Runaway Mortal

by Kant, Komal

  I lay splayed across the wet grass, the cold biting at me as the warmth left my body once again. I dreaded getting up. I didn't want to see Loire's smug expression. I didn't want to believe that my training wasn't up to scratch. If it wasn’t then how else would I have survived on the run for so long?

  "Get up, Kat," Loire said firmly.

  I closed my eyes, hoping to shut him out. "No."

  "That's an order. Get up."

  "Is your age affecting your hearing? I said no."

  I heard footsteps approaching, and all of a sudden my world shifted as Loire swung me up into his muscular arms. A moment passed between us as our eyes met, our faces inches apart. Then, just as effortlessly, he placed me down on my feet.

  "If you ever refuse an order again, I will make sure you get a strike of disobedience on your record. Let’s see if Academia thinks you’re fit to be a SRECON agent then. Now, three laps around the field."

  "Yeah, yeah, no need to be so pissy," I muttered, before setting off at a brisk pace.

  I could hear Loire behind me, and I knew he would easily catch up to me, so I put a little more effort into it and pushed myself to run faster.

  "Slow down! You're not going to be able to finish three laps this way!" Loire snapped from somewhere behind me.

  His know-it-all attitude was really getting on my nerves, so instead of slowing down, I sped up. A quick glance over my shoulder showed that Loire was falling behind. It made me feel good that I could outdo him in something, even if it was something as insignificant as running. It was then that my foot connected with something quite solid and I lost my balance, falling heavily onto the ground. Pain shot through my leg and I cried out.

  "You alright, Kat?" Loire asked as he reached me.

  Shaking my head, I held my foot and scoured the ground for whatever I had fallen over. The strange thing was there was nothing there, but I knew my foot had hit something hard.

  “I can't see what I tripped over."

  "There's nothing there. I told you to slow down." Loire kneeled in front of me and stretched my leg out. He pulled my shoe and sock off to reveal the large swelling around my ankle.

  "It was something! Look at my foot!"

  Loire sighed. "I'm perfectly capable of using my eyes."

  I chose to ignore him. "What did I hit? It was a rock or something."

  "Maybe you kicked it away,” he said with a shrug. "You really should've listened to me when I told you to slow down. It's not a race, it's about endurance."

  "Well, maybe you should've specified that before I started running," I said sulkily.

  "You didn't really give me a chance to. Now I have to write an incident report, so thanks for increasing my paperwork."

  “I’m sorry I’m such a nuisance,” I said darkly.

  Loire sighed again and stood up, his tall frame hovering over me in frustration. I could sense that I was getting on his last nerve, but it didn’t bother me. I took pleasure in seeing him lose his self-control.

  “Look, Rookie, I know you think you know everything, but let me assure you that you definitely don’t.”

  “Thanks for the lecture, Grandpa.”

  He made a sound like an angry cat and began walking off in the opposite direction to the school. I watched him go, not the kind of girl to chase after some guy. Besides, I’d had enough of him. This whole training thing had been a big mistake.

  I slowly rose to my feet, wincing in pain as a day’s worth of injuries bore down on me. My back was aching as I began walking back towards the school. My leg twinged in pain each time I put any weight on it. It was so unlike Loire to leave me outside in the dark, but I guess he’d finally reached the end of his patience.

  At first I thought my mind was playing tricks on me when I heard rustling in the bushes. Then I remembered the squirrel from earlier, except I’d never seen the supposed squirrel. My heart began hammering in my chest as I turned around. My reflexes were in overdrive as I sought out the source of the noise.

  The noise stopped and I breathed a sigh of relief. But then a whistling sound filled my ears and an object came at me from the darkness. I threw myself to the left, barely avoiding it as it flew past me. I looked around and didn’t see anything suspicious; only the grass and some rocks.

  Something moved and I squinted, trying to make out what it was. My eyes widened as I tried to process what I was seeing. Suddenly, I was barraged from all sides, pelted by hard, objects that stung painfully as they made impact with me.

