Guarding His Melody

by Victoria Sue

  Seb flushed. “He wanted me to stop playing the piano, or rather stop going for lessons, and the translations.”

  “Why?” Gray asked, his fingers pressing onto Seb’s arm—which Seb realized he’d never let go of—before he spoke.

  “He wanted me to concentrate on getting ‘well.’” Seb used finger quotes. “The surgeon was worried me using the piano’s headphones may have some detrimental effect.”

  Seb saw the looks of puzzlement on both their faces. “It’s the new implant design. Something to do with vibrations and ultrasound.”

  Gray touched his arm, and Seb looked at him. “Last night I was reading that some doctors are thinking people might actually be able to hear through their skin eventually.”

  A warm glow suffused Seb at the thought that Gray had been researching the subject. He nodded eagerly. “It’s similar to ultrasound waves, like they do on pregnant women.”

  Gray smiled, and Seb saw Carter shift out of the corner of his eye and turned to him.

  “Lastly, Mr. Armitage—”

  “Seb.”

  “Seb,” Carter repeated. “Have you ever been personally threatened?”

  “No.” Seb’s lips twisted. “I once had a bad day at kindergarten, though.”

  Carter groaned and stood up, pocketing his small pad and pen in his jacket. “Don’t talk to me about schools. Amy’s wanting Molly registered now, and she’s only a month old.”

  Seb smiled in delight. He assumed Amy was Carter’s wife. Carter sounded so normal, and Seb liked the detective, even though he was sure nothing much got past him.

  Gray also stood up. He turned to Seb. “I’m going to walk the detective out, and then I need to meet Derwent and go over the schedule and your father’s itinerary for the weekend. You have your phone?”

  Seb patted his pocket, remembering he now had a reinforced door and new bolts as well. He shook hands with Carter and then excused himself. He was sure they would be talking about him, but it didn’t matter. By the time he got to his room, the exact notes he needed to finish his song were already running around in his head, and he hurried to his piano and reached for the headphones.

  WHEN HE stepped back into the house, Gray headed into the kitchen, which was empty, and quickly scanned the contents of the fridge, knowing there wasn’t anything he could make a half-decent smoothie with anyway. He snagged a couple of bottles of water and headed up to Seb’s room.

  Gray paused to knock, but then decided Seb might have gone back to sleep, so he unlocked the door with the spare key Danny had given him.

  It took Gray a few seconds of standing there completely dumbstruck before his brain processed what he was hearing. Seb sat at the piano, humming and tapping his finger as he wrote something down. He wore the headphones so Gray couldn’t hear anything, but then Seb quietly sang a line, paused, wrote something else down, and sang the same line a little louder. Only it was perfect. Gray had absolutely no idea Seb could sing, and he was amazingly good.

  Gray opened his mouth, completely forgetting Seb sat with his back to him. “Jesus, you’re really—”

  But he never finished his sentence, because at the first word, Seb jumped in shock and whirled around.

  Gray had gotten to the point where he’d thought nothing in his life would surprise him anymore, but he was wrong. He leaned back and kicked the door closed with his foot, tossed the bottles and the plates onto the couch, and regarded Seb.

  Seb’s eyes were wide and round, and he sat completely frozen on the stool. Gray took a breath, telling himself there had to be an explanation and that Seb wasn’t one of the biggest fucking liars he had ever met.

  “You heard me,” Gray said flatly. There had been no mistake.

  Seb bit his lip.

  “You fucking heard me,” Gray repeated a little louder. A little angrier. Seb pulled off the headphones and stood up. He took a step toward Gray, and Gray strode to the window, trying to take deep breaths and calm the fuck down. He didn’t really know this guy, so why the fuck he was getting so worked up was beyond him. “I’ll pack my things and will be gone in ten minutes.” He didn’t know what else Seb had lied about and wasn’t interested in finding out. Rawlings could get someone else. He ignored the hand on his arm, but finally turned when Seb tugged at him.

  “I need to see you talk.”

  Anger flared up again. “No, deaf people need to read lips. You’re not deaf.”

  Seb blinked away the moisture in his eyes, and Gray pulled his arm away.

  “Please let me explain. I am deaf except when I wear the headphones and they are turned on. I am lip-reading now.”

  Gray huffed but studied Seb’s face. The hurt, the humiliation, was obvious. Either Seb was the best actor he had ever met and Gray’s gut feelings were completely off, or Seb was telling the truth and something else was going on. The anger fizzled out, and Gray walked to the couch, rescued the plates, and put them on a small coffee table. He passed one bottle of water to Seb and glowered at him until Seb unscrewed it and took a long swallow. He had to remember one very important thing. Seb had known him for all of two days and trust took much more time to happen. Gray was acting all entitled and offended, but really, Seb didn’t owe him shit.

  He sat down and waited until Seb looked at him. “I’m listening.”

