The Fire In My Eyes

by Christopher Nelson

  After finals ended, a couple of days before Thanksgiving, my roommates and I headed to Andreas' room to celebrate. It was getting to be a tradition among our group. To my surprise, we were the last ones to show up. The girls were there and Andreas was already playing bartender. Nikki smiled as I sat down next to her. Andreas pressed a glass tumbler into my hand and studied my face for a moment before moving on to my roommates.

  “It's hard to believe you've been here for a whole year now, Kev,” Max said. He raised his glass in my direction. “Planning on sticking around next year? Or did Drew scare you off?”

  I laughed and shook my head. “No, but you tried to, that first day.”

  “Seriously? I don't remember that. What did I do?”

  Drew laughed from where he and Lisa were tangled up in a chair too small for two, even if one of them was as tiny as Lisa. “You serious, Max? You answered the door like some freak and started going off about human sacrifice. Asked me to look for the knife or something. The look on Kev's face was priceless, man. He nearly pissed his pants.”

  Almost everyone had a laugh at my expense, including myself. The only one who didn't was Nikki. She leaned close to my side, Kaitlyn on her other side, and she had barely taken a sip of the drink that Andreas must have given her before I arrived. I glanced over at her. She was staring down into her glass and didn't even notice.

  “You all right?” I whispered to her.

  “Fine,” she whispered back.

  We spent the next couple of hours remembering the events of the last year. My roommates didn't mention the incident that very first weekend where my power had awakened, nor did Drew mention the incident where I had pushed him out of the path of an out of control car, nor did Max mention noticing anything that had happened that night when I had flung Nikki into a wall and nearly killed her. Neither remembered when Nikki had blown her top and nearly flung Drew through a window. All the memory modifications had remained intact. I kept my mouth shut for the most part and listened.

  Most of the stories they were telling didn't involve me very much, and didn't involve Nikki at all. When we talked about the water war of Memorial Day, or the trips over spring and summer vacation, she wasn't involved at all. No one mentioned Valentine's Day at all. Her only real involvement with my group of friends was during the Fourth of July, when we had all gone downtown to watch some fireworks.

  I glanced over at her again. Her glass was still nearly full. Was she really such an outsider here? For that part, was I? We didn't spend a lot of time socializing due to our training, but had we really missed so much? Kaitlyn and Lisa talked about the time they had gone on a double date with Drew and some other guy. When had that been? Jess talked about how she had tried to get Max to play some game with her, but I had never even noticed. If I was feeling like an outsider here, I couldn't even begin to imagine how Nikki was feeling.

  Drew was telling a story about how he had gotten yet another offer to join one of the school's sports teams, but he was having trouble keeping the story straight. One moment, he mentioned football, the next, basketball. Maybe it was both. The story grew more and more disjointed as he drained his glass. Nikki leaned in closer to me and sighed.

  “You're not fine,” I said quietly. Everyone else was focused on Drew, giving us the illusion of privacy. “What's wrong?”

  “I'm just tired,” she said.

  “It's been a long week with finals and all,” I agreed.

  She sighed again. “It's more than that.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. I suspected I already knew the answer. There wasn't anything connecting her to my friends, nothing besides me and her own roommate.

  “It's nothing,” she said. “Really, nothing, Kevin.”

  I let it go and we watched as Andreas stepped into the other room, then returned with a glass flute filled with something tinted blue. “I have a new experimental drink,” he announced, shaking the flute slightly. Bubbles rolled up the sides. “Would anyone like to try it?”

  “Not a chance,” Drew said. “I learned my lesson from that green shit last year, man. I volunteer Max. He's due for it.”

  “Don't be such a pussy, Drew,” Max said. “You're the big man here, you should be able to throw down.”

  “It looks like a girl drink,” Drew replied. He grabbed his tumbler off the table and lifted it. “I'll drink with you, but you're the girly dude here. Long haired hippie freak.”

  “Go on, Max,” Jess cut in. “Show us you've got some balls. It won't kill him, right?”

