“Uh uh, Sarah, wrong way,” Carlos said as his hands came to my shoulders and he turned me around.
“Huh?” I mumbled. “Oh, sorry.” clear my head before we walked out I tried to into the courtyard. We walked out into the hot sun and saw everyone gathered over in the shade by the wall. “Good afternoon everyone,” I said, finally finding my tongue. “Sorry to rush you, but we can"t talk here. I"m going to pair the new vampires with the old and we"re going to fly to another location, okay?” They all nodded as I began pairing: Stacy with Billy, Rashidi with Bahiti, Maggie with Trevor and Jared with Anne. I grabbed Carlos" hand and we rose up.
‘Can you fly a little higher?’ I thought to Carlos as I wrapped my arms around his waist so that I could watch behind us, over his shoulder. ‘I need to see farther behind them.’ He squeezed me a little tighter, then smiled at me and rose so that we were a few feet above everyone else. I smiled and blushed as I scanned the sky like a hawk. We landed next to the church steps and saw the priest in his garden.
He waved at us, “Hola Señor Carlos, Señorita Sarah, please go right on in,” he said.
“Gracias,” I said and I ushered everyone inside and down to the basement, locked the door and then stopped. “Oh crap,” I said.
“What?” Carlos said.
“We have three here who haven"t yet learned to communicate silently, don"t we?” I said and Stacy, Maggie and Jared nodded. I looked around the room, searching, as I said, “It"s not an issue with the clock part, anyone who hears that will just think we"re odd, but explaining the reason for the clock… ah, here we go.” I found a pen and pad of paper. On the firstpage I wrote, “Malina"s coming Sept 2.”
“Yeah, we know that,” Stacy said.
I tore off the first page and tossed it to Carlos. “Burn these,” I said as I wrote on the next page. “She can become invisible.”
“WHAT?!” some shouted, and I held my finger to my lips. “Shhhh,” then I wrote on the third page, “she might have others who can disappear too.”
“Great,” Billy said as he rolled his eyes. “What the hell do you expect us to do? We can"t fight that.”
On the next page I wrote, “I can still see her and them.” That perked them up again.
“Really? How?” Trevor said and I nodded.
“Does everyone here know about my unique ability?” I said then I watched as they all nodded. “That"s how.”
Then I began writing numbers 1 through 12 on squares of paper. When I finished, I grabbed the roll of tape from the desk where I had found the paper and began putting the numbers up on the wall, as I did I thought to Carlos, ‘Write this down: when this all goes down, we expect to all be in the main hall. If I call your name and then immediately say a number, it means someone is coming and you need to punch or kick toward that number.’ He held out the pad so everyone could see it. “Carlos, please burn all the pages now.” He walked to the furnace at the far end of the room and tossed them in, then came back. “Okay,” I said, “iseverybody ready to practice?”
I worked them hard until eight o"clock. “Good, great job everybody. That"s enough for tonight. Let"s meet tomorrow in the courtyard at, say, ten? Does that work?”
Theyall nodded, until I said, “Tomorrow I"m bringing blindfolds.”
“Blindfolds!” they said. “But why?”
“Because you have to do this without seeing. You haveto react on instinct,” I said.
I smiled at the grumbles I heard from everyone but Bahiti– she was stoic as usual.
‘They’ll get over it,’ Carlos thought.
‘I know they will, they’ll have to,’ I thought. “Okay, let"s go home,” I said.
‘You sure you and I have to leave, Sarah? I was thinking we could work some more on this. I need to make sure I’m perfect.’ Carlos thought.
I stared at him for a second. ‘Are you staying because you want to work or are you staying because you want to be alone with me?’
He looked down at the ground. ‘Kind of both. I really do want to work, but I want to work with you alone.’
‘Just work? Nothing else? You promise?’ I thought, and he nodded. Truthfully, I wanted to spend some time with him too.
“Okay,” I said then I turned to the others, “you guys go ahead. Carlos and I are going to work a little more.”
“I could stay too, Sarah,” Trevor said. “I"m not even tired yet.”
