I was long overdue for a shower and was horrified when I saw the color of the water pooled at my feet. I only had one hard and wrinkly bar of soap that was probably as old as the cabin itself to work with, but I didn’t care, so long as it got me clean. I even used it to wash my hair, since I hadn’t packed shampoo. So much for the complimentary mini-shampoos I’d been counting on. Despite the lack of adequate supplies, I’d never been more grateful for a hot shower. I could have stayed in there all night, but cut it short for Nathan’s sake. I doubted he would appreciate having to take a cold shower.
At least I was clean again. It didn’t dawn on me that I had not bothered to bring along a change of clean clothes until after I stepped out of the shower dripping wet and cold. I wasn’t about to put on the filthy clothes I had worn all day. Not even for a minute. I was pretty sure I didn’t have anything clean left in the bag either.
I found the towels under the sink, and wrapped up in one as I debated what to do. I really didn’t want to wear any of my smelly grimy stuff after I was clean for the first time in three days, and waltzing out there in nothing but a towel wasn’t an option I was willing to consider.
Hating what I had to do, I cracked the bathroom door open. “Hey, Nathan?”
He looked up from where he was stooped, next to the fire. “Yeah?”
“Um, you wouldn’t happen to have any clean clothes I could borrow, would you?”
He stood and observed the towel I was wearing through the gap in the door. His brief gaze made my cheeks burn even more than they already were, and I was relieved when he looked away. “All my clothes are dirty,” he said, “but I think I can find something wearable around here for you.” He shifted, looking every bit as uncomfortable as I felt, and started to rummage through a small chest beside the bed. He pulled out a few pieces of clothing and held them up as he turned to me.
“Those will work,” I said, and he passed them to me through the gap. I managed a smile as I thanked him, and then retreated into the bathroom to change.
The white shirt was Nathan-sized. The short sleeves hung past my elbows and the hem fell to mid-thigh. The soft grey track pants covered my feet, and I had to roll them up to keep from tripping over them. I pulled the string in the waist as tight as I could so that they wouldn’t fall down. Remembering the streak of embarrassing moments I was racking up, I secured them with a double knot. Even after making the alterations, I was still swimming in the clothes. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t like Nathan would care what I looked like.
I found him going through the chest, pulling out clothes for himself. He looked up when I came out of the bathroom, and grimaced apologetically. “They’re a little big on you, huh?”
“Yeah, but they’re clean.” I shrugged as I made my way to the couch. Sitting down on something soft again felt so damn good. I sunk in, getting comfy, as I enjoyed the warmth of the fire.
Nathan headed to the bathroom with his change of clothes. Stopping in the doorway, he turned to me. “If you’re interested, I found a few packets of Swiss Miss that weren’t too old, and boiled some water.”
Hot chocolate? After three days climbing a mountain in the bitter cold and rain? That sounded…great, actually. I smiled. “Thanks.”
He closed the door with a nod. A minute later, the shower started up.
I found the packets and hot water in the kitchen. Not seeing any signs that he had already made one for himself, and after spending way too much time deliberating, I went ahead and made two cups. He had been tolerable lately. It wouldn’t kill me to be nice.
I returned to the sitting area with both cups, set his on the end table, and curled up on the couch with mine. If only for a moment, it was almost possible to imagine myself on a weekend getaway in a relaxing cabin. If I tried really hard, I might even forget that I was literally running for my life and stuck in the middle of nowhere with a companion that had to have been a drill sergeant in another life.
Okay, okay, it wasn’t that bad. True, I was on the run and didn’t know why, but I supposed Nathan hadn’t been that terrible lately. Sure, he was bossy and yelled at me, but I had also started to pick up on traces of humor in his eyes when he did. The barking out orders and talking down to me like I was a hapless kid, that had been his only method of communication for a while, had diminished. A lot. We were far from friends, but I didn’t hate him anymore.
