Curvy for Him: The Psychic and the Senator (Curvy for Him Series Book 9)

by Annabelle Winters

  5

  IRVING

  I know it’s hell when I see the bodies strewn haphazardly over the desolate landscape that resembles nothing on Earth. The ground appears to be moving, but it’s just the bodies of the dying, I realize as I blink and take in gaping wounds and clotted blood, flies buzzing overhead, the groans of the dying, the sighs of the dead.

  “I was just in heaven,” I whisper as I think back to my angel, think back to that kiss, to the way her lips felt against mine. Though perhaps she was the devil in disguise, I think with a trembling smile. A siren of the spirit world, leading me to this hellish place.

  And what is this place, I think as I realize that it’s a battlefield on the morning after. But not a battlefield from my own past—fuck, I’ve seen nothing like this: Men wearing everything from medieval armor to modern Kevlar, weapons ranging from M-16s to single-shot muskets, scimitars from the time of Genghis the Khan, broadswords that were swung by the knights who rode with Richard the Lionheart!

  Without realizing it I walk amongst the dead and dying, looking into their eyes, not sure what I’m expecting to see, expecting to feel, expecting to do. At some level I’m afraid, but it’s not fear that’s got my heart pumping hot blood through my body. It’s a different sort of energy. The energy I used to feel on the battlefield, the fire that ignited me when I faced the enemy, when I knew it was me or him today, just like all these fallen soldiers knew.

  “And all soldiers dream of falling on the battlefield, don’t they?” I whisper as I look into the eyes of my fellow soldiers from ages past. Even the dead are looking up at me, their eyes shining with peace even while twisted with the pain of the wounds that killed them. Immediately I understand the feeling, understand that in some twisted way this is heaven, this is where soldiers who fell on the battlefield end up, living out the glory of their final stands again and again.

  Tears come to my eyes as I stand there amongst my comrades through time, and I smile and nod as I think back to my relentless need for war, that yearning to lead a great army like it was in the days of old, to invade and conquer, plant flags and stake claims, take what’s mine and let the fucking world know who’s king.

  King, comes the whisper, and it’s the whisper of thousands, of millions, of every soul I see, every soul I feel.

  I stand frozen in what I assume is a dream but is so fucking vivid it feels more real than anything I’ve experienced. My body is buzzing, and I gasp as I see the spirits of the fallen soldiers close in on me, reaching for me like I’m their savior, like I’m their way to eternal life, like I’m their general, their leader, their goddamn king!

  “What the fuck,” I gasp, as I feel a rush of power go through me as the spirits get closer and then disappear.

  But they aren’t disappearing into nothing.

  They’re disappearing into me!

  With a blinding flash of dark light my vision goes blank, and then suddenly I’m back in my windowless room, back in my chair, my left hand still broken.

  But something’s changed.

  I brought something back with me from that fucked-up vision that I don’t understand but somehow do understand.

  I brought something back . . .

  That dark energy surges through me as my ears prick up like an animal’s on the hunt. I can hear every sound, from the beetle scurrying across the rough floor to the distant voices of my captors somewhere else in the building. The voices are getting closer, but that energy is filling me in a sickeningly exhilarating way and I’m getting calmer, more relaxed, confidence oozing through me until I know I’m fucking invincible, like I understand that a soldier never dies, that I can’t be killed, won’t be killed, am impossible to kill!

  “Where the fuck is he?” growls Number One as the door opens. It’s only now that I realize I’m up against the wall like a shadow, merging into the darkness like I am the darkness. “You didn’t tie him back up after letting him take a piss? Are you an idiot?”

  Number Two grunts nervously, and I narrow my eyes as I watch them stand in the room like they can’t see me. Am I not just invincible but also invisible? Sure. Why not.

