“Whoa. I don’t understand... what are you doing, Ash?” she asked the monitor blankly.
She frowned as she watched Asher peacefully sleeping in her bed. She fast-forwarded the videos to watch him tossing and turning for several hours. She looked at the timestamp and saw that he had done this on several different days. Amara paused the video and put a hand in her hair, staring at the frame on the monitor.
Her first instinct was to call Asher and yell at him. She wanted to ask him what the hell was wrong with him—why would he leave her, barely speak to her, and then sneak into her bed? She squinted at the screen in confusion. She knew that she shouldn’t initiate contact with the man—it would only end in more frustration.
Finally, Amara felt the corners of her lips twitch manically. She put her hands up in the air, in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not going to do anything about this,” she declared. “Para is going to take care of you for me. She needs to throw you off a cliff or something… into the mud.”
Amara reached out and touched the screen, tracing Asher’s face with a perfect fingernail. Her eyes shone with their evil intent. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to sneak into your ex-girlfriend’s house and sleep in her bed without permission? You naughty, naughty boy.”
* * *
“Hey, sleepyhead! Wake up!” Amara reached out to shake her friend’s limp and bloody body, but as soon as her hand connected with the girl’s shoulder, she could see that Pax was deep in a dream—or a memory. Closing her eyes, Amara placed a hand on Pax’s forehead. The images came swimming into her own mind. She saw Pax tending to her wounds with Sakra’s healing water after a training session with Vincent. She saw Pax yelling at the older man with shock and dismay as they engaged in a heated conversation. Amara frowned as she spied on the exchange between her best friend and her father:
“… And if I am killed, in a permanent and irreparable fashion, I expect you to fulfill my wish.”
“You’re not going to die!” Pax shouted, wiping blood off her face. “I don’t know how you can even say such a thing.”
“Hush, girl.” Vincent extended his hand to her, offering a bottle of beer. “It may or may not happen—we will soon see.”
“Who is this visitor from the future? I want to know. It could be any of us, right? It could be me, or Amara, or any other deva…”
“That is irrelevant. Do I have your word, girl?”
“Really, Vince? Of everything you could have asked me… that!”
“Yes. You’re strong; you might be stronger than Thorn and Ash. You might even be as strong as your father, but I can’t be sure unless I see your true power. I will soon. You are the only one who knows the teleportation technique, and thus you will be imperative to this battle. I need to test your skill. You will come back and practice with me at least once a day. Got it? I don't care what your other obligations are.”
She paused and stared at him before nodding. “Sure.”
“I will use this time to teach you everything I know in a heavily condensed fashion. You must pass it on to your children, and to Amara’s children, to any partial devas that might ever be born. This will be your responsibility, do you understand?”
Pax frowned and nodded again.
“It’s important that we plan carefully for the upcoming battles. We need to exercise caution. When a select few of us head off to destroy the comet, we will need to make sure that we leave several devas here on the planet to protect our families.” Vincent waved his hand over a few bottles of beer, instantly absorbing the liquid within them. “You will be crucial to our mobility, so you will not be allowed to fight. I want you to be in charge of the home front. You have already proven your merit, and I do not want females on the front lines. It’s too dangerous. Once you transport us to the necessary locations, I will require that you remain on Earth and stay safe.”
“That’s not fair!” Pax interrupted. “You can’t…”
“Now, Pax. Answer my previous question. Do you promise?”
Pax remained quiet, shaking her head in disbelief. Vincent had never asked anything of her before. He never requested anything from anyone, except in times of desperation—it seemed that this was quickly beginning a desperate time.
“I know it is a terrible thing to ask,” Vincent admitted. “It contradicts the advice I’ve given you in the past. I would not have asked this of you even a few days ago, but now...”
“You’re not asking,” Pax said angrily. “You’re not speaking to me as a mentor—let’s call this what it is. You’re commanding me to do this as the King of Devas. Am I right?”