  It was agonizing. It was like I was being drowned by them; I couldn’t fight them off. Warm blood flowed from fresh wounds in my body. I was starting to lose consciousness. All my body could feel was pain.

  A moment later, everything grew dark and I felt nothing.

  * * *

  There was a soothing silence. My head was light, like it was floating away from my body. There were nothing harmful where I was. There was only a peace and serenity.

  And just as swiftly as the pleasant sensation had begun, it ended. I opened my eyes, crying out in shock. It was like my entire body had been buried in snow. The pain was unbearable, like my skin had been torn off, leaving a burning in its wake.

  There was shuffling as a figure leaned over me. “Kat, are you alright?” I recognized the voice as Loire’s. He sounded worried—agitated, too—which I didn’t expect from him. I wondered if I looked that bad.

  My mouth felt dry when I tried to speak. “W-where am I?”

  “You’re in my room. It was closer than Healer Junas’ office so I brought you straight here. He’s just finishing up fixing your injuries.”

  “Oh,” I said. “How long have I been out?”

  “Thirty minutes, maybe. I was walking back to the school when I found you.”

  My eyes cleared up a little and Loire’s face came into focus. He looked concerned; his eyes were downcast and his expression melancholy.

  “She seems to be responding to my healing,” Healer Junas said, bending over to study me. He was an angel gifted with the ability to heal from a single touch. He wasn’t the best healer around—I knew some healer angels could heal with their mind—but obviously he got the job done because I wasn’t feeling too bad. “I think she should stay where she is for the night and rest up, but that is up to you. Come and see me if she does get worse.”

  “I will.” Loire walked Healer Junas out before returning to my side.

  “What happened to me?” I asked, sitting up slowly.

  “You were attacked by, well, I don’t even know what. When I came back no one was there. Nothing to show who had done it. But you were bleeding everywhere.” His voice shook. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  His words triggered an image in my mind; the last thing I had seen before I had blacked out. “Rocks. I was attacked by rocks.”

  The words hung in the silence, the absurdity of it growing by the second.

  “Rocks?” Loire sounded uncertain. “That’s what you remember?”

  I sighed. “I know it sounds stupid, but that’s what I saw.”

  “Okay, I guess I’ll go and ask the trees if they saw anything.”

  “Loire!”

  “Sorry, sorry, bad joke.” His face became thoughtful. “So, you didn’t see anything else? A person, I mean?”

  “No, there was no one there, but I kept hearing a noise. That’s why I stopped actually, and then I almost got hit by, it was a rock, okay?” I gave him a look as if daring him to contradict me, but he made no attempt to object, so I continued. “I saw it lying on the ground, but I didn’t realize that that was what had attacked me until it started moving.”

  “Moving?” Loire asked, looking alarmed.

  I nodded, half reassuring him and half reminding myself that I wasn’t crazy. “Yeah, it was moving, like there was a magnet below the ground pulling it along.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Then it struck me, and hundreds of them began attacking me from different directions. I covered
my face so I didn’t see anything else.”

  “And you obviously passed out after that.”

  I nodded and winced at the memory of the assault. “I couldn’t fight through it. There were so many of them.”

  “This is all my fault!” he growled, slamming his fist into the wall.

  The noise scared the crap out of me. I didn’t understand why he was blaming himself. He hadn’t attacked me.

  “What are you doing? I’m fine!” I sat up and reached for him.

  “This is your definition of fine? You are not fine. You could have died. I thought you were dead, Kat.” Loire tilted his head to the side, breathing heavily. “Maybe it is best if you stay here tonight, like Healer Junas said, so I can keep an eye on you.”

  I faltered, and my heart leapt as our eyes locked. Under his gaze, I felt frozen into place. The pain in my body was faint as my stomach writhed in apprehension. During moments like these, it was hard to deny how attractive I found Loire. The way his body leaned towards me, his muscles taut and ripped under his shirt, made me lose my train of thought.

  “Kat?” Loire prompted when I didn’t say anything.

