by ERIN BEDFORD
I stared at him dumbly. “So?”
“So,” Dex began pushing into my room without permission. “Your little stunt last night has consequences.” He found my discarded uniform and tossed it at me without looking.
“That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here?”
Dex grabbed my books and shoved them into a bag. “I’m your babysitter.”
I pulled the skirt over my shorts not bothering to take them off. I pushed around Dex and grabbed my bra from last night. “I’m too old for a babysitter.”
Dex stared hard at the hot pink bra I was shaking at him. “Obviously, not.” He shook his head and took a firm stance. “Azazel has assigned me to make sure you go to classes and actually integrate with the other students.”
“Why?”
“Because maybe you’ll stop trying to get yourself killed if you actually want to be here.”
I snorted. “Azazel took my cell phone so it’s not like I can get out even if I wanted to.” Nikki was probably going crazy when she didn’t hear from me again. Not that Azazel cared about some silly human.
Dex moved to the door and waited. “Get dressed. I’m not leaving until you do. Don’t make me come back in here.”
“Or what?” I arched a brow, laughing at how serious he was taking this all. “You’ll spank me?”
Dex’s dark eyes heated and his jaw clenched, making me feel even more naked than my skimpy pajamas already did. “Don’t tempt me.”
“That’s not what I-” I cut myself off with a shake of my head. “Forget it.” I shut the door in his face sinking my hot face into my hands.
What the hell was I doing? Spank me? I’d never said something like that in my entire life.
I was so mortified. Why didn’t Michael just come and kill me now. Save me from myself already.
A thunk from the other side of my door reminded me Dex was still waiting on me. I hurried to change out of my tank top and into my bra and school shirt. I picked up the necktie and gave it a long look. Sighing, I looped it under my collar and tied it into a bow. I grabbed my bag and pulled my boots on before heading to the door.
“Ready?” Dex lifted a brow, pushing off the door frame.
I didn’t answer him. No, I wasn’t ready to pretend everything was okay. I wasn’t ready to act like I belonged here when I didn’t. My hand tightened on my bag and I dipped my head. I wished mom was here. She’d know what to do.
My babysitter stayed silent for the most part as he escorted me to breakfast. The others were nursing massive hangovers, so it was a pretty quiet affair all together. None of them knew what had happened to me after I left the party and I planned to keep it that way.
“Hey,” Ayden tapped her spoon against my hand. “Why the long face? You didn’t drink near as much as the rest of us. Plus, we got busted by Professor Rufus shortly after you left. Detention for the rest of the semester.” She rolled her eyes but smiled. “Besides, you have the hottie Dex giving you the hungry eyes.”
“What?” I made a face before turning in my seat to search out Dex at the back of the dining hall. He was indeed watching me, but I wouldn’t call the look on his face hungry more like annoyed. Which I couldn’t blame him. Who wanted to play babysitter to a grown woman?
“For real,” Coral gave a wistful sigh. “You’re so lucky. Every girl with a two brain cells to rub together has had a crush on Dex at some point or another during their stay here.”
I shot a look back to Dex for a moment and then back to them. “How old is he?”
Ayden shrugged. “Who knows. We don’t exactly age the same as humans. Could be a few decades could be centuries. Hard to tell.”
“But Sarah looks like a grandma,” I pointed out with a frown.
“Well, Sarah’s been around for a long time. Emphasis on the long.” Joash chuckled and slapped hands with the twins.
Coral sat next to Bayu rather than by Joash which made me wonder if something happened between them after I left. They’d been held together by saliva and hormones last I saw them.
I don’t care. I reminded myself. I’m only here temporarily. I can’t get attached to them and their problems.
After breakfast, my babysitter stayed close on my heels not even pretending not to be following me. His presence gained me a lot of curious glances and glares from others. Usually of the female persuasion.
The only time Dex left me was when he dropped me off at each class. Professor Rufus gave Dex an understanding look as he dropped me off at my first class. Professor Rufus avoided my gaze as I walked past him and over to my seat. Trevor was already in his and eager as ever to talk to me.
