by Dean Murray
Chapter 12
The conversation between Kat and I didn't go much of anywhere after that, so a few minutes later she let the time effect lapse and we headed back into the house.
It shocked me how cold it was once we were back to normal speed. Kat tried to explain it to me through chattering teeth as we walked, but I wasn't sure I really understood. It was something about our temporarily-faster-moving blood drawing heat up into our bodies from the pool at a faster rate than the cold air could suck it away, which kind of made sense, but by that point my mind was getting so stretched and stressed that I just tried to nod in all of the right places.
We made it back into the house as the movie was ending. I expected Ari to ask me where I'd been, but she was so over the moon about having had Jace all to herself that she barely seemed to have noticed that Kat and I had been missing.
Before we left, Jace took Ari and me back to the security room and scanned our fingers so that we would be able to get in and out of the house on our own. I thought Ari was going to start hyperventilating, which turned out to be a good thing because it meant that she didn't notice that Jace gave the two of us different levels of access.
Ari was going to be able to get into zone one, which consisted of the kitchen, great room, guest bedrooms and exercise facilities, but not the master bedrooms or garage. I on the other hand was assigned full access to the entire house.
The sheer amount of trust involved in that gesture would have blown my mind even before I'd understood what was going on, but now it left me speechless. They weren't just giving me access to their fabulously expensive things, they were giving me access to their journals, which was the one thing connecting them to the people they'd been hundreds of years ago.
The trip back home went by faster than I'd expected it to. I caught glimpses of a pair of familiar-looking headlights a couple of times, but by the time I turned off into our neighborhood they were gone, so I didn't think anything of it.
We managed to make it home and into bed before Dad came home, but not by much. I was still awake when I heard him open the door and make his tired way upstairs so he could shower.
I fell asleep worrying about what Dad was going to say when we asked him about going camping. I still hadn't come up with a solution by the time I woke up.
Breakfast was an odd affair. Ari alternated between being effusive about how awesome Kat and Jace's house had been and giving me worried looks, like she expected me to turn catty over the fact that Jace had spent the last part of the evening with her rather than with me.
It was going to be a problem at some point, but I didn't know how to handle it. I had a sneaking suspicion that Jace and Kat would have been more than happy to pack me up and take me to some secret lair in order to continue my training, but I wasn't ready to just disappear on my dad and Ari. That meant I needed Ari to go along with me spending so much time with Jace and Kat. As much as I wanted to believe that Kat had been wrong about what Ari was thinking, I was becoming more and more certain that she was right. Underneath all of the suggestive jokes, Ari was jealous of the fact that I had met Jace first.
Dad came limping downstairs a few minutes before we were supposed to leave. Ari and I jumped out of our chairs to go help him, but he waved us away.
"It's fine, I just slipped at work. It wasn't bothering me this bad last night, so it should loosen up once I get warmed back up and moving around again."
Ari seemed to take his explanation at face value, but I wasn't so convinced. "Are you sure, Dad? Is it your leg or your back?"
"Both, but don't worry about me, honey. I really will be fine."
"Maybe you should go see a chiropractor, Dad."
He shot me the same look he'd used the other day, the one that said that he didn't want Ari knowing how dire the monetary situation was getting. I almost kept on despite that, but he was the adult. If he said he was fine I wasn't going to be able to convince him otherwise.
It did get me thinking though. If I'd been alive for hundreds of years before giving Jace that box full of clothes and a secret leather journal—which still terrified me—then there was a decent chance that I'd had money back in the day, maybe even a lot of money.
I wasn't going to ask Jace and Kat for charity, but maybe they knew what had happened to whatever money I'd had before I'd died. I made a mental note to ask Kat today in school. When you added in the fact that I probably needed to know how I'd died last time, and questions about when I could expect my ability to activate, my list for Jace and Kat was getting pretty long.
I came back to the present just in time to hear Ari ask Dad if we could go camping.
"…it wouldn't be a big deal. Just the three of us spending the night out next to the lake with Kat in her motorhome and then riding their wave runners that afternoon."
Dad gave Ari a suspicious look. "Just the three of you?"
Ari nodded enthusiastically. "Yep, just the three of us, no boys."
"That's an interesting response, Ari, especially since I was really asking whether there were going to be any adults there to keep an eye on the three of you. I have to wonder why you were so excited to establish that there weren't going to be any boys around…"
Ari, the great—expert even—liar, looked like she'd just bitten into something sour. It was the first time I'd seen her at a loss for words in a long time.
