This is ridiculous, but I feel stronger from just being close to her. I suddenly understand. I understand what Pax meant when she said she wanted anyone but me. She needed to find a nice human boy with qualities like this... someone who could make her feel whole when her heart was breaking. Someone good; someone trustworthy and devoted. Not like me. Not someone who lets her down.
If she does find someone better than me I shouldn’t be angry. I should thank him for taking care of her. Pax deserves the best. For doing what her dad failed to do, and what I failed to do. But I love Pax so much… that means something, doesn’t it? Yes. If I really love her, then I should be able to let her go, and to let her be happy. Maybe I can try to be genuinely happy too, instead of just using Medea. She deserves my honest affections, not to be manipulated in some sort of game. Maybe I could try to be a better person—maybe Medea could help me be a better person.
Really, what the hell am I doing? First I hurt Paxie, and then I immediately go after another great girl and basically intend to do the same thing to her. Thornton exhaled slowly. When he inhaled again, his nose was so close to Para’s hair that the scent stirred his memory. He felt the uncanny sensation of having been in this moment before. As he often did when he as around Para, he somehow imagined he was holding Pax instead.
“Penny for your thoughts,” she asked, trying to distract him. No one ever revealed what they were really thinking when they were called on it. They immediately tried to think of a more appropriate thought to reveal.
“I am really glad that you got shot,” he instantly responded.
“What?” she asked in surprise, stiffening a bit.
“If you hadn’t taken that bullet,” he said, gently massaging the back of her neck with his fingers, “Maybe I never would have realized how wonderful and special you truly are. How strong you are.”
“Strong,” she said with a laugh. “Sure. I bet I’m about as strong as a marshmallow in comparison to you, Mr. Demigod.” An extremely powerful, Golden Goddess marshmallow, that is, she assured herself.
“I’m more of a quasi-god,” he admitted modestly. “I work behind a desk all day; how glamorous or divine is that? But you—you are incredibly strong. You have such a pure spirit that I feel renewed just from being close to you.” He took both of her hands into his. “Hey, you did it all the hard way. We all had it handed to us: the strength, the money, the love. But you, you had to achieve it all on your own. From scratch. A little bit like my mother. She was just a human woman with no extraordinary strength, yet she found she could move mountains. She always believed she could do anything—even save the world. You remind me of my mom.”
Para stared, aghast in awe. She knew what incredible respect Thornton possessed for his mother, and this was too much. She didn’t know how to respond to these compliments which she knew she didn’t deserve. Compared to Rose Kalgren, Para felt like she was little more than a spoiled brat. She could move the mountains with her mind and crumble them into dust with her hands—without even trying. Pushing this to the back of her mind, she moved forward to brush her lips against his in a thankful kiss.
He responded, and they kissed until all thoughts slipped away from both of their minds. She forgot all of her guilt in the taste of him. Thornton found himself grasping her thigh and pushing his body against hers, eliciting a small moan from her throat. He caught himself then, and abruptly stopped kissing her and released her thigh. “We can’t. Not until you’re healed.”
She nodded, almost in disappointment, but sighed in contentment as his touches changed from sexual to nurturing. She felt him pull the blanket around her shoulders as she drifted off to sleep in his arms.
Sleep.
After an undefined amount of time, a rustling movement stirred her from her slumber. Shit! She awoke with a start, and gasped, feeling her body frantically to make sure that there was still only one of her. But which one was she? She couldn’t tell from just the feeling of her consciousness whether she was Amara, or Pax, or Para. Not when she was this groggy, and everything blended into one. She yanked her head off the bed, looking down frantically to see if she had split into two parts—but there was only Thornton in the room other than her. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling his shoes back on.
How much time do I have? she wondered, looking down at her watch. She was shocked to see that it wasn’t on her wrist.
“My watch!” she shrieked.