I glanced at Carlos then smiled at Trevor. “I appreciate it, Trevor. But I need to work on a few things that are specific to Carlos. You"ll have plenty of time to practice over the next few weeks.”
Carlos dashed out of the room with the others, saying,“Hang on a second, Sarah. I"ll be right back.” When he came back in he was holding a scarf that he had borrowed from the priest. He put it over his eyes and moved to tie it behind his head, but I stopped him.
“Oh no you don"t. You"ll cheat. I"m tying this,” I said as I pulled it tight.
“Okay, but don"t let me walk into any walls. I don"t want to damage this perfect face,” he grinned.
I rolled my eyes and playfully pushed him from behind. “Perfect, my ass,” I mumbled.
“Okay, I"ll give you that. I have a perfect face and you have a perfect ass.”
“Ignoring that comment. Time to work: 2, 6, 9 11, 3, 7, 3, 5, 1, 4.”
“Jeez, Sarah. Give me a second to think, would ya?”
“Carlos, you have to be able to do this no matter how fast and no matter what kinds of distractions there are. You have to react no matter what. Which means…” I began, and suddenly the playful, flirty nature that had been a part of me since I was a teenager took over– I knew that I should stop it because, for Carlos, well, for both of us, it meant more, but I was powerless to stop it. I silently moved up behind him, until my body was just inches from his and my breath was on the back of his neck. I smiled when he shivered. “Which means that even if someone is this close to you trying to distract you and throw you off of your game, you still have to be able to concentrate and react. Can you concentrate, Carlos? Are you ready?”
“Jesus, Sarah,” he whispered.
“5, 9, 8, 10, 3, 7, 6, 12, 11.” He surprised me by reacting perfectly, not skipping a beat, even managing to miss my head when I said 11 which was directly behind me, but his arm stopped over my shoulder. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me tight, his chin pressing onto my forehead, gasping for air. He started crying.
“How, Sarah? How did this fucking happen? And how the hell do we stop it?”
At first I didn"t answer. I really didn"t have the answers he needed. I just held him until he was done. “I"m so sorry, Carlos, I don"t know how it happened. And we stop it by not acting on it. We stop it by controlling ourselves. We stop it, well, we just stop it because we have to,” I said when he finally quieted down.
He took a step backward and said, “Don"t be sorry, Sarah. You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, Sarah. And you"re right. Sorry for the break down. Please keep me working, it keeps my mind off of it. Now, let"s go again, okay?”
I nodded, and called out more numbers. He worked so hard and by the time we left, he was perfect.
We flew home that night still struggling with our feelings, but too exhausted to even think about them at all… exactly the way we needed to be.
Matt was waiting for me with love in his heart, a smile on his face and his arms open wide. And he spent the rest of the night helping me get my head straight… until I left the next day, that is.
The next day they were all waiting for me in the courtyard at ten a.m. and we headed to the church and quickly got to work. They grumbled and had issues with the blindfolds for the first hour, but then quickly showed improvement. We worked tirelessly until dusk, and then, once again, they headed home while Carlos and I stayed behind to work a little more. We knew it was dangerous but we just couldn"t help it. “As long as our clothes stay on then I guess it"s okay,” I said and he smiled. “But Carlos, you"re perfect at this. What did you want to
work on tonight?”
He walked over and stroked his fingers down my cheek, then took my hand in his.
“Carlos,” I whispered.
He nodded then pulled on his blindfold. “Yeah, I know. Silence. I want to work on silence.”
“Silence? What do you mean?”
“Get in my head. You might have to be giving me orders in my head while you"re shouting out to others. I need to make sure that I react the same way.”
I nodded. “Good point. Okay, here goes.”
‘7, 12, 9, 4, 5, 2, 11, 1, 8,’ I thought, then I ducked out of the way as his hand whizzed past my ear. “Whew! That was too close,” I said and he laughed.
“Maybe not close enough,” he said.
“Oh really? Is that how it"s going to be now? Gloves off? No holds barred?” I said, then I jumped on his back and pinned my arm around his neck. “Oooh, you"re getting too slow old man.”