Dad turned towards me. "What about you, Selene? What do you have to say about this proposed boating trip? Does this Kat really think she's going to be able to convince her parents she doesn't need any supervision this weekend?"
I was getting so tired of lying to my family, but Kat and Jace had said that this trip was important, so I gamely played along.
"Actually, it doesn't seem like Kat and Jace's parents are around. As far as I know she doesn't need to get permission from anyone to take the jet skis out."
Dad frowned. "That sounds like a recipe for trouble if I've ever heard one. Two young kids on their own with more money than sense. So Kat is your age, and Jace is the one that's Ari's age?"
The lies just kept piling up, but there wasn't anything to do but plow forward. "Yep. I think Jace is old for the grade he's in, but yeah, he's going to school with Ari."
Dad poured himself a glass of milk while he thought, and then sighed. "I'm sorry, girls, but it's just not safe. I know you'd like to be able to go out on the lake like everyone else, but the thought of the three of you out there all by yourselves just doesn't sit well with me."
Ari looked like she was about to throw a fit, but I beat her to the punch. "Would you be willing to at least talk to Kat, Dad? If you still say no then we'll of course abide by your wishes, but I'd like for you to meet her before you make a final decision."
"I don't know how we'd even make that work, Selene. You've got to stay late so you can pick up Ari from school and I'm probably going to have to go to work a little earlier than normal today…"
"Kat and I will come straight here after school so the two of you can talk, and then I'll go back and pick Ari up."
"Okay, if it means that much to you both, then I'll at least talk to her."
"Thanks, Dad."
A couple of minutes later we were in the car and on our way to school. Ari pouted the entire way there, apparently convinced that I'd given in too easily, but I figured that if anyone was going to have a chance of convincing Dad to let us go camping it was going to be Kat.
I dropped Ari off and headed over to the high school. It wasn't until I was almost there that I realized the reason my heart was racing and my palms were getting clammy. I was going to see Jace again, maybe even spend time alone with him for the first time since I'd found out that he was some kind of semi-omnipotent demigod.
My heart jumped into overdrive when I saw him waiting in the parking lot, leaning against his Viper, which was parked next to my regular spot. It would have been perfect—romantic even—if not for the crowd of more than a dozen kids standing around looking at his car.
&n
bsp; He smiled at me as I pulled up two spaces over, and then walked over and opened my door while I was still reaching back to make sure that I'd managed to cram all of my books into my backpack and the tired old zipper wasn't going to give out on me again.
"Hello, Selene."
I would have said that it wasn't possible for anyone to look as good fully clothed as Jace had last night with his shirt off, but he made a valiant effort. I checked him out starting from his feet and working my way up in the hopes that would allow me to acclimatize gradually and avoid swooning.
He was wearing unassuming black boots that disappeared into his pants, but which I was pretty sure cost as much as my car. His jeans were the same kind of ripped, designer works of art as he'd been wearing the day before. I didn't know how they managed to be tight and still look like they were hanging from his hips by the slimmest of margins.
I forced my eyes up over his black, studded belt, and up to the tight blue shirt that seemed to be having a hard time containing all of those muscles. It was an almost perfect—albeit more masculine—match for my favorite blue shirt, the one that was still sitting at home in my closet because I hadn't been willing to just throw it away. Over the top of the shirt he was wearing the leather jacket that I'd worn all day on Thursday.
I once again felt like my insides were quivering so furiously that some sign of how I was feeling must be making it out where everyone could see it, but I took a deep breath and forced my eyes the rest of the way up. His blue eyes smoldered as he gave me a slow, confident smile.
"Are you tired this morning?"
My face instantly heated up. I didn't need the catcalls from the peanut gallery to tell me what everyone within earshot was thinking, but that didn't stop Jonas Hemart from whistling. Really it shouldn't have been a surprise. Jonas was one of the biggest guys at school and I'd always been a safe target.
This time Jonas got more than he bargained for. I didn't even see Jace move. One second he was standing in front of me, and then he was back over next to his car with Jonas' throat in his hand. There was a half second of shocked stillness as everyone tried to figure out what had just happened, and then Jonas tried to take a swing at Jace.