“No. You will know when I give a command. This is just the dying wish of an old warrior.”
Pax bowed her head forward, feeling the world collapse around her. “Vince…” This day was probably ranking among the top ten worst days of her life—and there had been some pretty bad ones.
“Will you?” Vincent asked, clearing his throat. “Pax? I need an answer now. If I die, and you both survive this, will you marry my son and bear him strong children?”
“Fine,” Pax answered, “but only if I can fight on the front lines to make sure you don’t die.”
“It is my command that you remain on the home front…”
“Fuck your commands! I’m not just any other female or else you wouldn’t have chosen me as your potential daughter-in-law. And I’m not letting you die, because Amara will whine about it forever…”
“Damn right I will!” Amara shouted at her sleeping friend. Pax immediately woke up, and realized what Amara’s hand was doing on her forehead.
“Get out of my head.” There was murder in each emphatic syllable.
Amara immediately felt guilty. “But he’s my daddy...”
Pax’s marble frown softened. She took a deep breath to try to soothe her anger. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m a bit tense right now because of the situation with Thorn and the comet. Look Mara, nothing is going to happen to Vincent. He’s just talking crazy.”
“He said something about a visitor from the future?” Amara asked nervously.
“Yeah. Apparently someone came back to warn about the comet, but I’m not sure who it is. You know what that means? It’s going to be really bad.”
“My dad really asked you to promise…”
“Relax, Mara.” Pax sat up, groaning at the pain in her entire body. She clutched her head. “Listen, when it comes down to zero hour, I’m going to be on the front lines. I promise you that I won’t let anything happen to your father. Not that he can’t take care of himself, but I will die before I let anyone hurt him. Besides, dying has got to be better than marrying your brother.”
“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Amara said softly. “You obviously have more important things on your mind than I do. I saw Ash doing something insane on the cameras, and I panicked and rushed to ask for your help in getting back at him—but here you are, trying to solve a global crisis in your REM stages. I’ll leave you alone.”
“No, it’s cool.” Pax rubbed her eyes. “What happened with Ash?”
“You have to see! Come down to the lab. You’re going to flip!”
Pax got out of bed groggily and stumbled forward. Her knees gave way a few times below her and buckled slightly as she placed her legs one foot before the other.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Amara.
“Your dad beat me silly after the thing... the thing with Thorn,” Pax mumbled. “Worst day ever. I would have been fine if I could have slept for more than one hour. Just tell me what happened with Ash.”
“He was sleeping in my bed the whole time we were away!”
Pax remembered catching her uncle sleeping in Amara’s room before. She considered telling her friend this, but she had promised her uncle…
“Oh my god!” Amara shouted, reading her friend’s mind. “You knew!”
“He said he couldn’t sleep anywhere else. I felt so bad for him.” Pax yawned and returned to the bed where she had bee
n lying a moment before. “I kinda understand him. You have really comfortable mattresses.”
Amara sputtered angrily. “Well, Ash should get his own damn orthopedic mattress!”
“It was a joke, you doofus. He loves you, and misses you. He wants to feel close to you.”
“Really?” Amara sat down abruptly on the side of the bed. “You think so?”
“Mmm,” Pax responded in sleepy confirmation. Her own mind was drifting back to Thornton, and she could taste the bittersweet kiss in the middle of her broken, burning coffee table.
Amara glanced at her half-unconscious friend in surprise. “Whoa. How do you get so much more action than me? I’m the pretty one.”
Chapter 23: Wet, Limp Noodle
“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Okay.” Having stabbed the vial of etorphine with the needle, Pax turned it upside down and shuddered as she began to tug on the plunger, slowly withdrawing enough liquid to fill up the syringe. She was not sure how much of the substance would be required, so she was using twenty milligrams—enough to put down an adult male elephant. She would adjust the dosage later as needed. Seeing an air bubble, she tapped the side of the syringe to remove it. She winced at the sight of the thin spike.
