist forward, and that time, I was able to dodge to the side. “Good. You’re moving. That’s a start.”
“Okay.” I panted as I tried dodging another barrage of blows. To my credit, I managed to avoid half of them. “What am I doing wrong?”
“Let’s try this.” He stepped back again and pulled both his boxing gloves and headgear off. “Come over here.”
I followed him to the edge of the training room, pulling my gloves off too and then wiping away my sweat with the back of my hand. I stepped up to where he pointed and faced the wall.
“Give me your leg.”
“What?”
“Your leg.” He held out his hands.
After a moment’s indecision, I lifted my leg up and rested my heel in his palm. I frowned.
“I still don’t—”
“Keep your legs straight.” He pulled my heel up.
“What are you...” My protest died away as he lifted my leg up well past the limits of what I thought possible, raising it until my shin rested against my forehead.
“That doesn’t hurt, does it?”
“No,” I admitted.
“I didn’t think so. Now try to touch your toes.”
I silently followed his instructions as he led me through more and more extreme stretches, each time convinced I had reached my limit. Finally, as I sat on the ground and found myself able to fold both my calves behind my head at the same time, he seemed satisfied.
“Okay.” I balanced one foot on the wall above my head while I bent down to touch my toes on the ground, both of my legs forming a line. “I’ll give you that I’m more flexible now. But how’s that supposed to help me in a fight?”
“You’re probably never going to be able to match most of your opponents on strength, no matter how strong you get.” He put his hand on my thigh to help straighten my legs further. “That’s just not an option anymore. You don’t have enough weight behind you, even if you had the strength. Not to mention that your lower muscle mass means your reaction time isn’t going to be anything to call home about.”
“You’re really good at pep-talks, you know that?”
He ignored my dig. “You’re still more than capable of landing a good punch or kick, though, as long as you’re willing to wait for the right opening. That’s all you need to disorient an opponent. You’re not as strong anymore, but you are flexible. Use that.”
“Okay.” I noticed that his hands were still on my thighs and were slowly creeping together. “Can I...?”
“Oh.” He blinked as he met my gaze, then blushed and snapped his hands back to his sides. “Sorry. I guess I don’t have full reign on these hormones just yet.”
“Yeah.” I stood back up and wiped my hands clean of the grime on my palms. “Well, it took me about a decade myself, so don’t feel too bad about it. I kind of noticed that yesterday, actually.”
“That was mostly to freak the kids out.” He laughed and grabbed my butt again.
“I wasn’t talking about that.” My eyes flashed, and his laughter faltered. “You spent most of dinner with your eyes down Kiara’s front.”
“I did?” He looked genuinely confused.
“I know she’s beautiful, and I know what it’s like being a guy, trust me. It probably wasn’t even something you were consciously aware of doing, but it just...”
“Amber?” He watched me as I trailed away into silence.
“Are you...” I faltered, then grimaced as my face grew warm. “Am I still attractive to you?”
“Are you kidding me?” He pulled me into a hug. “I fall in love with you a little more each day.”
“You’re not just saying that?”
“Well, I do say a lot of things.” He managed to laugh despite the seriousness of the moment. “But no, I really mean that. I love you. More than ever.”
We held each other for another minute, neither of us saying a word.
“Jake?” I asked, resting my head on his shoulders.
“Yeah?”
“We’re pretty much the weirdest couple on the planet, aren’t we?”
“What do you mean? You just rightfully got upset with me for ogling your best friend, who used to be my best friend of twenty years. Nothing weird about that.”
I laughed as I bent over to collect the boxing gear we had left at our feet, and I tried to use the motion to discreetly wipe away the tears from my eyes. I doubted he hadn’t noticed me crying, but if he did, he didn’t say anything.
“Ugh, I think I’m going to need to take a shower when we get home.” He shivered as he put an arm around me. “Kiara and I used to talk about your... Well, I guess it's technically my junk now, isn’t it?”
“What?!”
15
“I’M SO SORRY.” KIARA didn’t even bother with a preamble when I saw her next in the locker room at the hub.
“Hmm?” I paused and tried to think through what she could be sorry about. “Is this about that dumb video you took?”
