by C. S Luis
“Close the door,” he said without turning around to look at me.
I wrinkled my nose at his back. How dare he order me around like that? This was my house. I felt the tug again, and I searched for anything that might have been either causing or blocking it, like a circuit not quite making the full connection.
“Excuse me?” I replied with enough attitude for both of us. “Michael won't like the door closed,”
“Don't worry about Michael. Joseph will take care of him. It'll be okay. Now do as I say. Close the door and come here.”
I frowned. Why was he here?
I wanted to defy him, but I was afraid of what he and Joseph might do to Michael if I did. So I obeyed.
When I closed the door, I turned slowly and took a few more steps into my room. “He's not going to hurt Michael, is he?” I asked. “Michael's completely innocent. He hasn't done anything to you.”
John just kept flipping through my artwork. “These are very good. You did all these?” He shuffled through the scattered drawings on my desk now, too.
“Yes,” I said.
“Michael, your guardian… Does he know what you can do?”
It seemed were about to finally have this conversation, but I hesitated. Replacing the drawing he'd lifted from my desk, John turned around to look at me. “That's none of your business,” I told him.
He narrowed his eyes at me, a slim smile spreading over his beautiful lips. “I asked you a question. Does Michael know what you can do? It's very simple.”
“Does it matter?”
When he grinned, he seemed on the verge of laughing. “Well, I guess it doesn't.”
“So what do you want?” I snapped.
“I don't know.” John blinked, as if he were just as surprised by those words as I was. Now it seemed neither of us knew what was happening. “I don't know why I'm here, or why it is that I need to be here with you. How have you bewitched me like this? I can't understand this force, driving me to seek you. But I needed to see you again.” He looked around my room again, then turned through the pages of my drawings. Moving to the easel, he ran a finger down the dry paint of the last thing I'd created there. “You paint so beautifully.”
I crossed my arms annoyed. “How can you tell?”
John flashed me another innocent grin, then apparently had to return to studying my art.
Downstairs, Michael and John's pretend uncle made nauseating small talk while Michael finished setting the table for dinner. It felt like I could hear everything, though I still strained to pick up anything that would point to Michael being in trouble now.
“Don't worry,” John said, turning back toward me. “Joseph isn't going to hurt him. I promise you that. I'm not planning on hurting either one of you. I just wanted to see you again.”
How nice of him. I wanted to say that to him with all the sarcasm I had, but instead I just asked, “Why?”
“First, you're incredibly intriguing,” John said almost immediately, then bit his lip. Apparently, he hadn't meant to say it out loud. “Like I said, I don't know… Something beyond my own understanding has brought me here. Perhaps by sheer luck or coincidence, I was able to see you through this arranged dinner. Maybe it was meant to be.”
I wanted to ask what in the world he meant by that, but he just kept talking.
“These are very, very good,” he said. “You're very talented. I've always been interested in art, but I just don't have the talent.”
All I could do was watch him, unable to feel him the same way I had in the principal's office or the school hallway. I wanted to know why.
There was that tug again. John dropped the drawing and laughed.
“You keep pulling at me…” He chuckled. “Seeking me. You want to know why you can't read me, don't you?”
Admittedly, that surprised me.
John turned toward me again and lifted his wrist to tap his fingernail on the dial of the watch there. “This helps keep what's in here private,” he said, then tapped his temple. Apparently, he'd also replaced the broken watch.
“Are you afraid of me?” I asked. That was the only thing I could think of to say, because he'd always been just a little … off.
He smiled and stepped toward me. “I'm only afraid I'll hurt you if I lose control, Miss Belle.”
Hurt me?
“You enhance my abilities in a way I don't understand… Perhaps 'hurt you' is the wrong phrase for what I mean.” His eyes flashed that lovely green—an unnatural green—but without the gold in them. Had I been responsible for putting that swirl of gold there in the first place?
John stopped to adjust the dial on his watch, and the next second, I felt him. He was nervous and confident at the same time—was that even possible? His thoughts raced toward me; he didn't want to scare me, and he was trying so hard to hold himself back. That connection between us had reappeared, faint and not nearly as strong as before but there nonetheless.
“I want to be honest with you,” he said, taking the last few steps toward me to reach out and touch my cheek. The minute he did, the gold spread from the center of his pupils again, coming to life exactly the way I remembered it.
I pulled away, and I felt his pain in response. I also felt that same current still pulling him toward me. When I'd backed up all the way to my bed, I sat down on the mattress.
In the silence, both Michael's and Joseph's muffled voices seeped up through the floor. “So, who is he?” I asked.
John frowned, then approached the bedside table and picked up the picture of my grandfather. He examined it briefly with keen eyes, and another smile lit up his already gorgeous face. Then his eyes flashed, and I felt the current of emotion—some strengthening sensitivity—growing stronger between us. I pushed it away, clearly feeling the new wound it left on John's pride and hope. I could feel his reaction. I could see it. It was so odd to know he felt very much the same as I did.
He turned. “You mean Joseph? He's a friend.”
