Vincent expertly dodged her advances and suggested, “Or maybe I'm wrong.”
She growled and continued trying to hit him. “What?”
“Maybe you should give up on this Pax. Your blood is diluted—you only have an eighth of the deva genes in you. Maybe less. Why don’t you just give up on trying to prove something futile? You’ll never be worthy of fighting alongside me.”
“How can you say that?” Pax asked in disbelief, momentarily getting distracted from the fight. “That’s not fair, Vin—”
The booted foot connecting with her jaw caused her teeth to smash against each other and interrupted her speech.
“Focus, Pax!”
He hadn’t meant it. He was just toying with her—playing on her insecurities. “I’m focused enough!” she said, rubbing her jaw and narrowing her eyes. She pivoted abruptly and managed to mirror his kick precisely, slamming her own foot into his face. She smirked proudly as he spat blood. “I seem to be defending myself perfectly fine. Maybe you should worry about yourself, old man.”
Pax had hardly finished her last syllable before she found herself seeing stars and having her face forced into ice again and again. Vincent abused her like this constantly for about half an hour, and she found herself more and more unable to defend against him. When she thought she would suffocate or be caused permanent brain damage, she felt Vincent yank her bleeding head out of the ground by the hair.
Vincent held Pax up by a handful of her hair clutched in one of his hands and gave her a superior glance. “Do you want to know what I really think of her?”
“Who?” she asked, opening her swollen eyes and coughing crumbled pieces of rock out of her throat. Her scalp hurt from the strain on her hair, but she couldn’t even create any energy beneath her feet to hold her up by levitating.
“Thorn’s new girlfriend,” said Vincent coyly. “Want to know what I think of her?”
He rubbed the back of his free hand over his mouth, haphazardly wiping blood away as he grinned at his weary student.
“I don’t really care to know what you think,” said Pax, as she tried to calm her spinning head and get a handle on her confusion. She couldn’t feel most of her body. She certainly couldn’t fight if she couldn’t access channels of her own prana! She couldn’t fly, but maybe if she could hurt him a tiny bit she could use the seconds to recuperate. Taking three short, fast breaths (she was glad that there was plenty of oxygen in the atmosphere—although she wasn’t exactly sure where she was, she imagined it might be Europa or Rhea) Pax focused on gathering balls of energy into her hands to initiate one of her signature attacks. She had begun to do this as a very young child, and it was the simplest thing she could manage at the moment, as natural to her as walking. Her fingers began to tingle and twitch as she felt the warmth collecting.
Vincent gripped Pax’s hair tighter in his fist, and pulled her close so he could speak into her ear. “I think Medea is very... very nice.”
“What?” asked Pax in surprise. She dropped the energy she was gathering. If she could have read his thoughts she would have known he was lying, but she had no such skill.
“Yes, you heard me. I think she’s perfect for him.”
He’s making fun of me, she realized. He’s trying to use Thorn to make me angry—trying to use my anger to keep me alive. Little does he know! The fact that Vincent’s words still irritated her, and still made her slightly jealous of Medea/Para (regardless of the fact that she was Medea/Para) made her even more vexed. Get a grip, Pax. He’s right. You need to focus. Focus and fight at your maximum. I must be strong for the upcoming battle, whether it’s next week or next year.
I must remember why I’m doing this—we use the insults to push ourselves further, but we are on the same side in the end, she reminded herself. In truth, it was hard to forget. When she was this sensitive, and this far from home, the foreign energy of her enemy was very easy to sense. It made the strength of the Pure God before her, who held her suspended by the hair, seem like nothing. This was chilling. She could see in Vincent’s eyes that he knew it too. He could also feel that their distant opponent was continuing to grow in power.
Suja’s brother, Pax thought grimly. Before I had any idea of who he was, I thought there might be a chance he could be a good person. Someone who didn’t intend to harm us. But Suja herself is already basically invincible to us—how could we possibly deal with something worse than her? What do I do? I can’t beat Vincent. How can I beat someone even stronger? Even after everything we suffered in the Pseudosphere, it wasn’t enough.