  “Huh?” I stopped admiring his physique and met his eyes. “Oh, um, sure, I guess.”

  “You should probably change into something else.” He seemed much calmer after his outburst as he walked over to the built-in closet and flung open the doors.

  My clothes were completely ruined. There were grass stains all over them and they were ripped from where the rocks had pierced through the fabric. Not a good look.

  “Here.” Loire handed me a long-sleeved, flannel shirt. “This would cover most of you if you weren’t so tall, but it’ll do.” He looked me up and down in a way which made my body heat up.

  “Thanks,” I managed to say, eying the shirt in disdain.

  I went into the bathroom, taking in each of the contents in the almost bare cabinet. There was some aftershave by the sink that I had smelled on Loire before. It had a distinct sandalwood scent. Turning on the tap, I washed the dirt off my arms and legs as best as I could.

  Once my ruined clothes were off, I put on Loire’s shirt and tugged it down as far as it would go. The hem rested around my upper thighs and accentuated the length of my legs. My reflection showed how disheveled my hair was, so I let it loose from its ponytail and headed back into the room.

  Loire was sitting on the bed when I finally walked out. He took in the sight of me and stood up. I hesitated in the doorway, wondering what to do with myself, before approaching him tentatively. There were knots in my stomach from nerves that I couldn’t explain.

  He waited until I reached him. Neither of us said anything for several, long minutes. This was so unlike me. I always had something to say, even when I was nervous. When I finally raised my head and locked eyes with Loire, the knots in my stomach tightened. His eyes were smoldering and dark with lust.

  I took a step forward, uncertain, and laid a hand on his chest. He closed his eyes and grasped my hand—it was firm and rough against mine. I studied every inch of his face without reservation, taking in his chiseled jaw, the light stubble on his chin, the straight nose, and the full lips. He was the hottest guy I had ever laid eyes on, and he was standing inches away from me. I had to do something.

  “Why did you ask me to stay?” Ugh. Wrong move. I shouldn’t have spoken. I should’ve done something instead. Sometimes I wasn’t nearly as smart as I liked to pretend I was.

  Loire opened his eyes and stared at me. Then he ran a hand through his hair, looking confused. “I already told you. I want to keep an eye on you, Kat. I want to make sure you’re safe tonight just in case anything else happens. And you’ll always be safe with me. I promise.”

  The moment between us had passed because of my own stupidity. I wanted something to happen between us—I wanted him—but that didn’t mean he felt the same way about me.

  “Um, right, yeah.” I struggled to fill the awkward silence, but couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “You should go to bed,” Loire advised. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  We didn’t talk after that and when I eventually climbed into bed, Loire quickly turned off the lights, enveloping us in darkness.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I awoke sometime during the morning, Loire was gone.

  I got up and made his bed before retrieving my clothes from the bathroom. There was no way I could wear them again, but I couldn’t exactly go to my room while I was dressed so scantily and coming from Loire’s room.

  I decided to go through Loire’s wardrobe and see if he had a pair of basketball shorts that I could fit into. Yeah, it was a little creepy going through someone else’s clothes, but I didn’t have any other choice. Last night had been pretty awkward and I still wasn’t sure what he thought of me.

  “Kat, what are you doing?” Loire asked.

  The door shut behind me—I hadn’t even heard it open—and I jumped away from the wardrobe, feeling mortified. When I turned around, he was walking towards me carrying my backpack.

  My face flushed and I felt like a total fool for being caught going through his wardrobe. “I was, um, looking for something to wear,” I said sheepishly.

  Loire handed me my backpack and then stepped away. “I swung by your room to pick up some stuff for you,” he explained when I shot him a questioning look.

  Peering inside, I found a pair of yoga pants and an ugly, brown t-shirt my mom had given me for Christmas last year. I’d pretended to like it so I didn’t hurt her feelings, but should’ve thrown it out the first chance I’d gotten. Talon had offered to burn it for me, but I’d kept it hidden in the bottom of my drawer. Trust Loire to find the only thing in my wardrobe that I didn’t want to be seen in.