  “Well, I wasn’t gonna hold his dick for him to piss,” grumbles Number Two, flicking on the overhead light and looking right at me with a snort. I guess I’m not invisible after all. “Besides, where was he gonna go with just one hand, no shirt, and half-starved? Dude’s a politician, not Houdini. Look at him standing like a fucking deer in the headlights. He’s in shock or some shit. Here. I’ll TAZER his ass so we can get the cameras rolling for Episode Two.”

  “Cameras are already rolling,” says Number Three, who’s holding a digital video camera steady as he grins and nods at Number Two. “Go on. Zap the Senator. You need help?”

  “Nah, I got it,” says Number Two, licking his lips and blinking. He’s big, with a nose that’s been broken several times—both in and out of a boxing ring. One of his eyes doesn’t track straight, and there’s a scar the size of the Grand Canyon along his thick neck. He’s got a big fucking gut, but underneath that fat is muscle—bulky muscle that’s as good as armor when my only weapon is my fist.

  “Turn that camera off,” says Number One, who’s standing back, arms folded across his broad chest. He’s got a well-groomed beard that covers battle-scars from years ago. Nothing recent, though—which means he hasn’t lost a fight in quite a while. And he’s wiry and ripped, with no gut, no unnecessary fat, no self-doubt in his steely gray eyes. He’s wearing a black skull-cap that I think is a ski-mask that pulls down. The others don’t have those masks. Number One’s gonna be the only one on camera. You wanna be famous, motherfucker? I’ll make you famous. “No faces on film, you dumb ape.”

  “This is for personal viewing pleasure,” says Number Two, still grinning as he keeps the camera going. “Nobody’s gonna see this but us.”

  “That’s what everyone says before their fucking sex-tape gets leaked,” Number One grunts, finally turning his attention from me as he steps to Number Three, his composed, bearded face twisted with momentary annoyance. “Gimme that camera, you fucking—”

  I sense the distraction, and I know this is my in, my opportunity, the moment to strike. My left hand is useless, and I hold it firmly against my side as I leap at Number Two, who’s holding the live TAZER while looking over at his buddies.

  I hear the satisfying crack of Number Two’s jawbone breaking as I connect with my right fist, and then I just go wild as the energy of the dead powers my body on this battlefield. Before I even realize what’s happening I’ve stepped on Number Two’s neck and broken it with a sickening crunch, and a second later I’ve punched Number Three so hard in the chest that I know I just broke his fucking breastbone, one of the strongest bones in the human body.

  I know I just shattered my right hand too, but the pain is just fuel now, and I roar like a beast as I see Number Two drop the camera and cough up dark blood that I can tell means his broken ribs and breastplate have punctured his lung and he’s now drowning on his own blood.

  My vision is bright red as I clench my broken fists and stretch my bare chest. I feel bigger than myself, stronger than myself, more alive than I’ve ever been. I’m certain I could take a bullet and keep going, and I turn towards where Number One was standing just a moment ago.

  I half expect him to be gone, turned on his heels and heading for the hills rather than face me alone after his buddies just went down with barely a whimper. But no. Number One is still here, moving like a cat in the night, circling around me in a way that makes me lick my lips in delight at the fight that’s coming.

  And then we’re at each other, punching and blocking, kicking and biting, grunting and roaring for our fucking lives. Both of us knows this fight ends with one of us dead, just like the old days. There’s no middle-ground, no negotiation, no compromise. When enemies meet on a battlefield with weapons drawn, they don’t stop to reason with each other, they don’t say, “Time out, man—let’s talk about this!” Nah. It’s too
late for that. It’s all instinct now. All animal.

  All man.

  A glimpse of that curvy angel drifts through my laser-focused mind along with that last thought, as if the man in me is fighting his own battle, a battle between two sides of me, two sides of my psyche, my nature. I frown as the vision of her standing there like a goddess, a queen, a fucking dream makes me hesitate. She’s looking at me with disapproval, like she’s judging me, like she’s disappointed in me, like she fucking hates me, and I cock my head as I wonder what’s happening, if maybe I’m still in some weird hallucination.

