by Chloe Garner
“He’s doing well.”
“Soft,” Carter called. “You’re being soft. If you’re going to do it, give him the right tool.”
Samantha and Jason split, turning to look as Carter stood and walked across the room. Carter reached under his suit jacket and tugged at something, drawing a true short sword. Sam saw Abby put her hand over her mouth in his peripheral vision.
“Give me that,” he said, holding out his hand. Jason turned the sword to hand Carter the handle and Carter snatched it away. Sam moved to make sure he hadn’t slashed Jason’s hand open. Samantha wasn’t completely unconcerned, either. She didn’t know what was happening.
“This is Diana,” Carter said as he tossed the other sword across the floor. It clattered into the wall. “She is demon-forged and hungrier than any other known blade for ash.” He glanced over his shoulder at Samantha. “And she is actually a match for the angel blade.”
He held the sword across his hands and looked at Jason.
“You will use this,” he said. Sam thought Abby had stopped breathing. Jason slowly reached out and took the sword from Carter’s hands, feeling the weight of it.
“It’s heavy,” he said.
“She’s heavy,” Carter said scathingly. “Her blade is pure tungsten.”
The metal was yellowish, like a reference to bronze without being actually bronze. As Jason turned Diana in his hands, even Sam could see how thin the blade was. Samantha was stunned. Carter backed away and Jason took several practice swipes through the air with the new blade, but Samantha remained motionless. Jason moved with the sword like she had been made for him. The blade was less than three feet long, maybe two and a half, at least six inches shorter than the one Carter had thrown away, but longer than Lahn by about a foot. The sound the blade made going through the air was high-pitched, above a scream.
Samantha put Lahn up in front of her, calling Jason’s attention. She wasn’t re-settled yet, but she had a fierce determination that centered itself on that blade.
“Again,” she said. Jason spun the blade one-handed and brought it down to meet Lahn. Samantha dropped her arm and brought it around and back up and they were off again. This phase took on a new intensity. Samantha was everywhere. With the heavier blade, Jason was mostly set over his feet, but he was somehow faster with her. His motion was more precise. The blade went exactly where he wanted her to be.
Jason’s shirt soaked through and Samantha paused to wipe sweat out of her face.
“Come on,” Carter roared. “Let me see what he’s capable of.”
He sprung off the bench and snatched the sword off of the wall.
“Move,” he said. Samantha stared at him, then looked at Jason. Jason shrugged. Sam grinned. That was his brother. Samantha backed away, but Sam noticed that she kept Lahn out, and she didn’t join them against the wall.
Carter didn’t wait for Jason to engage him. He just attacked. Abby stiffened, pushing her shoulder against Sam’s. Samantha wasn’t afraid, so Sam resolved not to be.
“He hasn’t fought anyone in training since Sam,” Abby whispered.
Blade against blade rang, the noise different with these two swords. Carter pushed Jason harder, not pushing one point and then another, but rather raining a barrage of attacks that Jason could only deflect one after another. It was very different, watching Carter work. With Samantha, Jason had made considerable progress, but he had always looked like it was an exchange. Even if Samantha was never in danger of him reaching her with a weapon, he had made up half of the fight. This was on the verge of being one-sided. Like Carter was attacking an animated wood post.
Sam lost track of how long it went on. Hard as Carter pressed, Jason didn’t give ground. There was that much.
“Enough,” Samantha said. “Enough, Carter.”
Carter didn’t let up. It was as if neither of them had heard her.
“Carter,” she said, louder. Still nothing.
She stepped in between the two of them, the air from the blades stirring her hair as they made their final arcs. Abby shuddered and threw her face into Sam’s shoulder. Samantha was fearless. She had known neither of them would touch her. Carter propped the point of the sword into the floor and leaned on it.
“You’re coddling him,” he said. Samantha turned and slid Diana out of Jason’s hand as he dropped to the floor. In one continuous motion, she faced Carter again, holding Diana’s blade in two hands. Carter took her and flipped the sword back behind him and into the sheath he wore under his jacket.
“I won’t let you do that to him,” she said. Sam stood. Jason hadn’t stood back up yet. He hadn’t even moved.
“He’s okay, Sam,” Samantha said. “You want to help him upstairs?”
“Weak,” Carter said. “He should be way past this, Sam.”
Sam pulled Jason off the floor and his brother looked up at him drowsily.
“What happened?” he asked. “Do I still have my arms?”
“And all of the rest of the important pieces, too,” Sam said. “You okay, man?”
“He didn’t kill me?” Jason asked.
“Nope. Sam stopped him.”
“Good girl. I guess I’m okay then.”
Sam snorted and lifted him to his feet. Jason’s knees didn’t hold him up, but he seemed to be in better shape than many of the times Sam had dragged him home drunk.
“You should get him food and water,” Abby said, taking Jason’s other arm. It was mostly a token, but he appreciated it.
“Like a puppy,” Jason said. “Will you take me for a walk, too?”
“He’s punch drunk,” Abby said.
“Didn’t lay a finger on me,” Jason said.