“It started vibrating and I removed it,” he said gently. “I didn’t want it to wake you up…”
“No,” she gasped, scrambling for the piece of upgraded technology that rested on her night table. Fumbling the narrow band in her hands, she saw that 29 minutes of her merger had passed. Her heart skipped a beat. She had nearly slept through the body-splitting end of her coalescence technique. That wouldn’t have been pretty. She gritted her teeth at the fact that there was less than a minute remaining. She hated herself sometimes.
“I have to go to work and help my mom with some administrative grunt work. I sometimes think she mistakes me for a pack mule,” Thornton said with a groan as he slowly did the laces up on his Italian leather shoes. Para prayed silently that he could tie his shoelaces within forty seconds, but he paused in the middle of tying in order to start chatting again. “Also, Ash wanted me to see if I could hook him up with some kind of job. Of course, I can—I have tons of connections. But Ash has zero qualifications other than his impressive fighting skill. I love the man to pieces, but what on earth am I gonna do with him?”
Thornton kept rambling on and on about how useless his best buddy was as Para stared at her watch in terror. He had to leave. Now. She took a deep breath as she watched the clock count down from twenty seconds. “I’m so glad you’re going to help Ash find a new job. You’re such a great friend. Well, you can’t be late! Have a good day at work!” She moved to give him a kiss on the lips as she ushered him to the window.
“Oh, one more thing Medea,” he said as he climbed halfway through the window. “My mom wants to invite you over for a family dinner. Would that be cool?”
“What?” she squawked. “I—no! I can’t. I can’t do that.”
“She says she needs to meet you before the Charity Ball,” Thornton explained. “Please, I promise you’ll love my family.”
“I really can’t,” Para said, her heart racing as she stared down at her watch. Less than ten seconds remaining. I am so fucked.
“Is this because you’re worried about them not being normal?” he asked with concern. “Really, they’re very cool people. Please? I won’t leave unless you say yes…”
“Fine, yes!” Para shouted frantically, physically pushing Thornton through the window. “See you later!”
“Bye, Medea,” he said, waving as he levitated into the sky. “I hope you feel better soon.”
“I already do,” she said sweetly, before closing the window. Taking a deep breath, she promptly breezed down to the basement to allow herself to separate undetected. “Really, Para?” she asked herself angrily as she banged her forehead against the closed basement door. “You fell asleep with him?” She used the last few seconds of her fusion to insult herself. “So smart, Para. So smart. What if the time had run out? I’d be in bed with my own brother! I’d better not slip up like this again.”
She hit her forehead against the basement door again before she felt the familiar pull of her soul unraveling and partitioning. “He can never find out.”
Chapter 10: Ball of Mud
“Tell me what you see, girl.”
Pax nodded as she stared into the handheld mirror that Vincent had given her. He had promised that he would help her to hone her prophetic dream technique so that she could see future dangers at will.
“Don’t nod, you idiot!” Vincent hissed. “You need to focus to control this technique, or else you are useless to us. Do not move. Do not breathe. Do not think. Just look into the mirror and channel the latent power of your subconscious mind into that circle of
glass.”
“Channel the wha-wha into the wha?” Amara asked in confusion as she wrinkled her brow.
“Dammit, Mara,” Vincent said with frustration. “I told you to be quiet and let her focus—or else go play with your dolls or something.”
“Daddy, I’m not—” Seeing the death-glare her father sent her, Amara clamped her lips together tightly. “Fine.”
Pax did not even hear their exchange as she tried to follow his instructions and allow her mind to direct its hidden knowledge into the glass. She felt a tiny prickle of electricity and a coldness along the back of her neck, as though ice were dripping down her scalp and along her vertebrae. She frowned when the metal mirror in her hand began to heat up, without her even willing this to happen. The frame around the glass became instantly so hot that it began glowing red, and the glass inside the mirror began to shimmer with an ethereal opalescent quality.
Her gloved hand tightened around the handle of the mirror, even as the smell of burning leather reached her nose. Pax’s eyes widened when she finally saw a face in the mirror, and it was not her own. She gulped down a bit of alarm when she recognized the beautiful woman with the white hair from her deepest nightmares, and from her worst moments of being awake.
