Shadow Boxer: NA Fantasy/Time Travel (Tesla Time Travelers Book 2)

by Jen Greyson

  He gestures toward my book. “What colors today?”

  “Depends. Have any locks?”

  “At the armory.” He tips his head. “Unless your plan is to blow something up.”

  “Not yet. First green.”

  He curls me against his body and leads us across the training field and past his house and open paddocks until we reach a squatty building. Wide doors sit at each end. I lean over and examine the lock. “How do these work?”

  He grabs a long stick from the top of the door and holds it toward me. “You don’t have locks?”

  “Yeah, but they’re different. Metal with a tiny hole for a key.”

  He jabs the stick toward my hand. “This is a key.”

  I take it and turn it over. The end is angled and I suppose it looks kind of like a regular key with the wooden dowels sticking up at the end. “Show me how it works?”

  He inserts the angled end into a slot in the door and lifts, releasing an unmistakable click. I try it and can feel the tumblers shift when I raise the stick in the keyhole. The next three tries warrant the same response.

  “Okay, let’s try this.” I hand him the key and take a step back.

  He wraps his fingers around my wrist, holding me still. “How do you know you’re not going to lock me out of the armory?”

  I scowl at the door. “I’m not sure I do.”

  He crosses his arms and taps the key against his elbow. “Start small.”

  Focusing on the lock, I rub my fingers together. “The book says green is always small.”

  “What else?”

  “When it’s opaque it lasts longer and is harder to break.”

  “For all colors.”

  “I think so.”

  “Interesting.”

  A dark emerald glow illuminates my fingertips. No matter how wide I stretch my fingers, the lightning stays attached to my index finger and thumb, and never gets any bigger. I extend my arm and touch the lock. The green mass flows inside, filling the hole completely. When I take my hand away, the lightning detaches.

  “Now what?”

  I shrug and squint my eyes in study. “Try the key.”

  He braces his feet and extends the key toward the lock, but the moment it nears the lock, it bends away like the tip is attached to a string at the top of the door. No matter which direction he tries, the lightning forces the key away. In a final attempt, he stabs the lock hard enough to send the key flying over his head.

  I smother a laugh. “Let’s give it an hour and try it again.”

  He grunts and picks up the key.

  “Can we blow stuff up now?”

  “Fine.” He glances over his shoulder at the lock, miffed that brute force couldn’t break a tiny glowing bit of goo.

  I tug his hand and lead him back to the training ground. “Come on. Help me find a target.”

  By the time we cross the training field, he’s shaken his disappointment and focused on our next task and lined up four different chunks of wood. I make a red strand so transparent it’s nearly invisible and throw it at the first board. It catches on fire. A second strand that’s still a barely see-through version turns the top of the next piece to ash, and a third, darker one wipes out all four.

  “And the one you threw at me,” he says, indicating the ashy remnants.

  I inhale and draw my arm back. My palm is filled with a blood-red ball so opaque it’s tangible. I keep it half the size of what I used against Constantine and lob it toward the targets. We twist and duck as it strikes and rattles the ground. When the dust settles there’s another crater, but smaller this time, only about five feet in diameter and a few feet deep.

  He brushes debris off his arms and steps closer.

  “Don’t!” I grab him back and point toward the tendrils of residue sporadic around the edge of the crater. They dissipate after a few seconds and I release my hold.

  “What are those?” he asks.

  “Residue. When I’m arcing I leave it behind and someone can follow me through an arc. Penya did a lot of erasing it when I come later.” I relax my grip. “These are probably different, but I have to assume they’ll still do something.”

  “Hmm, residue. We need to test that.”

  He jumps into the bottom of the crater and helps me down. The bottom is smooth and warm.

  “How much larger is possible?”

  I shrug. “As big as I could hold, I suppose.”

  He brushes his fingers across the lip of the crater. “And as far as you could throw to maintain a safe distance.”

  “I guess.”

  He straightens and looks at me, awe and admiration bright on his features. “You are quite deadly.”

  I blush, hearing only the compliment.

  “Let’s check your locks.” He wraps his fingers around my waist and tosses me over his shoulder. My belly settles against his warm curves and he climbs out. I don’t realize I’m running my fingers across the dip of his spine until he growls and spanks me.

  “Oh!” I squirm. He smacks me again and draws his hand down my thigh. I bite my lip and still my hands.

  “We have work to do,” he says, more to himself than me as he squeezes my knee.

  Back at the armory, he lowers me to the ground and laces our fingers together. His approach to the door is caution, like he’s worried it’s going to blow. We stop three feet away and he drops my hand. “Stay here.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “You don’t know what it’s going to do now. Approaching without wary is foolish.”

  I roll my eyes at his back.

  He’s six inches away when it explodes in a violent puff of smoke.

  I duck and spin, but then I’m crushed to the ground. Constantine’s entire body presses me into the earth, his breath ragged in my ear.

  “Okay, okay.” I struggle to fill my lungs.

  “See?”

  “Yes.” He lifts off me and I roll over. “You’re right.”

  “Let’s try it again,” he says, standing.

  “Are you sure?” I place my hand in his and he draws me upright.