Jace easily caught the punch and then began applying pressure against Jonas' hand until tears started streaming out of the bully's eyes. Jonas was big, but Jace was the slightest bit taller and seemed to have more strength than three guys combined. He easily kept Jonas' feet from touching the ground.
"I'm going to say this once, and once only. Selene is a lady and therefore above having to defend her actions to scum like you. Luckily I'm here to take up that task on her behalf. You're going to apologize to her and then you're going to tell everyone you know that you acted like a baseborn cretin. If anyone in the school repeats these baseless lies that Sandra Conner made up, I will make them wish they could trade places with her."
Jace looked around the crowd as he made that threat, and more than one big, brawny football player stepped back in response to the force of his stare.
Satisfied with what he saw in everyone's eyes, Jace dropped Jonas to the ground and then rolled him over onto his back with his boot.
"Lady Selene is waiting for her apology."
Jonas choked out an apology around his coughing and gasping. I couldn't have told anyone what it was he said, but it was obvious that he was very sorry.
For the first time in my life I felt sorry for Jonas. He was the worst kind of bully, but now that he'd come up against someone even bigger and stronger he didn't know what to do other than subject himself to the same kind of abject embarrassment he'd always expected out of his victims.
Jace turned his back to Jonas and the rest of the onlookers and walked back over to my car, where he reached into the back seat and pulled out my book bag. I accompanied him towards the school and didn't say anything until I figured we were out of earshot of the crowd.
"You know he's probably going to key your car, right?"
"Maybe, but if so, he'll be sorry. Besides, like Kat said, that would just give me an excuse to have the paint job redone. I'm thinking something with green highlights this time."
"I'd ask you if you took anything at all seriously, but after last night I know you do."
Jace looked at me with worry in his eyes. "I'm sorry about that, Selene. Kat and I never should have gotten into it like that with you around."
"No, I'd rather know what the risks are and be scared out of my mind than be blissfully headed towards a landmine that I otherwise could have avoided."
"You believe it all? At the rate we've been going I was expecting it to take another day or two for us to convince you it was all true."
"I guess I do. I went to bed scared out of my mind and fighting the occasional worry that this was all just some kind of weird prank. I mean, I knew you weren't just a couple of normal kids—especially after you both stopped time and Kat turned the reflecting pool into some kind of weird, transparent silly putty—but, well, I guess I figured even demigods occasionally find kids to play practical jokes on."
"And now?"
"I don't know. I feel like I should be more skeptical, like I should keep you both at arm's length, but it all just seems right. Something tells me that I should trust you both, that neither of you would ever do anything to harm me. I guess all of the doubts didn't make it through the night."
Jace's smile was still slow, still a little lopsided, but this time it wasn't confident. It was relieved.
"I came prepared with all these plans to convince you that we were legit, and here you've already gotten there on your own. It's going to take me a second to adjust to this glorious new reality I find myself in."
I rolled my eyes at him. "Well, while you're adjusting you can start by telling me what was up with a comment like that back at the cars. Aren't you five-hundred-year-old demigods supposed to be more suave than that?"
Jace winced. "I really am sorry about that. I just wanted to know if you were tired. You got to bed pretty late last night. Most people would be really dragging this morning after something like that…"
"Of course I'm…actually, now that you mention it I'm not nearly as tired as I should be. Do I have you to thank for that?"
"Only very indirectly. Being around Kat and me is going to force your gift to manifest faster than it would otherwise. Nobody is sure why. Some pantheons think it is because you end up catching the fringes of things when we release our power to create effects, and that energy bleed supercharges the ability of the nascent Awakened."
"Some pantheons, but not you and Kat, I'm guessing?"
"No, I think that being around one or more Awakened causes a nascent Awakened's ability to manifest more quickly as a kind of unconscious defense mechanism. Basically, your gift doesn't know whether or not we're dangerous so it's trying to get to the point where it can keep you alive if we come after you."
"Okay, I buy that, but what does that have to do with me not being as exhausted as I should be?"
"As your gift begins to mature, you'll find that you need a lot less sleep than you have up until now. It's one of the perks of being an Awakened."
"How much less sleep are we talking?"
"It depends a little on the individual in question, but most Awakened can comfortably go off of three or four hours a night. We can get by on as little as two hours a night for a week or two in a pinch."
"Wow, that's got to be helpful when you start messing around with time, but doesn't it get boring?"
