A few minutes later, the doors opened again. It was Angry Viking that pushed them wide apart. She swallowed as he walked towards her. "Brooke?" he asked, head tilted.
She nodded and stood, trying to warm her icy fingers in the palm of her other hand. Her fingers and toes always got so cold when she was tired. Or nervous.
"I'm Ajax.” He offered a hand to shake. She shook it, acutely aware of her cold fingers in his much warmer ones.
"Hi," she said automatically. "Um… thanks for…" Her other hand fluttered with a futile gesture. "For chasing that guy off. Earlier.”
“It was my pleasure,” he said with a smile. “Glad to see that you are doing okay after the fire. I gave you some air, but couldn’t do anything about the damage the smoke had already done to your lungs.”
She squinted at Ajax, confused. He was there? “Gave me some air?” Like CPR?
Levi walked up to stand beside them and she peeked at him, her hand still caught in Ajax’s. He only stared at the other man, his jaw tight.
“Yeah. What Levi can do with fire, I can do with air. Only better.” His lips tilted in a smug smile.
So he was like Levi? She couldn't look him in the eyes for long, unsure if she could handle seeing something in his irises the way she had with Levi.
“You’re lucky the fire wasn’t worse, too, what with—”
"Ajax," Levi growled. Her gaze shifted to him again, but he and Ajax just stared at each other in a wordless conversation she couldn't interpret.
Finally Ajax let go of her hand, and Levi moved to her side.
"Nice to meet you, Brooke," Ajax said, flashing a look to Levi. And then he sauntered away, leaving her with Levi.
“What was that about?” she asked with a side-eyed glance.
"Nothing. Come with me."
"Wait a minute.” She didn't move to follow him. “What about those answers you promised me? I've been waiting." She crossed her arms.
He turned back to her. "I'm sorry that took so long. You're about to get some of them." He reached out a hand. "Will you come with me? Please?"
Again, did she have a choice? She had no real idea where she was and there were crazy things going on. As much as it irritated her, she had to go with him, had to trust him. Had to wait until he was ready to fill her in.
Holding her breath, she raised her eyes to his. She exhaled slowly when she saw they were just the same amber they usually were, and not the baffling flames she'd seen before. They were gentler, more somber, and for some reason that made her want to cry.
She put her hand in his. “Okay.”
His hand was almost hot when he clasped it around hers. It felt so good, but she let go anyway when they got in the elevator. She couldn't do anything about neighbors trying to kill her, or being out in the country at some mysterious compound, or the fact that the man— men?— she was with had weird telekinetic powers. But she could warm her own hands, dammit.
"Where are we going?" she asked as he pushed a button.
"We're going to stay here for the night, and tomorrow I will take you back to your rental house."
Brooke bit her lip. That’s what she wanted, but… "What about Charlie?"
"We’ll discuss that.” Levi sighed, and scratched his cheek, and the elevator doors opened. He beckoned her, and she followed, waiting for an explanation. He led her down a long, wide brick hallway with arched doorways set far apart. He walked to one, and held the door open for her. “You'll have to stay with me tonight. You can have the bed."
She stood hesitantly inside the doorway as he flipped on the lights, revealing a spacious room with one complete wall of dark windows. The bottom half of them were blacked out with paint.
There was a seating area with a long, low couch, a TV and mini-fridge. Set back in an alcove was his bed and closet. His furniture was modern and spartan, the whole room stark and plain. Next to the alcove was a door she assumed was the bathroom.
A gentle hand at her elbow brought her attention back to him, and he led her to the couch.
"Would you like a drink?" he asked, walking to the mini-fridge.
She accepted, and when he opened it she noticed there was no food in there, only drinks.
“Soda or beer?”
“Soda. Please.” Normally she would have worried about the caffeine, but she was so tired, it probably wouldn't make a difference. She took a few cold, bubbly drinks while Levi sat on the arm of the couch, facing her.
He rubbed the back of his neck while she waited for him to talk. The muscles in his arms corded as he braced his arms and leaned towards her. And then leaned back and crossed his arms. And then sighed, rubbing his jaw with one hand.
It was… cute. But it also made her more nervous.
"Well?" She took a small sip of her soda.
“Okay, here’s the deal.” Levi popped his knuckles in the silence before he spoke again. “You can spend the night, and in the morning, I’ll return you to your house.”
“But you said I would be safe here, and instead you’re taking me back to the rental house in the morning.” She swallowed, Charlie’s eyes swimming in her memory again. “So what happens to me then?”
"The Chaolt, they can sense Erratics. That's how they found you in the first place, so we can't allow them to track you here, to our base. That’s why I have to take you back, but you have a couple of options for your safety.”
“Okay.” She took another sip, waiting for him to tell her what they were.
“First option. Walker—my commander—could drain you of your powers in the morning and we can return you to your house relatively safely.”
“Drain my powers… ” She looked down at her hands. There were powers in her genes.
“Yours are Water.”
It was quite simply mind blowing, impossible to believe. Except she’d seen Levi’s powers more than once now, and unless she’d gone completely off her rocker, his were real. “Okay, so how does that work?”