Oh boy.
“Hey, I heard there was a party in the woods last night. Did you go? Was it awesome? I bet it was awesome.” He beamed practically bouncing in his seat.
“Uh, yeah. Awesome.” I shifted in my seat, my fingers tapping on the surface of my desk. I needed a cigarette bad. I missed what Trevor said as I tried to contemplate the likelihood that my guard dog would let me sneak out to have one.
“Did they? Did they?”
“Huh?” I jerked my eyes back to the boy and cocked my head to the side. “Did they what?”
“Harmonize their powers?” Trevor asked again exasperated by my lack of response.
I thought back to the show I’d seen. The display of violence and beauty all mixed together into one. Harmonizing, huh? Well, they have that down to an art. I’d definitely call what they did a display of harmonization.
“Yeah, they did.” I picked up my pencil as Professor Rufus began to write on the board. Today we were talking about the fall and rise of Lucifer, the Morning Star. Samael. Who apparently ran a high profile business office in New York City. It made me suspicious about who exactly my dad worked for. Too many coincidences.
I tapped my pencil against the side of my desk, my leg bouncing in place. I so didn’t want a history lesson right now. I needed to get my phone back and let Nikki know what happened. The last thing I needed was for her to show up here. Especially since those so-called angels actually existed and wanted me dead.
Go figure.
Professor Rufus speech became background noise as my mind wandered.
There was so much I didn’t understand about this place. Or about my dad. Even everything I knew about myself was becoming more and more of a mystery. My fingers circled the mark on my hand, which was barely there today.
Sarah told me there were more to my powers but what? How far could my powers go? I saw visions of death it wasn’t exactly something you could expand on.
It’s not like I’ll suddenly sprout wings and fly.
Out of the corner of my eye, Trevor’s pencil rolling off his desk. It dropped to the floor and continued until it was hidden under the person in front of him.
“You dropped your pencil.”
“What where?” Trevor lifted his book up, searching for his pencil. The pencil that was underneath the edge of his book and when he lifted the book up it knocked the pencil off just like I’d seen before. I watched as it fell to the ground again and rolled under the chair in front of him.
“Hey, that’s not funny.” Trevor stuck his tongue out at me, getting out of his chair to retrieve his pencil.
“Uh…sorry.” I dragged my hand through my hair catching my fingers in the tangles. Great. I was seeing things and had a bad case of bed head.
Chapter 15
When class was over, Dex was waiting right outside the doorway.
“Don’t you have your own class to teach?” I shot at him, trying to quicken my steps to lose him.
“Yes, but since someone has to keep any eye on you until your father is able to, a substitute is covering my classes.”
The mention of my dad made me stop. “What about my dad? Is he okay?”
Arching a brow, Dex continued to walk past me. “I didn’t think you cared one way or the other?”
“Well, no,” I explained, catching up to him as I darted by the other students
trying my best not to hit every single one of them. “I mean, I do but more in a curious did that angel last night kill him kind of way.”
Dex snorted. “It will take far more than Michael to take out your father. Besides, they don’t want to kill him. They need him.”
I frowned. “Why?”
He stopped abruptly and I barely caught myself from walking into his back. “To get to this place of course.”
“What?”
“Who do you think funds this place? Keeps it hidden from the angels?” Dex stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. “Your father is single handedly responsible for finding and keeping all of these children alive.” He gestured around the hallway. “He is the reason none of the angels have stormed this place and taken us all out.” His expression grew serious. “We owe a lot to him.”
I hummed and shifted in place uncomfortable with the way he was talking about my dad. “So, he neglected me all my life to protect the kids of everyone else? Great to know my childhood wasn’t ruined for nothing.” I huffed and stalked away, not caring if he followed me or not. He would anyway.
“You have issues, you know that?” Dex’s voice came from the left far faster than I expected.
I rolled my eyes. “You think?”
