by S. E. Weir
Thrown off her stride and her mood thoroughly interrupted, Phina didn’t know how to respond. Her brain was quick, though, so she very intelligently blinked, then nodded and moved back. Her step was awkward for someone who usually moved gracefully. “Uh, hi. Sorry about that.”
Oh, yes. Very intelligent. She inwardly rolled her eyes at herself. Todd gave her a quick smile in return as he dropped his arms. “Phina, right? You gave me quite a surprise with your acrobatics if I recall correctly.”
“Yeah, that was me.” Phina grinned and spoke mischievously. “I bet I would give you a better run for your money now, though. I hadn’t been trained in fighting then.”
Todd’s eyes sparked with interest. “Really? You liked being thrown to the floor that much, huh?”
She gave him a light smack on the arm as she would with Maxim, then turned to walk with him at his questioning gesture. “Of course not! I decided to learn so I would never be thrown on the floor like that again.”
He nodded solemnly, though his eyes showed amusement. “A noble and worthy goal. So, how are you doing with that?”
“I think if I try hard, I might be able to throw Maxim sometime next year.”
Todd chuckled and shook his head, then began to ask her specifics regarding her training. Phina relaxed as they talked and continued to walk around the open area.
See, Aunt Faith? Conversation.
Chapter Five
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Training Room
“I’m sorry about last night.”
Maxim smiled with no trace of reproach on his rugged face. Phina sighed in relief, the tension inside her easing. Having friends aside from Alina was still new enough that she didn’t always know how they would respond.
“Don’t worry, Phina, we’re good. Are you ready to get moving?”
She walked over to the large mat and began to stretch. They had enlarged the mat a couple of months ago when they added the other gymnastics equipment. A bigger mat had the added benefit of a larger area to fight on, something Maxim took full advantage of.
“Ready?”
Nodding, Phina moved over to meet him. She felt good, alert and focused. Maybe it was all the water she had drunk yesterday? Or the nap. She shrugged and moved her arms and shoulders to get them loose. Finally, she settled into a ready stance, waiting for Maxim to move.
With barely a flick of his eyes, he moved forward to punch her in the face. Phina quickly stepped to the side, grabbed the outside of his wrist, and pulled, moving with his motion while twisting to push a spot on his back with her other hand. As she continued the motion, she twisted his arm behind him, intending to put him on the floor face-down with his arm up behind his back.
However, as she had experienced many times, Maxim not only moved quickly, he was also strong. Bracing himself so he wouldn’t go down, he pivoted his body and twisted his wrist, breaking her hold. Now that his arm was free, he used his momentum to swing his arm behind her, turning to continue forcing her body to the mat.
Instead, she pulled away from him to fling herself to the floor, rolled on her side, and jumped up to face him again.
Maxim had moved close enough to kick her knee. She brought up her other leg to block, then kicked at his belly. He caught her leg, then took a step back to drag her off-balance.
This was where her flexibility and gymnastics came in handy. Rather than cooperating, she grabbed his arm, relaxed, and let him drag her a step. As he turned to throw her to the floor, she launched her back leg up, bracing herself with her hand on his arm to kick him under the chin, then pushed off his chest while pulling her other leg out of his hand to do a back handspring and push up to face him again.
Her look of astonishment mirrored Maxim’s surprise, then he smiled.
“Not bad, Phina.”
“I didn’t really expect it to work. It didn’t the last three times I tried something like it.”
“Looks like you are a little bit quicker today.” He flexed his hands. “Perhaps stronger, too. You pulled out of that a lot easier than the last time. All the training has helped.”
She nodded, sweeping away her unease. That must be it.
They fought for their full span of time, taking a minute’s break every so often to catch their breath. Instead of growing more and more tired as she normally did, her energy level remained about the same. Huh. Perhaps there was something to the idea of taking care of herself.
Not that she was going to tell her aunt she thought so.
In their last five minutes, they did more grappling moves, with Maxim trying to catch her and lock her in place and Phina trying to get out of it. She had found that she could get away or block him a lot easier before he finished the lock. Once he had the move in place, her odds went down to one in four at best.
Maxim reached from behind her and put one arm around her waist and the other around her neck. The one around her waist could trap her arms if she wasn’t quick enough to pull them out. Luckily, this time she was able to free her arms. The next challenge was to act before he brought her tight to him and pulled up. Once that happened, she could do very little besides beat her heels against him and ineffectually grab at his face.
That didn’t prove to be a problem today. As soon as his arms came around her, she grabbed the arm around her neck with one hand and the back of his neck with the other. Then she pulled while flinging herself forward and down to the mat in a forward roll. She landed on top of her friend, the force of the impact of her and the floor winding him for a second. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to loosen the arm around her neck very much.
