by Arlene Webb
Jade yanked Malcolm’s head down. He shuddered, jerked back, but it looked like he’d been given no choice as green lips pressed against blue.
Should Aaron attempt to interfere before it got x-rated? He twisted David into his chest, and the kid struggled. Fortunately, while father and son traded dirty looks, Malcolm tapped his fingers on Jade’s face, and she released him. His head snapped back, away from her. Malcolm licked his—healed—lips and scowled. Unblemished face, ungodly beautiful, Aaron exchanged bemused glances with the boys.
Jade grabbed hold of Malcolm’s bitten arm. “You know you aren’t pure yet?”
“That’s the stupidest question you’ve asked so far. Of course I know. Suicide is a viable solution. But you? Seriously, another brute like Jane Doe? Not only corrupted by the understanding you can force, you revel in it. My sweet Jade, I beg you. Please. You must get at least one thing crystal clear before I explain a minor discourtesy I’ve done to you.”
Jade raised her brows, puzzled as the rest of them.
“Never kiss me again,” Malcolm snapped. “I don’t like it. Well, that’s not accurate. I detest, revile, and hate your touch.” He shoved Jade off his lap and hopped to his feet. “After my confession, do not abuse me further.”
His hand rubbing against his thigh, Malcolm strode backward until his shoulders smacked the wall. “I’ve learned with my higher frequency, I can dominate interior passage. Healing is beyond my abilities, but I could have done this purging of yellow, myself.”
Malcolm glared at everyone. “Why the dimwitted looks? Any simpleton should understand and empathize. A manipulative bastard, I used Jade to remove droplets of 526 terahertz poisoning me, because I don’t want to breach my interior barricade to confront yellow. When I raged, off balance with power exploding within me, I knew you didn’t understand, Jade, and I took advantage. It’s horrible when you contaminate me, but she’s beyond hideous.”
Jade’s thin face twisted. “You left her in you, and then forced me into taking most of her out?”
“Yes. I am sorry. You’re much nicer than her. It’s not your fault that you make my skin crawl—inside and out. And I’m only a mere ninety-eight percent positive I can overpower yellow. I block her, within. I finally understood while she ripped my lip off, then I was stunned with her. I could be learning more, if you’d let it go.” Malcolm turned to Evan. “Please get Jade some water. The taste of 526 is nasty.”
“I will.” David escaped Aaron’s arm and ran to fill the glass in the bathroom. The boy’s hand shook as he handed the glass to Jade, and Aaron stepped in. One thrust, and his belligerent son sighed behind Aaron. The revolver remained in Malcolm’s control. Only a total idiot would continue exposing a child to an unstable spectrum.
“Let me get this straight.” Aaron held his voice steady, struggling with the sparkles in impossibly blue eyes. “Jade’s fear stems from residual emotion from this woman, Susan. Fine. But what controls you, Malcolm?”
“I’d think that obvious. Extreme intellect, aptitude, charisma.”
Damn it. Answer the question.
As if he could read Aaron’s mind, a forced smile crossed the blue guy’s face. “Malcolm James died an introverted man,” Malcolm said. “Autistic, touch of obsessive-compulsive behavior patterns, he not only didn’t like physical contact, he abhorred it. Doesn’t matter. He’s dead, and I’m here struggling not to harm humanity and failing miserably. We must accept facts and move on.”
Malcolm pulled the revolver from his pocket and tossed it to Aaron. At least this savant felt no arrogant need to state another apparent truth. The weapon was useless in Aaron’s grip. Easily returned, easily taken. Yet, the weight in his hand comforted him. When dealing with unpredictable deities, he’d take all the false confidence he could get.
Malcolm’s gaze, filled with absolute confidence, drilled into Jade. “I repeat: no one, especially you, is to touch me again. It’s not like respecting my reasonable request is the same as indulging your neediness. Forget kissing me or anyone. No abuse of superior strength. Jade—are you listening?”
Aaron caught the apprehensive glance at her pathetic human guide as she closed in on Malcolm. His super-angel, with residual emotional problems, needed reassurance before she ignored the request of a weaker superior being, with “Rain Man” issues.
“What part about no contact didn’t you get?” The wall behind Malcolm’s back refused to dissolve. “You’re as stupid as Evan. Take your horrid hands off me.”
