A Man of Honor (A Young Adult Paranormal Romance) (The Honor Trilogy)

by Grider, J. P.

  “Mr. Sutherland, please…come in. I’ll be with you momentarily,” he says, before turning back to his class and reminding them to read their assigned chapter for homework.

  After the class disperses, Mr. Moore pushes a few papers aside and sits on the corner of his desk. With a smug smile, he folds his arms in front of his chest and crosses his long legs at the ankles. “So, Mr. Sutherland, what can I do for you?”

  “I’m having trouble with the lab assignment on empirical formulas,” I lie, trying to come up with something, anything, to stay in his room. “The one with the iron and…”

  “Sulfur, yes. But I’m surprised, Storm,” Mr. Moore says with a weary eyebrow. “You’re a straight-A student. I don’t see you having trouble with any assignments.” Mr. Moore shoots me a silent stare.

  “Can you humor me, Mr. Moore and explain it again?”

  “Hi.”

  Moore and I turn to see my sweet princess smiling in the doorway.

  “Miss Stevens, I’ve been waiting for you. Come in.”

  While Honor places her backpack on one of the front desks and removes her binder, I watch the way Moore takes her in. There’s a huge void in my chest where I should be feeling something. My usual empathic abilities are missing. Now I am sure of that.

  In Moore’s eyes, I see some type of contradiction, which had something not been amiss with my own empathy capabilities, I’d be able to pick up. But my gut tells me he is out for Honor. And I don’t know why.

  “Storm, can we do this later, I have a session with another student at the moment.” Moore addresses me.

  “Oh. No problem,” I say, while sitting down at the desk behind Honor. “I’ll just wait.”

  “I’d rather you not, Mr. Sutherland.” Moore says with clenched teeth.

  “Well, Mr. Moore, I’m Honor’s ride home, and I’m sure she won’t mind my sitting here waiting for her.”

  Honor takes a quick look in my direction and asks, “What’s up?” with her eyes.

  With my eyes, I tell her to just go along with me.

  “It’s fine, Mr. Moore,” she says. “I really don’t mind Storm sitting in with us.”

  Boy, I’m relishing in the fact that Honor and I can communicate with no words. Just like we did when we were locked up in the icehouse.

  Moore grunts inwardly and sits at the desk next to Honor, moving it closer with his ass, to block my view.

  ***

  After Honor and I walk out of Moore’s class, she taps my arm with a fake punch. “What was that about?” she asks.

  “I told you. I don’t trust him.”

  “So you had to babysit me?”

  I drape my arm around her shoulder. “No, princess. I was protecting you.”

  She chuckles, “From what?”

  “From Moore,” I answer, confused as to why she doesn’t get that. “What do you feel when you’re around him, Honor. You must feel something.”

  She shrugs her shoulders, and I tighten my arm around her. “I don’t know. Sometimes I get those bad shivers up my spine when I’m around him. But mostly,” she brightens her face with a smile, “I feel…happy. Comforted in some way. I really don’t feel threatened at all. I don’t understand why you and Ethan feel differently.”

  “I don’t know,” I say quietly.

  “Like, shouldn’t we all be feeling the same thing?”

  “You’d think,” I say cryptically, getting increasingly worried about why I am feeling nothing but my own emotions.

  Chapter Three

  “Thanks for the ride home, Storm.” Honor turns up the corner of her mouth in an unintentionally seductive smile. “And…thanks for staying after with me. It’s nice to know you’re looking out for me.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” I joke, not letting on that I really am in Jefferson, New Jersey to look out for her and my brother. Not that they know it, nor do they think they need looking after, but I know these guys that work for the Gaffer. They will kill to get what they’re after. And not that I knew this before moving here, but I would kill to save Honor.

  Even though she isn’t mine to save.

  “Well, I appreciate it. Even though I think you’re crazy worrying about Moore.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m just plain crazy.” I comment.

  Honor laughs. “I’d have to agree.” She offers a full smile now, and my heart expands with my increasing adoration for her.

  I shake my head and pinch her cheek. “Who you callin’ crazy?”