  “It will not kill him,” Andreas confirmed.

  “See? You'll be fine,” Jess said. She leaned into Max. “Drink it, you pussy. Don't try and pass it off.”

  Max glanced at me. I grinned and shook my head. He wasn't going to pass it off to me either. He grumbled and reached a hand out for it. “Fine, hand it over. I'll play guinea pig. You all owe me one.”

  Andreas handed the flute over. Max reached out with it, clinked it against Drew's tumbler, and they both took big mouthfuls of their drinks. Andreas hovered expectantly. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “What do you mean, how do I feel?” Max snapped. “I feel fine. What was in that?”

  “Quite a few things. Is the taste acceptable?”

  “I don't know. I didn't taste much, and I can't really feel my throat now,” Max admitted. He hiccupped. “Smells like shit dipped in sugar though. Correction, I can't feel much of anything right now. I think I need to smoke.” He stood up to reach into his pocket, then abruptly sat back down. Jess caught him as he slumped over, eyes rolling back in his head.

  “What the hell is that stuff, Viking?” she demanded as she fanned Max's face. “Were you trying to kill him? Was that antifreeze or something?”

  “Apparently a failure,” Andreas said. “A pity. So much work, so much time wasted.”

  “Is he going to be all right?” Jess asked.

  “He will be fine,” Andreas assured her.

  I missed the rest of the conversation when Nikki yawned in my ear. I looked over at her and her eyes were half closed. The glass in her hands was still practically full. I wondered if she had even taken a sip of it. “Sorry,” she murmured.

  “If you're tired, maybe you should get some rest,” I suggested.

  Her head snapped up and she looked me straight in the eye, then down and away. “I think you're right. I'm going to bed. See you tomorrow.” She thrust her glass into my hand, stood up, and practically ran to the door. I started to get up to follow her, but my movements were slightly uncoordinated due to alcohol and by the time I got to my feet, the door was already shut.

  “What's up with that?” Drew asked. “What did you say to her, Kev?”

  I opened my mouth to protest that I hadn't said anything, but Kaitlyn spoke first. “Kev's just being a typical ignorant guy. Insensitive to what a girl actually wants, you know? I guess you don't know. It's not as if any of you guys are sensitive at all. Except maybe Andreas.”

  Andreas flushed, but Drew protested. “Hey! Hey, I'm plenty sensitive!”

  “Andrew, my dear.” Lisa's voice held an edge of wicked amusement. “You don't want to remind me of a recent incident, do you?”

  Drew returned his attention to his glass and the moment passed. Jess started trying to shake Max awake and attention focused on them. I took the opportunity to lean in toward Kaitlyn. “What did I miss?” I asked her.

  “Seriously?” she said.

  “Yes, seriously, I know I missed something.”

  Kaitlyn sighed and put her hand on my shoulder, then slid over closer to me. “Kev, you're a nice guy. Sometimes you're too nice. She didn't want to go to bed. She wanted you to agree and leave with her.”

  “Why didn't she just say so?” I asked.

  Kaitlyn's arm crept around my shoulders and she drew even closer to me. “Because she's a girl. Duh.”

  “That makes no sense at all.”

  “It's not supposed to.”

  I pulled away fr
om her and beckoned to Andreas. “I'm going to go see her.”

  Kaitlyn smirked at me. “She's not going to want to see you now. Trust me on that.”

  Andreas came over and I thrust both my glass and Nikki's into his hands. “I'm going to go see what's wrong with Nikki. You can keep my seat warm until I get back.” He smiled, we switched places, and I slipped out.

  When I reached Nikki's room, the door was closed and locked. I knocked, but there was no response. I called her name through the door. No response. I looked both ways down the hallway, then used my Sight to check to see if she was even in there. She was, and as soon as my psionic touch brushed her, she shielded against it and vanished. “Leave me alone, Kevin!” she called through the door.

  “No!” I knocked again. “Look, I'm sorry, I didn't realize you wanted to get out of there so badly. I understand how you feel.”

