I laughed evilly to myself as I thought of the way that Emelius and I had parted ways. He had been rattled at most, but I bet he was eagerly looking forward to our very soon reunion. I forwent make up, it was most likely I’d sweat it off and put on a pair of grey sweats, a standard black t-shirt, and pair of sneakers.
I jogged downstairs with a great deal of difficulty, no more fit then I was a couple days ago struggling to walk up the same stairs. I looked over to the parking lot and spotted Emelius’ shiny black BMW.
“So, Mr. Vasgård informed me that you had some terrible things to say about our last conversation. While I admire your loyalty, I must say I am really quite hurt,” I shared with Emelius as I bent to open the front passenger seat door. When I couldn’t open it I laughed. Emelius had locked it!
With a smug smile, he looked pointedly to the back seat. Oh, it was so on!
I opened the back door and got in. “Where are we going?” I asked, leaning forward to bug him.
“Could you please sit back, Miss Monsoon? I don’t want to injure you,” he pleaded as I heard a whirring sound. I moved my head out of the way, just in time for the divider to come down. He was good.
I looked around, trying to see if there was some way to get him back, and as my eyes landed on an intercom button, I smiled. I clicked on the button not letting him off too easy! “You’re good, Emelius, but I’m better,” I persisted.
In response the divider whirred back up “Is that you admitting defeat?” I asked.
“Yes, take it as my very reluctant concession of temporary defeat. No white flag has been waved though,” he replied mulishly but with an edge of amusement.
“I didn’t take you for a sore loser, Emelius, but that’s okay I promise not to gloat. Where are you taking me?” I repeated as we drove toward the docks by the harbor. “Are you taking me to my death?”
“We’re almost there,” he replied with calmness, doing a terrible job soothing my frayed nerves. “And no, I’m not,” he added as an afterthought.
“I’m not good at exercise of any type, really, I mean, I mastered walking by the age of one, running never. I’m terrible at sports, and if I had to run to save my life my chances would be slim to none,” I babbled.
“There’s no need to worry, Mr. Vasgård just likes his meetings to take place in remote locations. He values his privacy very highly. He couldn’t do what he does without it,” he said convincingly, his eyes meeting mine in the mirror.
“Do you think of him as some kind of philanthropist?” I threw out with confusion.
“You have no idea,” he responded ambiguously.
“You can’t just say something like that without explaining what you mean! It just makes me want to dig deeper,” I muttered more to myself than to him.
“No, if you do you’ll only push him away, and he’ll never have anything to do with you again,” he overrode me, in a voice so serious that it had a sobering effect on me.
“Fine, I won’t. I wouldn’t even know where to start anyway,” I admitted. Plus, I didn’t want to get to know him because if I did then I might have problems later on trying to separate business from pleasure.
“Good,” he exhaled.
“You’d miss me then, wouldn’t you?” I teased, “Don’t worry, I’d miss you, too,” I urged giving his shoulder an affectionate squeeze.
“No, I wouldn’t miss you one bit,” he denied, bringing the car gently to a stop. “We’re here, Miss Monsoon. Mr. Vasgård’s explicit instructions was that he would be waiting for you inside that warehouse,” he delivered. There was no doubt about which one he was talking about considering the distance between the warehouse we were in front of and the next must be one mile or so apart.
“Right . . . you have to admit, though, this is a bit strange. I get the whole private meeting part but this is beyond the pale,” I stalled, slowly undoing my seatbelt.
“If you don’t want to go in, I will happily return you to your dorm,” Emelius replied, making a movement to start the car back up.
“No, I’m good, my seatbelt was just stuck,” I lied, biting my lip as I put my hand out to open the door.
“You know in order to meet him, you have to physically leave the car,” Emelius advised while looking out into the night.
“Alright, I get it, I’m going, I’m going,” I grumbled and got out, already nervously sweating. “Okay, thanks, Emelius, I’ll see you later.” Hopefully I thought to myself. I took two steps forward toward the door then meekly looked back.
Emelius moved his hands in a go on gesture, making me feel that much safer that he wasn’t willing to leave me alone if I couldn’t walk through the doors.
I turned back around, steeling myself for whatever I was about to face through those massive metal doors. Taking a breath I pushed them open and paused when all was a sea of darkness. Immediately I was on edge. Where the hell was Hendrik? Had he stood me up?
My breathing quickened and I speedily took out my iPhone and clicked on the home screen button to activate my light.
“No, don’t,” Hendrik’s velvety voice echoed through the silence coming from somewhere to my left.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t! What is this? Are you trying to pay me back for terrorizing Emelius by terrorizing me?” I ranted crazily.
“If I was going to do that then I wouldn’t have announced my presence,” I heard him whisper closer to me than where he was before. I heard a hissing noise as something was rubbed against an object, then saw it was a match being lit as it flared, the small amount of light revealing Hendrik’s midnight green eyes.
