“So,” I turned to Jodi and Steven who were side by side now, looking every bit the opposite of each other; Jodi was shy of five foot four, Steven was shy of six foot, she was fair and blonde and he was tan and dark. Yet, somehow, they went together. “Meet you guys at six?” I asked.
“Yep,” Steven said with a smile. He leaned over and kissed my cheek and took Jodi’s hand and pulled her with him, leading the way out of the classroom. I went straight out to the student parking lot.
It was a beautiful June day, waves of heat shimmered above the asphalt and the sky was a perfect clear blue. Now, as a rule, I’m a winter girl; I like my crisp breezes and gray and white skies. But after last autumn, with the artic winds and freezing rain called to life from the evil Ian unleashed in our world, I have a better appreciation of sunny skies and warm air. There is one benefit that hot weather affords that I truly love; I got to wear flip-flops. They are the next best thing to being barefoot. As a girl, I love shoes – all fifty pair that are in my closet now – but as an earth elemental I hate them. They bind my feet and cut me off from my main source of power and energy.
As I came around another aisle of cars, I saw Jensen’s sporty little coupe parked next to mine. I stopped and stared at it for a moment, not realizing Jensen was standing by my car. He turned at the sound of my approach. I was struck again by his dramatic features – the sharp cheek bones, the full mouth, even his eye brows looked manicured. But it would always be his eyes, the storm over an ocean blue, that would get me. I recovered quickly before he caught me staring and continued towards my car. I am a little embarrassed to say I checked my reflection in the car windows I passed as I approached. It had been so hot I had gone with basic jeans, flip flops and a tank top and tied my long auburn hair up in a high ponytail. I didn’t look bad, but next to Jensen it was hard to tell. At least I had let Steven do my make up at lunch, knowing we were going out tonight and I would forget to do it later, so I felt a little more confident that my green eyes were sparkling and my lips glossy thanks to his expert hands.
“Hey,” he said, trying for casual. I still liked him a lot but I still had a hard time trusting him. Our potential relationship had been strained ever since I found out he had originally been helping his brother with his black magic spells. Intellectually, I knew Jensen tried to stop Ian but emotionally it was hard to get past the betrayal I had felt.
“Hey,” I replied, reaching past him to unlock my door and throw in my books, keeping my bag on my shoulder.
“Going to the store to see Deb?” he asked.
“Yep,” I nudged his hip to get him to move away from my door so I could open it fully.
“Want a ride?”
“I’ve already got one,” I said, jingling my keys at him.
“I thought it was hard to drive after a session with her.”
“Sometimes it is,” I agreed.
“Well I could drive you so you don’t have to drive after.” He was trying so hard, but half of me always felt like running away from him. When I hesitated he said, “You know, you’re not giving us a fair chance. Haven’t we had some good dates?” He had me there.
We had been on a handful of dates in the last few months after I got over my initial anger. It was nice going out with a guy who I could be myself around. Jodi and Steven didn’t have empathetic or psychic abilities like I did so their magic didn’t cramp their social life like mine did. But with Jensen, he knew about my powers and although they scared him, I didn’t have to totally hide them from him. Our dates were surprisingly easy; we could talk for hours, we hardly ever argued about what movie to go see or where to eat. Twice over the last couple of months, when his house was empty, we’d slept together. It wasn’t either of our first times but, I had to admit, it had been amazing. I didn’t have to hold back when I was with Jensen, trying to control my magic while my emotional shields were down. I could just enjoy being with a boy who liked me and wanted to be with me. Still, I couldn’t help but hate myself just a little bit; Jensen wanted a girlfriend but I did not want a boyfriend. After each night I felt as though I had taken advantage of him. Jensen cleared his throat, bringing me out of my thoughts and back to the hot parking lot.
“Yeah, we have had some good dates,” I agreed with a sigh, glancing at his car. It had A/C too, a luxury my beautiful black Camaro didn’t have. It was hot today. I sighed again and motioned to the car, “Yeah, alright.”
“Not exactly a rousing agreement, but I’ll take it,” he joked, hitting the button on his key chain to unlock the doors.
Jensen opened my door for me and took my bag from my shoulder before I could fall into my seat. He shut the door behind me; cutting off the breeze from outside and making the car feel like an industrial sized oven. I heard the trunk close after Jensen tossed our things inside and he was next to me in another moment. As soon as he turned the engine on I punched the window control button, rolling my window down and not waiting for the air conditioner to catch up. I fanned myself and took deep lungfuls of air.
“Sorry, forgot the sun shade,” Jensen said, messing with the A/C controls and vents.
“No worries, I just have a hard time with warm air,” I said, pulling my head back into the car, not wanting to look like a dog on a summer drive. He put the car in reverse and eased out of the parking space and into the long line of cars angling for the exit. Although Jensen drove a sporty little car he never felt the need to break the speed limit just to get somewhere a few minutes faster. I liked that about him. “Now, you’re sure you don’t mind waiting outside while I’m in with Deb?”
“You know I don’t.” He had us out of the jammed parking lot much faster than I ever managed to. I had a feeling part of the reason why Jensen wanted to take me to The Oak, Ash and Thorn was so that he could pursue the book section.