  But the sound of my rib cracking jolts me awake, and I stagger backwards and just barely get my head out of the way of Number One’s ferocious roundhouse-punch—a blow that would have ended this fight and sent me to the fucking afterlife for good.

  I roar and shake my head like a wolf in the rain, going down on my knees as the pain of my broken rib forces my body to release its natural painkillers, to pull out all the stops, to harness every trick and loophole in evolution’s survival toolbox.

  The adrenaline blasts through me again, and I push up off my crouching stance like a rocket taking off, my upward momentum so fast I barely have time to clench my shattered fist before it makes contact with Number One’s jaw in an uppercut that carries every ounce of my power, perhaps every ounce of the power of those warrior-spirits that I can feel entrenching themselves in my fucking soul with every gasping breath I take.

  Number One is lifted off his feet, his long, wiry body arching backwards like he’s doing a backflip into a swimming pool. All the action slows down in an incredible way that makes it feel like a slow motion replay where you’re the only one who can move in real-time. I’m smiling as I circle around Number One, who lands with a thud that sends a cloud of dust up from the floor, adding to the mystical feel of this fight.

  I drop to my knees behind him, locking my strong right arm around his neck, pushing his head against the grain as I squeeze the life out of him. His eyes roll up towards me, and I nod as I meet his gaze. He knows he’s about to die, and somehow I feel he wants to die at my hands. It’s like he can see those ancient soldiers looking at him through my eyes, and he understands that this is his fate, his destiny, his end.

  Number One’s neck snaps just as I feel a strange sense of my own destiny, and then everything goes dead quiet, leaving me alone and alive, awake but still in a dream somehow.

  I stay still and silent for a long time, my dead enemy cradled against my hard body like a child, like I love him in that weird way a soldier loves his enemy because your enemy understands you like no one else can—not your mother, not your wife, not your child.

  Slowly the adrenaline drains out of me, and I can feel the stress and shock working its way through my shattered body. I force myself to breathe, knowing that I’ll pass out if I don’t take in vast amounts of oxygen and get my body to step down from emergency-mode.

  My head spins but I control the dizziness, and when my vision comes back into focus I realize I’m staring at a blinking light on the floor.

  “Fuck me,” I whisper when I realize it’s the camera that Number Three dropped when I broke him. It’s still rolling, still on, still recording.

  Excitement rips through me as I reach for the camera and pick it up, staring into the lens before turning it off and flipping it around so I can see what it picked up.

  And as I look through the footage, that excitement turns to ambition.

  Sick, twisted ambition.

  The ambition of every man who reaches for the top of his chosen field.

  The ambition of every general who’s led his troops to battle.

  The ambition of every king who’s commanded his army to invade.

  “And who is the general, the king, the ruler of the free world in today’s age?” I whisper as I pocket the camera and search the dead men for a phone I can use to call for a ride outta here. “Who is the most powerful man in the world, the modern equivalent of Caesar, Napoleon, fucking Genghis Khan? Who is Commander-in-Chief of the greatest army in the history of civilization?”

  6

  ONE YEAR LATER

  ISA

  “The next President of the United States!” cries the Governor of my state, a beaming grin of pure admiration on his normally scowly face. “Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Senator Ian Irving!”

  A roar of wild adulation rises up from the crowd that’s gathered downtown in Gaynor Park, right smack in the middle of the city. The roads have been cleared, and from where I’m standing it looks like the freakin’ Million-Man March even though the entire metro area has barely a million people. Clearly folks have driven in from all over just to be in Senator Irving’s presence, just to get a glimpse of a man who in one year has gone from villain to hero like we’re living in a Hollywood movie.

  “Oh, gimme a break,” I mutter, folding my arms under my breasts and shaking my head as the Senator bounds onto stage like this is The Price is Right. But my sarcasm can’t take hold, because the sight of him sends a shiver through my body, just like it did a year ago when I had that strange vision—a vision that to my shock and horror was actually true!