Suja, she mentally stuttered.
Hello, lovely. It’s been a while. I told you we’d meet again.
Pax’s hand began to shake as she gripped the mirror. Why am I seeing you?
Because I want you to see me, dear girl. I have missed our little chats.
Gritting her teeth, Pax glared at the demon queen. There’s a person with really immense prana somewhere in the universe. Do you know anything about that?
Of course, darling. Why wouldn’t I align myself with the most powerful man who ever lived? In fact, I’m proud to say that I’m almost single-handedly responsible for his recent ascension to supremacy.
Pax sighed. What are you doing, Suja? You don’t have to do any of this crap. Just come home and go to Sakra’s Point, and make things better with your husband. You don’t have to wage war against him.
Suja’s flawless, porcelain-like face paused thoughtfully in the glass. You’re right as always, sweet thing. I don’t have to wage war against my husband. I only have to destroy everything he has ever treasured and loved, and leave that gorgeous little ball of mud barren and wasted so that he has nothing left to protect or cherish. Only when the last speck of life is burnt to ashes, only when the last microorganism keels over in death will he understand what he did to me and my family.
Chewing on her lip in discomfort, Pax frowned. Okay, I understand a lover’s quarrel as much as the next gal, but don’t you think that’s a little extreme?
Oh, yes, sweetheart. You are one to tell me about extreme measures of revenge. All the world’s a stage, and all the gods are merely writers of a fine tragedy. Suja reached through the mirror, her pale arm gleaming as though it were made from burnished alabaster. I have a secret I’d like for you to tell your little blonde friend, Paxie. Will you whisper it to her for me? Suja’s arm continued to creep through the mirror until it nearly touched Pax’s cheek. Pax could feel the warmth emanating from the Asura woman’s fingertips. Suja’s voice was a soft, snakelike murmur. The message is simply this: I have a brother too.
As she said this, her fingertips collided with Pax’s cheek, giving her a vivid visual of a towering man with forest green hair. He was standing very still as though listening for a distant sound. His angular chin and chiseled, olive-skinned face sat atop a muscled neck and colossal shoulders. Pax had never been afraid of someone’s mere size, for she knew that there were many other factors which determined a person’s power. All the enormous bodybuilders she had ever seen were more show than strength; she could have tossed them clean across the state with a flick of her finger. Not this man. She knew from the way his prana felt that there was an incredible bite to go with his bark. Suddenly, he cocked his head to the side, fixing Pax with a pair of stormy violet eyes.
She gasped and dropped the mirror, shattering it into a dozen sharp shards. As she did so, the vision broke, and she found herself panting and shivering as Vincent and Amara stared at her with odd looks in their faces. “Did you see that?” she asked them nervously. “The arm—did you see her arm reach out of the mirror and touch my face?”
Amara shook her head to indicate the negative. “No, dude. We just saw you freaking out about how ugly your own reflection is. I told you to wear some eyeliner—maybe a splash of lipstick?”
Pax would have normally laughed at this or tried to form a clever retort, but she was too shaken up from the vision to be clever. Vincent cleared his throat loudly to get her attention.
“I’m done with you, Pax. Leave so I can train my daughter.”
Nodding, Pax left Vincent’s quarters, intending to exit the Kalgren Compound. Only after she had taken several steps did she remember that her leg was broken. “Damn,” she cursed, looking down at the physical damage Vincent had done before he had decided to mentally mutilate her by forcing her to practice her prophetic technique. Changing her direction, Pax headed for the east wing of the building where the Kalgrens kept a private infirmary.
She removed her clothing down to her underwear and lowered herself into a tiny chamber that would create complex imaging of her leg, similar to an MRI. Hitting the button to begin the scan, she tried to breathe deeply and think about what the vision with Suja could have meant. Who was the green-haired man? Thinking of him caused her to shudder, and she knew she needed to remain still during the imaging process. Closing her eyes, she tried instead to forget all about him. This hardly worked.
