Finding My Faith

by Carly Fall

  When he opened the stairwell door, he jumped back. There she stood, smiling up at him. “You want to walk on the right-hand side of the hallway. Mrs. Makowski tends to be nosey, and the hall floorboards creak, except when you walk on the right.”

  He nodded and followed her down the hallway, following her directions and staying to the right. She disappeared through a door marked 310. He silently slipped the key into the lock and he was in. He wondered if it was breaking and entering when you had the ghost of the person living there inviting you in. Something to ponder at some other time.

  The apartment was small and terribly tidy. Everything had a place. To his left was a little cut-out that functioned as the kitchen—the appliances were all clean, but old. To his right were two doors; he assumed the hall closet and a bathroom were housed behind them. A couple of steps later he was in the small living room that was sandwiched between two doors. Had to be the bedrooms.

  The rest of the apartment followed suit with the kitchen—old, but clean and tidy. She sat on the worn blue couch looking at him, the sun’s rays from the small window filtering directly through her. He felt his breath catch again at her beauty.

  He went to the couch and sat next to her. “You'll have to talk in low tones,” she said. “The walls are pretty thin.”

  He nodded and looked around the room. He would bet that the two paintings on the wall came from a local painter selling his goods down at the swap meet. A young Native American woman looked back at him, laughing while she cared for her baby. It was almost as if the woman had been caught off guard and had her picture snapped, except this was on canvas with beautiful colors and intense details. She was dressed in a light brown leather dress, similar to what one would see in old pictures of Native American women. Small creases rested around her brown eyes, her long, black hair swirled around her shoulders partially covering the baby she held. The woman almost looked like Faith, but not quite.

  The other was of a menacing blond wolf with red eyes, its teeth bared. The picture reminded him of the eyes he saw in the mirror at night when his were glowing. Both paintings were beautifully done, and he had the passing thought that they would look excellent in the main living area of the silo. He stood and walked over to the painting, searching for the name of the artist. He scanned the picture, not seeing a signature anywhere.

  “Do you know the name of the artist?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  He waited for an answer, and when none came, he turned back to Faith. Still seated on the couch, she smiled as though she were privy to a secret, fingering the necklace at her throat. It looked like some type of small, silver animal claw, and he wondered what it represented.

  “What? Do you know the artist personally?” he asked. He couldn't help but smile back.

  “Yes.”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “So are you going to share the name?”

  She remained quiet for a moment, the smile still in place. She tilted her head to the side and asked, “Do you like them?”

  He stared at her. “Very much. There's a lot of talent in these. They would look great in…my home.”

  Her face lit up in a prideful smile. “Well, then, I did them.”

  Once again he found himself totally awed by her. He felt his heart miss a beat. God, she was beautiful, smart, and a talented artist. He was liking her a little more, and that wasn't good for either of them.

  He cleared his throat. “You have a lot of talent, Faith,” he said quietly. Their eyes were locked together, and he wanted nothing more than to kiss her, to feel her skin, her hair.

  “Come sit back down, Rayner. Ask me your questions,” she said, tapping the sofa next to her, and he did as she asked.

  He needed to ask her about the guys she had dated, her lovers, her friends. Jesus, he didn't want to go over the dating and lovers. No, he didn't want to hear about her lovers. In fact, he would like to line them all up and beat the shit out of them, one right after the other.

  That feeling was bad news. Rayner knew he shouldn't be feeling that way about Faith. She was a young, vibrant woman who could have as many lovers as she wanted. It was none of his damn business. He would simply have to cut the possessive SR44 male bullshit that had reared its ugly head within him.

  He couldn't imagine Faith getting involved with a Colonist. She was too perceptive. He was certain she would sense the evil and run the other way.

  “So,” he began, hating he was going here, “tell me about the lovers you've had since you moved to the city. Names, addresses, why the relationship ended…everything.” He steeled himself for her answers.

  “I don't have anything to say, Rayner.”