“Look, my mom wasn’t around either. She had me, dropped me off with my dad, and took off.” Dex explained his eyes forward as we walked. “So, I understand the whole being mad at your absentee parent but your dad…” he huffed a laugh. “He’s doing something unheard of. He’s changing the world. You have to see the bigger picture.”
“Yep, I got it.” I gave him a sideways look. “The many for the sake of one. If I’d been in his place, I’d probably have done the same.”
Dex nodded in satisfaction at my answer.
“Unfortunately,” I continued on, stopping before the door to my next class, “that doesn’t make up for years of neglect and letting my mom die in a horrifying car accident, but thanks for trying.” I gave him a big two-handed thumbs up and grinned obscenely from ear to ear.
I didn’t give him the chance to answer before I ducked into the gymnasium.
Pfft. Changing the world. Sure, fine. My dad can play superhero to the masses, but I’d stick with what I knew. A dad who didn’t care enough to save his own wife from a horrible death.
“Let’s all gather around,” the gym teacher called out, her shorts a bright fire truck red clashing loudly with the dark orange polo shirt. “We’re going to practice those powers of awareness today.”
I took one look at the pile of silk ties and balls and turned on my heel. Nope. Not gonna happen. We played that game at my old school. No way was I letting someone I couldn’t see throw a ball at my face.
I rubbed my nose in remembrance. Not gonna happen.
The teacher called out to me, but I waved a hand behind me as I walked out the door. Let them give me detention.
Thankfully, Dex wasn’t waiting outside the door. Maybe he had a class to teach after all?
Either way I wasn’t going to look a gift angel in the mouth. I booked it to the nearby side door leading out into the courtyard. I dug into my bag for my cigarettes and lighter and quickly lit up before I got caught. I wasn’t about to waste these precious moments or puffs on finding the perfect spot.
I hadn’t even gotten halfway through my cigarette before I heard, “You’re not allowed out here.”
Sighing, I didn’t bother look over at Dex as I took another drag of my cigarette. “Don’t you have class to teach?”
“Aren’t you supposed to be in gym?” He stopped beside me snagging my cigarette out of my hand to take a drag from it.
“Do I really look like the gym going type?” I snagged the cigarette back from him with an arched brow, taking a pointed drag of it before blowing the smoke in his direction.
To his credit, he didn’t even cough, but he did take my cigarette again. “You really shouldn’t smoke. You’re too young.”
Getting tired of this game, I placed my hands on my hips and scowled. “I’m old enough. Besides, you have room to talk.” I gestured to his form. “You can’t be more than twenty-five.”
“Actually, one hundred and twenty-five, this year.”
I frowned. “Oh, yeah. The others mentioned something about that.” I shook my head, pulling my hair over one shoulder. “How is that possible?” I reached into my bag for my pack of cigarettes, shimming one out, I stuck it in my mouth and fumbled for my lighter.
“We don’t age like humans. A human life is only a fourth of our life spans,” Dex told me as he reached out and lit my cigarette for me.
I cocked my head at him, taking the cigarette between my fingers. “I thought you were a mind reader. How can you do that too?”
“I am, but I am also a fire element.” He let a ball of fire dance around on his palm and gave me a rare lopsided smile. “On my mother’s side.”
“Isn’t that incestuous?” I sucked in a breath of smoke, this time blowing it to the side. I wasn’t a complete bitch.
“Not really.” Dex shrugged. “They were created by the same person but not of the same line.” He lifted the almost finished cigarette to his lips, sucking it down before using his powers to burn it into ash. “In a way, we are all brothers and sisters in God.”
I scoffed at that. “Yeah, okay.”
“You don’t think so?”
Humming to myself, I tried to figure out how to response. “I’d never been one for religion. Or God for that matter. If there is a God,” I stopped and barked in laughter. “I suppose that’s a moot point now, huh?”
Dex arched a brow, smiling slightly.