“Hurry up, Pax. We have to be ready before Ash gets here.”
“Okay. I…” Pax exhaled erratically. She had already administered Amara’s dose, giving her a significantly smaller amount of the substance. Now, she held the needle poised above her own outer thigh, and the color was draining from her face.
“Pax. You’re kidding, right? You’re a doctor, for Sakra’s sake.”
“You have your thing about bugs. I have my thing about needles. This is the first time I’m letting one break through my skin. I just need a minute.”
“Give yourself the needle now!”
Pax closed her eyes tightly as the needle descended closer to her thigh. “Dear Sakra, god of gods, please forgive me for being weak. Forgive me for taking a human life, and forgive me for having sex with your wife…”
“What are you doing?” asked Amara in annoyance.
“Don’t interrupt me. I’m praying,” answered Pax through clenched teeth as she continued piously chanting under her breath. The hand that held the syringe shook violently.
Amara growled and grabbed the needle and jabbed it into Pax’s leg. She quickly unloaded the syringe into her friend’s bloodstream, while Pax was still muttering prayers.
“There, it’s done!” said Amara. “Now let’s merge. Hurry.”
“...And forgive me for—what?” asked Pax, and she opened her eyes and saw that the needle had been administered. “Wow, I didn’t even feel it! Thanks, Amara.”
“You idiot Burnsons,” mumbled Amara. “Sometimes I want to throw you off a cliff too.”
“Trypanophobia, is a very common fear,” Pax tried to justify, wiping a bead of sweat from her brow. “It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint—not to let your skin get broken to avoid infection.”
“Sure it does. Are you ready for this?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, let’s turn on the seduction!”
“Right,” said Pax, looking around awkwardly for a way to make herself seductive. She settled for fluffing her hair up.
Amara shook her head. “No, I meant literally turn on the seduction. Remember this?” She reached into her purse and pulled out her lipstick-sized hormone simulator, flipping it on with a wink.
* * *
Asher checked the address on the small house to confirm that it was the one he had noted on his phone. Moving to the door, he rang the doorbell. He waited a few minutes, and hearing nothing, he peered through the foggy glass. He saw a fuzzy figure running down a staircase and stepped away from the door not to be caught peeking.
The door cracked open to reveal Para in a short bathrobe with a towel wrapped around her hair, looking flushed from running down the stairs. “Ash, you’re early! I was in the shower. Please come in while I throw something on. I’ll be fast. Get comfy!”
“Sure, Medea,” he said, entering the house and closing the door behind him as she went running up the stairs again. He glanced at the flexing muscles in her bare legs as she ascended.
“This is a really nice house!” he called after her.
“Thanks!” she shouted down. He shifted around uncomfortably but then some photos directly ahead on the fireplace caught his attention. One photo was of an adorable little girl with long indigo hair playing tennis, and another was of her between two people who must be her parents.
“Wow, Medea, you sure were a cute kid! You played tennis?”
“Yes, I was the tennis champ!” She laughed lightly as she ran down the stairs again in a mid-thigh length yellow summer dress, quickly fastening stud earrings into her ears. “Alright, I’m ready!”
He turned to look at her with a smile. “Yellow! My favorite. I can’t resist a woman in a yellow dress.”
“I didn’t know,” Para said, when she had, in fact, known. “Would you like me to change so that you can resist me?”
“I don’t have any particular reason that I need to resist you,” he informed her.
“Excellent,” she answered. “I am too lazy and pressed for time to change anyway.”
“Well, that’s refreshing!” Asher remarked. “My ex-girlfriend used to try on about ten different outfits, even if we were going to the grocery store or the bank. Of course, she often got photographed everywhere she went, so it was understandable.”
“You and Thorn sure do talk a lot about your ex-girlfriends,” observed Para, although she had no issue with the subject matter whatsoever. She walked forward and took the frame out of Asher’s hands, looking down at the young girl surrounded by her family.