“A friend?” I glared at him. Liar. The minute I'd thought it, John blinked, apparently having heard my thought as clearly as if I'd said it out loud. Then I stood, walked toward him, and snatched the picture from his hand. John didn't seem surprised at all but merely grinned. “The least you can do is be honest with me,” I said. “I know what you are.”
“Fair enough.”
I hadn't expected it to be that simple.
“Joseph is a guardian,” John added. No, I had absolutely no idea what that meant. “And you know I'm a hunter.”
I walked toward the other side of the desk beside my bed and set down the picture. “A guardian?”
“He's sort of my bodyguard. Not that I need one, of course.”
“You sound really sure of yourself,” I muttered, and he just kept smiling. I was really starting to hate it, mostly because it looked so good on him. I bit my lip. “You make it sound like you're the best or something,” I said, returning to my seat on the bed.
“I am.”
So, he was handsome and arrogant, I thought.
“Joseph is there to make sure I get the tools I need to do my job without interruptions…”
“Like a personal secretary,” I volunteered.
John laughed. “He wouldn't put it that way, but yes. Something like that.”
“Why is he pretending to be your uncle? Why are you both really here in Milton?” I narrowed my eyes at him, wanting to remind him that I could read his thoughts. But we both knew that he was volunteering this information now, and if he wanted, he could easily move that dial on his watch again and block me out. “Are you here for me?” I added.
John's eyes softened. Then he exhaled, stepped forward, and knelt in front of me. I didn't know whether to back away or stay there. My first thought was to shove him back with my mind, but I caught his wish to reassure me—to convince me I didn't have any reason to be afraid.
“No, I'm not here for you,” he said. “You… well, you were just… an unexpected discovery.” His brow f
urrowed, and he ran a hand over the back of his neck. It was hard not to feel so many jumbled emotions racing through him. When he looked up at me again, that connection between us strengthened, and I felt his emotions shift to fear, sympathy, concern. “I'm not even supposed to be here with you,” he added. “I'm supposed to tell Joseph about things like this.” It seemed to truly pain him that he'd been hiding something so huge from his friend, or guardian, or whatever Joseph was to him. “And I can't be sure why I haven't. I just can't do it…” Then he stood and sat beside me on the bed.
My heart pounding in the back of my head, and I had a feeling John's beat now in pretty much the same way. “You haven't told him about me?” I asked.
“No.” He leaned closer. There was something beautiful in his eyes, dancing again with that lovely gold. John reached out to touch my cheek again, sending an electric current racing through us both. He smiled, and now so did I. “I've never known anyone quite like you, Claudia. I was curious at first. Now, I can't begin to understand my need to be around you. Close to you. This feeling”—he gestured between us—“this connection… I feel the circuit. It can't be broken. I can't pull away. I don't want to, even when I know it's getting stronger. Don't you feel it?”
I nodded slowly, then glanced down at his watch. They sounded like whispers rising from the watch's face as the hands spun to the left and then the right.
“I used to fear it. Now I know I have nothing to fear.” John cupped my cheek and leaned even closer. I didn't pull away. What was I doing? John was the enemy…
Before he kissed me, I slipped away from him to stand and walk to the center of my room. What was happening? Yes, I felt everything John had just described. I knew something powerful existed between us, but I refused to admit it was important. I didn't want to trust him.
“What are you doing?” I asked. Really, though, I was asking myself.
“I'm sorry,” he said. “I couldn't resist… I can't. Every time I'm near you, something pulls me closer. Don't you feel it?”
Of course I did, but I couldn't tell him that. John watched me from the bed, the need in his eyes growing beneath the dancing gold, though it had dimmed a little.
“Forgive me for frightening you in the hall earlier today,” he said.
“You didn't frighten me.” I felt stupid for thinking I could convince him of that. He smiled, and I bit my lip again.
“I didn't mean to be so fierce,” he continued, “but you surprised me when you ran. It… triggered my hunter instincts, and the only thing I could do was run after you. Your energy opened this other… force inside me.”
My energy. I didn't believe him.
“You pulled at me, just like you pull at me now. You tug… and you tug so hard. It's not easy to resist or to fight this desire to go to you. The watch makes it easier not to lose myself in your energy.”
So that pull had come from me, as far as John knew.
“I have never lost control like that before. You were all I wanted. I had to be close to you, to protect you. I knew it as fiercely then as I know right now that you are so very special… to me.”
I turned my head slightly away, and there was that pull again.
John's laughter filled the room. “Your actions reflect denial, but your emotions reveal the truth of what you really feel. Your energy tells me exactly what you want.”
I whipped my head toward him again and glared. “You don't know anything about me.”
“You're right. I don't.” He stood from the bed and stepped toward me again. “I want to…”
A spark flared inside me, lighting my heart and filling me with something I couldn't name. I felt alive. Even then, I bit my lip and bottled it up, because it still terrified me. A flash of that shadow looming over us in my vision entered my mind, those tentacles reaching out toward us. I gazed and looked up into John's blazing eyes.
