Dominion (Re-edition)

by Melody Manful

  I tried with every ounce of my strength to drag myself away from his gaze, but I couldn’t.

  “Goodbye, Abby.” And then he was gone. I looked around, but there was no sign of him anywhere.

  I closed and latched all the windows in my bedroom when I was convinced that he was really gone. I had no idea why I bothered, when he could apparently just appear and disappear into thin air. It made me feel better to be closing and latching, to be doing something.

  I sunk onto the floor after that, dropping my head into my hands, crying. All the anger and frustration came pouring out as tears.

  So Gideon wasn’t human. That much I was sure of. What the hell was he? Was he the thing from my nightmare?

  At first, I had wanted to remember that nightmare, to put a face on Gideon, but now that I finally had a match, I wished I didn’t.

  Maybe I’d misinterpreted the dream. Maybe he wasn’t going to try and kill me. Maybe killing me in the dream was just a metaphor for breaking my heart. Maybe his plan all along had been to make me feel something for him and then leave me flat. But that didn’t explain who—or what—he really was.

  I heard Gideon’s voice again, in my head, stupid girl that I was.

  Of course I was stupid. No one had forced me to feel the way I did around him. That day in the cafeteria, no one had told me to give my heart away. That day in the library, no one had told me to lose myself. That night on my bed, no one had asked me to long for him.

  And, now, as I was crying on the floor, no one made me wish I’d asked him to stay.

  NO MATTER WHAT I did, sleep would not come. Instead, I stared at my clock, at the red-lit numbers of each passing minute.

  The next day was Saturday, and I let it slip by in a gray fog. Sunday I stayed in bed until evening when my mother forced me to get up and get some air.

  I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to unlatch the windows to go out onto the balcony. I kept expecting Gideon to pop out of thin air to kill me or to, oh, whatever, but he didn’t come.

  Monday and Tuesday blended into one another in a gray haze. Gideon didn’t show for classes, and there were whispers that the police considered it suspicious that he’d disappeared so soon after the explosion. Parts of campus were closed off behind crime scene tape. I went through the motions, bringing my books to class and blankly staring in their direction, taking a few useless notes; with each day I felt a little more myself. I realized that if Gideon had really wanted to kill me, he’d have done it by now, and with that realization a lot of my fear lifted, leaving in its place a little anxiety and a little wistful sadness.

  My energy was slow to come back, and twice I’d called Logan to beg off training, but when Sarah asked if I would join her after school to help her pick out a dress for the dance, I actually found myself looking forward to it. Jake and Danny came along with us, but they quickly got tired of the whole affair because Sarah was being so picky about the dresses and couldn’t decide which one Caleb might like best. They could only tell her that she looked gorgeous in everything so many times before they gave up.

  “At this rate, only Mrs. Cells could tell you how good you look and get you to believe it,” Danny finally said, exasperated.

  Sarah brightened, and pulled him in for a hug. “You’re a genius!” she told him. “Let’s go visit the fashion goddess.”

  We all piled into one car and drove to my mother’s boutique on Union Square. My mother was more than happy to help Sarah, and when she asked me why I wasn’t going, I lied and told her it was because I wasn’t up for it.

  Tristan had offered to take me if I’d wanted to go, but I told him I was too far behind on my schoolwork and needed to catch up, which wasn’t a lie, but wasn’t the whole truth, either. I pretended I was fine that Gideon wasn’t around, which was a lie. I missed him making fun of everything, and making me feel special. I missed how he made me laugh and how he always had the perfect irreverent remark for every situation. Missing him and memories of good times weren’t quite enough to stop me from thinking about the nightmare version of Gideon, though. I decided maybe it was better that he wasn’t around. Whatever he was, he wasn’t good for me.

