by Megan Curd
When we reached the atrium and moonlight illuminated Jaxon’s face, I found him looking at me in amusement. “What I don’t get is why you’re all about this guy. What’s he got that I don’t have?”
“He isn’t arrogant, sarcastic or rude for starters,” I said, making sure my eyes caught his when they widened in surprise. My insides bloomed with warmth. So he did have feelings.
Jaxon puckered his lips in mock deep thought before replying. “Yeah, I can see that. Not many have such great qualities like him. He seemed drug-addled to me in our first encounter. And an attempted murderer, to boot.”
“He didn’t try to murder you.”
“Oh really?” Jaxon thrust his arm out into the low light, the shadows from the twisting around it like vines. “This looks like attempted murder to me.”
I laughed. “Oh yes, Legs barely missed a crucial artery.”
Jaxon stopped dead in his tracks. He tipped his head like little bird to the side. It was the first time I’d actually seen him look hurt. The mask of indifference returned quickly though, and he fastened on a sardonic smile. “How long have you known him? Do you even know his real name?”
“I’ve known him since I was little, and he only goes by Legs.”
Jaxon leapt on my avoidance like a wolf on weak prey. “So you don’t know his real name.”
“No one knows his real name! It’s something that’s private to him, I guess.”
“As though we have any privacy to begin with,” Jaxon said somberly.
“Indeed,” I agreed darkly.
“Which means I’ll be finding out his real name.”
“Why does it matter to you?”
“Because you like him, and I need all the information on my competition that I can get.”
I blanched. “I never said I liked him.”
“But your actions tell me otherwise. You call him by his preferred name, not his given name, not to mention the fact that we’re out after curfew going to check on him.”
“Are you really that butt hurt that I’m going to see the guy that has saved me time and time again?”
Jaxon shrugged his shoulders. “I saved you last.”
“I’ll be sure to keep the tally from now on.”
“You won’t call me Jax.”
“Oh, for the love of God, you’re not back on that kick, are you?”
“I’m trying to figure you out.”
I sighed and darted into the central area of the Academy, keeping close to the walls to avoid detection. “That’s going to take longer than you have, Mr. Pierce.”
Out of nowhere his breath ran like warm water over the back of my neck. I closed my eyes for a moment, then forced them back open. No. Not Jaxon. Nothing for Jaxon.
“Now it’s Mr. Pierce, eh?” he breathed as he put one of his large hands at the small of my back to lead me toward Xander’s office. “I think I’m going backwards.”
“You are backwards, Jaxon.”
He laughed and muscled around me, putting far too much of his toned body against me as he slid past. His chiseled chest pressed against mine as he leaned in, inches from my mouth. I sucked in a breath through my mouth to avoid his scent.
No dice. It still overpowered me. His smile was evident even in the low light, and I bit my lip to keep from sighing. His hand brushed my cheek, and he ran a finger down the side of my neck that sent shivers through me. “If I were backwards, I’d be Noxaj,” he whispered huskily, “What kind of name is that? It’s not sexy at all.”
“I never said you were sexy,” I whispered as his hands roved through my hair at the base of my neck.
“No, no you didn’t…”
His lips were on my neck. His hands worked down my back.
I stood there like a wet noodle, incapable of responding.
Do something! Touch him back! My brain screamed, but my body felt detached. Do something, or he’s going to think you’re on the relationship short bus.
He pulled away to look at me. His eyes were searching, but for what, I didn’t know. I willed myself to give him something. Anything.
An awkward grin, accompanied by a cough was all I could muster.
Really, Avery? Seriously? I knew later replays of this moment in my mind, no matter how awful, wouldn’t compare to the actual event.
Jaxon took a step back and cleared his throat. “I guess that was out of line. I just thought…never mind. Wow, yeah. Legs is lucky to have someone like you.”
Even if my brain had been working properly, I wouldn’t have had a chance to respond. Without another word, he disappeared down the narrow hallway that led to Xander’s office.