“You’re not even worth my time, girl,” sneered the deva king, fully extending his arm and disdainfully twisting his wrist to yank on Pax’s hair even more painfully. “What little goddess blood runs through your veins was wasted on you. Raymond should have tried to conceive another.”
Pax winced at the pain in her scalp, violently beginning to cough. She reached up and saw that her fingers were coated in blood. She should let herself become angry. If she could become angry, it would help. She knew that Vincent was insulting her with her best interests in mind. She knew in her heart that Vincent didn’t mean the words he...
“It is a shame that the Fire Deva’s grandchild turned out to be such a wretched waif. Down on earth, your father must be shaking his head in disappointment at how quickly your energy faded. Thank Sakra, in his infinite wisdom, that you are no longer sleeping with my son! Any other female creature that Thornton could find would be more impressive. Let him cavort with hookers or sheep. I would sooner see him mate with a cow than the likes of you.”
“Ewww. Vincent!” Pax’s prana finally flared naturally, giving her a supernatural burst of inhuman power. “How can you say these things? I was the one who stopped the comet when you failed! Don’t forget about our last battle so easily. You gave up and I prevailed!” She sunk her fingernails into Vincent’s wrist causing him to lose his grip on her hair. She snarled, reaching for his neck with the same nails. “I’ve had enough! I don’t want to hear anything about your stupid son! Forget him and fight me!”
Chapter 14: Out of Sorts
“The results are in, Mrs. Kalgren.”
“Well? That took far too long. Tell me.”
Rose stood behind her lab technician in a white coat, her arms crossed as they stared at the giant blown-up image of the molecule. Her fingers tapped nervously on her slender bicep as she awaited the verdict. That single molecule would determine whether Medea was guilty or innocent.
The man swiveled in his chair and looked up at her apologetically. “Mrs. Kalgren, it appears to us that the substance is unidentified.”
“What do you mean by unidentified?” Rose demanded. “Of course it’s fucking unidentified! I asked you to identify it!”
“I know, but please understand...”
“I gave you two options to test for. Morphine and heroin, along with similar drugs. Painkillers and recreational use drugs. Why can’t you give me an answer?”
“Mrs. Kalgren,” said the technician nervously. “This sample does not correlate to the molecular patterns of either morphine or heroin. I’ve tested every possible recreational drug, and every possible painkiller, and it doesn’t correlate to anything in the database.”
“What’s your name?” Rose asked sharply. “George something? And you studied where?”
“Crawford, Mrs. Kalgren. George Crawford. I studied at McMaster in Canada…”
“Great. Mr. Crawford, you’re fired.”
“What—you can’t! This isn’t even part of my project…”
“Mr. Crawford, this isn’t a high school chemistry lab. This is Kalgren Technological Enterprises, and we have the most advanced biomedical engineering department in the world. If you can’t identify a drop of medicine, I can assure you that it is not due to a deficiency in our resources. It’s because you’re fucking lazy.”
“Please reconsider this, Mrs. Kalgr—let go of me!” The man was already being dragged off by company security.
Rose had given her assistant a private look and nod, and her bidding was instantly carried out. “Great! Now that we’ve done some housecleaning—my favorite kind of housecleaning—is there anyone who wants to help me with this project?”
Rose smiled as a gaggle of young employees fell over themselves as they rushed to try to impress her. She selected three of the most enthusiastic individuals by pointing at them, and barked out some simple instructions. “Does this seem like too much to ask?”
“Not at all! We’ll get started right away, Mrs. Kalgren.”
“Excellent. Call me if you find anything. Call me immediately, at any hour. You can contact the head of your department to reach me, or go directly through my assistant, Mrs. Morales.”