“Walker will use his powers to draw yours out, to kind of… call to them, if you will. Since his power is Water too.”
So the man that had stared at her from behind the desk with the chilling blue eyes, he would be the one to drain her. “What will that do to me… exactly? Does it hurt?”
“No, it doesn’t hurt.” His smile was gentle, but it disappeared as he continued. “But it does cause weakness and fatigue, several days of memory loss, confusion. It can cause malaise, a sense of disquiet… ”
She wasn’t smiling either at the end of what sounded like the disclaimer at the end of a drug commercial. “Death?”
“No death.”
That was good at least. Brooke blew out a breath. “I do not think I want to be drained. What is the other option?”
“I can come stay with you for a bit.”
She huffed out a laugh, but he didn’t smile back. “What?”
“The guy that got away, Charlie,” he said, eyes flashing to hers, “he's going to tell the others about you, and one or more are going to come back to try and finish the job. If your powers are gone, great, they’ll move on and you should be okay.”
The side effects of draining aside, that sounded like exactly what—
“At least until the next time a Chaolt gets to an Erratic in Topaz Ridge.” Levi shrugged, but as if he was adjusting a heavy weight across his back instead of being indifferent. “The next time it could be any number of things, instead of an apartment fire. A sink hole, an earthquake. Avalanche, tornado.” He held her gaze as her heart dropped right into her stomach. “Or I can come stay with you for a bit. The other soldiers and I can set up a rotation to keep watch and defend you, while we eliminate any Chaolt that come after you.”
"For how long?"
His face hardened, eyes glittering. "Until we kill all of them."
She rubbed both hands down her face at the feeling of her life spinning out of her control. "That’s it? What about my life? I'm supposed to go back to work, things were supposed to go back to
normal. Instead now I’ve got powers in my blood that my former neighbor is after for some reason, and you and the other guys are going to take over my house?"
He didn’t answer for a minute, the silence stretching between them. "Things can't go back to normal if we don’t drain you, and the Chaolt find you and kill you," he murmured. "Or if you get caught near another Erratic who’s gone critical. It’s the only way to fully guarantee your safety.”
She blew her bangs out of her eyes, on the verge of arguing, when he clinched her agreement.
“It could also potentially save many lives.”
Brooke closed her eyes, her nightmares of the fire and the guy who died in them condensing before her eyes. Imagining the fire that burned her leg… but everywhere. Levi was saying she could prevent more of that kind of suffering.
She slumped in her seat. She was angry and tired and worried, but she wanted to live. And she couldn’t say no to saving others, no matter how much she wanted to. She scrubbed a hand over her eyes. "So basically I'm bait, for the foreseeable future."
"Basically… yes. But I’m going to stay with you, and the other soldiers will be on rotations around the clock. You'll always have me and one other of us nearby to protect you."
Her mind went immediately to the almost-kiss on her porch, to the way it had affected her to be in his arms on their walk. Completely avoiding any thoughts of Chaolt or fighting, in favor of wondering what it was going to be like to have him around twenty-four/seven. Thinking of how much delicious trouble she could get in, if it weren’t for all the rest of it…
She closed her eyes, leaning back against the couch. What had happened to a normal girl and a normal guy getting to know each other? A few hours ago, that's all they were. No powers, no Erratics, no attackers.
“Why?” Brooke opened her eyes and rolled her head towards him.
“Why… ?”
“Why do Chaolt want to kill Erratics?” Why does Charlie want to kill me?
“The answer is… complicated.” He clasped his hands together. “Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. The energy in the powers of Erratics is easily accessible compared to other sources of energy. Chaos needs that energy, so this is the easiest way to get it.”
“What does Chaos need all that power for?” But she probably knew the answer to that.
He met her eyes. “To destroy the world.”
Yep, that was the answer she was expecting. It was too much for one day.
"Levi, I think I'd like to go to bed now." She tuned out her thoughts with that one goal in mind. She had a thousand more questions, but it was just an hour before dawn. If she was going to process all of this, she needed to do it on at least a few hours of sleep.
"Of course." He got up quickly and went over to his dresser, where he got out a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. "Will these be okay to sleep in?"
She nodded as she took them. "Thank you."
Later, she was curled up in the middle of his bed in the dark, smelling the clean sheets that still somehow held a hint of spice she recognized as his scent. Watching the light from the television flicker over him. It turned orange for a second, and it brought her back to that moment in the fire, where he had been walking towards her, glowing. Saving her.
She closed her eyes, and the memory clarified until she could feel herself choking on the smoke again.
Maybe she had actually died, and this was all… after. Or one long coma dream.
A handsome man who could control fire. Water powers in her own blood. Chaos trying to destroy the world. It didn’t sound sane. It didn’t sound real.
She rubbed a hand over the cool, smooth sheets, feeling them. Inhaling deeply as the action released the scent of detergent and man. Everything still seemed real.
And as weird as reality was now, she couldn't regret Levi saving her. She valued her life too much for that. But she couldn't help missing, mourning, the way things were before. Easy, uncomplicated. Focused.
Her heavy eyes traveled to Levi on the couch, looking handsome and wide awake at what had to be four in the morning.
