by C. B. Haight
“I don’t have the answer,” Jarrett said, looking out at the snow covered ground.
“I can’t do this anymore,” Cade confessed to him. “I can’t keep seeing her go through this kind of pain, worrying which time it will kill her, and do nothing about it.”
Jarrett offered no reply. He still wasn’t sure where Cade was going with this. “She’s like a filter for everyone’s pain, and it seems to be getting worse. I need…” he hesitated and paced to the end of the porch and back. “I need your help.”
Surprised and confused, Jarrett couldn’t even reply.
“She has to get some control. She can’t keep going through this kind of extreme torment,” he paused. “I can’t keep watching her go through it.”
“What else can you do?” Jarrett finally said.
“When you’re training her, you have to teach her to block the emotions.”
“I kill demons, Cade. I don’t know magic, or empathy, or whatever it is she does.”
“But you do know pain,” Cade stated flatly. “I know about Rowena, and I understand now. I also know life in The Faction is not easy.” Before Jarrett could even reply, Cade continued, “I watched you when you were bleeding all over the place and wounded well past the point of consciousness. You climbed on the back of the biggest demon I’ve ever seen and shoved a grenade down his throat.”
“It was a fight, Cade. It was either that or die.”
“I know, and so is this—a fight, I mean. If Collett can’t learn to deal with her connections to people around her, it will be the same for her.”
His brother’s words struck Jarrett more than he would have expected. He felt the truth behind them, and surprisingly, he didn’t like the possibilities any more than Cade did.
“Think about it. How can she handle facing Niall if all he has to do is hurt one of us to hurt her? She said she was tired of our anger. That means she’s been absorbing all of our emotions this whole time, and yet she’s said nothing. It might even be part of the reason she hesitates in our combat sessions. She has to figure out a way to block it, or…” Cade trailed off, implying his fear.
“He’ll use it to kill her,” Jarrett finished.
“Cynda’s been trying to help her learn over the last few weeks, but she doesn’t have the same abilities. The more they work together, the more Collett’s power and reach grows, except she still can’t control them. When we first met her, she could only get vague impressions—good or bad, sad or mad. Now she feels everything.” He cursed. “Last night she told me how many broken ribs Cody had. Jarrett, she knew exactly how many and which ones!”
This time, Jarrett cursed. He watched as his brother pulled his hand through his hair, showing his frustration. He looked out at the landscape and thought about what Cade was asking of him. “It never really goes away, you know,” he started to explain. “The pain, I mean.”
Cade dropped his hand and listened.
“I suppose I do block it. I push it aside to survive, but it’s still there afterward.” Jarrett looked at him seriously. “The physical pain, that’s the easy part, but the rest… I’ll do what I can. I’ll teach her all I know, but you have to understand, the emotional pain will still be there. I can’t remove scars from life events like Rowena or Collett’s knowledge of how many ribs are broken on a kid terrified out of his mind. That’s much worse, and I can’t promise she won’t feel it anymore. I can only show how to use it as fuel.”
“We’ll have to do this one step at a time. Either way, we have to do something,” Cade declared.
“It will be hard, and those bruises you saw will look like scratches compared to this. You’ll have to be there too, to be the conduit.”
“Why me? She connected to you more closely.”
Jarrett scoffed, “She’s linked to me by some mysterious magical event, but she loves you. It’ll work.”
Cade nodded. “Tell me what we have to do, and I swear I’ll follow it through.”
His words were so full of conviction that, for the first time, Jarrett wondered if love wasn’t a farce after all. His brother would do anything to protect her, even if it meant pain and punishment for himself.
When was the last time they gave me a drink? Cody wondered. He knew they stopped feeding him three days ago or maybe four. His stomach kept reminding him with sharp stabbing pains, but the days were beginning to run together. For some reason, he couldn’t remember when the last time they gave him a drink was, and oddly enough, sitting here alone it seemed so important.
The darkness surrounding him was complete. He couldn’t see anything at all, and at first, it was a blessing when he heard the scurrying creatures that shared his cell. But after several days he ached to see light again, even if it meant seeing the rats that occasionally nipped at him. He licked his cracked lips and tasted blood.
His shoulder ached from when it had been dislocated and then set right, and his wrists burned where the shackles chafed and cut at them. His every breath wheezed in and out painfully as a result of his broken ribs, not to mention the pain from his broken fingers.
Even with all of that, and hurting almost everywhere else in ways he would have never imagined, none of it seemed nearly as important to him as the indescribable thirst that he felt. Running his tongue over his lips again, he tried hard to remember. His mouth felt like cotton, and his tongue was thick and heavy. He was so thirsty that he was beginning to believe that if they hurt him anymore he wouldn’t bleed because there were no fluids left in him.
In an effort to take his mind away from the thirst, Cody tried to think about the dream he’d had of Collett. She came to him and assured him she would come for him, but he knew better. He knew that Niall would have found her by now. He’d been here for weeks—or was it months? He didn’t even know. Here in the dark, there was no way to keep track of time. Really, it felt more like years.
He must be healing though, because today was the first day since he arrived that he could think past the crippling pain.