“Anyway, God’s never done much for me. One way or another.” I dropped my cigarette onto the stone beneath my feet and stomped it out with my boot. “So, if I had to have an opinion on him I’d have to lump him in with all the rest of my experiences with dad’s.”
Nodding in understanding, Dex didn’t try to make me change my mind. He didn’t try to tell me how much God cared about me and was looking out for me. I wasn’t sure if it was because he didn’t think so or if he just wasn’t the type. It was also quite possible he thought I just wouldn’t change my mind. Which was a valid assumption.
“That time in class,” he began, and I stiffened. “When I saw inside your head…not the part with us,” Dex explained when he saw my face. I hoped I wasn’t blushing too bad. “I saw a bit of what Dharma saw. The stuff you keep in the back of your mind.”
I ducked my head. “Oh.” I’d rather have talked about the sexy vision I’d had. I waited for him to tell me what a freak I was, to tell me that I was an abomination.
So, when he finally continued, I was taken back. “You have a lot of pain in your heart and in your mind.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
I tried to shrug it off, but he wouldn’t let me. Dex turned to me, his hand reaching out almost afraid to touch me.
“It must be hard, see the future.”
I blinked up at him, a part of me wanting him to touch me. “It’s harder to live in it.”
When he finally touched the side of my face, I tried not to flinch, but some habits are hard to break. His fingers brushed a piece of hair behind my ear.
I shuddered as I was overtaken by another vision. Instead of seeing his death this time, another one that left me physically panting as if it were happening to me. A hand ghosted the skin between my thighs, molten heat building with each stroke of his fingers. An involuntary sigh escaped my mouth the feeling of a hot mouth wrapped around the tip of my breast.
So overwhelmed by the visions, my knees buckled beneath me and Dex caught me while I gasped. Staring up at him with a mixture of wonder and embarrassment it took me a moment to gather my wits before I scrambled from his arms.
“Elle,” Dex’s voice was low and husky. The bulge in the front of his pants confirmed he’d seen and been just as affected as me from the vision. “Is that my future?”
I swallowed thickly, lickin
g my lips as I breathed out, “Yes.”
“When does that happen?”
His expression was guarded as if he couldn’t or wouldn’t allow me to see what he was thinking. Did he want it to happen? Was he completely abhorrent of the idea? Obviously, his body didn’t think so but that didn’t mean anything. Men could get hard for practically any reason.
“Time is relative. You can’t always tell where you’ll end up in it.” I didn’t have to worry about lying when answering his question. I’d never been able to tell when something was going to happen. At least, not the way he was talking about. Unless there was a clock or a newspaper or something in the vision, I had to base it off of what I saw.
Like my mother’s death.
I knew the day she would die based on the clothes she was wearing in the car accident. The necklace she wore around her neck was new. She’d just bought it the week before. In fact, I’d almost collapsed the moment I saw it around her neck the first day. She’d consoled me, reminding me that the future wasn’t something I could control.
Except Sarah made me think that it was. That I would be able to change the future. If I could, if I could stop the deaths I saw, then I would never have to feel the way I did waiting for my mother to die again.
To my utter relief, the large clock chimed twelve times. It was time for lunch break.
Dex shifted away from me back to his stiffer than a dead guy facade. “We better go.”
He kept his distance from me as we made our way back inside, being extra careful not to touch me. If he had anything to say about what we’d both saw, he didn’t say so. Then when he dropped me off at lunch, he didn’t stay to watch but left without saying goodbye.
Well, I’d heard of being pumped and then dumped but this was ridiculous.
Chapter 16
The days dragged by in a blur. There was still no sign of my dad, but Azazel assured me that he was fine. I still had a babysitter, but it was a rotation of other teachers and staff I'd barely said hello to in passing. Dex didn't show back up once.
In class, he pretty much acted like I didn't exist. We were given assignments. Most of them things that I couldn't do. Even when they wanted me to tell the future I couldn't do it on command. I figured the thing with Trevor had been a fluke. A weird occurrence of Deja vu.