“Old man? Watch what you say to your superiors, young one,” he said then he quickly reached back and flipped me over his head and onto the floor. But he didn"t pin me, instead he reached up and pulled off his blindfold. I took that opportunity to jump back to my feet. I spun around behind him and swept my leg around, knocking his feet out from under him. He fell flat on his back but reached out and grabbed my ankle, yanking me sideways. But I managed to keep my balance and free my ankle by doing a back flip away from him. “Nice move, Sarah. But you"re still toast,” he grinned as he jumped up. I watched him as he prepared to make his next move. I was positive, from the look in his eyes and the way his body was positioned, that he was going to fly left. So I quickly jumped right. My eyes went wide and I gasped as he did this insanely fast, ninja move: he spun around to the right and there was a loud crack as I crashed right into him. He pinned me in his arms and we fell to the floor with me on my back and him on top of me. I felt the air go out of my lungs as I hit the floor. We both started laughing hysterically.
“Wow. That was impressive, Carlos. Maybe you aren"tquite as old as I thought you were,” I grinned.
“And you"ve got some pretty good moves for a rookie,” he said.
Suddenly you could feel the mood in the room change as we both realized the position we were lying in. I could feel every inch of him pressinginto me… and I liked it. The look on his face changed. His mouth started moving down toward mine and I felt panic because I couldn"t turn my face away, I just couldn"t, my head refused to move. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to brace for this kiss, but it didn"t happen. This time he was the strong one. At the last second, he moved to the side and brought his lips to my cheek. He kissed my cheek and then whispered, “Time to go home?”
I nodded sadly and he pushed up off of me. He held his hand out to help me up. As soon as I stood up I wrapped him in my arms and whispered, “I"m so sorry, Carlos.”
His hand came under my chin and he tilted my head up. “Seriously, Sarah. You have got to stop saying that. You have nothing to be sorry for. If anything I should be apologizing to you. The only one who has anything to be sorry for is me… for not finding you first. But I didn"t, he did. He did and, of course he fell in love with you. How could he not? How can anyone not fall in love with you? He found you first and now you belong to him. I know that and I"ll learn to cope with that. I"ll be okay. You and I will be okay.”
“I know. But you"re making it so frickin" tough, Carlos,” I said.
He looked shocked and hurt. “Me? How, Sarah?”
“By being so sweet and so fucking desirable.”
He smiled and kissed my forehead. “Oh, that. Well, sorry baby. Can"t help that. That"s the old Carlos magic. I can"t turn it off. It draws the ladies like flies to honey,” he grinned.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh please. Forget I said it. I didn"t mean it. I was just trying to be nice.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Nope. You can"t fool me, Sarah. You wonder what it would be like. We both do. We both wonder if it would be as fucking awesome as we"re pretty sure it would be. But we"ll never find out because we can"t. And we"ll just have to deal with that.”
“You"re right, Carlos. And I hate to build up your massive ego even more, but not sleeping with you is by far the hardest thing I"ve ever had to do… or not do,” I said.
“For me too, sweetheart. For me too,” he said as he leaned in and gave me a soft, gentle, “friendship” kiss on the lips. “Now, let"s get you home before somethinghappens that we both regret, okay?”
I placed my hand on his cheek. “I"d never regret it, Carlos. I"d hate myself and I"d feel incredibly guilty, but I"d never regret it.”
He grabbed my hand and kissed the back of it. “I love you so much, kiddo.”
“I love you too. But you"re right. Let"s go home.”
I wrapped my arms tightly around him for the flight home. I didn"t need to anymore, I was getting much better at flying on my own, but I wanted to feel his body pressing against mine for just a little longer. It wasn"t fair to him, because he"d be in an aroused state from us bouncing in the wind and then I"d just walk away, but I just couldn"t help it… and neither could he. When we were a few minutes away from home we both knew that it finally had to stop.
“Sarah, please. I can"t let anyone see me like this. He might be waiting for you,” he whispered. I hesitated for just a moment, then nodded, grabbed his hand and flew next to him. We landed in the dark and deserted courtyard and held hands as we made our way inside. I suddenly felt totally exhausted, not from the training but from the constant battle that was fighting shoulder within me. I leaned my head on his as we walked through the halls. He dropped my hand and wrapped his arm around me, kissing me softly on the forehead. We turned into the kitchen and separated… Matt was sitting at the table with his back to us. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his shoulders. I kissed his cheek. He reached his arms up and laced them behind the back of my neck.