  She chuckles. “I’m just teasin’.”

  “I know,” I say, hoping she doesn’t hear the change in my tone from playful to serious. Her playfulness emphasizes the fact that she’s in love with my idiot brother, instead of me. Because I don’t feel it’s my place to play back, I digress and tell her I’ll see her tomorrow.

  After a quick nod, Honor gets out and walks away.

  Leaving me almost breathless.

  Because I want her so much.

  ***

  Not even home for five minutes, I’m confronted with a hard rap on the door. “Open up, Sutherland. I know you’re in there. Your obnoxious car is parked out front,” demands the voice on the other side of the door.

  “Jeremy Mills,” I sneer, after opening the door to not one of my favorite empaths – one of Gaffer’s men. “What do you want?”

  “The old man’s got another assignment for you. Ya gonna let me in, or do I have to stand here all night?”

  With a grunt and a reluctant wave of my hand, I lead him in to my one-bedroom basement apartment.

  “Nice place you got here, Sutherland. Tiny, no?”

  “It does what it needs to do. Now what’s this about?” I ask, afraid to know.

  “Like you don’t know.” He pauses. “The elixir.”

  “What about it?”

  “Where is it? You were supposed to have found it already. Unless of course you really aren’t working for the man. In which case, he’s gonna be pissed. And you know what he does when someone pisses him off.” Mills cracks himself up, holding his stomach as he bends over laughing. “Yeah…that’s right. You already did piss him off trying to save your precious Honor instead of getting what we needed from her.”

  “It was part of my plan,” I lie through my teeth. “I was trying to get her to trust me.”

  “Yeah right. But that’s why he’s giving you one more chance. Just in case you really were trying to get the elixir from her.”

  “I was. Besides, she doesn’t even know where it is,” I lie again, desperate to get him off Honor’s case.

  “Yeah well, we don’t believe that. We searched that school. It’s not there. And we found Toby and Michael dead in the woods. Not a very good job hiding them. What did ya do? Kill them and leave them? Not very professional. You’re lucky we were the ones who found them…and not the cops.”

  Staring him down buys me some time to think of a response, since falling for Honor has me losing my edge.

  “Why’d you kill them? Part of your plan, Sutherland?”

  “They weren’t playing games. What was I gonna do?” No need to tell them that they killed me, and Honor brought me back to life. Then they’d forget the elixir and go right for Honor. The ability to bring life back from death has got to be as appealing as an immortal elixir.

  “This time get it right, Sutherland. Otherwise, we take it into our own hands. And we’re not gonna be gentle with your precious Honor either.”

  “I’ll get it. Are we done here?”

  “Yeah. We’re done. For now.”

  After Mills leaves, I grab a soda and plop down on the couch to fret about the mess I got us in to. I came here to try to help, but ended up making things worse. Like I always do. Now, not only do I need the elixir to be able to hold Honor…I need it to save her life.

  The thoughts going through my mind cause my chest to constrict and my temper to rise. Each thought brings me to one main target of my anger. Ethan. It was his stupidity that brought us all here. Unt
il Ethan had learned of Honor’s whereabouts, she was tucked-in safe and sound in her adoptive parents’ home. Now she’s their target…and I’m at a loss for how to save her. I could kidnap her and run, but they’d eventually find her. A life on the run would be no life for an innocent like Honor.

  Slamming my can of soda on the end table and spilling some in the process, I decide to give my little brother a visit. Maybe I’ll know what to say to him when I get there.

  Ethan is already pulling out of his lot when I tear in behind him, honking my horn to alert him to stay where he is.

  “What the hell, Storm?” he shouts, swinging his door open and treading hastily toward me.

  “Tell me where it is. I want it now.”

  “You’re outta your mind, you know that?”

  “It’s not your elixir to hide and do with as you please, loser. It’s Honor’s.”

  “And Honor doesn’t want you to have it. She’s made that clear on more than one occasion.”

  My little brother is pissing me off. I’m ready to strangle it out of him. In an effort to calm murderous thoughts, I take several deep breaths while maintaining eye contact with the loser.