  “You have to learn it. Change the density like you did at the targets.”

  I step to the lock and lean close. Other than a smudge of smoke around the keyhole, the lock is undamaged. This time I make the green glow a soft mint and drip it in.

  Constantine repeats his performance with the key, but the green lightning bends it away again. “Now we wait. What other colors remain a mystery?”

  “I only barely tried purple, and it incinerated a forest. I’d like to know if it destroys everything on contact.”

  “Or if a smaller dose could be left as a trap.”

  I smile. “I like the way you think.”

  “Come.” He takes my hand and leads me back to the training ground. We skirt the crater, and he drops his hands to my shoulders and turns me toward the forest. “Destroy less of my training field this time.”

  Purple strands drizzle from my fingertips, barely an inch long. I keep my breath steady and try to calm my thoughts. If ever there was a color to control, this is it.

  I step into the forest and pause next to a six-footer.

  “Slowly,” he whispers.

  I settle, root my feet into the earth, and lift my palms. The tendrils are flaccid, obedient. I force their color to change from a rich amethyst to a translucent light purple. They all snuff out save the one on my right index finger.

  “Caution.”

  I lower it gently. The purple stream detaches from my finger and settles into a crevice on the branch.

  “Back away slowly.”

  I backtrack my steps and he leads us another ten feet away. We wait, unwilling to leave the dangler unattended.

  Constantine’s fingers are tense on my shoulders. I cover them with mine. After a few stretched moments the purple strand crackles, then engulfs the entire tree in a plume of electricity and flames. I shield my eyes.

  Behind me, Constantine grunts and pulls me
closer.

  “That took mere minutes. Barely enough time to get away in a real situation.”

  “Maybe it’s like red and each shade gives us more time, but more explosion.

  He’s still staring at the tree skeleton. “There may be an in-between.”

  “Let’s try it.”

  We incinerate another dozen trees before we find the perfect opacity that gives us nearly an hour and decimates an eight-foot radius. This is becoming quite the little arsenal. I can see where guides are handy. Luckily I’m not one to wait around for instruction.

  “Anything else?” Constantine asks from beside me where we sat and waited out the last test. He smoothes a strand of hair behind my ear and wraps his long fingers around my neck.

  I sigh and lean against him. “I think there’s more to red. It’s too similar to purple.”

  “I agree. Try linking two strands together.”

  “Like a web?” I pop upright, alert.

  “Something of that sort. Purple is too volatile, but red is just explosive. I want to see if you can lay a finer trap. Maybe one that wouldn’t release until tripped. You’ve only thrown the red, and we don’t know how it behaves otherwise.”

  I stand and brush the seat of my pants then march twenty feet away so he can wait and watch. I spread my feet and shift my hips, level them with the earth. With my hands outstretched, I scoop an armful of air and pull it to my chest. For this, I want my energy perfectly calm and aligned.

  “Twice more,” he croons softly, attuned to what I’m trying to do.

  I twist to the left and push my anxiety away then bend my knees and bounce gently into a squat. Arms outstretched, I wiggle my fingers and inhale until my chest expands fully. When the noise in my brain shuts up, I open my eyes and focus on the three trees I want to link.

  Red tendrils seep from my fingertips, thin strands swaying gently on an invisible breeze. I roll my right hand over, palm up. Inhaling, I flick my wrist gently and the strands extend from my fingertips like I’m Spiderman. Still attached to me, they hang loosely from five branches. I cast the strands on my other hand. Now I have ten strands to link.

  “Don’t get cocky,” he whispers.

  The instruction rolls off me and I lower into my relaxed pose. With soft movements, I press my palms together and flick them upward. The bolts release and snap into place like a giant bungee tarp.

  “Whoa,” I whisper.

  Beyond me, the forest is crisscrossed with a multiple of my ten strands. On my final placement, they bounced against each other and tripled. Then tripled again.

  Constantine slides into position beside me and tugs me past our original waiting spot. The glowing strands illuminate the forest with an eerie red presence. We cross the entire training ground and wait.

  An archer’s bow leans against the low wall of the building. He lifts it and aims, then sends an arcing arrow into the night. It lands somewhere amid the nest, but doesn’t explode. As he’s loading another arrow, a crackling noise lifts the hair at my nape. Like someone crinkling aluminum foil, the sound grows until I clap my hands over my ears.

  Then the glowing strands explode outward in a brilliant display of red and white. At the moment I think it’s going to dissipate, the color collapses onto itself, like the center sucked it all back into a giant black hole. I step forward to check it out, but Constantine pushes me to the ground as a giant fireball shoots toward us.

  The heat scorches the top of my head and I can’t breathe the oven-hot air. My lungs squeeze with the need. Constantine smothers me with his body, hand over my face, ignorant of the injuries to his own body.

  Then it’s gone, and we’re washed in cool night air again.

  He rolls off me, gasping for air. I inhale and try to soothe my scorched lungs. When I can sit up and trust my vocal cords, I ask if he’s okay.

  He coughs. “Thought you were supposed to start small.”

  I glance over my shoulder at the forest. “I think that was small.”