“What? No!” She couldn’t stop the smile that broke across her face as she realized what I meant. “I’m not sorry about that. It was hilarious.”
“Oh?”
“No.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “I was talking about Jake. I had no idea he was going to be so, well...”
“Twitterpated?” I frowned and tilted my head to the side.
“Yeah.” She snapped her finger. “Good word choice.”
I sighed. “Jake and I talked about it too. I don’t think he meant for that to happen either. I hope that wasn’t weird for you.”
She winced. “Don’t take it the wrong way, but wow! It was so weird to see the old Amber poking through from a man’s body. And then, the way he kept checking me out? Major creep factor.”
“Life’s just different for men.” I shifted weight between my feet as my face burned from embarrassment for a reason I couldn’t place.
“You can say that again.” She laughed as she started changing. “I never imagined that she, I mean, he—”
“You don’t know what it’s like, okay?” I twisted around to look at her. I tried to keep my voice even, but it cracked a moment later. “I’m sorry it was uncomfortable for you. Really, I am. But, don’t you think both Jake and I know how messed up we are? Yeah, Jake was acting like a slobbering idiot around you. Just like a teenager. So what? Do you know why teenage boys act that way? It’s because, as soon as they hit puberty, they’re slammed with so many hormones it gets hard for them to think straight. And it never gets better. The only reason men ever act normal at all is through years and years of experience and practice at blocking out and tamping down on our urges. But they’re still there. They’re always there. It’s almost like a drug. It’s just... most of us manage to sober up. But the pull, the drive... it never goes away. Jake’s had, what, two months to get used to it? So, of course he acted that way.”
“I...” She faltered, her eyes on the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize...”
“It’s not your fault.” I turned away and continued changing. “This whole thing with Jake and me is really, really weird. We know that. You get to look in from the outside and see how weird it all is, but you don’t have to live it. Every day, you get the chance to get away from it. You can go home and not think about it until you see us next. That’s not an option for us. We’ve had literally every defining aspect of who we are, other than our memories, ripped away and replaced by something completely different. And there’s nothing we can do to go back to who we were.”
I’m not sure when she had started crying, but when I turned to
look at her, my stomach tightened as I realized I was crying as well. I still don’t exactly know how it all happened, but we ended up cradled in each other's arms as we both cried into the other’s shoulders.
We had just transitioned onto a different work schedule, meaning we were now working from the early afternoon into the evening. As we worked our beat that day, we somehow managed to carry on like normal, without any of the awkwardness I thought would inevitably follow my emotional outburst. It was new territory for me to be so emotionally vulnerable with anyone—outside of maybe Jake—but after exposing myself in such a raw way, I felt, if anything, closer to Kiara. I knew there was something deep to that discovery, but at the same time, I guessed I wouldn’t be losing too much sleep trying to puzzle out the details of that particular epiphany.
As it turned out, we spent most of the late afternoon that day watching over a scheduled protest outside the downtown office for the Department of Prime Services. The event had been organized by Sapiens First, an anti-prime organization that tried to stir up outrage every few months at every supposed infringement on society that primes caused. The protest we were supervising was in response to a recent Supreme Court ruling that a California law mandating primes above a Class A power had to register, regardless of whether they ever planned to use their powerset, was unconstitutional. Never mind that the law affected only one out of every half-million people—there was still plenty of outrage on either side of the debate to go around.
Given the recent spike in the Prime Syndicate’s activities around Chicago, no one wanted to take any chances with such a potentially poignant target, especially given that the heavy majority of those at the rally would violently clash against the Syndicate’s views on prime rights.
As I paced around the perimeter of the area that had been roped off for the protesters to picket, I was grateful, not for the first time, that my helmet hid my expression from view. It was hard to keep a professional demeanor as I overheard some of the absurd slogans that the protesters shouted my way. Thankfully, all Kiara and I had to do was make sure nothing unsafe happened, a job that did not require our participation, in any way, with the protest. Still, it seemed the presence of arbiters at the event was too much of a temptation for some of the protesters to resist. Even though we were there to protect the protesters, we were also the most visible symbol of the prime oppression they were all there to rally against, so in some ways, it made sense.
Prime Identity Page 18