Suddenly, he heard shuffling outside his door, a scraping sound, then an audible click as the lock was disengaged and the door opened. The light that poured in from the hallway stung his eyes. He squinted and then cursed in reaction to the pain from his swollen eyes and broken nose pinching together. Cody heard footsteps, but because of his obscured vision, he couldn’t determine who it was.
“Well Cody, it seems I have use for you still.”
The voice was Niall’s. Cody felt his skin crawl at the sound of it, but he became hopeful at Niall’s proclamation. Maybe they would finally let him out.
“Of course, we’ll need to fix you up a bit so you’ll be presentable. We wouldn’t want your friends to be disappointed when they see you again.”
Cody heard heavier footsteps lumber into the room, and suddenly he was being lifted up by his hair. His feet came off the floor for a second as his arms were pulled over the hook that held his chains. The manacles on his wrists rattled and cut at raw skin and new scabs as he was pulled free, and his head felt as if his scalp would be torn off. He couldn’t help it, he cried out.
Desperation consumed him. “P-p-please, water,” he managed to croak out from his dry throat.
Niall chuckled, “Water is it?”
Cody tried pitifully to nod, but the grip on his hair prevented any forward movement.
“Give Cody some water,” Niall ordered.
The man holding him dragged Cody down the corridor into the big room where they conducted his previous interrogations and threw him to the floor. The impact of hitting the concrete jarred his knees painfully, and he fell to his stomach. Cody tried to roll over, but before he made it the whole way, a sharp, painful kick to his side completed the movement for him. Cody groaned and felt his mending ribs crack again.
He started to beg for a drink, and frigid water was poured on his face, practically drowning him without quenching his thirst. Frustration rushed through him. Cody desperately tried to lick the moisture from around his lips, but he received
little of it.
“What’s wrong?” Niall asked, “Did you not get enough?”
Cody could only lay there defeated. With sudden realization, he knew no matter what he said or did, Niall would find a way to get twisted enjoyment from it. He was tired of begging and decided he would give Niall nothing more—even if it meant his death—which would be preferable at this point.
He thought about his dream of Collett. Strangely, it fortified him. In the back of his mind, he hoped she really was still alive. If she was, he would give Niall nothing more to help him kill her—no matter what.
Reading his thoughts, Niall replied, “Cody, I’m not going to kill you. And you don’t have to tell me anything, not anymore. I am going to use you to rid myself of them. She is alive you know. I should thank you. By having you within my grasp, it looks like I’ll finally be able to draw her out, along with all your ridiculous Brotherhood comrades. It seems they actually do care about you, and because of it, they’ll die. Pitiful isn’t it?”
Cody closed his eyes in despair and guilt, wondering how anybody could care about him.
“Again!” Jarrett snapped above the chaos around them.
Collett’s features were pinched, and her hair was dampened with sweat. He could see the signs of the emotions from the surrounding melee and the effects it had on her displayed clearly on her face. She stood up anyway and picked up her sword from the snow. She nodded to him, and he inclined his head in return.
She attacked him, and he could see her improvement with every swing. Using the sword was becoming more natural to her with every session. The last two weeks had been full of similar exercises. Jarrett figured the best way to teach her to block emotions surrounding her while building her battle skills would be to keep her engaged in combat with him while everyone else battled around her. This way, they all benefited from the training at the same time. It was working too.
Right away, Jarrett laid clear ground rules to help Collett. First and foremost, the battles were against Cade, and Cade alone. Everyone else, including Delphene, fought against him. Despite what Cade believed, Jarrett knew she was connected to him as much as himself and others. He explained to everyone how Collett had come for Cade that night at Ashley’s home, but he hadn’t been able to hear or see her for some reason.
Jarrett recognized the relief in Cade’s eyes when he’d divulged that information to them. He wasn’t sure why Collett hadn’t told him herself, but reasoned there simply hadn’t been time. Jarrett realized that Cade had worried she couldn’t have a connection with him the way she did with others.
Regardless, Jarrett chose Cade as the victim for assault because his body would heal from day to day, and he was, in fact, the closest to a demon they could get in strength and skill. It was merely a bonus that Collett loved him as she did. It would make it harder for her to push past his distress or pain.
Jarrett knew from personal experience that the best way to block something was to be forced into it. Cade was outnumbered, and the group had an advantage over him. They were instructed to hurt him, whereas he was simply trying to counter them and make them work as a team.
The exercise was more than a simple sparring match. Jarrett wanted to ensure Collett felt the pain, and Cade had to restrain himself from taking them all down. He could easily defeat each group member. Except maybe Delphene. Jarrett noticed the she-wolf had skills.
Whenever he felt Collett waver because of Cade or any of the others, Jarrett would increase the pace. The first few days were the most difficult. Every time Cade took a hit, she felt it too, and then the thump of Jarrett’s blade would come in on the heels of that pain. He forced her to focus on only him. He made her fight for every inch of ground, and then he pushed her back to do it again.
Both Cade and Collett went to bed every night hurt and aching, only to wake the next morning and do it again. It was wearing on them, and Jarrett knew it. He hated what he had to do each day and loathed getting up as much as they did. But it was working.