“If you're not here for me,” I said, “then why did you come to Milton?” The hair on my arms stood straight up, now, the pull between us and the rising spark running through my veins. His eyes flashed with that gold again, but he seemed to be in control of himself. “You hunt things for those people in lab coats,” I said.
“I feel you wanting to push me away,” he said, still smiling. “But you can't. Just like I can't resist your pull on me.”
Then he turned to pace slowly in front of me, fighting with himself to be honest, but he knew he couldn't hold secrets from me. The struggle I felt in him was intriguing and incredibly satisfying.
“I can't believe I'm going to reveal this to you,” he whispered, then stopped pacing and faced me. “I've never told anyone this.” Then John returned to sit on the edge of my bed and patted the mattress beside him.
“Come sit beside me… please.”
When I did, another jolting wave of connection overwhelmed us both.
“I work for a secret corporation only known as the Company,” John continued. “This organization is divided into several parts operating different divisions. Military, space, science, and most importantly, pharmaceuticals. But what I do takes place within an academy.”
“The academy?” I said. quizzically glaring over at him. It clearly took a lot out of him to reveal something as secretive and important as this to me.
“It's a school were recruits like me are trained.”
“Wait. There are others like you?”
“Not… exactly like me.” He grinned. “I'm the only one… like this. They call me an anomaly.”
I wrinkled my nose at him.
'At least, that's what Dr. Nicholson called me,' John thought. When I picked up on it, I recognized the name instantly. I'd heard it in Josephs' mind too.
“Who's Dr. Nicholson?” I asked. John glanced quickly at me with a frown of surprise and curiosity. Then he seemed to remember he was talking to someone who could do the kinds of things I did. “Is he real?” John nodded. “So who is he?”
“How do you know of him?” he asked.
“I heard the name in your uncle—I mean in Joseph's thoughts.”
“You heard Joseph's thoughts.”
“Yes…” As if in reflex, John looked down at his watch, and I followed his gaze. “I think there was something wrong with his watch when I heard it,” I added. “It was making a lot of weird sounds that day. Who is he?”
John hesitated, and I waited. “He's sort of my boss,” he finally said. “He's the one who sent me here.”
“Should I be afraid of him?” I asked. When I'd first heard the name from Joseph, the man who seemed pretty difficult to scare had been worried about what Dr. Nicholson would say. Now, John spoke about this mysterious doctor as if the man were someone to be feared.
John's silence when I asked concerned me even more.
Then he reached out to take my hand tightly in his. My own rising anxiety faded at his touch. “No. You don't have to be afraid,” he told me. “You have nothing to worry about. He's looking for some creature… with a strong force. I was sent to find it and bring it to Dr. Nicholson. And that will be the end of it.”
“Then what happens to you and Joseph?”
He was quiet for a moment and dropped his gaze from my face.
“Are you going to leave?” I asked.
“After everything's finished? Yes.”
Why did that suddenly bother me? If they found whatever they were looking for, then he and Joseph would be gone, and I wouldn't have to deal with either of them anymore. I wasn't sure that I liked that. Not after all this. I'd always known there was something between John and I, and I'd never wanted to admit it until facing the fact that he would leave when he'd completed what he'd been sent here to do.
“I know it's a lot to take in,” he continued. “I have abilities that others don't have. I move faster. I'm stronger. I was born with these abilities, and that's why he sent me. The academy is all I know.”
“You grew up there?
“I've been there all my life.”
I frowned. “What a
bout your parents? Family?”
“I have none.” He sounded proud enough when he said it, but I felt him picking up on my own sadness, which seemed to make him reconsider his words.
“What's it like?” I asked, trying to imagine such an empty-feeling place. Honestly, it wasn't too hard. I didn't have any family, either. “The academy, I mean.”
“It's a military base,” he said. “We train, exercise, eat in groups, sleep in the barracks, wake up every day at dawn. Repeat.”
“Do you have school?”
“Of course. Except my studies are a little different than what you might learn at Milton. Alchemy, chemistry, biology and medical training, and a variety of languages. One of the first things we learn is the proper use, assembly, and disassembly of firearms. Then we have target practice and run simulations—”
“What?” This was starting to sound more like an academy from the future, now.
“Training games,” he said. “Both computer and life simulations where I hunt my targets. Sometimes I go in with a team, sometimes I'm on my own.”
I stared at him for a minute. “Do you get to go out?”
John frowned at me. “Go out?”
“You know, have fun. Time for yourself.”
He blinked. “Yeah, of course. We get leisure. I end up at target practice anyway, or I pass the time reading the medical textbooks I haven't fully finished yet. Sometimes it's language studies on my own.”
I smirked. “That's not fun.”
He laughed, then studied me with a soft gaze, like he was just taking all of me in. That warmth radiating from him made me blush. Why did I have to be this sensitive? “It is for me,” he said.
His explanation didn't make it any easier to imagine what his life must have been—without family, growing up in an academy and drilled by military officers in uniform, not knowing much at all about the outside world. That golden light danced in his eyes again. “And you hunt others like me?” I asked, my voice barely rising above a whisper.
“I hunt extraterrestrials. What the Company calls ET Product. I've never come across anyone… like you before.”