  He turned to her. “I understand it's uncomfortable to talk about intimate things with a stranger, but—"

  She smiled at him. “Rayner, I dated a guy for two weeks when I first got here. He was in the Air Force and was transferred to Germany. A year ago I went out with a guy for a month or two. Since then, I've had a date here and there, but no lovers. No one has been that interesting to me. I like to go to the clubs and have fun, but I don't do one-night stands.”

  He stared at her a moment and felt himself exhale a long, slow breath. Relief bathed his bones in a soothing calm.

  Jesus, these feelings he was having were wrong on so many levels.

  “Okay, then,” he said quietly and sat back. There was a stretch of silence and once again Rayner noticed it was not uncomfortable.

  “I'd like to do something really normal for a while,” Faith said quietly.

  He turned to her, waiting for her answer.

  “I'd like to just sit here and watch T.V. I wish I could eat and drink because if I could, I would also toss back a couple shots of tequila and eat some popcorn.”

  He smiled. “I like tequila too.” He grabbed the remote and turned on the T.V. “What are we watching, Faith?”

  “See if there is something on Animal Planet or Discovery. Those are my two favorite channels.”

  Rayner closed his eyes. He recognized that he was very close to teetering on a precarious edge that could very well be his undoing.

  Faith was beautiful, intelligent, she had amazing artistic talent, their backgrounds were very, very similar, and she liked Animal Planet and Discovery, his favorite T.V. channels as well.

  He couldn't allow himself to fall down that slope...the one where he really started caring about Faith, where he began to fall in love with her. Well, he guessed that was where he was headed. He’d never been in love before, but he had heard stories of SR44 males and how quickly they fell in love, and how it felt. They wanted to protect their female, and would die doing so. They worshipped the ground their mates walked on. There was no one more beautiful in the world than an SR44 male’s female. It was as if they were perfectly matched, two bookends that came together to form a whole figure.

  He and Faith were so much alike, and he respected her intelligence and her artwork, and the physical attraction he felt for her…he reminded himself that he most likely wouldn't be able to help her and she would go to her final resting place. She needed to remain simply a way for him and the other Warriors to catch a Colonist. End of story.

  He turned on Animal Planet and Jeremy Wade from River Monsters filled the screen as he talked about some fish that was said to jump out of the water and eat villagers in some remote part of the Amazon. Awesome. One of his favorite shows.

  If she said she liked—

  “Oh! I love River Monsters!” Faith said excitedly.

  Fuck.

  Chapter 16

  Five hours later, Rayner sped down MC 85 with two emotions flowing through him that he was becoming far too familiar with, and he didn't like in one bit. Panic and fear did not agree with his system, and in fact, he wished they would just evacuate all together and leave him the hell alone.

  He hung a left on the dirt road and didn't slow down until he reached the gate to the silo. He waited impatiently for it to open, then gunned the Hummer throu
gh and parked it. He noticed there was a black Escalade parked at the silo and guessed that it had been delivered earlier in the day.

  He made his way into the silo, not bothering to stop and chitchat with Cohen or Hudson, who were gathered in the kitchen discussing whether dinner would consist of chicken breasts or hamburgers. Rayner got to his quarters and quickly changed into a pair of running shorts and a pair of Nikes, then made his way back to the elevator.

  “Out for a run,” he said as he flew through the kitchen, back up the stairs, and burst out into the late spring afternoon. He took off at a dead run through the desert.

  He knew that what he was doing was useless, but he felt he had to try. A male simply couldn't run away from his feelings. With effort, he ran faster. After seven miles, his gas tank was almost on empty, and he stopped. Oh, and guess what…his feelings were still there with him. He looked around and saw nothing but dirt, sagebrush, and cacti. Not that he expected to see anything else, but he realized he was truly alone out in the middle of nowhere. He looked to the blue sky and noticed a hawk making lazy circles looking for its dinner. He found a rock and planted his ass on it, holding his head in his hands and breathing heavily.

  He had to help Faith. There weren't any ifs, ands, or buts about it. He had to find her body. And if he was doing the whole honesty thing, it wasn't just because he wanted to nail another Colonist.