Today, Jarrett could clearly see a difference in Collett. He saw proof of that when Cade roared out in pain as Delphene raked him with her claws. Collett managed to ignore it and charge forward viciously, surprising even Jarrett. Even so, he still managed to displace her and land a hit against her ribs. He pulled back the blow this time, knowing she already carried more than a few bruises from today.
There was another thing he’d noticed over the last week. Collett struggled with her current sword as if it was wrong for her. He’d started her with a lighter Japanese sword he owned, but later had her trade Cynda for the short sword she was using now. Still, it wasn’t right. Rederrick’s and Cade’s swords were too long for her, and Nate used a long dagger. They’d gone into the small town once in an effort to find one that would fit her style, but they’d come up empty.
Collett was proficient enough in swordplay, even more so than the others despite her empathetic handicap. Jarrett suspected that, with the right sword and a little more confidence, she could be far better, perhaps even rival him.
She picked herself up again, and he could see the loathing in her eyes as she probed her ribs. He heard Cade roar again as Nate struck a hit with his dagger against his arm. Jarrett could even smell the coppery tang of blood, but for the first time, Collett didn’t even blink an eye. Her anger and frustration with him far surpassed her concern for Cade. He could see fire in her eyes as she looked at him and mimicked his words. “Again,” she snarled through her teeth.
Jarrett cocked his head and lifted his sword in invitation. She rushed him, using her weapon to cut at him with quick, efficient strikes and parries. Using her smaller frame, she ducked beneath him before Jarrett even realized what she was doing.
Dancing behind him as gracefully as a prima ballerina and crying out with determination, her sword landed at his neck before he even managed to twist his body to block her strike. Pride flared in Jarrett as she skillfully accomplished this feat.
Breathing hard, Collett stared down the length of her blade with wide eyes. “I did it,” she mumbled, unaware of the fact that the chaos around them had ceased.
She’d landed blows against him from time to time in the last week, but this was the first time she achieved a killing strike against the battle hardened warrior. “You did it,” Jarrett congratulated, moving the padded weapon away from his neck. Turning to face her, he tilted his head toward the others.
She turned as well and saw Cade standing nearby with the same pride Jarrett felt showing brightly on his face. “I did it,” she said to him.
“Yes, you did,” he replied, opening his arms.
Squealing with excitement, she dropped her sword and jumped at him. “I really did it!” Cade lifted her off the ground and spun her while everyone else congratulated her.
Rederrick walked to Jarrett, pat his shoulder companionably, and said, “Well done.”
“It’s her victory,” Jarrett insisted, watching the group.
“A victory she wouldn’t have without you,” he answered back. “The thing about a team is: a win for one is a win for us all. Enjoy it. The moment here will be brief in the big scheme of things.”
“She still needs work. It was only once,” Jarrett tried to say, uncomfortable with the praise.
Rederrick only smiled. “I imagine once against you is equal to ten demons. Life is really about small victories and a few joyful moments. The rest of it is often trials. It’s the small things that help us overcome the big ones, so live in the moment, boy, and remember it. Those trials will come soon enough as you well know.”
Jarrett lifted his brow. “Boy?” he questioned indignantly. He was more than two centuries older than this father figure.
Rederrick laughed out loud and walked to Collett, offering her congratulations and a tight hug.
Delphene met Jarrett’s gaze with a sly smile, and unable to help it any longer, he smiled back. Small victories, he thought.
Chapter 28
A few days later, Cade lay
in bed next to Collett, holding her as she excitedly recounted her newest triumph to him. Ever since that first strike against Jarrett, she’d been a ball of excitement and energy. The long training sessions were paying off, and not only for her. Everyone in their little group was displaying improvement.
Following Jarrett’s instruction for a little over two weeks in an effort to help her learn to block empathetic powers had cost them both. Every night after training, the pain and exhaustion claimed them practically before their heads even hit the pillows, but tonight was a different story entirely. Her improvements were evident in more ways than one.
The newlyweds had retired early and spent that time enjoying a rare moment of time alone together. While she finished recounting her newest success, he kissed her bare neck and shoulder. “I’m proud of you,” he murmured against her, tickling her skin with his warm breath.
She rolled, putting herself above him. Smiling down, she whispered, “I know it’s been painful for you to do this. I’m sorry for that.”
“It’s nothing compared to what I’d go through to see you safe,” he declared, pulling her to him and pressing his lips to hers. When the kiss ended, he pulled away she relaxed onto his chest with her hair fanning over his skin. He began combing through the soft, shiny locks with his fingers.
Laying against him and basking in the tranquil sensation of him playing with her hair, she closed her eyes and reflected on all that had happened in the last two and a half months. Her life had changed so much, though, all of it was for the better. Collett reflected on the reasons it changed, and that thought process led her to one very important detail she couldn’t forget.
“I told him we would come for him,” she whispered to Cade, bringing up Cody once again.
“I know,” he sympathized softly.
“Do you think we’ll be able to? Find him I mean,” she asked, lazily tracing circles on his chest.
“We found Jarrett.”
“This is different. Somehow I know it. I felt him every day for weeks without even realizing it, but since the other night, nothing. Do you think he’s…” She couldn’t say the word.