  Sarah finally decided on a rich maroon piece from a collection my mother had debuted at the Prêt-à-Porter show at San Fran’s 2010 Fashion Week. It looked better on her than it had on the runway model, and she knew it was the right one when all of us, who had told her she was beautiful over and over all afternoon, were actually rendered speechless. When I finally got home, ready to fall into bed, Logan met me on the back steps, telling me I had to at least do some running and free weights, as I’d been avoiding training for a week. If he hadn’t been the hardest person to hit that I’d ever met I would seriously have cracked him one for asking me to do bicep curls and power squats at that moment.

  We argued a bit over what my reasons could have been for missing practice.

  “Like I told you before, I had a headache.” I walked past him. It was more of a heartache, but how was I supposed to tell him that I’d gone to ask a boy out only to find out he wasn’t human? Even if I’d managed to think of a way to explain it I was sure he wouldn’t believe me anyway. I know I wouldn’t have believed me.

  One of the weapons on the table caught my eye, though, and suddenly I didn’t think I was too tired for some target practice after all. “You got another AK-47?” Another one, because the first one he’d brought was hidden under my bed right this moment.

  Logan handed the gun to me. I forgot about my problems for a second. “I’m guessing with the mood swings, you must have a guy problem?” Logan ventured. “You looked sad when you came out.”

  “You sure you want to accuse someone carrying an assault rifle of having ‘mood swings’? What is this, Logan, a therapy session?” I reached for some earphones.

  “All right, I can take a hint. I’ll butt out,” he said. “Oh, by way—I looked over the footage from your balcony a few nights ago,” he told me as he pulled on his own ear protection. “Definitely looks like you jumped. A pretty graceless jump, especially for someone who doesn’t like heights. Actually, it looked like you pitched headlong over the railing.”

  “I guess I slipped,” I lied.

  “You know just enough to be a danger to yourself, Abby. I know you think you can handle yourself like a ninja, and 90 percent of the time you can. But that last ten percent… It’s a long drop from your balcony. Even if the risk is low, the stakes are high. You weren’t hurt this time, but you could have been hurt very badly.”

  “Got it, mom,” I teased, and then I aimed at the target at the middle of the field and fired. Some of the bullets found their mark, but others flew past it.

  “So, who is this guy you’re angry at?” Logan shot his own gun.

  I fired again. “I’m a little busy here, Logan!” I shouted over the noise. Every one of my shots missed.

  “Where’s your head, Abigail?” Logan asked. “You’re disgracing a very beautiful gun.”

  “My head is here,” I lied. It really wasn’t. I’d only come because I thought blasting away with a powerful weapon would provide a much-needed distraction. I needed to get my mind off Gideon.

  “Yeah, right. Let’s change guns.” Logan handed me the M16 he’d been using. “And please, shoot the target and not the ground this time. I don’t wanna have to be out there stomping divots to keep the groundskeeper from yelling at me.”

  Even though I was trying to focus I missed the target more often than I hit it. Logan let me get away with this for a few more minutes, and then decided I should give up target shooting for the night and concentrate on working out instead. I objected. Let me rephrase that: I whined.

  “Abigail, I don’t want to hear it.” Logan sounded irritated. “I’ve told you again and again, this isn’t a joke. You can’t come here and not take this seriously.”

  “I am taking this seriously!”

  “Inside. Now.” Logan took the gun from me and turned his back. He started cleaning up, ma
king it obvious that our conversation was over.

  I yanked my earmuffs off, put them back on the table, and then walked into the house in a huff. Logan had never sounded so angry with me before. I felt it would be best to just leave him alone.

  When I got to my room, I was angrier with myself than I was with Logan. I was angry that I couldn’t stop thinking about Gideon long enough to get my head into training. He was gone, and still he remained a distraction!

  I made an effort to engage a little more, be a little more present. I chatted with Mom over breakfast about her new collection and about Dad coming home sometime soon, and caught myself feeling actually happy at the thought. The boys found dates for the Founders’ Day Dance and I was able to share in their excitement, just a little. Gideon still wasn’t in school, and I caught myself missing him. Had the missing him been there underneath the fear all that time?