Honestly, I almost preferred him to be an unbearable ass. Then it was easier to ignore how insanely gorgeous he was and that, especially after last night, was becoming increasingly impossible to overlook. Every square inch of my skin came to life with goose-bumps at the memory of last night—the feel of our bodies pressed together, his breath in my ear, and his hand on my back as I fell asleep.
I took a sip of hot chocolate to get rid of the silly smile on my lips. When I realized what I was doing, body-wide tingling gave way to fire hot cheeks. What was wrong with me? I’d had an innocent crush on him when I was a kid, but had gotten over that a long time ago. I couldn’t start crushing on him again because of something that had been completely functional, not sweet or romantic at all. He most certainly wasn’t daydreaming about it.
The bathroom door jerked open and I jumped, nearly spilling my hot chocolate. I glanced up as Nathan walked by, his towel draped over his shoulder as he brushed it through his hair. The end result was the sexiest head of messy damp hair I had ever seen. I tried to peel my gaze away before he caught me staring again, but I just couldn’t do it.
In the soft glow of the fire, his tousled hair looked more a shade of dark blond, his eyes sparkled bluer than ever, and even with a five o’clock shadow darkening his face, he looked rejuvenated. He wore simple black track pants and a white t-shirt with Greek lettering on the front, but he wore them well. The way the shirt was fitted to his chest and shoulders did crazy things to my imagination. I envisioned nothing less than the sculpted muscles of a Greek god hidden under that shirt.
He redefined the meaning of hot. He was spill my hot chocolate all over myself and barely notice that I have third degree burns hot.
I finally remembered how to breath, but it took me a moment to realize he was looking at me. It took me even longer to realize he had asked me a question and was waiting for a response.
I cleared my throat. “What?”
He waved around the pack of crackers he held extended to me. “I asked if you wanted some. This is the last of them.”
“Sure.” I took a peanut butter cracker, and gestured casually to the hot chocolate on the table. “That one is for you, by the way.”
“Thanks.” He claimed his cup and sat on the chair adjacent to the couch.
At least he seemed oblivious to the thoughts that had been in my head a minute ago. I watched him out the corner of my eye for a moment longer, just to be sure he wasn’t holding back a knowing laugh, before I sat back to enjoy my cracker and hot chocolate. A comfortable silence settled around us, interrupted only by the crackling of the fire that was doing a good job of lulling me to sleep.
“I’m tired,” I said at last.
He yawned in agreement. Recalling the limited sleeping arrangements, I shifted anxiously in my seat.
“You go ahead and take the bed,” he said before I got too worked up over it.
“You sure?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he retrieved a quilt from the chest, and booted me from my seat when he returned. I slipped between the cozy bed sheets as he set his weapons on the table beside him and stretched out on the couch. I felt a little bad about taking the only bed, but then again, Nathan was the guy who could sleep propped against a tree. Something told me the couch was more than enough to make him happy.
And me? Well, I was in heaven. The bed, while small, was soft, and warm, and exactly what I needed. As I snuggled in for the night, I vowed to never take a proper bed for granted again. Realizing I was enjoying the added benefit of two pillows, I grabbed one in both hands.
“Hey, Nathan?”
&n
bsp; “Yeah?”
I tossed the spare across the room, and he caught it just before it smacked him in the face. “Thanks.” I heard, rather than saw, his smile as he propped the pillow behind his head.
“No problem.” I stared at the ceiling, tired but restless. “Nathan?”
“Hmm?”
“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“There’s a little town nearby,” he explained. “We’ll get some food and supplies to hang out here for a little while.”
“How long do you think we’ll have to stay here?”
“I don’t know. I’ll get in touch with my base, see if anyone knows anything, and hopefully come up with a plan.”
“You guys have a base?”
There was a beat of silence, as if he hadn’t realized his slip up. “Yes, we do,” he finally admitted. “There’s some organization to keep track of the others, and to fight the war between us.”