No, Jaxon, no. It’s not like that. Legs and I aren’t anything. You and I…
A small voice laughed as I thought through the magnificent opportunity that I’d shattered into a million pieces. You and Jaxon aren’t anything, either, Avery, said the voice inside.
I shook myself out of the moment and refocused on what my initial plan had been. The corridor that led to Xander’s office felt like it was an afterthought; as though someone busted out a portion of an already-existing wall to accommodate him. He certainly didn’t have much of a medical wing.
Jaxon’s body was swathed in bright light as he wrenched the door open. His eyes caught mine, and I saw the embarrassment of me denying him. Part of me was horrified, the other proud. It looked like it might have been the first time he was turned down.
But I didn’t want to turn you down, I thought to myself. In that moment, I knew I wanted to kiss him. I would kiss him. My body agreed, and I took a step toward him, resolve spurring each step.
He was there only a second before the door closed behind him and left me in darkness once more.
Little git. Chivalry was most certainly dead when it came to Jaxon Pierce.
And at some point he will be too, if he keeps being so stubbornly rebellious about everything, I thought to myself.
It caught me by surprise.
Not the thought, no—that was as true as the rising sun—but that my insides squirmed with concern for him. Why should I care about him? He was obnoxious. Still, part of me thought that deep inside that mess of derision and disdain was a person capable of actually feeling something.
The only way someone could hate so deeply was to have loved twice as much and been hurt because of it.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
My eyes watered from stepping into harsh light of Xander’s office. Jaxon leaned against a white bookcase that matched the rest of the sterile décor in the room. He eyed Legs, who sat on the examining stool in the opposite corner, with trepidation.
Legs looked like he was asleep. He was shirtless; the cuts and bruises on his torso made me hurt just to look at them. His chest heaved with each labored breath he drew. An IV and blood bag snaked along his forearm and rested in the crook of his elbow.
“He’s calmed down enough that I thought I’d try to give him a little boost with your generous donation,” said a voice to my left.
Xander was sitting in a miniscule recess on the other side of the bookshelf. I would never have noticed the niche had I not heard him. The room looked like it’d been carved out of the earth; the walls were still dirt and the floor, simple boards. It was an afterthought, perhaps, or maybe Xander created this niche on his own, not bothering to hire anyone to fix it up. Either way, I wondered how it didn’t collapse.
Xander, however, didn’t seem concerned in the least. He sat in a brown leather chair, tattered book in hand. The spine was broken, the binding threatening to pull away. He looked up from the pages and gave a tired smile, dark circles evident under his eyes. “I figured you’d come back to check on him.”
His scrubby chin showed signs of a five o’clock shadow and steam rose from the cup on the wobbly table beside him. It smelled like dark, rich coffee and made my mouth water.
“What made you think that?”
“You have a good heart, Robin Hood.”
His eyes re
turned to the book and he turned over a page with utmost care.
The silence wasn’t awkward, but I didn’t know what to do, either.
Riggs’s thought that I could manipulate elements came back to me. I focused on the steaming mug and the image of snow danced in my mind.
The pounding in my head returned, but then it happened.
The mist continued to rise but instead of disappearing, it thickened, roiling and coming to rest like clouds overhead. Xander gasped.
The room grew cold. Crystalline formations crept over the small escape window, and the clouds billowed overhead. Tiny white particles dropped from them and landed in my hands. They were perfect little stars of different shapes and sizes and as soon as they landed on my hand, they melted away.
Xander’s eyes widened when a flake landed on his book. “How in the—” he started, looking delighted as he reached a hand upward. “You’re making snow!”
Jaxon peered around the corner, trying not to look too interested. “How could anyone make snow…” he trailed off as he took in the sight. “My God, there’s snow in here!”