However, she flung her arm back with her hand in a fist to where she knew his face would be, turned her head, and pushed up on his arm with her other hand. It proved just barely enough to slip out. She held onto his arm as she rolled to the side and up onto her knee, twisting his arm in the process. She had just stood up and begun to pull on his arm while she stepped on his neck when she caught the look on his face.
He could have moved with her or swiped her foot with his hand as she stood, but he didn’t. He could have grabbed her hair and pulled her back or grabbed her arm with his other hand to pull her back, but he hadn’t. And now she saw why.
Maxim was laughing.
She pulled her foot off his throat and noticed he had let all tension out of his arm. If she wanted, she could have moved it around like a floppy doll until he tensed the muscles again.
Not that she would treat him like a floppy doll.
Even if he was laughing at her.
Jerk.
She dropped his arm and took two steps back, putting her hands on her hips and narrowing her eyes at him. “What are you on about?”
“You!” He chuckled a few more times, then pushed to stand and face her, his eyes amused and…proud?
“You’ve been struggling with some of these moves for the past few weeks, but today you did them all perfectly and very quickly with no hesitation. This is the level I’ve been hoping to get you to since the beginning.”
Oh. Not a jerk. Still.
“What were you laughing about, then?”
“Because you don’t even seem to notice, and that’s just so you!” He chuckled again, his eyes full of amusement.
Huh. Now that she thought about it, she realized he was right. It had felt really good to just move, and she noticed the urge even now to keep going. She was slightly winded but still not tired.
Maxim walked over and patted her back with a smile. “Come on, wonder woman. Why don’t you cool down with some tumbling passes on the mat?”
She smiled and moved forward. That was the best idea she had heard yet.
Her body still wanted to move.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Phinalina Residence
Phina closed her eyes as she flew around the room, the harmonic tones filling her mind. What she currently occupied herself with had turned into part dancing, part martial arts, and part situational awareness. Keeping a perfect picture of the room and the ob
jects in it in her mind, she moved around dancing, kicking, twirling, and punching.
She couldn’t sleep, and the hour was late. Alina was asleep in her room, so Phina tried to keep the noise down. Her music came only through her implant—the tune she had first heard in her Music Across the Universe class months ago that had been haunting her since. She couldn’t go more than a few days without playing it now. There must be more to it, if she could only figure it out.
It had been several days since that training session with Maxim where everything had gone smoothly. The last few sessions had continued in the same vein, and each day her desire to move and keep moving had grown. Each night she had to exhaust herself to sleep, and it took more effort every time. The first night, she had started by dancing, then moved into fighting. The second night, she had combined the two and used the whole room, even the furniture. Last night, Phina spent half the time with her eyes closed.
Now she moved entirely with her eyes closed. She was aware of everything: the way her body moved, the extension of her limbs, and whether she would be touching furniture, floor, or air. She felt like she would know if someone entered the room. She felt aware of Alina sleeping in the next room. Alina, who was more than half-asleep and just entering a dream where she felt happy and excited.
Half her mind on her body and the rest on the feeling of awareness, she stretched out even more and felt mind after mind pop up around her. Not their thoughts, just an awareness and a sense of what the person was occupying themselves with.
At the same time as she became aware of all the minds, the music swept around her with throbbing bass tones that vibrated through her body, resonating middle notes that plucked her emotions and sent them reeling, and higher harmonic notes that swept through her and made her senses tingle. When they reached a crescendo, she felt like a living musical lightning rod.
That was when it happened.
A connection in her brain clicked, and she saw pictures in her mind.
Pictures of dark-blue alien people and places she had never seen before.
People that were starving, living in an unforgiving land.
Pictures of the same aliens holding out their open hands, looking desperate.
Holy crumbs!
These images were coming from the music!
The tones weren’t just music but a language of some kind. As the pictures continued to pour through her head, she remembered what her music teacher had told them months ago.
“The music comes from a planet a short hop inside from the edges of the Empire, but as far as we can tell, no one has ever been able to communicate with them. All anyone who goes to their planet hears are variations on this music from the inhabitants. No one has figured out what it means, if it means anything.”
The music inundated her, and she wondered how many years ago it had been recorded. How long had these people been begging for help, for some food, relief of some kind? How many people had died because no one had a clue what they needed? Were any still alive, or had they all died due to a sad lack of understanding?
She tasted salty wetness and realized tears were streaming down her face.
Only now did she become aware that she had stopped moving, her body bowing from the weight of what she had just learned.
As she came back to herself, the only thought in her head was to run. She had to move. She couldn’t stay here.
Phina ran out of her room, then out the door of their suite. She ran down the hall and through the next corridor. She ran around the few people who were out this late at night, then more as she entered the higher traffic areas.
Part of her wanted to scream at them, “How could we not know? How did no one see?”
The rest of her just felt guilty. How did I not know? She’d had this music for months. Why had it taken her this long to understand?