War? He had never mentioned anything about a war before. He had also never given this much detail. I wanted to keep him going, see how much I could get out of him. “How long have you been at war with them?” Whatever them were.
He took a while to respond and, when he did, I knew he was purposefully avoiding details. “A very long time.”
That was a dead end.
“You ready to tell me what that five percent is?” I wasn’t hopeful, but I had to keep asking. Eventually, he would answer.
“Nope.”
Shit. Another dead end.
“What do you fight over, other than me apparently?” I asked.
“I don’t know how you fit in,” he muttered, and I could hear his frustration in not knowing the answer to the one question we both had. “They relish in inflicting pain and suffering on others, and spreading their corrupted evil ways throughout the world. My side does what they can to stand in their way.”
In my head, flashed the image of a bunch of burly machine gun-toting men with black suits, black shades, and brass knuckles. Of course, Nathan looked nothing like that, but it was fun to think about. While he was sharing more about his alternate world with me now, it was only a small glimpse. I left it up to my imagination to fill in the rest, and parts of it were...rather interesting.
Other than not understanding my involvement in this whole mess, the only other thing I couldn’t figure out was how Nathan came to be in my life in the first place. That was the biggest, longest-standing mystery of my life. It was a huge deal. To me.
“Is that what happened when I was three?” I asked softly.
There was a long silence before he spoke again. “What do you mean?”
I knew he knew what I was asking. This was his way of making sure I knew what I was asking. “I don’t remember much from that night, but I remember my family being killed, and…” I trailed off, unable to come up with the right words. What little I did know of that night was a perfect example of evil in the world. But I didn’t know the right questions to ask.
Thankfully, Nathan threw me a bone. “Remember how I told you some of us have psychic abilities?”
“Yeah.”
“They monitor the bad guys’ movements so that we can intervene when possible,” he explained slowly. “During slow periods, they also monitor random acts of violence not related to them, bad stuff that happens every day to ordinary people. We can’t stop all of it, but we’ll step in when we can. Especially the particularly gruesome things.” He paused, and I knew he was remembering the night he had found me.
My family’s murders had been particularly gruesome. Or so I’d heard in the aftermath. My three year old brain had blocked out the memories of what I had seen, sheltered me then, and still continued to do so. That hadn’t stopped me from hearing people talk about it.
“So a prophet saw what happened that night, and you guys intervened?” I guessed, finally putting a few pieces together.
“Yes, but she didn’t gather enough details,” he said. “That’s why we were too late.”
That was why I had been the only one to survive.
“But you’re saying it was random? The people that killed my family weren’t the same that we’re running from now?”
“No. Those guys were human scum.” He hesitated briefly. “They’re called Skotadi by the way. The guys that are after us. It’s Greek, means evil ones.”
“Really?” I sat up in bed excitedly. I caught a flash of his eyes as they lifted to mine. “What’s your side called?”
“Kala. Greek for good ones.”
“Huh.” I flopped back into bed. It was nice to have a name, even if I still didn’t know exactly what they were. Kala and Skotadi. Good and evil. Good and evil what?
I knew better than to ask again. He wouldn’t tell me, and I didn’t want to slow the river of information he was giving me now by asking the one forbidden question before he was ready to answer it.
I had learned some of the truth about that horrible night, some things I had questioned my entire life. So Nathan had been thrust into my life by chance, and had not been acting alone. It was by chance that he had been the one to find me, and the one I remembered from that night. But what about the other times he has rescued me? Was it a coincidence it had always been him? Was any of it a coincidence?
“What happened when I was eleven?” I probed, and he remained silent. “One of the prophets happened upon a bad crime, so they sent you to intervene?”
And the car accident? It had been an accident, not a crime. How did that fit in?
“Sort of,” Nathan said quietly.
I waited for him to elaborate. He didn’t. “Nathan?”
“Go to sleep, Kris,” he said.
I sighed heavily and buried my head in the pillow. So much for the river of information.