  I’d watched in muted disbelief when that video was released all over the world. The video of a kidnapped politician fighting his captors, overcoming the odds, taking down the enemy in the most visceral, physical, easy-to-understand way. It was breathtaking, even I have to admit, the way his muscled body moved in the muted light of that room, the way the Senator transformed into a warrior on screen, showed the world that he couldn’t be broken, wouldn’t be broken, would fight and win.

  “We’re going to win,” says Irving as I stare from my perch near the left of the stage. Somehow I forced myself to come here early enough to get a spot reasonably close to the stage, even though I’m not a fan of crowds. “In a week, when America goes to the polls, we’re gonna win the White House. And that’s when everything will change, I promise you. Previous leaders have talked about making America great again. Well, when I’m President the world is going to see greatness and power like they’re never seen! I’m going to make America a superpower like it’s never been!” He grins wide, his lean, handsome face sending ripples through me just like it does to the crowd. I can tell every woman wants to bear his children and every man wants to join his army. Shit, every woman wants to join his army too, I think!

  Indeed, the military has been reporting massive increases in recruitment to every branch, to the point where they’ve been scrambling to even process the applications, let alone get people onboarded and trained. Young men and women are leading the charge, but even older folks are applying, like Irving is inspiring all of America to . . . to . . . to do what?

  “The enemies of America will submit completely or be wiped out,” Irving says, his face hardening but with a calmness that makes his green eyes almost glow. “No longer will we make compromises, sign treaties, offer concessions. You bow down to us or we break you. You bend the knee or we break your knees!”

  Another earth-shaking roar goes up as I stare into the Senator’s green eyes. I think back to that moment in the video, just before he killed the last man. Irving had hesitated, frozen, his eyes glazing over as if he was seeing something else, seeing someone else.

  I hadn’t had any more visions of Irving, but the impression I got from the first two a year ago only got stronger after I saw the video. Irving does have psychic abilities, and I still believe he either isn’t aware of them or is kinda aware but doesn’t understand the danger of opening up those channels.

  I shiver as I hear the whispers of the spirits that follow me everywhere. Spirits are drawn to people like me—like us, I suppose. They’re always trying to get in, trying to get you to do something for them, to do what they can’t since they no longer have bodies at their disposal. The spirits that stay close to the human world are those that can’t let go of the flesh, perhaps have unfinished business in the “real” world. Some just have addictions that stay with th
em, keep them attached to the world of flesh and blood: Alcohol. Drugs. Sex . . .

  Sex, comes a chorus of whispers in my head, and I almost swoon on my feet as I realize it’s a group of spirits that are new to me, freshly drawn to me, like they’ve been hovering in the background, waiting for an in, an opening, a chance to . . . to what?

  I swoon again as I feel them clawing at me, trying to get in, to use my body to give them what they yearn for, to give them what’s holding them to the world of flesh and blood. I’m no virgin, but sex has never been a big part of my life. And I’ve most certainly never attracted the kind of spirits that see me as a conduit for feeling the joys of sex they may have experienced as humans! What’s changed? Something clearly happened to the Senator after that strange psychic connection between us—a connection that I’m still not certain he consciously experienced. Did something happen to me too? Something that’s only making itself known now . . . now that I’m face to face with him, in his physical presence?

  Another shiver goes through me as the Senator scans the crowd and suddenly fixes his gaze on me like he sees me, like he sees only me!

  And suddenly I’m frozen, transfixed, in the grip of a possession that feels different from any psychic experience I’ve ever had!

  I swear I don’t even blink as the Senator finishes his speech. I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but I think he stared at me for the entire back half of that speech, ever since he saw me in the crowd. It seems impossible, and as the Senator walks off the stage to thunderous applause, I finally blink my burning eyes and turn to head home.

  And then I’m stopped by two men in mirrored sunglasses, black suits, and white earpieces.

  “The Senator would like to see you,” says one of the men.

  “This way, Ma’am,” says the other, gesturing towards an opening in the fence, behind which a black armor-plated limousine is waiting, its engine running.