Turning on her heel, Rose walked briskly out of the lab, followed by the aforementioned assistant. The woman in tow smiled privately as she struggled to keep up, hugging a clipboard against her chest.
“So your husband isn’t back from his trip yet, Mrs. Kalgren?”
“How’d you guess?” Rose said with a grin. “Do I seem a bit irritable?”
“Maybe a tad out of sorts. You’ve fired 500% more people than usual today.”
“Then let’s hope he returns before tomorrow,” Rose said to her assistant with a wink. She had been looking forward to getting her answer tonight, but it seemed unlikely. She knew one thing for sure: the substance was not morphine. Medea had lied. However, she needed to know exactly what the substance was before she made a fuss about it. For all she knew, it could just be an advanced substance similar to morphine. She needed to make sure it was something really bad before she tried to ruin Medea’s character and life over it.
She hoped it was something really bad.
* * *
With the realization that she was enjoying the battle, Pax found herself moving suddenly almost twice as fast, flying circles around her mentor and landing punches and kicks faster than ever before. She felt pure freedom. She felt delirious delight in the movement and in the violence.
This is my second wind. I feel myself losing control, and somehow my power is increasing. I have to keep pushing it. Sakra, I wish I could fight him as Para instead of myself—she could use the Golden Goddess form, while I can’t possibly manage to do that on my own; but power isn’t everything, right? Sometimes a careful, meticulous strategy is better than all the power in the universe. At least that’s what I’ll have to convince myself before taking on Suja’s brother.
A white aura surrounded Vincent as he prepared himself for attack and launched his body at her. She quickly assumed a position of defense, trying to condense pockets of air in between them to create a cushiony shield to absorb the impact. It didn’t work, and he easily fought his way through the buffer, but it allowed her the milliseconds she needed to move away. She hated feeling like she was running, but it was necessary.
Then she saw it. A flicker in Vincent’s pearly-white eyeballs. A blue flicker. She knew what it meant, and it gave her a shiver of excitement. He was burning out—even a Pure God did not run on endless batteries. In fact, his form was possibly draining his energy faster than her Silver Form. He used it so rarely these days that he must be unaccustomed to fighting this way. His body also required more food and drink to sustain his energy levels than hers did. Especially for this intensity of performance and output.
Being part human was actually an advantage for once! Even though she already felt every breath rubbing her throat raw for how dry her mouth was, she was ever so slightly less dehydrated than he was. Her body was holding onto its moisture better.
“Girl, do you want us to both die here? We are both fighting clumsily. We’re hardly able to move. Teleport us back to Earth now, or we may perish.”
“I think I have a little more left in me,” she protested.
“Pax, don’t be ridiculous,” said Vincent firmly. “How much longer can you even stay on your feet?”
Even as he spoke, she was falling to her knees. She hadn’t even realized it until a few seconds later when her dizziness cleared. Her knees had gently hit the sand, followed by her upper body. She blinked a few times, trying to remember where she was.
There was a strong hand on her shoulder and deep blue masculine eyes were looking down on her authoritatively. Blue eyes? But shouldn’t they be white? She realized that she had been out for a few minutes. Both she and Vincent had relaxed out of their fighting forms, into their normal states. She realized just how dangerous the situation actually was.
“Teleport us back. Now.”
Pax nodded, the only image in her mind being that of her bed. Her comfortable, soft bed. She raised two fingers to her forehead and concentrated on trying to sense her friends and family back on Earth. Thornton and Asher were easy to find, as was her father. As she placed her hand on her stomach, she imagined that she would be home at the Burnson house in mere seconds.
Instantly she found herself falling. Soon her mouth was full of ice and dirt. She rolled the granules of sand around on her tongue hopefully, but it did not taste like she had landed in her grandmother’s garden.
“What the hell, girl?” growled Vincent, who had been similarly dumped into the sand next to her.
“Not... working,” she muttered in confusion, spitting out the sand.
“Thank you for stating the obvious. Why isn’t it working?”