  She did something to him, and he didn't know how to explain it. She made him feel different, like something was sparking within him, making his very being kindle with heat. He couldn't get her face out of his mind, couldn't stop thinking about her smile and the little crinkles around her eyes when she laughed. And she loved to laugh.

  They had spent most of the afternoon camped out on the couch talking while watching a River Monsters marathon. He had quickly come to the conclusion that Faith was one of those people who woke up every day excited by life, wondering what the day would bring. She searched out fun and loved to explore and experience new things.

  "I was terrified to go skydiving, but I did it. It was an amazing experience!" He had watched her eyes light up as she told him about the feeling of free falling through the air.

  "I would love to travel all over the world and see everything there is to see," she had said later. "I think that would be so much fun. I would love to go to the Amazon and fish, like this…" she said motioning to the T.V. "I love fishing, but fishing in the Amazon? Now wouldn't that be cool, Rayner?"

  Yes it would. And frankly it had crossed his mind a time or two in the past while watching River Monsters. But the thought was always clamped down with his need to get home, to keep his vow to his Moha.

  “Mother fucker,” he whispered, wiping the sweat that was trying to make its way into his eyes.

  Yes, he had to find Faith. He had to make things right in her world, because he felt that if he didn't, things wouldn't be right in his own. She had turned his world view on its side and given it a kick to the nuts. For once, in a very long time, he was caring about something else besides himself and his own goals and rules. Ignore the spirits. Kill a Colonist. Find the next one. Kill him. Get home. That had been his mantra for two hundred years. Now he was thinking along the lines of finding Faith. Spending more time with her. Kiss her. Feel her skin. Lose himself in her hair. Kill the cocksucking Colonist for taking Faith. Jesus, he was a peaceful guy by nature, but the thought of hanging the bastard Colonist by his balls from the nearest tree brought Rayner a shitload of satisfaction.

  He had never been in love on SR44, or Earth for that matter, and that had suited him just fine. He had, however, seen males of his species fall in love. It happened quicker than a blink of an eye and harder than a boxer’s knock-out punch.

  He felt like he had been hit in the solar plexus. With an iron fist.

  He wouldn't let that happen to him.

  But if it did, would it be so terrible?

  He shook his head. He couldn't fall in love with a spirit, a ghost. If things went south, and there was a real high probability that they would—and he was in love—he would be left with nothing but a husk of his self. An immobile, worthless slab of meat.

  Again, not going to happen. But was he really anything better than that now? Did he have any type of life worth living? He worked and worked and rarely did much else.

  He didn't want to think about his pathetic life. He took a deep breath and tried to gather his wits.

  After a few moments he stood up and looked around again. Just thinking about the trip back to the silo made him more exhausted. What the fuck had he been thinking? Oh, that's right. He hadn't. He'd been trying to run away from himself, which was just brilliant and showed his utter lack of intelligence at the moment.

  He did, however, feel a little better. His resolve was set. He would use Faith to get to the Colonist who took her. End. Of. Story. Just because he cared about her didn't mean he had to fall in love with her. He wasn't in love now, and he could keep it that way.

  He set out in the direction of the silo, doing as he had done his entire time on Earth: putting one foot in front of the other.

  ***

  Rayner arrived back at the silo just after dark, his legs bloody from scraping against the sagebrush, his soul beyond exhausted. Cohen and Hudson were watching Spike TV when he walked in. Both of their eyes glowed their SR44 colors, Hudson’s yellow and Cohen’s a bright purple.

  “Where you been, man? We were talking about sending out a search party. We were going to draw straws to see who had to go,” Hudson asked, his eyes fixed on Rayner’s legs.

  “Glad you guys care so much. I was out for a run.”

  “Did you outrun whatever did that to you?” Cohen asked, nodding toward Rayner’s legs. Rayner didn't say anything, just sucked on his water bottle.