  The door opened and she stared at me. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were flushed. “You understand?” she whispered. “How do you think I feel, Kevin? How could you? I sat there and listened to all those stories that you were involved in, so many things that I missed, and I don't know how to deal with it! I thought I knew you, but I only know part of you, don't I?”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. This wasn't quite what I was expecting. “I wasn't even involved with half the things they were talking about. I was feeling the same way, Nikki, like I was on the outside looking in.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked. “I don't care about your stupid friends and their little adventures and dates and shit. I care about you.”

  “Hey, that's a little out of line.”

  “I don't care!” She wiped at her eyes. “You're the one who matters to me. There's only so much blatant flirting I can deal with from Lisa. She hits on you! Just to make Drew jealous!”

  “She does not!” I tried to remember the last time Lisa had even come close to flirting with me. She had given me a hug the first time we had met, she would hug me from time to time, but she was the sort to show affection physically. Had she ever hugged me in front of Nikki? Not as far as I could remember. Where was she getting this from?

  “Hell yes, she does,” Nikki argued. “And then there's Jess. I can't stand that girl either. I think she hates you. I don't get that at all. How can you expect me to hang around with a girl who hates my boyfriend?”

  “Jess doesn't hate me,” I said. “We actually get along pretty well when it's just the two of us hanging out.”

  “Oh, I see.” Nikki crossed her arms over her chest. “The two of you alone. Wonderful. Bet that happens a lot. And what about Kaitlyn? You flirt with her. You can't deny that.”

  “I flirt with her? She flirts with me, hell, she flirts with everyone! Remember how she was the one who wanted to show me her tan lines? I didn't ask for that. She comes on to every guy who crosses her path. She gets around, doesn't she?”

  Nikki's eyes went wide and she slapped me. My jaw was still healing from the abuse from Shade, and it hurt far more than I anticipated. Tears stung my eyes and I clutched my jaw. She didn't seem to care. “Don't you call her a slut! How would you know?”

  “What the fuck, Nikki? What is your problem? You know my jaw is still messed up from last month!” I tapped into my power to deaden the throbbing pain, letting biokinesis surge then fade away.

  “Stop being a baby,” she snapped. “So how do you know Kaitlyn's easy? Did you sleep with her? Or are you just listening to the rumors your asshole roommates pass around?”

  “Where do you get off accusing me of things like this?” I demanded. Her accusations, her obvious dislike for my friends, and the alcohol in my system were combining in a very unpleasant way. “You're going down a checklist of hate here. Are you jealous, or are you just getting more paranoid than normal?”

  “Jealous? Paranoid?” Her tone shot up an octave. “Where do you get off accusing me of that? Kevin Parker, you're an asshole too. No wonder you're capable of mur-”

  She cut herself off. It was too late. “Murder?” I asked.

  “That's not-”

  “That's exactly what you were going to say. No wonder you're capable of murder?” I balled my fists. “It was an accident, it was to save your life, and you're going to call me a murderer? Are you fucking serious?”

  “Kevin, I-”

  I wanted to slap her right back. It was deliberate. It was hurtful. It brought back images and nightmares that had only just started to fade. How could she say something like that? I turned and started to walk away. Self-control, Shade had said. He would be so proud. “I'm going to go get some air,” I said.

  “Wait, Kevin, I'm sorry!” She grabbed my shoulder. I tugged free and looked back at her. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. “I didn't mean that. I didn't think. I'm sorry.”

  “I'm going to go get some air,” I repeated.

  “I'll go with you!”

  “No!” She recoiled. “No. I can't talk to you right now. Later. Maybe.”

  “Kevin, wait!” I ignored her and walked away. I didn't trust myself to say anything else to her. I didn't know if I could even face her again. She knew how much I had agonized over what had happened. She knew how I had shaken that night, she knew how I still couldn't sleep well, she knew about the nightmares. She knew, she knew full well, and she still said something like that. How could she?