  Seb sat and twisted his hands together. “Everything’s true. I had meningitis and was deaf by the time I was three. My mom was the piano player, and I’ve been told she used to sit me on her knee and covered my fingers over her own. I couldn’t hear it, but I guess I liked her being close to me, so even after she died, or maybe because of her dying, I carried on playing. I had no idea of just how much better I was getting until Mrs. P started encouraging me. My dad was relieved I found something to interest me, so he paid a lot of money to get me lessons. Apparently, I was a brat after I became deaf. I would have screaming temper tantrums, throw whatever I could get my hands on, break things, and the only thing that would calm me down was when my mom would get me on her knee and play the piano.” Seb half smiled. “Sounds completely nuts, huh? Deaf but having music lessons.”

  Gray tried not to let pity color his judgment, but he could imagine. He could totally understand a child focusing on the one thing that would make the anguish and confusion over the loss of a parent even a tiny bit easier.

  “Anyway, fast-forward to me being twelve, and I had actual friends then. I’d been playing with a small music group for charity, and the other kids came to the house to practice. My vertigo had settled down to practically nothing, and apart from the odd episode, I was happy. I mainly played my mom’s piano, but I love the guitar as well.

  “It was a week before my thirteenth birthday, and I’d finally decided to go to school. I had a chance at a few, but I was going to an audition for Juilliard, and I was so excited.”

  Gray watched as Seb got a dreamy look in his eyes.

  “I panicked a little the day before because I thought I was starting to get a cold, but it didn’t seem to get any worse, so I shrugged it off.” Seb focused on Gray. “Apparently it’s quite common. Most enhanced report feeling unwell the day before they transform.”

  Gray didn’t comment, not wanting to interrupt the flow of words. Seb was still twisting his hands, and Gray covered them with one of his own without questioning the gesture. He would often go out of his way to avoid touching a client. He had to be really careful, but touch was the only way he could get Seb’s attention and that had rapidly evolved into an automatic casual comforting gesture as well, especially when Seb had been so sick.

  Gray went to move his hand, and Seb’s stilled, but then Seb laced his fingers and carried on talking as if the gesture was automatic to him too. “I woke up feeling better, nervous, but I felt like I was getting my life back….”

  Gray stayed still and silent. They had gotten to the hardest part.

  “I wanted a shower, but I brushed my teeth first. The rooms weren’t joined then, but the bathroom was next door to
this one, and no one else used it, so it became mine. After I rinsed my mouth, I stood and stared at myself in the mirror for what seemed ages until I worked out what was wrong.” Seb swallowed, and Gray let his hands go so Seb could grab the water bottle. He took a couple of sips. “It was like I was looking at someone else. The left side of my face was red and inflamed, but the scar seemed huge. It was all I could see. I didn’t even know what it was then. All sorts of ideas rushed through my head. That somehow we’d been attacked and I had forgotten or something stupid. I started screaming, crying. My dad heard me, and he called an ambulance, but they wouldn’t touch me. The police arrived, and they asked my dad if he wanted them to take me away.”

  Gray’s chest ached at the crack he heard in Seb’s voice. “I was crying for my dad, and then Mrs. P ran in and took over. She shooed everyone away and just held me while I calmed down.”

  “What did your dad do?”

  Seb pulled at his lip with his teeth. “He didn’t touch me. I think I scared him,” he admitted. “I mean, he was okay afterward, but I guess he had been in shock.”

  But you were his son, Gray wanted to say, but he didn’t.

  “Juilliard was out of the question then, and my friends stopped coming around.” Seb tilted his head to one side as if thinking. “Although to be fair, Eric told me it was his parents who had forbidden him. He didn’t care about the mark. He just wanted to play his cello.”

  “Tell me what you mean about the headphones?”

  “I didn’t touch the piano for at least a year. I refused to leave my room for anything. I….” He hesitated. “The vertigo flared up, and I’d go for days where I just popped pill after pill. I joined these chat rooms about suicide.”

  Gray shoved his hands in his pockets to avoid touching Seb’s again. He was a client, and maybe a liar, but it was killing Gray to listen to this and not do something.

  “I even tried to do it,” Seb whispered. “I took a bunch of pills. The doctor gave me a ton of different ones—sedatives, muscle relaxants, as well as the ones for vertigo I already had, and the antianxiety meds. I’d swallowed a load of them, and then I decided I would d—go to sleep looking at my mom’s picture, so I got up to get it. I had one of the worst vertigo attacks I’d ever had, and I passed out and hit my head.”

  Gray held his breath.

  “Mrs. P heard me fall—the old kitchen used to be directly under my room until Dad remodeled—and she ran up and found me. This time the ambulance did take me, and I got my stomach pumped because of the tablet bottles all over the floor.”

  Seb sighed and closed his eyes. Gray knew he should say something, but he had no idea where to start.

  “They wanted to send me away. Said I could be a risk, but dad wouldn’t hear of it. He said I hadn’t any abilities, and to be honest, I didn’t think I had, so I just came home. About the same time Dad started researching cochlear implants, and we met Dr. McKay.”