Malcolm’s groan and childish foot stomp while Jade yanked him to the bed could only be described as cute. It tugged a smile out of David, and a wide grin from Evan.
At the edge of the bed, Jade pushed him, and Malcolm’s knees hit the floor. She raised his arm to her lips—a spit of yellow landed beside Malcolm’s foot. He shuddered, clasped Jade’s waist one-handed, and lifted her onto his lap as he sat.
For a being that abhors contact, he sure seems to hold her a lot.
“Oh my, so much better. Thank you—sweetheart. She’s completely out of me.” Air molecules danced, shimmered that seductive green, and Jade clasped Malcolm’s broken arm. “Not now,” Malcolm snapped, and Jade’s hands froze.
Sweetheart? Nice and then back to nasty in a second, this mercurial deity lecturing Jade had Aaron’s stomach in knots.
“Draining yourself means you’ll lean on me even more, and we must control this mess of senseless color before there’s more violence. I need you to get over your fearful nonsense, despite what I tell you. You’re much stronger than me. You accept that, finally. But we have a serious handicap. Jane Doe, in sync or out, could crush you like an arthropod.”
Malcolm ran a finger, soothing the tremor from Jade’s lip. “No fear, sweetheart. Yellow only knows how easy I am to flatten. She should tolerate you, and Jade, remember, I’m considerably more intelligent. You have my word. I’ll protect you, always, at the cost of my life.”
Evan cleared his throat. “Why’s Jane such a problem? Can’t you leave her stunned?”
Malcolm stood, dropped Jade on her feet, and the blue glare settled on Evan. “The Jane Doe problem isn’t yours. The problem of Evan will be solved soon. Home sweet home.”
Malcolm paced away from the crestfallen teen and spoke to Aaron. “In a prolonged stunned state, odds dictate organic tissue will deteriorate. The solution is either electricity with the taser set correctly, or a minimum of five bullets to terminate.
“If a human were to take the permanent elimination path—heart shattered, head next, followed by a continuous deluge of bullets—that yields the highest survival probability for said human. And then a cleansing fire. Hesitate a fraction of a second and you’ll fail. Maintain a minimum distance of thirty feet to avoid being disarmed. Any future abusive behavior on my part, Aaron, please utilize this information. You caught your weapon well when I returned it. You’re healed?”
Aaron smiled. He flexed his perfect wrist. “I’m fine. We’ll come up with something for Jane. But let’s never let you get out of sync again.” He glanced down at David. “You okay?”
David nodded and dared to flee Aaron’s side. He picked up the taser and tossed it to Malcolm. “Stop calling me the child. I’m David. You gonna remember to fix that?”
“Thank you—David.” Malcolm’s cool voice flooded with gratitude. “It’d be quite foolish to use my higher frequency on her.” He adjusted the weapon, and placed it in his pocket.
Aaron had no doubt. A weapon setting wasn’t a mistake this introvert would make, but David’s fear had abated. Now if only there was a cure for generalized anxiety. Jade stood alone, trembling, and not unnoticed.
“Stop it. I need you.” Malcolm’s gentle tone disappeared. He shifted his attention from Jade to Evan. “Is there more ice here?”
Evan shook his head.
“Jade, take Evan with you,” Malcolm said. “Get at least eight bags. You drive, not him. Read the manual. Could you go now, please?”
Jade refused to look
at either Malcolm or Evan. Her eyes, wide with apprehension, beseeched Aaron.
Evan flinched and mumbled, “I can get ice by myself.”
“At this hour, what’s open?” Malcolm scowled. “Jade can break any lock. Most important, she’ll drive you home.” He shrugged at Jade. “Of course, you could stay with Jane Doe. I might relish smashing a teenage skull.”
His cheeks crimson, Evan stared at his toes. He could ignore rejection from a blue deity, but apprehension from Jade carried a steep price. Aaron doubted a kid this naïve understood neurotic fear of anything unknown wasn’t personal. Geez, it’d taken hours for Jade to get over a red sweatshirt. Would she stop looking like Evan would pounce on her any second if Aaron threw, say a white sock at her? Maybe he should hold her again.
Then again, maybe not. Malcolm’s subtle head shake requested patience.
“I made you sad, Evan. I’m sorry,” Jade whispered. “I’ll go with you. It’d be nice to get away from finding such controlling blue everywhere.” She shivered and dragged her feet.