“I remember Sam like this. She sang,” Abby said, smiling. The elevator doors opened and Sam dragged Jason through, turning to see Samantha and Carter staring at each other, motionless, she with Lahn, he with Diana. The doors closed.
<><><>
The cluster of marks was thick across his shoulders, in a spectrum of red and brown, like leopard spots. He had broken into the room next to the one Sam was presently sleeping in, and she had slammed him against the door the moment it was closed. He had picked her up and carried her across the room to the bed. She no longer thought of him as Jason, during. He was just a body that she rolled with, biting, scratching, anger and satisfaction undifferentiated. It didn’t make her happy. It just made her manageable. She couldn’t tell if Jason liked it or not, and she didn’t want to ask. He didn’t push her for more, and he didn’t avoid it. She didn’t want to know more than that.
They had spent days drifting down the east coast, staying in a big city one night and a tiny town the next, training in the mornings, spending the afternoons quiet, talking or walking or working, then they’d move on to the next city.
Samantha managed to stay stable, but she felt awful. Sam thought she was just still recovering, misidentifying her guilt and her angst as being about Caroline or Alexander or both. She felt dull. She felt like she had a window of time that should be healing her, that she should be enjoying, but instead she limped along, gray, anger growing over the course of the day.
“You ready to go back over?” he asked. She sighed. She was sleeping in chairs and on floors. She didn’t want anyone to touch her. Jason seemed to get it, but Sam kept trying to be affectionate. Just sweet, comforting, but she would edge away, skin crawling. He hadn’t given up on her yet.
“Yeah.”
“How long is this going to last?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
“This isn’t a long term plan. You know that, right?”
“I know.”
“We’re going home tomorrow,” he said. “I won’t do this at home.”
“Okay.”
She should ask why. She should show an interest. Care. She just couldn’t. She got up and went back out the door, waiting for him to find his shirt and come let her into the other room, then pulled the spare pillow off of his bed and lay down on the g
round at the foot of it. She closed her eyes and willed sleep to come. He was up for another minute, coming to lay the blanket from her bag over her before he lay down. She listened to the calm of Sam’s sleep, trying to pull it over her like a second blanket, but the blood thirst was rising again.
Something needed to pay.
She didn’t care what, and what it was they needed to pay for wasn’t specific. She rolled over, going through a routine she had used as a child to bring sleep to her body, moving bone by bone, muscle by muscle up her body, starting at her toes, the arches of her feet, her heels, her ankles, and emphasizing the stillness and the quietness of the muscle. She forced her abdomen to relax, then her chest, jumping to her fingers and working her way back up to her shoulders. Still. Quiet. Asleep. She worked through her neck, her jaw, the muscles of her face, her eyes. Her brain.
It didn’t bring sleep, but it brought quiet. She lay still and she waited. Eventually, morning would simply come as a step forward in time.
It always did.
<><><>
Sam checked the computer, the same as he had every other morning. He didn’t want to find anything from Simon, but he had to check, anyway. Jason and Samantha were asleep. Samantha wasn’t sleeping well. The dark, brooding anger that he recognized from after his own death had been a constant companion, but morning seemed to help it. Now, though, she was dreaming angry, violent dreams. Her shoulders twitched and she rolled over, muttering.
His inbox only had a few notes from friends, mass distribution, plus one from Carson. He was at home again and wanted to know if they were going to be by any time soon. He wished they were back at the house in Kansas City. That Caroline was there. The first few days, when he hadn’t even started to think about how having a relationship with a Ranger, with anyone, was going to affect his relationship with Samantha. Light-headed happy.
He answered that he didn’t see them making it, but he’d mention it.
They were going home today. He missed his mother’s books, the air, the land around their home in Chapel Hill. Jason had never really looked at it as home. He had looked at the world as a game of hide-and-seek, and the more places he looked, the more he won. He occasionally got stir crazy when their dad had spent weekends away rather than coming to get him. To Sam it had been home. As painful as the idea had been of Jason going out one day and not coming back for weekends, just leaving for months at a time, Sam had never thought about doing it, himself. About abandoning the idea of home altogether.
Samantha jerked awake and looked over at him, then blinked and lay back down on her pillow.
“Bad dream?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Felt like one to me,” he said.
“I was winning,” she said. He laughed. She got up and went in to the bathroom, turning on the shower. Jason sat up.
“We have anything?” he asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee before he sat down next to Sam.
“Nope. Carson wants us to go that way, if we’re off.”
“Can if you want,” Jason said.
“I want to get home,” Sam said.
“It isn’t home, Sam,” Jason said, standing to go pack.
“Is to me,” Sam said.
“Whatever, man.”
They got the Cruiser loaded up and waited for Samantha to get out of the shower.
“Where to?” Jason asked.
“Gym or beach?” she asked.
“That’s the question.”
“Beach,” she said. Footing was harder. Sam could tell that even from where he sat while they worked.
“All right,” Jason said. “Let’s do it.”
They drove down the strip of road along the ocean, finding a stretch of sand on the far side of an old apartment building that was empty and Samantha unloaded the practice swords. They didn’t fight with blades in public, but she had been getting out the sword and Lahn for working in gyms since New York.
