by Dean Murray
Chapter 10
Saying it was a shock would have been the understatement of the year. I'd thought I was ready for anything Jace could throw at me. I'd been ready to hear any crazy thing about him or Kat, but I hadn't been ready to have him tell me that I wasn't just another normal teenage girl.
I should have seen it coming. The very first thing he'd told me was that I was the reincarnation of someone else, that he'd known me a long time ago, but somehow that had been overshadowed by everything else. I'd started to assume that this was just going to be some kind of epic love story that included a hot blond god who had spent the last couple of decades looking for me.
That was closer to the truth than I'd realized, but he hadn't just been looking for me. Jace had been looking for a goddess who was ready to join him in this insanely dangerous world where he lived and fought. I suddenly wasn't so sure that all the money in the world was worth the kind of existence he'd described to me.
Only seconds had passed since he'd told me who—what—I was. My heart was racing and I was having a hard time breathing, but that somehow paled in significance to the fact that Jace still had ahold of my hand, that he was clinging to me with the desperate strength of someone who was worried I was going to hurt myself.
"…need to calm down, Selene. If you keep this up you'll pass out, but even that might not be enough to bring you back out from being in a state of oxygen debt. I'll let the time effect lapse if you can convince me that you're not going to freak out and alarm Ari, but you have to get control of yourself first or I'll just let you pass out and tell Ari that you fell asleep."
I wasn't okay, not really, but I was mentally present enough to understand what he was saying and want to respond. The only problem was that I couldn't get anything out around the deep gasps as my body tried to get the too-thin air into my lungs where it could stop me from passing out.
I collapsed back into my chair in the hopes that would convince Jace that I understood him, but I wasn't entirely sure that my collapse was voluntary. The drop down to the leather upholstery seemed to take forever, and by the time my butt finally hit the chair, the sound of my pulse in my ears was so loud that I couldn't hear Jace anymore.
I tried to smile and nod around the near convulsions of my breathing, but I couldn't tell for sure he got the message until I felt the air start to thicken up.
The sound of my gasps brought Ari around with a concerned look on her face "What the heck happened, Selene?"
"She just swallowed her drink funny and is coughing up the water. Don't worry, I'm watching to make sure that her lips don't turn blue."
Jace held up one of the bottles of water as though to underscore the story he'd just fed Ari, but I didn't expect it to work. My gasps didn't sound very much like coughing, but apparently Ari was more worried about not missing the movie than she was about anything else.
"Okay, let me know if you need me to come hold her down while you give her mouth-to-mouth."
Jace had continued to hold onto my hand, and I could feel him doing something, feel tingly energy feeding into my hand. Whatever it was helped, but ironically the first sign that I wasn't going to die was the strong urge I had to strangle Ari. I was pretty sure she was just trying to break the ice, but it was having the opposite effect. At this rate he was never going to invite me back.
Only he didn't have any choice because I was his long-lost Awakened love…who didn't have a single memory of him, but who couldn't deny the bond we seemed to share.
"No need for mouth to mouth here, but if Jace or Kat feels the need to lock you in their dungeon I'm totally not going to tell the cops where you are when Dad reports you as missing."
I was still gasping as I forced the words out, but I got them out despite that.
Ari looked back at me and rolled her eyes. "Whatever, they don't have a dungeon."
I stuck my tongue out at her. "How would you know? You haven't got the full tour yet."
"Even if you're right I'd take their dungeon over sharing a room with you any day of the week. Based on the rest of this place, their dungeon has cable and a day spa."
Kat snapped her fingers. "A day spa! I knew we were forgetting something. Jace, can you please call the contractor first thing tomorrow and ask them to put a day spa in downstairs? I would hate to miss out on our chance to be on the cover of Better Homes and Dungeons…"
"Sure thing. The balance in your trust fund has been getting a little too big and it's past time you started pulling your weight around here."
"Hold on. A deal is a deal. You are supposed to pay for all of the boring stuff like cars and houses so that I have enough liquid capital to pay for the necessities of life—you know, shoes and motorcycles."
Ari shushed them both. "You're ruining the movie and I'm pretty sure that the main character is about to jump over two semi-trucks in his Ferrari before bailing out at the last second to hitch a ride on a helicopter."
Kat reached for the TV remote. "Well, that's that. Ari has figured out the ending of the movie—there's no point finishing it now."
"If you touch the stop button I'm going to tickle you mercilessly the next time I'm riding behind you on your bike."
"What makes you think she's going to ever give you a ride again, runt?"
"Because I'm adorable and people can never get enough of me. Besides, she promised to take me camping tomorrow night."
"You don't even like camping, Ari."
"No, I don't like camping. This is camping with a motorhome and jet skis."
Kat gave me a repentant look. "Sorry, Selene, I did kind of promise to take her out to the lake tomorrow night."
"Ari, you know that there's no way Dad is going to agree to that…"
"He might if you agree to come too."
"Really, you think he's going to be okay with the two of us heading off into the wilderness with Kat, Jace and no adults? I don't know what bizarro world you're living in, but it's not going to happen."
"So leave Jace behind. There's a chance that he'll agree to it if it's just us girls."
"Ari Jane Jenkins. That is incredibly rude even for you. Do you really think it's right to tell Jace he can't go to the lake and use his own things?"
Kat was making a time-out signal. "Hold on everybody. What if the three of us go to the lake and camp overnight in the trailer, and then Jace can meet up with us the next morning? Do you think your dad will agree to that?"
"Yes—"
"No—"
Ari gave me a dirty look. "Why do you have to be such a negative nelly?"
"Why do you have to be such a brat?"