  Now that I had worked out I was missing Gideon and stared that fact square in the face, I should be able to put it behind me. I decided to do just that. I decided to move on. Well, “move on” as in “go home and get Logan to track down information on Gideon”. It would mean admitting I had a guy problem and apologizing to Logan for wasting his time during our last training session, but I was up for that.

  When I next saw Logan I casually asked him if he would help me find some background information on Gideon. Well, I was aiming for “casually”. Logan could tell my interest was more than casual. I apologized for my lack of concentration lately, and then mentioned that I wanted to poke around in a few databases: the FBI, CIA, NSA, and Interpol. His eyes lit up.

  “That would be a violation of his privacy and of about fifteen bazillion laws, not to mention the fact you don’t have a lick of clearance, Abby. I thought I taught you better than that.”

  “No, you did. I’m not saying you should do it. I just want to use your computer, that’s all.” He didn’t say no. In fact, he was already reaching for his laptop.

  As it turned out, I didn’t have to dig very deep to find out that something was off. There were no records for Gideon dating back further than a few months: the Social Security number listed for him in the school’s records actually belonged to a Reginald Winslow, who had passed away in 1984. There were no cardiologists or surgeons by the name of Chase at John Muir Medical Center. There were Gideon Chases to be found, but none in the right age range to be my Gideon. There was nothing.

  “That’s odd. Is this guy an alien?” Logan joked when he tried and couldn’t find anything either. “That would be really cool, because then I could say I know an alien.”

  Gideon was suddenly a mystery that seemingly couldn’t be solved. Good thing I love mysteries.

  THE STRUGGLE

  Gideon

  Why have you stopped going to Earth?” Valoel asked the very moment I appeared inside my room.

  “I haven’t stopped. I’m only taking a break,” I didn’t want to go to Earth anymore, especially if my presence frightened Abigail. I didn’t understand why she was scared of me. I mean, I’m plenty scary, but not in any ways she could have found out about on Earth.

  “Well, I heard you’ve stopped, and I heard it’s because of Abigail.”

  “Well you heard wrong, because Abigail is just a human. More than that, she’s annoying, and reckless, and conceited, and a pain, and—” I paused. “—And she waited until I said something stupid, and then she walked in and said she wanted to ask me to a dance. I tried telling her I didn’t mean what I said, but she won’t listen!” I hadn’t meant to tell Val all of that, but once I’d started talking it just spilled out.

  “If she’s annoying and a pain, then why are you worried about her catching you saying something stupid?”

  Beats me.

  “I’m angry at her because she’s just a stupid human who… who is… carelessly clumsy, and smart, and beautiful, and… when she lets her hair fall on her face because she’s shy, or when she—” I groaned, suddenly falling to my knees in, what? Was it pain?

  “Gideon!” Valoel rushed to my side.

  I tried to shake her off. “Something’s—something’s wrong with me.” I tried to stand. “Maybe I’m sick.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Gideon. Angels don’t get sick.” Valoel pulled me to my feet.

  “There must be something wrong with me, because my chest feels heavy and my knees are like cooked marshmallows. And I can’t concentrate! I can’t get her out of my mind.” Abigail had invaded every thought in my head. “Abigail is everywhere, and I feel… angry that she heard me calling her stupid.” I pulled myself free from Valoel. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re just experiencing new feelings.”

  “New feelings?” That was her theory? “Emotions aren’t exactly new to me, Val. What emotion could do this to me? There must be something else wrong with me.

  “There’s nothing wrong with you, Gideon. You’re just… ” She hesitated.

  “What, Val?”

  “Gideon, I think you might have romantic feelings for Abigail.”

  It took a minute for the words to sink in, and then I started laughing, “romantic feelings? For a human? Are you out of your mind?”

  Valoel thought I had romantic feelings for Abigail? What gave her that stupid idea?

  “I know you don’t believe me, but you’re not sick. You’re just experiencing new emotions. It’s not that they’re bad, they’re just unfamiliar.”

  “I hate her. I still want to kill her, so you’re wrong. I don’t have romantic whatever for her… that’s just ridiculous!”