  “This was the best you could do?” I groaned.

  “You could always go out dressed like that,” Loire said with a smirk, looking me up and down. “I’m not complaining.”

  As a reflex, I covered my skimpy attire at a show of modesty. I wanted to slap him for that comment, but managed to restrain myself. I could be disciplined if I wanted to be.

  “You are so funny,” I said dryly as I headed to the bathroom to get changed.

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  I rolled my eyes at him, before shutting myself in the bathroom. Quickly, I took off Loire’s shirt and put on my own clothes, feeling like myself again.

  After I’d brushed my teeth and washed my face, I studied myself in the mirror and saw that most of the cuts had healed on my face, but that bruises and a few red marks still remained across my body. Healer Junas wasn’t the best healer around, but at least I wasn’t wincing every time I moved.

  “Are you still alive in there?” Loire’s voice made me jump, and I quickly wrenched open the door to the bathroom to find him standing right outside.

  “Ever hear of giving people their space?” I grumbled, moving past him and into the room. My arm brushed against his and I tried to ignore the tingle that ran through my stomach.

  “You look like a respectable member of society now,” he said, dropping two aspirin into my palm and handing me a glass of water. “Here, take these, Rookie. I don’t want you passing out on me again.”

  I did as he said and gulped down the pills. “Passing out is the plan. I’m going back to my room and sleeping until tomorrow.” Since prom was tomorrow, the students got to have today and tomorrow off to prepare for it—get their nails done, get spray tans, that kind of thing.

  Loire’s lips curved up in a half smile. “Actually, you won’t be doing that today. I have something planned for us. I went to see the headmaster while you were asleep as well and told him what happened.”

  “Did you tell him that I was attacked by rocks?” It still sounded ridiculous coming out of my mouth.

  “Well, I didn’t put it like that exactly.” Loire paused. “I didn’t want to lose my job and be sent to a mental asylum. I told him someone unidentified attacked you and that you
suffered some serious injuries. He was very worried about you.”

  Of course he was. Delware wasn’t just Misha’s “Uncle Troy”; he was pretty much mine, too.

  My stomach rumbled like thunder and I gave Loire a pointed look. “Can I eat first at least?”

  “There’s a sandwich for you in your bag. You can eat on the way.” Loire headed towards the door and opened it, glancing back at me. “Come on, Rookie, let’s go. I don’t have all day.”

  Gosh, he was impatient.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, following him outside and pulling the sandwich out of my bag.

  He still didn’t say that, but he started heading down a familiar path towards the gym. Goddamnit! I wanted to be in bed right now.

  “Are you kidding me?” I stopped in my tracks, mid-chew. “I was just assaulted by rocks and you’re making me train already?” This guy was freaking insane.

  “You were healed. Is it really that bad?” Loire turned to face me, releasing a sigh into the cool air. “In the real world, sometimes you don’t get time to recover. Sometimes, you have to fight through the pain.” His voice was wistful, like a distant memory was tickling the edge of his mind.

  “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” I commented. I rarely saw this serious side to him. It was very different to the cocky, arrogant jerk that he could be.

  “Anyway.” He cleared his throat, like he was embarrassed by what he’d just revealed to me. “What I’m trying to say is that there are dangers out there, like Hell Hunters, and you need to learn to push yourself.”

  There he was warning me about Hell Hunters again. I knew they were dangerous, obviously. That’s what I’d grown up learning my whole life. But it sounded like he had something personal against them.

  Deciding not to push the subject any further, I continued walking. “Fine. Let’s do this.” I wasn’t a pushover. I wanted to be the best version of myself that I could be. Sometimes I could be a stubborn head, but I wanted to be a stubborn head that could kick some serious butt.

  ***

  Loire didn’t go easy on me. We warmed up with stretches before moving onto lunges and squats. After that, we repeated that sambo move over and over again until I felt like my back was about to break.