She looked to Aaron, reached for Evan’s hand, and the delight on Evan’s face faded into concern. It appeared sheer willpower kept Jade from running to burrow into Aaron’s arms. Malcolm’s cold stare had to be the deciding factor.
“Hurry back.” Aaron smiled at her. “Don’t be so afraid. We’ve learned that you’re not only the most beautiful woman on this planet, you can bench press that truck in the driveway.” He turned to Evan. “Get with it. You’re so distracted you’ll have an accident.”
Evan’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He faced the color stepping close. “We’ll be right back. Just ice?”
Malcolm nodded. A flash of blue and he buttoned Evan’s shirt without actually touching the teen. “Try to be inconspicuous,” Malcolm told Evan. “The ‘we’ll be right back’ is inaccurate. Jade will. You won’t. Thanks. Bye.”
Evan watched, his heart on his face, Malcolm pacing away from him. Aaron knew the teen had no intention of obeying. “Um, I only have two dollars left,” Evan said. “My mom thinks I’m too impulsive for a credit card. I could steal the ice. What’s a thief compared to being a murderer?”
Aaron took his wallet out and glanced at David. “Why don’t you rest on the bed? I’ll show Malcolm where Jane is.”
“I know I said I’d listen, but Dad, I’m not tired at all.”
“Aaron, with your permission, we could use his help,” Malcolm said. “My apologies. Inexcusable, striking him like that. I’ll try, with pleasure, to avoid any future contact.”
Aaron appraised the powerful man and nodded. David’s relief lit the room and guilt twisted Aaron’s gut. Wouldn’t a child hating his parent be better than a life cut short? He might as well face the futile truth. Trust issues with a non-human aside, if Malcolm wanted them dead, they would be.
“Sweetheart, take his other hand.” Malcolm sighed at Jade. “Break more fingers if he doesn’t cooperate with his home address.”
Evan blushed while Jade switched for his injured hand, and David startled beside Aaron. Uh oh, what now? Brilliant blues shone on his son.
“You don’t appreciate the child label,” Malcolm said. “Quite rude of me, David, not acknowledging your name earlier. Add that to my apologies. You could drain the tub…no. Why should she take away my beautiful water? Come. I ask you stay in your father’s sight until all monsters have returned to whence they came. And no, I don’t know where that is.” Malcolm headed for the door and paused for Aaron to join him. “I’ll put Jane Doe in some container and place her in the revolting room Evan painted for her.”
They went down the hall, David on Aaron’s heels. “I’m sorry yet again,” Malcolm said. “I’m distracted with events in Arizona. It’s impolite and I should explain all I can, but your arrival has overwhelmed me also. Thank you for bringing Jade to me. Doesn’t seem worth the healing to put up with the clinging. How and why do you tolerate her? What’s with all that hair?”
“You know I hear you,” Jade yelled from the front door. “I could throw you in Jane’s room. So intelligent, Malcolm James, why go stupid now?”
“Speaking of dimwitted, I hope you understood how to lose that hideous color before you freak out more fools.” Malcolm spoke softly, as if Jade stood right beside him. “Monstrous, using these humans as you do.”
Malcolm’s grin flashed. Jade said something back only he could hear? Blue lips didn’t move. Aaron assumed he let Jade have the last words, confirming the man really was an autistic genius.
They’d halted at the second bedroom doorway. “Could you—I mean, I can—but would you remove that cabinet?” Malcolm shuddered. “Throw it out of sight anywhere. It made a livid Jane Doe angrier.”
“Sure. No point in increasing rage around here. David, get the other end.”
They moved the cabinet past Malcolm at the computer and out the door in time to watch the truck peel from the driveway. Jade accelerated too fast down the street, ran the stop sign—seriously, after what Malcolm just said about a Susan Lathrop?—and then they were gone.
Goddamn horny teen. “She’s sitting on his lap,” Aaron muttered to David. “No way is that punk or Jade giving you driving lessons.”
They shoved the cabinet along the wall inside the garage. Back in the house, the computer was abandoned. They found Malcolm in the laundry room.
Malcolm straightened, and wiped his healed lip like he’d spit up. “Sorry, you must be weary of neurotic colors.” He sighed at David staring wide-eyed at the naked woman in the sink. “And sorry for her, too. She refused to put on the clothes I purchased.”
“What are we doing with her?” Aaron flung his arm and turned a kid in a headlock from what he could only hope was a first, and last, exposure to sci-fi bondage. “Can she be revived?”