He was keeping things from me, I knew that. What I didn’t understand was why. Was he protecting me from the what-ifs, from the near death and life altering events in my life, or from something else, something bigger? The uncertainty of what it was he thought he needed to protect me from scared me, but I wouldn’t give up asking. I wanted to know everything, no matter how traumatizing he thought it might be. Eventually he would tell me. I hoped.
And I hoped I would handle it.
CHAPTER 11
My grumbling stomach in the morning made a trip into town for food my first priority. For some reason, Nathan insisted on checking out the shed first. It wasn’t big enough to fit a car inside its walls, so I wasn’t interested in the least. I followed anyway, prepared to be the nagging thorn in his rear if he dallied too long.
Or to rescue him if the thing caved in on him. The stained wood siding was splintered in places, and I swore the walls were swaying in the breeze. Its squeaky hatch lifted like a small garage door, and I took a step back, fanning the particles of dust and wood chips that were launched in the air.
“Bingo,” Nathan said as he darted inside.
I wondered what he was so excited about, until I saw the array of weapons in front of me. That explains it, I thought as I followed him inside. He was such a Rambo kind of guy, I should have expected this.
Hand-crafted wooden counters were built along two walls. Every inch was covered in an assortment of guns, knives, and other weapons I had no name for. Nathan reminded me of a kid in a candy store as he inspected the collection.
I ran my hand over a few knives on the counter by the door. Most of them looked like normal knives of varying sizes and shapes, but one of them stood apart from the others. I held it up in the sun and turned it side to side as I admired it. The blade sparkled in the light.
“So, this is your stash?” I asked Nathan.
“Mine and a few others.” He glanced over his shoulder. “Oh hey, be careful with that one.” He crossed the room and gingerly took the knife from my hands. “This one has been cast in diamond. It’s the deadliest kind of weapon to my kind.”
I stared at the sparkling flecks on the blade. Tiny diamonds. “What makes it so deadly?”
“Not sur
e. Someone at one point figured out that diamond kills our non-human part. We’ve been coating weapons with it ever since. These weapons are very rare and much desired.”
“Your knife is coated too, isn’t it?”
He looked surprised I had noticed that, and nodded his head. “I’ve had it for a long time.”
“Is that what makes the bodies vaporize?”
“Vaporize?” He sounded amused by my word choice. “Yes, the only weapons that can dissipate our souls are the coated ones. Anything coated in diamond will work.”
Dissipate our souls? Sounded heavy.
I eyed the knife as Nathan set it on the counter with the others. “Can non-coated weapons kill you?” I asked.
“Yes, but it’s harder. Our bodies heal faster and are more resilient than human bodies. It’s possible to kill us if you do enough damage, but the body won’t vaporize unless diamond is used. Diamond is preferred because it’s easier, there’s no cleanup, and it’s a guaranteed kill. Even if all you do is wound us, we’ll die later, even from a superficial scrape.”
I snapped my hand back, eyes wide as I looked at Nathan. “Can it hurt me?”
“No, only those of us that aren’t entirely human.” He glanced at me warily as he turned away. “So don’t come anywhere near me with that thing.”
I smiled at his retreating back. He need not worry. I had no plans to touch anything diamond again. Its safety record with humans was not something I wanted to test.
“Maybe I’ll teach you how to use a few weapons while we’re hiding out here,” Nathan said offhandedly as he surveyed the rest of the shed.
I was about to tell him how bad of an idea that was when he spotted what he was looking for, and crossed to the corner with an excited whoop. He lifted a dusty black sheet from a large oddly shaped object, revealing a motorcycle that had seen better days. It was one of those sleek crotch rocket types, with chipped red paint, a rusty tail pipe, and a flat tire, but Nathan was very excited to see it.
“Old friend of yours?” I asked as I approached for a better look.
“Very old friend,” he said as he circled the machine, rubbing his hand over the seat.
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