  In the stairwell, I burned the alcoholic haze away from my mind with a technique that Absynthe had shown me, then stepped outside. It was cold, just above freezing. I shoved my hands into my pockets and tapped some psionic energy to keep warm. It almost wasn't necessary. My anger felt like it could set me on fire. If she had just said she wanted to leave, we could have left, and it would have been fine. We wouldn't have said those things to each other. No. She wouldn't have said those things to me.

  I almost went back inside. I could always return to our little celebration and drink myself into a stupor, try to forget. In a way, that was just admitting defeat. Instead, I decided to go for a walk, clear my head and cool off like I said I would, then go back to Nikki's room and talk things out with her. Hopefully by then, she'd have cooled off as well, and we could make up and spend a little time together before Kaitlyn got back.

  My walk took me to the little park that we had turned into a water war zone on Memorial Day, half a year ago. It was abandoned and empty now, late at night, all the trees around the edges stripped naked of their leaves. I walked through it, forcing my hands deeper into my pockets and burning more psionic energy to keep warm. My anger wasn't keeping me warm anymore, just feeding on itself in my head. I had to do something to bleed it off. I pulled a small rock up from the ground to my hand, then flung it toward a distant tree. It popped off the trunk and I felt some of my frustration and outrage fading away. Another rock, another throw. Each throw became a part of my frustration that I was releasing. I threw my frustration with Nikki toward a tree, my stress over finals and grades, the pressure I felt from training, even my apprehension toward returning home tomorrow.

  I hadn't been home in close to a year now. Dad was coming to pick me up around noon, and then we'd be having Thanksgiving dinner the day after, and then a long month of boredom before coming back to school. Absynthe had given me some training exercises to do over the break, but warned me that I shouldn't use too much power. Attracting attention could be dangerous. Going anywhere could be dangerous.

  I flung another rock, hearing the thump as it bounced off the trunk. I wanted to stay at Ripley, but even school might not be safe anymore. Absynthe had warned me in no uncertain terms that Shade was back on campus and would be around all through December, and that crossing him when I was no longer his trainee would be a very poor decision. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want to stay here either.

  I ground my teeth and hefted a stone, then flung it with a little amplification to my strength. Instead of a thump as it hit the tree, I heard a crack. I hurried over and saw that the impact had cratered the trunk, spraying bark all over t
he ground nearby. The rock itself was embedded into the wood. I pried at it with my fingers, but it wouldn't budge. I swore under my breath. I couldn't leave it like this. I called up my power and tried to yank it loose from the tree.

  “Poor tree. Working out some aggression?”

  I spun to face the speaker, forgetting that my eyes were glowing. I was caught red handed and green eyed. There was no getting out of this without a memory modification, and that wasn't something I was very good at. I prepared to call Absynthe as the speaker took another step toward me, just as the moon came out from behind a cloud.

  Her hair twinkled in the moonlight.

  Chapter Twenty Five

  I lost control of my power and twisted it off before any accidents happened. “You actually came.”

  Star smiled at me, her hands shoved into her pockets. “I did. Though I'm starting to regret it. It’s pretty cold up here.”

  “It gets colder,” I said.

  “Maybe I'll have you keep me warm,” she said, taking another step toward me.

  I held my hand up in front of her. “Hold on a minute here, I'm taken, remember?”

  She walked right into my hand and pressed up against it. “You don't sound too convincing. It didn't seem to slow you down too much last time.”

  “Things have changed,” I said. This was exactly the wrong time to meet her again. When would be the right time? Nikki was jealous of the girls I had no interest in, the ones who I hadn't done anything with. What would she be like if she learned about Star?

  Her eyes searched mine. “If you say so,” she said. “I had forgotten how gorgeous your eyes are. Does she appreciate you like I do, Kevin?”

  I withdrew my hand and took a step back. “Not quite the same way, but I'm sure she does.” Enough to call me a murderer, at least.

  “You're sure she does? You sound uncertain.” She smiled again and took another step forward. Her boots crunched leaves underfoot. “In fact, I'm sure you're not sure. That's why you're out here, throwing rocks at trees. Admit it, Kevin. You'd much rather be making love right now.”