  “Hello?” Both Valoel and I started at the sound of Tristan’s voice.

  What the hell was he doing in my house?

  I snapped my fingers and found myself in the living room. Val joined me.

  After all the times I’d ached to hit Tristan, I finally went for it. I made a fist, but I didn’t even make contact with him because he vanished, leaving me swinging at the empty air. The next thing I knew, Valoel was standing with him, behind me.

  “I know you and I are from opposing sides,” Tristan said, “and I shouldn’t be here, but Abigail wants answers, and I’m afraid if she doesn’t get them, she might search too far and expose us.”

  “You’re right,” I said. “You shouldn’t be here. And if you’re so worried about our exposure, then you take care of it. I don’t care if the humans find out about us. It doesn’t matter to me”

  “It will matter to Abigail. Don’t you think this has happened before, that some luckless human has worked out that there are guardian angels or nature deities or demons or any of it? It’s happened any number of times, Gideon. The people in question don’t even keep quiet about it. They tell the authorities. They tell everyone who’ll listen. Our Elders just make sure that humanity in general doesn’t believe those people.

  “They will make Abigail into Cassandra, or worse. They’ll make her friends and family think she’s crazy. Or they’ll make her think she’s crazy. Or they’ll actually scramble her mind so that she is crazy. The Elders aren’t going to be hurt in any way. You won’t be. I won’t. The only person that will be hurt is Abigail. And I think you just might care about that, at least a little.”

  “Oh, you know that, do you?”

  “How did it all go so wrong? I didn’t mean for things to turn out this way.”

  “You didn’t mean what, exactly?”

  “I know why she’s scared of you,” Tristan whispered. “I planted a nightmare in her head to make her stay away from you. I can see it didn’t work. All I can say is I’m sorry.”

  And everyone thought he was so nice! Sorry? He reached into her head and messed things around in there. He put me into one of her dreams hoping to frighten her. He worried about exposure, but didn’t stop to think that meeting someone in real life that came from one of her dreams might tip her off to look at things from a more supernatural-y type angle and make our exposure that much more likely.

 
Sorry? Sorry wasn’t going to fix this!

  “I know,” Tristan said to me and I stared confusedly at him.

  Know what? What the hell was he talking about?

  “I know sorry doesn’t fix this.”

  Was Tristan reading my thoughts? I turned around to face him.

  “How did you do that?”

  “Do what? I just… ” The truth of what was happening seemed to be dawning on him. He looked confused, scared even.

  You answered my thoughts. How did you do that?

  I don’t know how. I just heard you as if you’d spoken, he responded in my head.

  Heard me?

  “And you just answered my thought.” He was quick to notice that part. He had answered my thought, and I had answered his.

  “What’s going on?” I took a step away from him. “Something is weird here, and whatever it is, I don’t like it.”

  “Wait.” Valoel looked from Tristan to me. “Are you two hearing each other’s thoughts?”

  Tristan nodded, and then Valoel’s expression changed from mild surprise to actual fear.

  “This isn’t good,” she whispered, more to herself than to us. “This is just what I was afraid of.” She looked again from Tristan to me. We looked back at her in confusion. “Oh, sorry, just thinking out loud.”

  Seems to be a lot of that going around, Tristan thought.

  “Hey, do you feel that?” I asked Tristan, hoping he didn’t know what I was talking about.

  “Yeah.”

  I felt confused, sad, and somewhat uneasy, a feeling I knew wasn’t mine, but Tristan’s.

  Tristan must have been able to feel what I felt, too, because he asked me, “Why are you so sad?”

  “Stop creeping me out!” I shouted. It was bad enough that we could hear each other’s thoughts. It was worse that we could apparently feel one another’s emotions. But this was absolutely creeptacular. He was, geez, he was concerned about me. “This is really too much. It’s bad enough that I have to be in your presence—now I have to be in your head, too? Listening in on your rainbows-and-unicorns thoughts? Could this day get any worse?” I felt as if I could combust into flames because of my body’s rising temperature.