I’d never seen smiles that big. Xander took off his night robe and wrapped his book gently in the cashmere fabric of his night robe to protect it from the flakes. He and Jaxon raised their hands to the ceiling to touch the cloud. Their hands ghosted through the cool wisps and both men looked thrilled.
Jaxon scooped a handful of snow off the tile floor and molded it into a ball. He tossed it to Xander, who laughed and held it up to examine it like a particularly interesting specimen.
Jaxon looked at me, wonder filling his grey-blue eyes that always commanded my attention. “You never told me what you were capable of.”
Excitement filled my stomach. “I don’t know what I’m capable of. Riggs tried to get me to create elements today to see how far he could push me. Xander had coffee sitting beside him and I decided I’d try to manipulate the steam differently than I had before. You know, to see if I could use the element that was already there.”
“This is amazing,” Xander mused to himself. “It’s no mystery why you’re here. You could manipulate the power of all the domes running on steam, which is over half of them.” Xander looked at me with a mix of curiosity and excitement. “Can you do more? What else have you tried?”
My head was pounding because of the snowflake stunt. “Well, I’ve only tried what Riggs had me do today, and those didn’t work out so well,” and I nearly passed out, I thought, but didn’t add. “Riggs wants me to create elements, but so far I’ve only manipulated what was in front of me.”
I glanced between Xander and Jaxon, excited and proud of my accomplishment. When Jaxon met my eyes a second time, he looked away.
“He’s going to use her as leverage,” he whispered. His fists clenched and unclenched as he watched the snow fall to the ground. “I’ve brought him the most formidable asset he could ever have.”
Xander took the small step toward him and put a hand on Jaxon’s shoulder. “Jax, it’s okay — ”
Jaxon slapped Xander’s hand away with more force than necessary and turned on his heel. His voice filled the small room and resonated in my bones, even as he retreated. “No it isn’t! I want to end his reign of tyranny, not contribute to it!”
I heard the door of the office slam. The moment my focus shifted, the cloud melted away to steam. Slush covered the wooden floor, darkening the boards. I wrapped my arms around my body, suddenly cold.
Xander sighed and brushed his arms free of the now melted snowflakes. “Don’t mind him. No one knew what you were capable of. He was doing his job when he brought you here.”
I huffed in indignation. Jaxon’s sudden disappearance left an almost tangible emptiness in the room. It was like the life had been sucked out of the room with his vacancy. I thought about Xander’s comment. “If he’s so against his dad, then why’d he bring me here? Why would he do his job, as you call it?”
“Because Riggs is still his father and no matter what, part of him wants to have his father in his life.”
“So you’re saying he can hate his father and still want to please him?”
Xander nodded as he shrugged past me. “Exactly.”
“That doesn’t make any sense at all.”
I followed him out of his little man-cave. He laughed as he crossed his room to check on Legs. “For it not making sense, you caught onto it awful quick. Either way, it doesn’t have to make sense. It’s a family thing. Most people will do anything for their loved ones. It’s manipulation at its finest when someone is forced to choose between doing something they’d rather not, or abandon family.”
Something stirred in the pit of my stomach. I’d been on my own for so long, I didn’t really remember what having a family was like. Sure, I still had memories—early ones—but there was no part of me that would want to make my dad happy if he was a power-hungry, ego-tripping nutcase.
I watched as Xander checked on Legs’s vitals, running his fingers lightly over the nearly translucent skin on Legs’s remaining wrist.
No one deserved to go through what Legs had today. His head lolled to the side and his eyes struggled to open as he fought to wake up. His lips turned upward into a weak smile as he watched Xander work.
“I take it you haven’t sewed my arm back on, doc?”
“I’m afraid I practice medicine, not miracles,” Xander said with a gentle smile. He squeezed the bag that once held my blood between his fingers. “Almost full up, I’d guess. You still look quite peaked.”
“That’s the best compliment I’ve gotten today.”