  “You want me to do a little hocus pocus on you?” Cohen asked. Being the healer of the group, he could mend wounds by projecting his energy into another person's body, and he could heal them by working with that person's energy. Rayner shook his head. For some reason he wanted the cuts open, bleeding, and hurting. He wanted to be reminded of his run into the desert to find his resolve on the Faith situation.

  “Did you find the female while you were in Phoenix earlier today?” Hudson asked.

  For some reason, this grated on Rayner’s nerves. The female had a name. “Her name is Faith,” he said with more anger in his voice than he wanted to hear.

  Hudson narrowed his eyes. “Okay, then. Want to share with us what she had to say?”

  Rayner grabbed a Budweiser out of the bar while doing a quick recap on the hours he had spent with Faith.

  What could he tell them? That he and Faith had chatted about the case for approximately fifteen minutes of the five hours he was there? That they had spent the rest of the time watching a River Monsters marathon and discussing everything from pizza to fly fishing? And that he had experienced the best time in two hundred years?

  "I don't think she knows the Colonist." Wow, that was helpful.

  Cohen and Hudson nodded as something blew up on the T.V., focusing their eyes back on the set instead of Rayner.

  “Damn,” Cohen said. “Did you see that shit?”

  “Yeah. Damn.”

  Rayner had no idea what they were watching and he didn't care. He announced he was going to shower and hit the sheets.

  “You sure you don't want to eat tonight?” Hudson asked, tearing his eyes from the T.V.

  “Yeah, I'm sure.”

  He headed for his quarters. Once there, he stepped into the shower and hissed as the water hit his torn legs. As the spray pounded him, he felt the tension leave his body and whirl down the drain. Twenty minutes later it took everything he had to somewhat dry himself off and make it to his bed.

  In his case, the old adage of being asleep before your head hit the pillow was an understatement.

  Chapter 17

  “Rayner,” a voice whispered in the dark. He couldn't quite bring himself to consciousness.
<
br />   “Rayner, wake up.” When the voice registered, his eyes flew open and he sat up in bed, almost knocking Faith off the edge of it.

  She smiled. “I had to come see you,” she said shyly.

  “How did you—"

  “Shhh,” she said. “It's not important.”

  God, she was so fucking beautiful. But what was she doing here? How did she get here? And oh, um, yeah, you're naked buddy, and it looks like you never made it under the sheets.

  “Shit,” he said as he pulled the sheet over his sex. “I'm sorry about that. I wasn't expecting you. I wasn't expecting anyone, actually. This is a surprise.”

  She smiled at him wider, a teasing glint in her eye. “Am I a good surprise or a bad surprise?”

  He looked at her hair, her eyes, the swell of her breasts. He felt his throat tighten up. “A good one,” he said gruffly. “A very good one.”

  “Your eyes are beautiful,” said quietly, putting a hand to his cheek. Of course, they would be glowing red. It was the middle of the night.

  “It doesn't...make you uncomfortable?”

  She shook her head. “They are the eyes of the Red-Eyed Wolf Warrior.”

  Their gazes locked, and it seemed like just a little bit shorter than eternity before either of them said anything. Rayner felt the heat in his body begin to escalate, the need for her skin against his.

  “I think you would like to kiss me, Rayner,” she whispered.

  No truer words had ever been said.

  He put his hand up to her neck and slowly drew her close to him, his eyes never leaving hers. Holy shit, he could touch her! Her flesh and bones were right there in his hand, the softness of her skin sending lightning-bolt sensations from his fingertips to his brain. How could that be? He decided he would figure that out at another time. He had better things to do than decide how this could all be and what it meant.

  Their mouths met, and Rayner finally closed his eyes. His whole body began to vibrate with an energy he had never felt before, all of it ending up in a massive erection. Her lips were soft and lush, and she smelled fresh and clean, like mountain air on a crisp, fall day. He felt a groan reverberate in his throat. He felt lightheaded, like all the air in the room had somehow suddenly disappeared. He was pretty certain his brain had ceased functioning on most levels, except the basic core sexual level of total need and desire.