“Do you know that there is this very rare phobia called haphephobia which really means that a person fears being touched or has fears of touching another person? Psychologists say that it stems from the fear of invasion or contamination and that it’s an acute exaggeration of the normal tendencies to protect one’s personal space. While some people are born with it I don’t think you were because you said that you didn’t want to flinch away from someone anymore, which means there was a time you weren’t afraid to be touched. There was a time you craved to be touched, but something happened, didn’t it?” he queried, keeping the distance between us.
“Yes,” I croaked, somehow the darkness making it easier to reveal the darkness festering within me.
“What happened to you?” he asked after a heartbeat.
“I don’t know, I can’t remember. I have psychogenic amnesia,” I whispered. This time the pause was longer, and I could almost feel the heat of his anger from where he stood.
“Did they catch the person who hurt you?” he asked in a steely voice.
“No, there was no trace of evidence. Not even in my own goddamned mind. Look, you don’t have to take it easy on me, there’s a high chance I might never remember anything. I’m not asking for a miracle, I’m asking for help to move on,” I stressed, hating that I was revealing everything while he wasn’t revealing a thing.
“You don’t want me to take it easy on you?” he repeated in a threatening voice, sending shivers done my spine, all without moving a step.
“N-no,” my voice quivered, betraying my small doubt.
“Fine, I’ll remind you that you said that while you’re screaming for me to stop,” he commented like he was talking about the weather and not my possible demise. “One way to get rid of your fear of being touched is direct exposure to it. Normally a psychologist would let you know when you’re about to be touched to prepare you for it but since you don’t want me to take it easy on you, I won’t give you any warning,” he taunted, blowing out the match.
I didn’t hear him move but I felt a slight disturbance in the air, and in self-defense I stepped back not knowing where he was.
“Do you know how to fight to save your life?” he questioned somewhere from behind me. I turned around, trying to locate where the hell he was.
“No, I’ve never taken boxing classes or anything like that,” I replied.
“S
o there’s no way you would feel comfortable trying to fight against me? Not even if your life depended on it?” he whispered seductively.
“There wouldn’t be a chance in hell I’d come out winning,” I admitted, not wanting to lie and have him test me.
“That’s disappointing. You’re weak because you allow yourself to be. If you want to be powerful, you need to be able to defend yourself. You weren’t strong enough to stop what happened to you, I get it, but you’re using that as an excuse to remain powerless. The difference between you and a baby is that it can’t defend itself, whereas you can. You want to get better? Then stop being so weak,” he scorned, in my ear.
“I’m not weak!” I yelled, my hands moving out from my body to push him away, but all I felt was air.
“Good, so you do have self-preservation instincts and you can fight. You can have an attacker who’s stronger than you, but it doesn’t mean that you can’t outwit him. My father taught me how to fight in the darkness, how to hear the slight bunching of a tendon or muscle, how to sense when an attack was about to be launched against me,” he teased as I felt a finger trail across my collarbone.
Panic began to shake me, and I tried to focus, to leave it behind but I was struggling.
“Stay with me, Emerson!” he ordered in a voice that was so scary it turned down my fear, as if my own fear feared disobeying him more.
We both waited until my breath had started to return to normal—me so I could stop hearing my blood rush in my ears, while he’d obviously been waiting to launch another attack I discerned as I felt something soft touch my neck. Was that his lips?
This time I shook, but half from fear and half from scalding desire.
“Good girl,” he praised deliciously.
“Don’t patronize me,” I warned. He was playing with me, making me stir crazy, and I wasn’t sure if it was from want or fear or both.
“And of course you don’t know how to take compliments either, you have way too many hang ups. How about getting some of that anger out, try and punch me,” he commanded.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I lied, a bit of pain wouldn’t be too bad for his ego.
I could hear him practically rolling his eyes as he sighed in exasperation, “Trust me, you won’t even touch me, even if it was daylight you wouldn’t be able to catch me.”
“Then what’s the point?” I asked with blind frustration.
“Emerson!” he chided, making me roll my eyes this time.
“Alright, fine,” I replied, closing my fist and aiming it toward where I thought he was, but once again all I made contact unsatisfyingly enough was with empty air.
“You’re doing it wrong,” he admonished.
“How can you tell?” I asked with suspicion. “You can’t even see me punch.”
“It doesn’t sound right. Your arm needs to cut through the air, not whoosh like a failing airplane,” he advised. “Listen,” he instructed.
I closed my eyes and heard his arm slice through the air lightly with grace and deadliness, making next to no noise, nothing like my uncoordinated one.
“Okay, I can hear what you mean,” I relented stubbornly.
“Good, now you can feel what I mean, too,” he replied. “Bend your knees slightly,” he ordered. I bent them, waiting for his next instruction.
“Great, now place both hands in front of your chin and make fists. No, keep your thumb on the outside,” he advised as I went to place it in the tunnel between my enclosed fingers. This time when I felt his touch I was prepared. I closed my eyes as his middle and index finger rubbed back and forth over my knuckles of my punching hand.
“When you punch hit with your first and second knuckle, not your fingers. Let the power flow straight from your shoulder,” he whispered, smoothing his hand from my hand slowly up to my shoulder.