I laughed, and Legs’s eyes crossed the room to me. They widened in surprise, then a smile of recognition lit his features. “Who’s the hot nurse?”
“She’s not a nurse,” Xander said while he rummaged in one of his many drawers that lined the small room, “She’s one of the three people who made sure you survived your adventure today. Avery donated her blood to your cause.”
Legs laughed. “I know who she is, doc. That’s Pike. She’s always making me rescue her. Today was business as usual.”
I shook my head. “I think it was me saving you today, by the looks of it.”
“We could call it even for today, but you’d still owe me.”
Legs. If he could be this upbeat after losing an arm, I needed to make sure he was around if there was ever another apocalypse. He could find the upside for sure. “You’re right. I’m always one behind you.”
“Always.”
Silence filled the room as Xander continued to rummage through drawers. I glanced at the stump of the arm that was left for Legs and felt a pang of guilt.
There had to be some way I could help him. Some way to give him something in return for what he’d lost.
Then it hit me.
Rigg’s mechanical arm.
I gathered the courage to ask Xander the question that was burning in my mind.
“Do you know that arm contraption that Mr. Riggs has? The one he wore when he came to meet me?”
“Yes,” Xander said as he redressed Legs’s wounds. A tight bandage wound around the crook of Legs’s arm where the IV had once been filling him with my blood. “Why do you ask?”
“Well, how does it operate? When he wore it, it seemed as though it worked independently of any levers or pulleys. Like it could—”
“Read his mind?” Xander finished for me.
“Well, yeah.”
“That’s because it can. Will created the mechanical portion of the arm, but Sari set up the electronics and I put the wires where they needed to be.”
“You put wires…in him?”
“Exactly,” Xander said, as though it was common. “He slips the mechanical arm over his real one and plugs the wires into the top of his shoulder that I inserted there—” he motioned to the top of his shoulder, where the rotator cuff ended and the arm began, “and those go directly into the portion of the brain that controls motion. He thinks, and the arm responds as it
normally would. It’s a very powerful device. He has twenty times the crushing power in that hand than a crocodile’s jaws.”
The comparison was lost on me because I’d never seen a crocodile or it’s power, but I assumed it was a lot since Xander’s voice sounded impressed. I nodded and tried to look like I knew what he was talking about. He smiled and ushered me back to his cubbyhole. His fingertips slid across spines of books in all stages of life; some looked as though they’d never been touched, while others looked like they may fall apart if moved. His hand stopped and he pulled what looked like a textbook off the shelf.
He rifled through the pages and tapped the page he came to twice as he handed over the book. “Here. This is the creature I’m talking about.”
So he had seen through my noncommittal nod. I’d have to work on getting better at hiding my facial expressions. I looked at the beast on the page. It looked like the dinosaurs my Early Sciences professor had shown the class. “Wow. He’s a nasty one.”
“Indeed. And Riggs’s mechanical arm is capable of doing more damage than this magnificent animal’s jaws.”
I looked up at Xander and blurted out my nonsensical idea. “Do you think we could have another one crafted? Or steal Riggs’s?”
His eyes took on a knowing look. “I see where you’re going with this, and it’s an admirable idea, but believe me when I tell you that it’s nothing short of signing your own death certificate. That thing is Riggs’s pride and joy. There’s no way he’ll let anyone make a copy of it. How would you even come up with an excuse to create another one?” He mimicked my voice. “Excuse me, Mr. Riggs, but could I borrow your mechanical arm, so I could make another to give to an insurgent that’s currently residing right under your nose?”
I chewed the inside of my lip while I tried to come up with a better excuse. “Well what if someone said they needed to repair it, then we gave it to Legs?”
“And what do you propose we do if we managed to get the arm?” Xander hissed under his breath, his eyes scanning into the other room. He was probably looking for cameras. “What do you want me to do? Attach it to him and hope Riggs doesn’t notice that it’s missing? He’ll turn this place upside down to find it.”