“I missed you so much today, Sarah,” he whispered. There was an odd calmness… or maybe even asadness… coming from him.
“I missed you too, sweetheart,” I said. “Are you okay?”
He took a deep breath then said, “I"m fine, especially now that you are here. I saw the others come back a little while ago. I take it you two had something else to work on?”
Carlos set two pints in front of each of us and sat down across from us at the table, watching me.
“Yep. Carlos thought we should work on me passing orders to him silently to make sure he reacted as quickly as he does to spoken commands.”
“And, how did you do?” Matt said to Carlos.
“Pretty good, I think. Sarah?”
“He did very well. His reactions were almost as fast as spoken commands,” I said.
“That"s good. Now, are you mine now or do I have to wait a little longer?” Matt said.
I frowned at his question. What the hell did he really mean by that? Was there something else in that question or was I just being paranoid. My eyes flicked to Carlos for a second, then back to Matt. “Honey, I"m always yours. Don"t you know that?” I said.
He tilted his head and smiled up at me, but it wasn"t his usual smile, it wasn"t a smile that reached his eyes. “Of course I do. I just wasn"t sure if you had more work to do with Carlos or if you were done for the night.”
“Oh. We"re done until tomorrow.”
“Good. Then how about flying with me? I want to show you something,” Matt said.
“Sure honey. Anything you want.”
He stood up, turned and wrapped me in his arms. He hesitated for just a moment, then leaned in to give me what began as a tender, loving kiss, then changed to a hungry, longing, almost desperate kiss. Stop it, Sarah, I told myself, your mind is playing tricks on you. Stop reading stuff into this. Everything is fine.
Carlos stood up. “I"m going to bed. I"ll see you guys tomorrow. What time in the morning, Sarah?”
“Ummm, ten o"clock. Okay?”
“Sure thing. „Night all.”
“Good night,
Carlos,” we both said. Matt grabbed my hand and led me down the halls and out into the courtyard. He wrapped his arms around me and began kissing me as we began to rise into the air. He flew east, parallel with the mountain, for a few minutes then touched down by a pool at the base of a waterfall. Because he had been kissing me the entire time, I barely noticed we had landed and I sure in the hell didn"t want to stop kissing him to look around because I was completely turned on by that point.
“Sarah,” he mumbled into my lips, but that didn"t stop me. He placed his hands on either side of my face and pulled away. “Sarah, honey. Stop for just a second and look around.”
I opened my eyes and looked at him for a moment. I was thinking he was crazy for making me stop. Then I eventually rolled my eyes and looked around. “That"s a beautiful waterfall, honey. Now, kiss me again,” I said.
But he shook his head. “No, honey. Touch the water.”
“Are you trying to frustrate the hell out of me?” I said, crossing my arms across my chest and pouting like a spoiled child. His eyes danced as he smiled at me this time. He didn"t say a word, he just waited. “Fine, I"ll touch the damn freezing cold water,” I said then I leaned down… and gasped. “Holy shit. It"s warm. This water is friggin" hot.”
I turned back around to him and my heart jumped in my chest. He was beaming at me– and he was completely naked. “Care to join me?” he said. I couldn"t shed my clothes fast enough.
Almost every day for the next three and a half weeks Carlos, myself and the others practiced, while Matt waited for us at home. Day after day, hour after hour, we practiced until we were exhausted, but we felt like a well-oiled machine. I just had to hope that nobody panicked when the moment arrived. Right now, each one of them reacted instantly to my words. They were perfect. Of course, practicing every day meant that every day Carlos and I fought this damn thing between us that was trying to change our friendship into something else. The more we practiced, the easier the fighting got, but the harder it became to stifle our growing attraction. We worked at opposite ends of the room whenever possible. And as soon as we returned to the fortress, we made sure that Matt was around one or both of us all the time.
Malina's Revenge Page 12