In the extreme stress caused by Ian, Jensen had manifested some prophetic abilities that showed him when people he cared for were in danger. It came to him in visions similar to my power of prophetic dreams, but not nearly as strong. He had tried to keep me away from his brother because of these visions, but it hadn’t worked. I knew this power scared him, but it wasn’t just going to go away on his own so he had been trying to read anything he could get his hands on that would explain the ability to him so he could control it. Although part of me wondered if he was just trying to figure out how to shut it down.
His most valuable ability was his ability to shield his mind from unwanted or dangerous entities. He was so good at shielding that he could keep my own empathetic abilities away from him. In the first few weeks that we had known each other I could never feel his emotions. When I felt for him all I would get was a void, a sense of nothingness. Of course, he also thought I was some kind of psychic vampire that fed off of people’s emotions and was only trying to protect himself. He knew better now, not that he was any more comfortable with it.
I had lost myself in my thoughts and hadn’t noticed we’d made it all the way across town and were parked in front of the store until I heard Jensen shut his door and walk around to get mine. Jensen’s mother had taken a lot of care to make sure her sons were gentlemen, whether it was for their girlfriends or helping a little old lady out to her car with groceries. It had surprised me at first when he always seemed to get to a door faster than me but I didn’t let a little chivalry bug my sense of women’s lib. He could open the doors for me if he wanted to.
I was shaking my head to clear my mind when he pulled my door open and held out his hand for mine. “You okay?” Jensen asked, leaning over to see why I had hesitated in taking his hand.
“Oh yeah, sorry, spaced out I guess,” I took his hand and let him lead me out of the car and to the front door, which of course he pulled open for me. Because it was Friday afternoon and schools were out, there were already more young customers inside than there were all week long. I tried to not let their presence bother me, knowing the store needed customers to stay open, but knew that they didn’t really belong here. There were
the usual girls grouped together around the aromatic oils and love charms that had as much power to them as your average bottle of Chanel No. 5. I walked past them and made my way to the back. Jensen stepped away into the small, cluttered reading area.
I tapped on the door to the private room they kept in back for card and psychic readings and waited patiently until Deb unlocked the door and opened it wide enough for me to step in. I took one last glance at Jensen, appreciating the play of muscles the thin t-shirt he was wearing afforded me to see. Jensen wasn’t into any sports, thank goodness, but he did still care about what he looked like, thank goodness again. His shoulders were firm and round, pulling away from his full chest without being overly muscled.
“A-hem?” Deb cleared her throat loudly just next to my ear and I jumped on the spot, gasping a little less than would have been embarrassing. “Enjoying the view?” she asked with a good-humored tease in her voice.
“As a matter of fact I was,” I said and stuck my tongue out at her before slipping in behind her through the door and away from the eyes of the other teenage girls that had been just within ear-shot, who were now giggling. I sat down in the plush armchair that was off in a corner and sunk down into its cushions, my legs stretched out in front of me with my ankles crossed.
Deb was still chuckling to herself as she shut and locked the door and sat in an identical chair just a few feet away from me. Deb reached for a cup of tea she had prepared for herself before I got there, stirring it quietly, letting it cool. She didn’t offer me a cup. After seven months of me declining, she just didn’t bother anymore. I used to say yes to a cup, but I got tired of being desperate to run to the bathroom before we were finished.
“All right, my dear, now if I remember correctly, we left off last week discussing how to send your power out to search for people, entities, whatever it is you need to look for,” Deb said over the top of her steaming mug.
“Yes,” I said with a sigh, slumping a little farther down into my chair.
“What’s wrong?”
“I know how to do that, Deb.” I realized my voice sounded a little petulant, even to me, so I sat up a little straighter and tried to tone down my impatience.
“You don’t know how to do it well,” she started and caught the look on my face, which I’m sure must have resembled the look you make when you taste something too sour. “Oh you can send out your power easily enough and even identify something when you find it, but tell me, Shayna, can whatever it is you’ve looked for sense you once your power has touched it?” She looked at me, calm as a Hindu cow, already knowing the answer to her own question. I sighed and nodded in answer. “Well then, how useful can it be in a defensive situation?”
“Okay, I see your point,” I conceded. I sat up, pulling my feet under me so I couldn’t slouch again and turned my full attention on her. Finally, at least, we were going to learn something I didn’t already think I knew.
“Good. Now the problem you have with this particular talent is how you perceive your power.” She set her cup back down on the table, rested her hands on the arms of the chair and shook her long dark hair back away from her face, visibly relaxing into her environment. In that moment she looked like a wise elfin mage, her skin fair and glowing features ageless and sharp. Even the delicate tattoos peeking past her clothing spoke to something magical about her. When she opened her brown eyes they glowed like warm honey. “You see it as opening a channel and because of that it really is a channel, like a telephone line. What you need to do is send out power without making it a channel. Think of it as using a homing device or radar, you can see them, find them, but they can’t trace it back to you.”