“Yes, but not yet. I don’t trust Jade. When Jade becomes afraid or unfocused, Jane Doe could kill with ease. Jade and I together could hold her, allowing anyone lucky enough not to be in her grip to escape, but if she gets to one of you first…”
Malcolm glanced at David. “Not a risk I’m willing to take. Maybe you can make Evan get out. I don’t know how the human race survives, if all adolescents are this suicidal. On topic, you do realize there’s more of us?” He grasped a broom, and tidied the salt lining the doorway into a little heap without looking at it. “If I could contact them, and they’d cooperate, Orange could clean this floor with Jane Doe. Yellow seems to believe that I put her where she is.”
Malcolm took in the confusion written on David’s face. “Not in the sink, child. In that body she’s trapped in. She’s beyond unreasonable, rather insane, but she may react more favorably to Jade, a shade closer in step to her.”
David nodded. He grabbed a dustpan, took the broom from Malcolm and dumped the salt into the wastebasket.
“I’ll move her to her room and keep her on ice.” Eyes closed, Malcolm wrenched the sink from the wall. He lifted it, connecting pipe broken, and opened his eyes. “Step aside.”
Malcolm exited with the basin and the woman like they weighed nothing, water draining onto his legs. Aaron twisted the valve and ceased the flood of the laundry room. It had to be high on the good parenting list: never allow your child to be in the presence of a goddess capable of lifting a god who could rip a sink from the wall. A father’s weapon? A worthless handgun. Now, a white towel would come in handy. A few dozen tasers would be righteously sweet.
Malcolm had set the basin down in front of the spare bedroom. He watched the humans scurry to join him and sighed. “How I wish I’d located Jade first. Between Jane Doe and Evan, I…sorry. Aaron, could you, please? I hate to enter. I’ve female shades all over my crawling skin. Ahh, never mind. It seems like sorry is all I’ve said since meeting you. It’s heavy with her and the water.”
Malcolm bent to lift and cringed. Aaron froze his hand from contact. “Put it down,” Aaron said. “I’ll dress her and plug the sink. Should I leave her tied?”
“Oh my, yes. In fact, if you could t
ighten the rope. I assume Evan did this with broken fingers. Don’t underestimate. She’d kill you in a second. Her breaking this bondage may buy me or Jade that needed second. Hopefully, she hasn’t shredded the clothes in that room. Stock market choices are simpler than the array of bra decisions. I wouldn’t worry about more than a shirt and jeans.”
Malcolm stared at Aaron, those intense eyes shining. “I understand why Jade clings to you. Again, thank you for coming here, and not shooting me when I quite deserved multiple bullets, and for this.” He flicked fingers at Jane.
No wonder Evan wouldn’t leave. Malcolm radiated a magnetic personality that made you feel safe as you relied on him. In the short time since he had Evan stun him correctly, Malcolm situated Jade to heal Aaron’s broken wrist, lessened her incapacitating fear, made David feel needed, and manipulated Jade into healing Evan instead of himself. Malcolm favored his right arm. It had to be still broken.
“You’re welcome,” Aaron said. “Why don’t you take a shower or hop in the tub? I’m sure it’d help with the crawling skin.”
Malcolm’s brief smile reached his eyes, and Aaron’s heart stuttered. Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined he’d find an entity wearing a man’s body so mesmerizing. While Aaron and David lifted the utility sink, Malcolm, without a backward glance, disappeared into the master bedroom.
They set the basin in the center of the painfully yellow room. David looked flushed, his cheeks a smear of blood. Damn. Aaron had used his much longer arms to take the weight of the basin, so had to be the golden centerfold getting the juices running. What would exposing a child to nude beauties, in a variety of color, inspire in a more intelligent parent? Undoubtedly, Sarah would smack Aaron upside the head.
He sent the kid to search for a plug.
The creature he lifted from the basin felt barely heavier than Jade. Aaron settled Jane on the bed, untied blue rope, and grabbed the clothes on the dresser.
How the hell could he pull tight jeans over a wet body—cold, clammy, cadaver— c’mon dead woman, work with me here. Aaron grabbed the corner of the sunny bedspread and wiped water droplets. Brute force applied, and yippee—thankfully with nausea instead of arousal—he got the jeans over slender hips, zipped, and buckled.