>>Phina?<<
She could hear ADAM’s words through her implant, but she couldn’t bring herself to form an answer, even in her mind. She didn’t think she could talk to him yet. She wasn’t sure she could talk to anyone at the moment; the weight on her chest too great.
>>Phina, what’s wrong?<<
She flew past groups of people now that she had moved into the outer rim of the station toward the docks. She wove through the crowd, the weight on her chest growing. By the time she ran through the Open Court, her lungs were burning.
Sensing a lack of people in the area ahead of her, she burst into Mark Billingsly Memorial Park, ran down the path with flowers and benches on either side, and then collapsed on the grassy area in the middle before turning onto her back.
Phina’s lungs gasped for the air she so desperately needed. Relief filled her as she breathed in, causing her to realize that the weight on her chest hadn’t just been from guilt and grief but also from lack of oxygen. No wonder she felt so disoriented.
Finally beginning to breathe normally, she realized the music had been turned off.
“ADAM, what just happened to me? That was not normal!”
“Well, look who we have here.”
“What are you doing out so late at night?”
Chapter Six
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Open Court, Mark Billingsly Memorial Park
Phina stiffened and stopped inhaling for a moment before pulling herself up to her elbows. Her eyes popped open, and she breathed as lightly as possible.
Standing before her were two blurry male shapes. Phina blinked a few more times until they came into focus. One man stood looking down at her with mild interest, dressed in a trendy shirt with slacks. The other crouched next to her with a look of concern, wearing a blazer over a t-shirt and designer jeans. She glanced at the two of them, trying to determine who they were and why they were in front of her.
What caught her attention was the intensity in their eyes. The last person to give her that feeling had been Bethany Anne. However much she searched her brain, she had no knowledge of who these men might be.
“It’s all right. We aren’t going to hurt you.”
Phina tensed to move when the male next to her reached toward her. He stopped and held his hands up, watching her carefully. She touched their minds without thinking about it. The dark-haired man crouched next to her gave off curiosity and interest, but also the desire to help. The fair-haired man standing a step behind him was also curious but in the sense of looking for relief from boredom.
Neither had any intention of harming her, though, which filled her with relief. She sagged back onto the grass and pinged ADAM through her implant.
“ADAM, just checking, but are these guys okay?”
>>Yes. They won’t hurt you, and they might be willing to help. To answer your earlier question, I’m not sure what happened, but I’m looking into it.<<
“Thank you, ADAM.”
>>You’re welcome, Phina.<<
For the first time since she had met him, ADAM didn’t sound confident but hesitant and concerned. Realizing this caused her to feel shaken, even more than her uncertainty as to what had just happened and who these men were did.
“Talking to ADAM?”
She peeked at the dark-haired man who had spoken. “You know ADAM?”
He smiled as if the thought amused him. “Of course.”
Having had enough time to catch her breath and feeling off-center lying on her back while talking to guys she didn’t know, she quickly stood. Surprisingly, the man had already stood up and took a step back to give her space.
“Not to be rude, but who are you?”
“Samuel and Richard Linestone, at your service.”
Phina smiled at their nods, which looked almost like bows. If they had been dressed in different clothing, she could see them in a fancy court from centuries ago, given the stiff and formal way they stood and moved.
“Hello. Phina Waters. I’m surprised to see brothers with such different looks and coloring.”
“Ah. We are not brothers by blood, but in every other way.”
Samuel snickered at
Richard. “I think you mean brothers biologically. I’m pretty sure blood counts.”
Richard grinned in appreciation. “Truer words.”
“Oh! Are you both vampires?”
They turned to her with looks of surprise and wariness.
“What made you think that?” Samuel’s expression had sharpened from mild interest, as if she had just become the most interesting thing in front of him.
Phina frowned at his words and the way he looked at her now and shifted her weight in case she needed to move quickly. “Well, it’s the logical conclusion with everything I know about you so far.”
Richard scratched the back of his head. “I really don’t think so. We haven’t told you all that much about us.”
She looked at them with a raised eyebrow. “You look young, but your eyes are old and have an intensity to them that normal humans do not. You both move in a manner that brings to mind old courts, like with kings and queens, and talk that way too. Plus, you find it amusing to talk about blood and sharing blood as if you’re making a joke I wouldn’t understand. All of those things point to an old being that has lived in a very different time period and has a relationship with blood beyond that it flows through their veins to live. ‘Vampire’ is the only word I’ve heard to describe such a being. Since there also have been rumors about vampires being here in the Empire, it is the only conclusion I could come to, don’t you think?”
They exchanged glances she couldn’t decipher. She didn’t reach out with her mind either since her head had begun to ache. They turned to her with stoic but questioning expressions on their faces. Richard spoke first.
“What would you do if we said you’re wrong about us?”
“Shrug and say nothing but think you were liars.”
Samuel grinned appreciatively. “And if we were to say you are right?”