Jace grabbed the second bottle of water and tossed it to Ari. "You're missing your show. You watch; Kat and I will see what we can do to talk some sense into Selene. You want us to bring you anything back?"
"Yeah, only like a dozen candy bars."
"You're never going to make it through a dozen candy bars before the movie ends, runt."
"Fine. Jace, please get me one candy bar to eat during the remainder of the movie and eleven for the road."
"Roger that, oh tiniest member of the Jenkins clan."
By that point I was spoiling for a fight. I took a step towards Ari, but Jace casually wrapped his arm around my waist and picked me up. With anyone else I wouldn't have let them get away with that, but Jace still hadn't found time to put a shirt back on, and as soon as I touched his bare skin I practically swooned.
I didn't come back to myself until we were outside of the theater and he set me down. "Are you ever not going to be able to shut me up just by touching me?"
Kat shook her head. "No. It's actually pretty sickening. The two of you are practically made for each other. Even after decades together you were still all sugary sweet. In fact you only ever fought about…well, that is to say there was only ever one thing that made the two of you fight."
"Do I get to know what that one thing was?"
Kat shrugged. "Not if I have anything to say about it, but Jace will end up
telling you sooner or later despite all of my advice to the contrary. He's just that much of a goody-goody. By the way, you're handling all of this much better than I expected…unless Jace hasn't told you anything other than the whole reincarnation bit yet."
"So the reincarnation stuff is the truth? And the whole Awakened demigods bit who trade their memories in order to vaporize people? That's true too I take it?"
"Yes, but the proper term is smiting. Vaporizing just sounds too New Age and techy. We don't vaporize our unrighteous followers, we smite them."
"And am I really, I mean…"
"You mean are you a little embryonic goddess fully capable of realizing the normal smiting powers gifted to our pseudo-omniscient badass selves?"
"Yeah, all of that."
"Yep, that's true too, which is why we need you to go along with this trip out to the lake, Selene. You've got all of the potential, but none of the practical skills required to keep yourself alive. Ari is acting all cool when it comes to you and Jace—well, mostly cool—but she's not. She's watching the two of you like a hawk and she'd like nothing better than to rat you out to your dad."
I literally saw red for a second, but Kat grabbed hold of my arm with more strength than anyone her size should have been able to muster.
"I'm going to slap her into next week."
Kat shot Jace, who was laughing, a dirty look and then waved her finger at me.
"You're going to do no such thing. Right now she doesn't know that we're onto her and she not only trusts me, she's all wrapped up in fantasies about Jace. That's about as good as things are going to get for us, but it means that we need valid reasons for the two of you to be together, preferably where she can see you both, but while she is distracted by something fast and shiny. This trip is perfect for that."
Jace nodded. "You're right, I should have seen it already. You can keep Ari busy on the jet skis while the two of us sit back at the beach and train. It won't work once we get into the more advanced stuff, but it will at least let us get started."
"Right, especially if you speed yourselves up to double or triple time. I'll keep her at the far end of the lake so she can't register the occasional flicker, and you'll be able to get the better part of a full day's worth of training in."
I held up a hand. "No, I don't want Jace using his abilities. He—both of you really—have already sacrificed too much for me."
Kat gave Jace an exasperated look. "You overplayed the 'these miracles come at a price' card, didn't you?"
"I'm not going to let her go into this blind to the realities of how our gifts work."
With someone else I might have thought they were pissed, but something told me that Kat was just trying to make a point. Of course, if I knew that even after dying and being reborn, then there was a very good chance that Jace knew it too.
"Look, Jace, I get it. You don't want to see the same thing that happened to Kyle happen to Selene. It's understandable, but the only way we avoid using our powers is if we're dead. She's going to have to use and that's the end of it."
I looked back and forth between the two of them and suddenly I wasn't so sure that it was all just for dramatic effect. Kat's face was all flushed and she'd stepped well into Jace's personal space.
Jace still looked calm, but he'd developed a tic above the right side of his mouth. I could feel tendrils of energy reaching out from both of them, but this wasn't the warm, friendly energy I'd come to associate with Jace, it was cold and prickly.
"Hey, who's Kyle?"
"Yeah, Jace, who's Kyle? Are you ready to tell her that yet, or is that another card you were planning on playing close to your vest until it's too late?"
"Don't push me, Kat."
"Somebody needs to push you or all three of us are going to end up dead, Jace, and you know it. This isn't the seventeen hundreds anymore. Kids these days end up with hundreds of their pictures on the internet before they make it out of high school. Even if they don't have a social media account of their own they'll still end up in a picture posted on their friend's account."
"I understand all of that, Kat."
"Do you, Jace? It was sheer dumb luck that none of the others thought to hire a team of programmers to try and hunt her down. Hell, for all we know one of the other pantheons is looking for her already. If so, the mimic effect will slow them down a little, but it's still only a matter of time before they work through the other potentials and arrive here."
"I get it, Kat, now shut your mouth."
"Really? Or what, you'll continue to act like a spineless piece of crap? You need to get it together, because we both know a group like the Chicago pantheon isn't going to just stroll into town and watch her for a little while in an effort to decide whether or not she's one of us. They'll just start killing any girls who match her description and worry about the fallout later. This is our last chance, Jace, if we can't save her now they'll farm her. Every fifteen or sixteen years they'll go through and wipe out every female on the planet who looks like her, and she'll come to a tragic end again and again without ever knowing why."
Jace's expression turned dark, and he raised his hand almost as though intending on hitting Kat. "You're going to scare her."
"Good. I'm terrified. She should at least be scared. Nearly every single scenario we're up against results in all three of us dead or wiped before Christmas."
I knew it was a futile gesture, but I couldn't stop myself.
I turned and ran.