  He grunts and stands, tugging me up with him. Once we’re upright, he doesn’t let go, hands roaming over my back and keeping me pressed tight against him. There’s a tremble coursing through him, and I wait for it to subside before I pull away. “What’s going on?”

  “These are the moments when I know I need to be with you always. Protecting you.”

  I sigh and he stiffens. “That won’t work.”

  “You have no way to know that. I am a good protector.”

  My mouth turns down and I rub my hands along his. “I’m not saying you’re not. I’m saying this is different. I can’t take you with me when I’m using all these just so you can keep me from killing myself.”

  “Why?”

  “I just—it just won’t. You have stuff to do here. We have to kill Viriato in a few years. ”

  “Then we’ll come back for that.”

  I step out of the circle of his arms and pace the ground. “It’s not that simple—”

  “Only because you make it difficult. I can take care of myself. I can take care of you.”

  “Not yet.” I stop in front of him and he crosses his arms. “Please. Let me get a handle on this. We’re barely learning my weapon. What if there are other things we haven’t even considered—things about the time travel that could impact you?”

  “Exactly why you need me.”

  I pull my braid forward and tug it hard to clear my mind and figure my way out of this circular conversation we’re not even supposed to have for another few years.

  “I do need you. But it’s not safe yet.”

  He glares at me.

  “I know that makes no sense, but I understand the arcing better than you. I have to figure out who I am first. Please.”

  The big muscle in his jaw bulges. “I will not agree to this.”

  “So should I stop coming back?”

  “Maybe that’s best until you figure out who you are and where I fit.”

  I thought we knew that already.

  CHAPTER 26

  I ARRIVE IN my living room.

  Exhaling, I flop on the couch and try not to cry. What a fucking mess. There’s never going to be a space for us. He wants me to be a girl he can protect, but that’s not who I’ve ever been. Least of all now.

  So, who am I?

  This weapon is dangerous enough, I do need help, and then there are Nikola’s bad men, who may or may not know I exist. Plus Ilif, plus whatever Penya’s inciting.

  I do need protecting.

  Some days from myself.

  But I can’t muddle that with whatever we are to each other. Because he’s not just a random musclehead who’s agreed to protect me. He’s so, so much more.

  I press my hands into my eyes. He’s too much of a protector. I’m too much of a loner. For now, I have to focus on work and hope things with Constantine sort themselves out as I learn more about riding. There are too many unknowns—and upcoming knowns—to really figure out what I’m supposed to do with him. I want him in my life, but… right now my wants don’t get to matter.

  I still haven’t done what Ilif asked me, and the sooner I can get Tesla’s patents rounded up and safe, the sooner I can work with Penya to figure out what he’s up to. I still don’t know how I’m going to keep the patents from him once Tesla passes away, but—A ripple of air launches me off the couch, hands splayed.

  Ilif crosses his arms and glares at me. “I thought we had a deal. No screwing around, no side trips.”

  He’s so over the top I can’t even take him seriously. My tension eases and I relax my lightning. “Ah, Ilif. Ever the romancer.”

  He paces across the room. “How much further have you progressed in your relationship with Nikola?”

  I switch gears as fast as my weary brain can manage and sort through my interactions for something I can actually share. I’m hesitant to tell him about Westinghouse or Nikola’s success with the wireless, since that’s what Ilif wants so badly. I settle for vague. “He took me to a meeting.” />
  Ilif clasps his hands together and pauses. “Great. How much longer?”

  I put my hands on my hips. Maybe if I can piss him off, I can get rid of him and get back to figuring this mess out. I certainly can’t while he’s here being an overbearing ass. “You know as well as I do. It depends on when I get there next, when he dies, what you screw up for me between now and then.”

  “What I—” he stammers.

  “Yes. You. Twice now, you’ve interrupted my alteration with Nikola. I don’t need your help.” I point at his chest. “If you didn’t think I could handle it, you wouldn’t have asked me in the first place.”

  He crosses his arms and looks down his nose, face full of disgust.

  “I don’t care what you think of me as a person, but you smudge my work ethic one more time, we’re going to have issues. Now get.” I shoo him away.

  “Fine. But you must hurry.”

  “Why? Tell me what you’re up to.”

  “Top officials aren’t cleared for that information, let alone you.”

  I glare. I want to know who he’s working with and if they’re the same people trailing and bugging Nikola. The more Constantine and I learn about my lightning, the more I realize Penya’s been right about Ilif all along; the more he can keep me down, the less I’ll learn about what I can really do. Constantine has fought the mightiest warriors out there and ranks me among them. Surely I’m not the first.

  I want to know how to fight him at his own game.

  He recoils and takes a step away. “I meant no disrespect, I was merely pointing out the fact that I’m working on something highly classified.”

  “Like what?”

  He inhales and does his normal straightening of every bit of his attire. The more of his tells I learn, the more I know I’ll never be able to trust anything he says, but that will never stop me from asking him.

  “I will tell you when I can. For now, it’s imperative that you simply do as I request. There is no time for these lengthy discussions and your inquiries to my motivation. As a rider, it’s merely your job to finish the alteration, not question it.”

  “So you think you’ve got it all figured out, then? Once you have Nikola’s patents you’ll be on your way?”