Sam sat in the scrub grass holding together the part of the beach that the tide didn’t reach and watched as Samantha and Jason squared off in the loose sand above the wet line.
Jason was in a good mood, over-playing his part of the spar. Samantha whacked him a few times to try to get him in line, but he laughed at her, kicking off his shoes to fight barefoot in the sand.
Finally, her frustration growing, Samantha knocked Jason off his feet and kneed him in the side, sending him sprawling across the sand. Jason rolled back to his feet, laughing, motioning for her to come at him again. She threw her sword to the side and charged him. He laughed and threw his away as she hit him, throwing him backwards into the sand again. They rolled and Jason got loose, running away. Sam frowned. Something wasn’t right. Jason was laughing as Samantha chased him.
“Stand and fight me,” she yelled.
“Hey, Jason, come here,” Sam called. Jason looked up as Sam hopped down the embankment and walked over. Samantha stopped. Jason trotted over.
“What’s up, dude?”
Sam pulled Jason’s shirt off his shoulder.
“What have you done?” he asked. Jason shrugged back into his shirt.
“What?” Jason asked.
“Those aren’t from training,” Sam said. “I know what those are.”
“So?” Jason asked. Samantha spiked a panic reaction and Sam looked at her.
“Do you know where he got those?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said. Sam shook his head at her.
“What’s going on?”
“They’re hers, Sam,” Jason said, shrugging his shirt again.
“What?” Sam asked. She looked away. “Sam, what’s he talking about?”
“You want her to paint you a picture?” Jason asked.
“When? We’ve slept in the same room the last three nights,” Sam said.
“Next door,” Samantha said. “He would break in next door.”
“I’m going to go up to the car,” Jason said. Sam looked at him, shock giving way to fury.
“I’m not done with you,” he said to Jason.
“Oh, I bet you’re not, but you two need to talk. Have needed to for weeks.” Jason pointed at him as he walked up the beach backwards. “Actually do it this time.”
<><><>
Sam sat next to Samantha in the sand, watching waves roll in. He knew she was waiting for him.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“I know.”
He should have been asking why, but what he wanted to know was why Jason. Jason was the last guy in the world she should have been interested in. The last.
“Do you love him?” he asked. Her shock surprised him.
“What? No. Not… No, it isn’t like that.”
“Then… why?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either. It started the night you had your seizure,” she said. She paused at his reaction, waiting for the hurt to pass. “Just… I’m so angry. I want to go hunt things. Go kill things.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that,” he said. “We can do that, if that’s what you want to do.”
“I lose time when I do that,” she said. “I let it go, I just remember a long line of kills. I could get you guys killed.”
“How does…” he stopped. “What did you do with him? Do I even want to know?”
“Just what you saw,” she said.
“Okay… How does that help?” he asked. She felt like she wanted to crawl away and hide. He looked at her and she swallowed.
“I chew on him,” she said. “How do you think?”
“That’s it?” he asked.
“That’s it,” she said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“Would you have told you?”
He looked out at the ocean again.
“No.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t really know which parts to regret right now, but I’m sorry it happened like it did.”
“Why Jason?” he asked. There it was.
“Who else?” she returned. “Not like I have a line to pick from.” She looked at him. “Look, it wasn’t an idea I had that I decided to just do. It just happened. It helped. I didn’t quit.”
They sat for a long time, quiet. She wasn’t okay. The writhing ocean was erupting into an angry storm that she couldn’t control any more.
“You going to keep doing it?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “I knew I couldn’t if you knew.”
He nodded.
“So are we going to go hunting then?” he asked. She nodded. Growled.
“I’ve lost my footing,” she said. “I’m falling.”
He wished he understood better what that meant. She looked over at him.
“You understood what Jason said?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” she said.
“Neither do I.”
“Yeah.”
She stood and picked up the practice swords.
“You going to be mad at him?” she asked.
“You think he doesn’t deserve it?” Sam asked.
“He doesn’t think he was wrong,” she said.
“All the more reason to be angry.”
She sat down nearby in the loose sand, facing the ocean.
“I need to stay in control,” she said. “As much as I can. I can’t give Brandt an opening. He’s taken too long already. He’s planning something. He’s not just looking for an opportunity.”
“I know,” he said. “I want to help.”
“I know you do. I just don’t know what do ask.”
He stood and walked down to sit next to her.
“Well, let’s find something for you to take it out on, and we’ll go from there. Okay?”
She rubbed her nose and sighed.
“Yeah. Okay.”
She brushed off her hands and licked her thumbs. He closed his eyes.
Samantha was sitting in front of him. On the beach. He saw himself and tried to pull away from the vision. Something hadn’t worked right. She rolled her head back and collapsed. He frantically tried to get away. Something was very wrong. She wasn’t there any more. He couldn’t find her anywhere, in the vision or outside of it. She opened her eyes and sat up, looking around the beach. He watched himself sitting there, dumbly, as she scanned the ocean, then looked over at him. First at his body, and then at him as he watched her. He had to quit. He had to get back into his own body. Something was wrong. She grinned.