Pax hadn’t realized that closing her eyes had caused her to drift off to sleep for a few minutes. When a beeping sound indicated that the scan was over, she blinked in surprise. She certainly did nod off to sleep a little more frequently than before. It was probably a side effect of Para’s constant heavy sedation. Climbing out of the chamber, she placed her bare feet on the cool tiles as she retrieved her scans. She examined them carefully and cursed.
“Of course, Vince. You couldn’t just break my leg cleanly. You had to shatter my bone into countless crappy fragments. Thanks.” She groaned and turned around to toss the pictures into the trash. “And you wonder why I’m not rushing to become your daughter-in-law and suffer more of this so-called well-meaning abuse?”
“Pax!” said a voice behind her. She immediately feared that it was Thornton, having felt his prana in the building earlier, even while she was asleep. That was her immediate thought, but as her head snapped around and a white shape came hurtling at her chest just as she recognized the voice, the fear was replaced by delight. She instinctively held out her arms to catch the object.
“Bree miss Pax! Bree miss Pax very much!”
“I missed you too,” she said softly as she gently squeezed the robot puppy against her chest. Although his love for her was just a bit of Rose Kalgren’s artificial intelligence, he reminded her of her childhood. Pax found her knees bending as she sunk to the floor, lowering her face to press a kiss against the robot’s forehead. He was just who she had needed to see at that very moment. If she had ever needed anyone. She found herself suddenly fighting back tears. “He activated you? Why on earth would he activate you?”
“Bree. Bree. Thorn activate Briar Dog Model-10428 because Thorn is Bree’s friend. Bree keep Thorn company when he is lonely.”
“Of course you do,” Pax said with a frown. “Did he tell you to say that to me?”
“Bree keep all promises and secrets. Never tells. Bree, Bree! Pax is leaking. Is Pax no longer Bree’s friend?”
“We’re friends. We’ll always be friends!” she whispered to her puppy. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been around. So much has happened.” Her tears slid down Bree’s white contours just as they had done when she had been a lonely little girl of fourteen out in space.
“Bree know Pax is mad at Thorn. Pax does not like Thorn anymore. Pax does not like Bree too?�
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Pax let out a sound that was half laugh and half sob as she tightened her arms around the robot and put her cheek against his cool surface. “You silly robot. I love you to death.”
“Why is Pax never around Bree?”
She sighed. “It’s painful—you just remind me of another time. The way things were. Who I used to be.”
“Bree does not compute. Explain conflicting data. Pax is not Pax anymore?”
“No. I’m different. I don’t like being myself anymore. I made a lot of mistakes.” Pax was so focused on explaining the situation to her little robot friend that she didn’t notice a large figure step into the doorway. She mumbled softly as she stared off into the distance. “Things are bad, Bree. I keep having these awful nightmares, and now I’m learning that they’re not nightmares. They’re visions of the future. I can’t even allow myself to believe that these things are real—that they’re really going to happen.”
“Bree. Bree. Pax prevent bad things from happening!”
“Usually, I can. I’m not too sure this time.”
“Bree believe in Pax.”
“Thanks, little guy,” Pax said softly. “You’re probably the only one. I know you’ve heard me say this a thousand times, but now more than ever, I really wish my mom was still around.”
“I believe in you too,” said the voice from the doorway.
Pax looked up, startled. “Thorn. What are you doing here?”
“Have you forgotten so soon, Paxie? I live here.”
“I meant specifically the infirmary.” She hadn’t even noticed his energy signal moving closer, having been so preoccupied with discussing her troubles with a small mechanical canine. She cleared her throat, realizing that she was sitting on the floor in her underwear before him. And it wasn’t nice underwear either; it was the basic sports cotton she wore for training sessions. She released Bree from the tight hug she had held him in, and shakily rose to her feet. One of her hands moved quickly to her side, where Para’s ‘bullet hole’ would have been, but she relaxed in relief; her body had already completely healed the injury. Turning around, she grabbed her fire-retardant training clothes and tugged them back on, beginning with her shirt. She paused in tugging on her pants when she felt a hand on her wrist.
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 72