She smiled in a nostalgic way as she gazed at the (complete strangers in the) photograph. “I sure do miss my parents. I don’t get a chance to go home and see them nearly enough.”
“Where are they?” asked Asher.
“In England,” she answered.
“Whereabouts exactly?”
She fumbled, not realizing that Asher knew any specific parts of England. “Uh, Essex.”
“It must be hard,” he remarked sympathetically. “My big brother has been living in India since his wife died, and I miss him a lot.”
“Aw, I’m sorry. It’s really hard to be so far away from family,” she said, reaching out and resting a hand on his forearm. “Sometimes I grow upset with them, because I feel like they chose to abandon me.”
“That’s exactly how I feel!” Asher remarked. “But sometimes a good friend can be all the family you need.”
“I completely agree with you,” Para said softly. She moved to place the photo back on the fireplace mantle, smiling secretively to herself. She couldn’t deny that she enjoyed fabricating stories about her life; especially when she could sneak little grains of truth and bits of irony into the conversation.
Asher glanced around, deep in thought. This place is so much smaller than Amara’s house. An ordinary person’s house. It’s sweet and cozy. Medea isn’t ordinary, but she probably can’t afford more. A woman of modest means… that’s new for me. Maybe we’ll have more in common.
“Would you like something to eat before we go, Ash?” asked Para.
“Would I? Definitely!”
“Let me see what I have in here—I’m afraid I live like a bachelorette and mostly grab-and-go.” Para glanced in her fridge and sighed. “It’s pretty empty... but I do have a jar of pickles.”
“I love pickles!” said Asher cheerfully.
Para smiled (already knowing this) and reached for the jar. As she held the jar in her hand, suspended in midair, she moved her hand to the lid and turned to Asher.
Then she spoke the words. The fateful words which would brand her soul with darkness forever for orchestrating such foul deception. The words which would prove that she was truly capable of shedding her dignity in the name of revenge. The nine words which spok
e volumes, saying so much and so little at the same time:
“Ash, could you please help me open this jar?”
His eyes widened. He had never heard the phrase spoken in his entire life. No woman he had ever lived with, or lived around, (certainly not his mother, certainly not Amara) no one had ever asked him for help with opening a jar of pickles. Women who lived with deva men usually were too prideful to ask for help in such small matters.
He cleared his throat. “Of... of course, Medea.”
He reached out slowly, ceremoniously, his fingers brushing against hers as he took the jar into his custody. He moved his other hand to the lid and carefully unscrewed it. She read his thoughts and could hear his pride in having opened the jar, and having performed the proverbial role of the ‘man.’ Even to a demigod, opening a jar of pickles for a damsel in distress still offered a substantial ego boost.
“Oh my goodness!” she said thankfully, sighing in embellished relief. “Sometimes I forget how nice it is to have a man around to help out with the little things like that. Here’s a fork! Go nuts. I’m going to grab my purse.”
Para walked in to the other room and placed both hands over her mouth to conceal her laughter. If only he knew. If only he knew that of all the female creatures anywhere in existence I am the one who least needed help opening that jar of pickles. If only he knew that I had to douse myself with tranquilizer to weaken my body to appear remotely human! This is too rich. She composed herself quickly (and checked to see that she hadn’t smudged her lipstick hideously) before returning to the room. Of course, Asher had polished off the whole jar of pickles during the few seconds of her absence.
“Someone was hungry. Shall we go?” asked Para sweetly, grasping Asher’s arm. He nodded and smiled at her and led her to the door.
“Medea, I’m really glad you wanted to see me again. I know we left on bad terms last time.”
"You think that was bad? You should have seen my date with Thorn. It was awful!” Para locked her front door with her new set of keys, trying to make it look like she’d done it hundreds of times before. She and Asher walked down the steps of her porch and headed towards the nearby park where they had decided to take a walk together.
Thirty Minutes to Heartbreak Box Set (Books 1-3) Page 49