“Okay…” I said, uncertainty clear in my voice. I really didn’t know how radar and homing devices worked, so how exactly I was going to use that visual I had no idea. Deb seemed to sense my unease because just then she smiled, let out a deep breath, and closed her eyes. I watched her for a few moments as I felt the air in the room grow thicker with each passing second. I could taste Deb’s power on my tongue like spicy cloves in winter; it flicked through the room and danced across my skin like something alive and electric. Faster than I thought was possible the air suddenly thinned and the hairs on my arm settled back into place. Deb came back to herself with a deep breath.
“Now, remember how that felt…” she trailed off, not finishing the comment, closing her eyes again, exhaling audibly. Nothing in the air changed to give any hint that she was doing anything; I felt my brow furrow as I studied her face, trying to feel anything. There was a tiny chill on the back of my neck, but just for a moment and as soon as I felt it, it was gone. Deb came back to herself, her eyes fluttering open again and looked at me, expectantly.
“What?” I asked.
“Did you feel anything that time?” She asked, reaching for her tea again to take a sip.
“Um, not like the first time. The first time I could even taste your signature, but that second time it was just a little tingling on the back of my neck. As soon as I recognized it, it was gone.” I said all this, trying to think of anything else I noticed the second time, but nothing came to me.
“Wonderful,” Deb was pleased and that always made me happy with myself. A teacher’s pet to the very end, that was me. “Now, the fact that you could even pick up that little bit that second time tells me how powerful you really are; you shouldn’t have picked up anything from me. Of course, you were probably trying to feel something and that could explain why you did.” I nodded. That made sense to me; if I hadn’t know she was trying to do something I wouldn’t have given that tiny tingle a second thought. “Now, I want you to try.”
An hour later and I wasn’t much better at it than I had been when we started. I came back to myself after my fifth try totally exhausted. I slumped to the side, catching myself on the arm of my chair and tried to catch my breath. “You’re getting much better, honey,” Deb said, trying to reassure me. I caught a glance of my reflection in a mirror on the counter and startled myself. My fair skin looked sallow and there were dark circles under my eyes. Even the green of my eyes looked murky.
“Oh please, I can still practically hear your thoughts when I search for you. It’s still a channel,” I complained, my voice a little breathy with exhaustion. I was going to make a pig of myself at dinner, I just knew it.
“Well, this is your first day trying this in a new way, so really it’s an entirely new skill. Don’t be so hard on yourself.” She leaned over and patted my knee. It was easy enough for her to say that, but I was always hard on myself. I had to be good at everything I tried, otherwise I was totally embarrassed. I know, not very enlightened of me, but I’m still a teenage girl after all. “You really are getting better, though. No, really,” she insisted when she saw the look on my face. “The first two times I could taste flowers and dirt in my mouth and now I can’t, so that’s a real improvement.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I sighed again and pushed myself back upright and settled back into the chair.
“When you’re ready, we’ll try again.”
I groaned and let my shoulders slump again. I didn’t want to take too much time though because the longer I waited to call up the power the harder it became. Just like when you’re tired; as long as you keep moving you can ignore it, but once you let yourself sit down, it’s all over with.
I pulled myself upright and settled my shoulders back against the chair, tilted my head up and closed my eyes. I relaxed my body into the cushions and opened my mind’s eye to see my aura. It was spiking and jumping away from my body and erratic colors were racing through it with my exhaustion. I concentrated very carefully on the palm of my right hand only and watched the light of my aura swirl in the center of it, gathering upon itself until it was brighter than the rest of my body.
Carefully, I began to peel away the layers of my personal signature from it, folding them back into the rest of my aura until all that was left in my hand was the faintest whisper of energy, like spun gold
waiting to be threaded out. I extended it slowly away from my hand, forming a thin line of glowing energy reaching out away from me, searching for something for it to recognize as important. I felt the automatic draw of Deb’s aura just feet away from me like a magnetic pull of the tendril of energy. I let it answer that call and sent it forward, careful not give it too much of a push, afraid my signature would reattach itself to the thread.
I felt it slide against Deb’s shields, dancing around it, looking for the tiniest of cracks to get through. There, just behind her right ear, it found an opening and slid in, disappearing from my view into the waves of her brunette hair. Cloves filled my mouth suddenly and I pulled gently on the thread, bringing it back to me, careful not to let it snap back at me.
“Well now! That was wonderful!” I heard Deb praise me wholeheartedly before I opened my eyes to the light of the room. I took a deep and shuddering breath, holding it in until it nearly burned my lungs when I finally exhaled. I laughed before I knew it was coming. It was one of those shaky, brushes with death kind of laughs that comes instead of tears. Deb reached over and patted my knee again; a proud, motherly smile lit her face. “Now, have some water, it’ll help with the nerves.” She handed me a bottle of water that she had ready next to her teacup. I took a few small sips, concentrating on the feeling of the cool water coursing through my body and the sound of my breath in my head.
“Better,” I said with a smile, my voice still a little breathy. Deb nodded, still waiting for me to recover. “Why do I feel so… so… shaken?” I asked, paying more attention to screwing the cap back on the water bottle than should have been necessary.
Elemental Series Omnibus Edition Books 1-4 Page 28