“Got it?” he asked, his body drawing closer behind mine.
“Got it,” I confirmed. “Your father, was he a fighter?”
“No, he was a businessman, but he was so much more than that. He always said that in order to have a strong mind you needed to have a strong body. He was hard—good but fair,” he shared.
“Was?” I repeated.
“Yes, was, he passed away one night while he was working, peacefully of course. His heart gave out and he was under a lot of stress. At least that’s what the police and shareholders officially claimed for their final report to the public as being his cause of death,” he uttered with derision.
“And unofficially?” I pushed.
“Unofficially he died from an unknown cause. The coroner couldn’t identify what it was that killed him, but he didn’t have a heart problem, that’s for sure. It happened when I was thirteen. It took me awhile to let it go, to accept that maybe there isn’t always an understandable explanation for everything”.
“Yeah, sometimes there isn’t, but sometimes there should be,” I proclaimed, thinking about Katia and her senseless suicide. It didn’t make sense for her to be gone so young.
I felt him circle me like a predator, coming around until we were face to face. “How is it that I find myself opening up to a complete stranger?” he mused.
“I find myself asking the same question. Maybe it’s the darkness, or maybe there is no shame in sharing your pain with someone who can do more than empathize because they know what it’s like to feel the soul crushing, debilitating pain of loss. But maybe we shouldn’t search for an understandable explanation, maybe there is none,” I laughed.
“Maybe,” he affirmed.
“So what was the point of all this?”
“It was about establishing trust, and a sort of understanding between the two of us,” he explained.
“You have a very unique way of creating trust,” I commented with a slight smile.
“Well, you’re no ordinary woman,” he said mysteriously.
“And you’re no ordinary man,” I countered, “You’re the Leverager, and also apparently some kind of philanthropist according to Emelius. Maybe you’re my guardian angel,” I teased.
“No, I’m much too sinful for that,” he said, flicking on the switch to the light, which was ironically a foot away from where I was standing. Light flooded us, and I squinted while my eyes adjusted.
“Don’t you remember our earlier talk? I’m no angel; I’m helping you because I’m going to get something in return. I’m not being selfless; I don’t care about you and as soon as we conclude this deal we’ll be through with each other for good,” Hendrik emphasized.
“I remember it perfectly. Why do you constantly feel the need to push me away? Is it because you want me to give up so you don’t have to go through with all of this?” I asked, pointing my finger at him. “I’m here and I’m trying and I refuse to give up. So, if you want to back out then have the balls to say it and quit messing around with me,” I yelled, breathing heavily with roiling anger.
“I think we’re done here,” he said impassively, moving away from me.
“Forever?” I needed clarification. If we were done then I’d have to find some other way of getting better, preferably not a clinical one.
“No, for tonight. We’re done for tonight,” he answered aloofly. “Emelius will be waiting outside…he’ll take you home.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be running home once I’m done training,” he said gesturing to the exercise equipment that I could see through the open door in another room. The warehouse looked like a dump on the outside but on the inside it was anything but. It contained a state-of-the-art basketball court and I swore I could see water, maybe even an Olympic-sized swimming pool in another room.
I wanted to stay and explore but I think we’d reached each other’s limits for the night.
“Fine,” I said stubbornly.
“Fine,” he said back, arms crossed his eyes gleaming almost daring me to stay and defy him. But I wasn’t brave enough for that. I swallowed and he caught the telling gesture and grinned. Unable to handl
e his smugness I retreated, thinking of ways I could wipe it off his face, possibly with a slap, or possibly with a kiss, my simpering libido whispered.
I groaned in mortification, and as I entered Emelius’s car, opting to sit in the backseat, I was distracted by lustful, wandering thoughts.
“Miss Monsoon, are you alright?” Emelius inquired with worry from the driver’s seat.
“No, not really,” I admitted quietly. I didn’t know how to feel about liking Hendrik’s touch, it was dangerous and yet I craved more. The confounding thing was that I think I was pushing and testing his boundaries just as much as he was pushing and testing mine.
“ONLY TEN OF you will go on to become psychologists or social workers, while the other forty of you will either have dropped out, decided to become a lecturer like me, or will become researchers interested in psychology or social work,” Professor Edwards proclaimed from his lectern.
Everyone in the lecture hall grew tense, including me. I had to be one of those ten. Defeat was not an option.
“I’m not here to make your dreams come true. I’m here for the sole purpose of teaching those who are truly great. To weed out the great from those better served in a different discipline and I have a compulsory program that will determine your grading in this subject. Thorne University has an alliance with the Hale Institution allowing us to engage with their patients, granting each of you the unique opportunity to treat a patient.” Everyone gasped uncertain of taking on the burden of such a huge responsibility.
I was scared that having not dealt with my own issues maybe I shouldn’t be the one to deal with another person’s trauma. But maybe the saying that pain and trauma was all relative would work in my favor and not against me.
The Leverager Page 9