"Boring is good, remember? Those extra hours every day are part of what lets us build up the base memories to screw around with time and space and not have to always tap into our peak memories."
"You do have a way of making your life sound absolutely thrilling—where can I sign up?"
"Ha-ha. The joke is on you, you signed on the dotted line something like seven thousand years ago. In all seriousness, it's not as bad as all that. The extra time is nice to have, and you'll find stuff to do with it remarkably
quickly. You used to read books all the time. I asked you one time what the point was when you were eventually just going to forget them anyway."
"What did I say?"
"You said that was the best part of being an Awakened. It meant that you got to rediscover your favorite books over and over again and each time felt like the first time."
"So the base memories don't actually have to be boring?"
"Nope, and nobody says that that time has to just be filled with base memories—you can always add in peak experiences. Beyond that, most of us tend to spend a big chunk of time going through our journals every day."
"Ah, that makes sense. That way the memories you are building during your downtime are a recreation of what you've already lost."
"More like a shadow of a whisper of what we've lost, but yeah, that's the general idea. It's a way of trying to stay grounded in who we've been up until now."
"Wow, there is a lot to learn, isn't there?"
Jace's smile this time was back to the confident expression that was so endearing. "You have no idea. Way back in the day, you were one of the best researchers around. We only managed to save some of your journals, and I only went through the ones you'd labeled as being technical volumes, but even those just about blew my mind. At first I felt like you'd been holding out on us, but the deeper I got into them the more I realized that neither Kat or I were really ready to learn that stuff. Kat just about killed herself the first time she tried to bend time as far as your notes indicated you'd reached."
It was like being told you were the starting forward in the championship game when you'd never even touched a basketball before that instant.
"Wait, I'm the researcher? We're up against a bunch of hostile pantheons and you and Kat are depending on me to pull fluffy bunnies out of magic hats in new and exciting ways so we don't all end up dead and—what was the term Kat used? Farmed?"
Jace grabbed my arms and pulled me around so that I had to look at him. "It's not like that."
"Really, Jace? That's quite the surprise because based on what Kat told me last night it's the researchers who figure out how to keep their pantheons from getting wasted."
My voice had continued to go up in volume during my rant, to the point where Jace winced and then I felt a gust of cool power blow across my skin.
"Okay, if you need to yell now's the time to do it. I've surrounded us with a vacuum so nobody will be able to hear us."
"A vacuum? Really?" I waved my arms around furiously. "If you put us inside a vacuum then how come I'm still breathing and I can feel the air against my hands?"
Jace grabbed at my arms like I was waving dynamite around or something. "Good grief, Selene, you're like a bull in a china closet. What I should have said is that we're standing inside a sphere of air which is enveloped by a layer that is essentially a vacuum, and if you put your hands in the vacuum you might lose some of your fingers."
"What, so you essentially put us inside a giant thermos bottle?"
"Yes, if the thermos bottle is perfectly clear and made of pure awesomeness. Now are you going to freak out, or did I just waste the memory of my fifth-grade graduation for nothing?"
I stuck my tongue out at him. "You're five hundred years old; you never went to fifth grade."
"Okay, fair point. Are you going to freak out now?"
"No, I don't think so—you kind of took all of the fun out of it. How about if you just get to the explaining part?"
Jace sighed. "Okay, it might be like that a little, but you don't have all of the information. Researchers are vital, and you were responsible for an incredible number of advances for our little pantheon, but you have to understand that we Awakened tend to think in terms of decades and centuries rather than days and weeks.
"You put us on the map with your discoveries, but Kat and I have been very careful to avoid tangling with other Awakened since even before you died. Part of that is because there was only the two of us, but part of that is because we were trying to keep your discoveries as much of a secret as possible. Right now we're ahead of the curve, which means that you're going to have time to get up to speed on all of this stuff."
I shook my head. "I'm not smart, Jace. Maybe you have the wrong girl. Maybe I'm just one of the mimicries that Kat was talking about."
Jace wrapped his arms around me right there in front of everyone. "There's more to being a researcher than just smarts. It requires creativity, a willingness to take chances, and a dogged determination that most people can't even begin to touch. You have all of that in spades, but beyond that, you are smart. You've just never had a reason to push yourself before."
"How can you be so sure that I'm the right girl?"
"Because I've talked to dozens of mimicries over the last two years. They all looked an awful lot like you, but none of them made me feel like this."