  “Ethan, I’m going to ask this one more time,” I say calmly, pressing my palms firmly against his chest to let him know I’m serious. “This doesn’t just affect me. If I don’t get that elixir,” I enunciate each word, “Honor will be hurt.”

  Ethan throws up his hands and walks back to his car. “Oh. So now you’re threatening Honor. That’s just great. You know she thinks you’re her friend. Go to hell, Storm.”

  “It’s not me who’s threatening her. It’s him.” No need to say who him is. By the nauseated look on Ethan’s face, I’d say he’s figured it out.

  He drops his arms to his sides. He looks like he’s about to faint. “I dumped it,” he whispers so low I actually read his lips rather than hear his words.

  “You what?!”

  “I dumped it,” he says louder. “I fucking dumped it.”

  “How could you dump it? I told you we’d need it to negotiate or hand it over. You don’t know what this man is capable of. His men nearly killed us, Ethan. Did you think he’d be deterred because we killed two of his guys? He’s got more…lots more. What the…”

  “I’m sorry. But you were bullying Honor about giving it to you, and it pissed me off., So I dumped it.” He wipes the sweat from his brow. “I really thought you wanted it for yourself, and well, Honor kept talking about how dangerous it would be,” Ethan drops his head, “if we gave it away.”

  I shake my head. He’s so pathetic. Looking him in the eye now, I tell him that seeking the elixir for my personal benefit was my original intent…until a visitor decided to come knock on my door this afternoon. And since when did he start listening to a girl’s rationalization about things?.

  “Where’d you dump it?” I ask, not that it matters much.

  “Mahlon Dickerson.”

  “You dumped it onto county property? What are you? Stupid? If someone finds all that blood, they’ll be looking for a body. Oh my god, never mind that, they’ll take DNA samples and figure out it belongs to someone two hundred years old,” I yell. “Several people two hundred years old.”

  “No, no. I dumped it in the stream there,” Ethan admits.

  “Oh great. Even better. It’ll flow into the water system; then we’ll have a ton of immortal empaths.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Storm. By the time it gets there, it’ll be diluted.”Ethan runs both his hands through his hair, undoubtedly more worried than he’s letting on.

  “Ethan,” I try again to keep my composure, “where are the glass jugs that stored it?”

  “There’s an attic in my apartment. I put them up there.”

  “Okay. Maybe I can get something out of them. Maybe it’ll be enough to satisfy them.”

  “Right. Well…I rinsed them out.”

  “Oh you stupid son of a…”

  “Shut the hell up I wasn’t thinking. Damn it, Storm, if you just could have been straight with me from the beginning, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

  “Oh, so now you’re blaming me?”

  “Well if you’d have just told me…”

  “I told you that night in the woods.”

  “I had other things on my mind that night.”

  “Just,” I hold up my hands, “stop, all right. I’ll figure something else out. Just…don’t tell Honor. I don’t want her to worry.”

  “At least we agree on one thing then.”

  I leave without another word, taking off in my Challenger and letting the loud music drown out my thoughts.

  Chapter Four

  Tamlin barrels through the double lunchroom doors, terror washing over her face. Instantly my thoughts turn to Honor. Something’s wrong. Unstraddling the bench, I leap for Tamlin, who is heading our way.

  “What is it?” I ask, placing my hands on her shoulders.

  “It’s Honor,” Tamlin cries.

  “I know it is…”

  “She’s in the girls’ bathroom. She fainted.”

  “I’ll see to her,” Ethan says behind me.

  Tamlin takes my hand. “Come on, Storm. You too.”

  Tam and I follow Ethan to the girls’ room, but my throat constricts in an attempt to hold in my emotions. Ethan belongs with her. Not me. My steps slow with this realization.

  “What is it?” Tamlin asks. “Why you slowing down?”

  Coming to a complete stop, I ask, “What happened? Why’d she faint?”

  Tamlin shakes her crimson-haired head. “I don’t know. When I walked into the girls’ room, she was holding on to some freshman. When the girl turned to leave, Honor went down.”