“I’m drained of energy,” she admitted shamefully. “Can you transfer some of yours to me?”
“Some of mine?” he repeated. “Does it look like I have much energy to spare?”
Pax sighed. “I’m sorry. I thought I could manage it.”
“After all this time, you don’t know what your own body is capable of?”
“I was trying to be tough.”
“You were being dumb, child!”
This was the last thing she heard before sleep seemed to grab her eyelids and force them closed. She could do nothing but comply. The older deva picked her up and roughly tossed her over his shoulder before beginning to walk across the surface of the moon.
His swaying steps briefly stirred Pax to a hazy awareness, but it began to slide away as quickly as it had come. Mara, she thought faintly, trying to communicate with her friend through the millions of miles of space that separated them. I really screwed up here. What made me think I could win against your dad?
* * *
Dipping a toe into a thick layer of frothy bubbles, Amara sighed. She undid the ties that fastened her bathrobe around her waist and let the fabric slide to the floor. Stepping forward, she sunk down into the luxurious, jasmine-scented bathwater. With Pax gone, there was no one to interrupt her sanctuary and force her to work on any of the projects or plans she probably should be tackling. To adequately treasure this solitude, Amara had decided to treat herself to some girlish pampering.
She leaned back against the edge of the tub; her hair was piled and pinned up messily on the top of her head to prevent it from getting wet. As the steam from the tub rose in soft clouds all around her, she nodded to herself in approval.
“That’s more like it. The good life.”
A small smile settled upon her lips. She felt all the tension in her body slipping away and simply enjoyed the feeling of her eyelids growing heavy and fluttering closed.
It had been ages since she’d taken a break from listening in on everyone else’s thoughts. She hadn’t experienced much chronic pain in her lifetime—being a deva’s descendent made her unusually healthy—but since exiting the vector zone she had been experiencing almost constant dull, nagging headaches. Being bombarded with so many different waves of thought was proving challenging to manage.
At first, she had tried her best to listen to everything at once. She had been especially concerned with trying to learn what everyone really thought about her, but this knowledge had proved disappointing. From that point on, she had created a mental rotation during which she would scan the minds of everyone she loved for a few minutes, just to see if anything important wa
s happening. While she was sleeping, she dreamed of other people’s thoughts. Mostly Asher’s. Even when she earnestly tried to move on and let go, her subconscious mind refused to release its stranglehold on his memory. Despite her best efforts, the intensity of their connection hadn’t faded in the least—and yes, it wasn’t just one-sided. As long as she could still feel him dreaming about her, thinking about her, and loving her from a distance, she couldn’t really allow herself to lose hope completely.
She would never truly understand why he’d left her the way that he had, even now that she could get inside his mind. It was all very frustrating; she preferred to not think about it at all, and just to enjoy her bath. Amara lifted her arms to rest on either side of the tub and sighed. The bathwater had cooled off a bit since she’d first stepped in, so she used her prana to heat it back up. She smirked at the wondrous things she could do with her newfound power.
“Look Thorn, she’s my niece. He’s your dad. We’ve got to do something.”
Amara opened one eye. Would his voice ever stop creeping into her head?
“Why they would take such a huge risk, just for the sake of a simple training session?”
“It’s probably my dad’s fault. He’s been worried about that strange distant power—says it’s growing.”
“No way, man. This is Pax letting off steam because you pissed her off again. Why do you have to provoke her like that when you know how sensitive she is?”
Amara opened her other eye. She squinted at the fleur-de-lis patterning on her steel-blue ceramic bathroom tiles. It was endearing to her that Asher was defending his niece.
“Excuse me? Pax is the one who chose…”
“Dude, don’t blame it on her. Take some responsibility.”
“Responsibility? Sorry, I think I heard wrong. Is an unemployed, freeloading guy telling the president of Kalgren Tech to be more responsible, or am I going deaf?”
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 76