But lonely. Boring, and lonely. So no matter what happened, with Levi with her for the foreseeable future, it wouldn’t be that.
Chapter Eight
When Brooke first awoke, she knew something was off, but her bed was warm and smelled so good, and she didn't want to open her eyes. That had to be the best night of sleep she'd had since the fire.
Levi.
Her eyes flew open and she shot up, pulling the sheets around her. But he wasn't there. His blanket was folded on the pillow on the couch the way they had been when she’d fallen asleep.
She pushed her hair back and released a breath, glad to have a moment to herself. She got to avoid the awkward morning after feeling, even though there hadn't been a 'last night'. Just being in someone's home, in their bed, was awkward enough.
Rubbing her eyes, she looked towards the windows, trying to judge the time by the light streaming in the top half of the windows.
She stopped mid-rub, a splash of rainbow color on the windowsill catching her eye. It stood out among all the gray and nickel, the brick and beams, like a shining beacon. Brooke pushed back the covers, pulled on her clothes with one eye on the door, and padded over.
In amazement, she palmed the large glass paperweight. It was intricate, beautiful.
Surprising.
Multitudes of tiny, perfect flowers in every color bloomed under a bubble of clear glass. Holding the cool weight in her hand, she glanced around the room, noticing more spots of color gleaming in the morning light.
She carefully placed the paperweight back on the windowsill, and went over to a bookshelf. A brief glance at the spines was all she could manage before the bowl stole her attention.
It was completely different from the paperweight. The delicate bowl had a strange flowing symmetry and iridescence, like a swimming jellyfish. Inside the walls of the glass were tiny whorls, like that of a nautilus.
One finger was gently circling the rim, glowing with sunlight, when the door opened. She snatched her hand back guiltily, flushing.
Levi looked from her to the bowl as he entered, eyebrows raised.
“It's beautiful,” she said, gesturing to it, “your glass art. I was just admiring it.”
“Thanks.”
He handed her an insulated cup, and motioned her to the table. He set out packets of sugar and little creams on the table top, meticulously straightening them. “It's just one of those things, you know. I think it's so amazing what people can do to glass with a little fire. When it's so destructive the rest of the time.” He coughed. “Sugar?”
Was he blushing?
Brooke smiled around the rim of her cup, taking the packet from him and sitting down to doctor her coffee.
“Thanks for this by the way,” she said, raising her cup to him as he sat down across from her.
Cup dangling between his fingers, he said, “I wanted to have coffee with you that first day, you know. I just couldn't. I was looking for the Erratic that caused your apartment fire.” He ducked his head. “Obviously I didn’t find him in time.”
She took a sip, pleased beneath the layer of is-this-all-really-happening. He'd wanted to go to coffee with her after all. He’d been looking for the Erratic, not a woman. But why couldn’t they have just been a guy and gal who met on the street, and ended up getting to know one another over coffee?
Instead of over apartment fires and knife fights in the street.
She sighed. This was all starting to feel a lot more real. In hindsight, she could see that everything Levi had told her about Chaolts and Erratics and latent powers—it all made some weird kind of sense. The events matched, like pieces of a surreal puzzle.
He just stayed silent, and the moment stretched uncomfortably.
“So, you're taking me back to the rental house today.”
He pulled out of whatever thought he’d been lost in to refocus on her. “Yes, now, if you’re ready.�
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Bolstering herself with a last sip of coffee, she said, “Ready as I’ll ever be, I guess.”
“Having second thoughts?” he asked intently.
She looked at him with a half smile. “And third. And fourth.”
She was worried about the Chaolt of course, and it chafed that she had to depend on him and the other soldiers for her safety. But that all still felt distant, even after all the events of last night. Her bigger, more pressing problem, was all that time she was going to be spending with Levi.
“If it will help, I can tell you a little more about what to expect on the way.”
“It might,” she said, tipping her head toward him. At least it would help with her anxiousness over the situation.
There probably wasn’t much he could do to help her with her attraction to him. All the days ahead, trying to resist him. Or trying to tempt him.
She hadn't decided yet.
Soon they left base, the other soldiers following them back to Brooke’s rental house. She seemed pretty subdued. He imagined she was probably nervous. Maybe even regretting that she had agreed to this now. Since he was the one who’d insisted on being the one to fill her in on everything, he felt like it was his job to make her a little more comfortable with it if he could.
“We’re going to reinforce all the points of entry. I’m going to be in or around the house twenty-four/seven. One of the other soldiers will be here in shifts as well, watching the perimeter.” This was the part he wasn’t sure how she’d react to. It wasn’t very reassuring, but she needed to be prepared. “We will have to fight some Chaolt as they sense you and come for you. Once we have a look around, we’ll have a plan in place for those instances. You’ll go to an internal room and lock the door. Me and whoever else is here will engage them, and we’ll call backup if we need to. But you’ll be perfectly safe,” he added. He’d make damn sure of it.
She took an audible breath and let it out slowly. “Okay.” Then she looked over at him with a small smile. “It helps that I’m going to be guarded by a bunch of tough dudes with super powers.”
Burn (Elemental Hearts Book 1) Page 8