  “Damn,” I whisper under my breath.

  Ethan is already hovering over Honor on the bathroom floor when Tamlin and I walk in.

  Please, there is no room in here. We need to keep the space open for the paramedics. You can stand out in the hall,” the nurse commands.

  “But…” Tamlin starts, but the nurse cuts her off.

  “Thank you, Tamlin. Why don’t you stand outside and wait for the paramedics.”

  Leaving Honor inside the bathroom leaves me feeling helpless. She doesn’t need me in there, I know that. She has Ethan. But I need to be there. I need to know she’ll be all right. Her never-ending need to help others is slowly killing her. I cannot let that happen.

  Out in the hall, Tamlin squeezes my arm. “She’ll be okay, won’t she, Storm?”

  Tamlin is looking to me for an answer that I wish someone would answer for me. My sarcastic nature nearly impels me to say, “Does she look okay?” But I hold my impulsive tongue, knowing that Tamlin is Honor’s best friend, and she, too, needs to believe that Honor will stop giving in to her empathy to save her own life.

  With an apprehensive hand, I rub Tamlin’s arm. “Yes. She’ll be okay,” I say so quietly, needing to believe it myself.

  ***

  Tamlin talks me into following the ambulance to the hospital. Though I know Ethan is headed there too, we did not offer each other a ride.

  “I’m really nervous, Storm, “Tamlin says, breaking the welcomed silence; welcomed by me, apparently not by her. “What if she bumped her head so hard she doesn’t wake up?”

  Well that thought hadn’t occurred to me until just now. In no mood to encourage conversation with her, I stay silent, focusing on the road in front of me.

  “What if she keeps doing her healing thing and like, she dies?”

  I want to ignore this question. I really do. But it’s the same question that is going through my mind right now. “She won’t,” I whisper.

  “But how do you know?” she asks, and I wish she would just shut up. “Ethan has been begging her to stop, but she just says, ‘If God didn’t want me to heal people, then He wouldn’t have made me capable of doing so.’” Tamlin does a good impression of Honor, and she’s right. I have heard her say that.

  “Yeah, well, Etha
n’s a loser. I’ll get her to stop.”

  “And how are you going to do that if her own boyfriend can’t?”

  Without taking my eyes off the road, I say, “You know…you ask way too many questions.”

  “Uggh. Ethan’s right. You are an obnoxious ass.”

  In my peripheral vision, I see Tamlin brush her finger under her eye. When girls cry, it is so irritating. “You’re crying?” I mock.

  “Go to hell, Storm.”

  Yeah. I’m already there.

  The ER admissions clerk allows us through to see Honor in room seventeen. Behind the curtain, Honor is propped up on the bed. Looking whiter than she usually does, she strains to greet us.

  “Hey, princess. You needing attention again?” I tease. There is no way I’m showing how scared she has me.

  Honor smiles, but Ethan tosses me a dirty look. “She doesn’t do this for attention, jerk. She…”

  I cut him off by ignoring him and focusing on Honor. “Hey, babe,” I say before kissing her on the forehead. Whispering in her ear, I tell her she has to learn to say no sometimes.

  Pretty princess shrugs her shoulders and softly says, “I know.”

  “They allowed you in here?” Ethan asks. Again, I ignore him.

  Fortunately, Tamlin comes to my defense. “Of course they allowed him in, we’re her friends.” Tamlin squeezes in behind me and takes my place at Honor’s side.

  “Hey there, Hon. What’s going on? You gotta stop doing this to yourself.” Tamlin takes Honor’s hand and brings it to her lips.

  Honor sighs, closing her tired eyes and keeping them shut.

  “Oh, sweetie,” Tamlin chokes. “You’re killing yourself.”

  “Literally,” Ethan says.

  I agree…only silently. Standing helpless near the curtain, my attention falls to my chest, where a staggering pain crushes my heart like crumbling stone. Honor is slowly dying. I can’t save her, nor am I allowed to love her. My colliding thoughts are warring inside me – fight for her love and safety, or flee. I’ve always flown. Loving someone is usually never worth the pain.