  Seb opened his eyes and gazed at the large Yamaha piano in the middle of the room. “Mrs. P encouraged me to start playing the piano again, and I begged for my mom’s to be brought up here, but it was way too big. My dad surprised me with this for my fourteenth birthday. It’s very light and easily portable.” Seb smiled sheepishly. “I think Dad was worried he might have to reinforce the floor or something because my mom’s is a Bösendorfer,” Seb said that like Gray was supposed to know what it was, but he got the idea it was old, heavy, and probably expensive. “Dad got the room remodeled and everything.”

  “And when you used the headphones it was the first time you heard anything?”

  “Yes, but not till much later. Dad had to get me them because I kept the whole house awake sometimes. And because he’s Dad, he got me this system that incorporates vibrations better to recreate the acoustic experience, which is so advanced it’s still not on the market.” Seb chuckled.

  “I bet your dad was over the moon.” Gray watched the smile disappear. “He wasn’t pleased?”

  Seb opened his mouth, then closed it. Then opened it again. “He doesn’t know.”

  “What? Why?” Gray was stunned.

  Seb looked over at the piano. “I will never forget, ever. I used to plug the headphones in and coil them out of the way. But one day I was trying so hard to get something right, and I noticed them vibrating. I knew the research about bone conduction technology and knew it wouldn’t work on me, and I guess I put them on more to keep them out of the way.” He glanced at Gray. “The first time I heard through them, I nearly had a heart attack. I realized they worked but not why.”

  “So why not tell your father?” Gray asked again.

  “Because at first I was convinced they would send me away. There’s another group….” He hesitated. “Advice about different things if you’re enhanced, but a lot of people say that unless you can’t help it, don’t tell people what you can do. At least until you’re older.”

  Jesus. It sounded like some sort of secret society. “You said at first?”

  “And because of the operations,” Seb whispered. “Do you know how many I have had? Fourteen,” he carried on, his voice cracking again. “And the last time, I said never again.”

  It was puzzling. Seb’s ability shouldn’t mean more operations; it should mean fewer, but Seb’s dad didn’t know he even had an ability. And with all the research at his disposal, he should already know none of the enhanced abilities could be reproduced. Even Gray knew that much. You either got them or you didn’t, and no scientists knew why. The more Seb tried to explain his father’s motives, the less Gray understood.

  “He’s obsessed with the science behind ultrasound, very similar to how whales use echolocation.”

  “Echo—”

  “It’s like vibrations or sound bouncing off objects. Sonar?”

  Gray nodded. He knew that.

  “Well, one of the theories with the enhanced abilities is they think that it’s just normal human development speeded up. Like a lot of what they can do now wouldn’t so much as raise an eyebrow in a thousand years. You mentioned you had researched hearing through the skin? Think how weird that sounds.”

  “You’re right of course.”

  “Deaf people have been able to experience music through vibrations for a while now. Mine’s just a little more advanced, and it only works with the headphones.” Seb smiled for the first time since they had been talking.

  “But not just what the headphones are connected to. You heard my voice?”

  “Yes, and everyone knows that vocal chords are merely bits of skin that vibrate to make sound. It has to be an enhanced ability that means I can take this one step further.”

  Which seemed strange he could only hear with the headphones. If he was going to get an ability, you would think it would be the whole deal, but Seb’s hearing was already damaged and who knew what effect that would have? It made Gray’s brain fry to think of all the possibilities.

  “But why does that lead you to think your dad would want more operations? He can’t copy an enhanced ability.”

  Seb hesitated.

  “And he can’t force you.”

  “Technically he could, at least until I’m twenty-one. You’re forgetting,” Seb rushed on when Gray pulled a disbelieving face, “the laws for enhanced are different. My dad is my guardian—as opposed to the state—and he could enforce whatever he sees fit.”

  “He wouldn’t do that, surely?”

  Seb sighed. “He thinks it’s in my best interests. He’s spent over sixteen years researching this after I went deaf. He loves me and has gone to a lot of time and effort. I thought I had persuaded him to give up after the last time, but Dr. McKay brought on even more doctors and scientists who have been working with him for—” Seb paused. “—gotta be nearly three years now. Eleven of my fourteen operations have been in the last three years. They’re quite eager.”

  Gray would just bet they were. His earlier thought of Seb being a human guinea pig wasn’t far off. Gray just wasn’t sure how to commu
nicate that to Seb or if he should be doing that at all. The risk of alienating Seb was still the same.

  And he didn’t want to give Seb any reason to mistrust him or think he was trying to drive a wedge between Seb and his father when Gray had no actual proof.

  “It’s just if he knew… if he knew all his theories had actually quite a large basis of truth, certainly linked to my ability… there would be no stopping him.” Seb ducked his head and surreptitiously wiped at his eyes. “I bet you think I’m a selfish prick.”

  “No,” Gray blurted out angrily, quickly processing what Seb had told him. “Wanting control over your own body is in no way selfish, and you don’t owe anyone anything.”

  “But Dad’s spent—”

  “Stop,” Gray said, trying to understand and not want to rip Armitage a new one for putting Seb through what—in his eyes—amounted to abuse.

  He took a breath, reminding himself to choose his words carefully, and decided to hold off on the criticism until he had some evidence. Seb had known him for two days, and Gray shouldn’t forget that. “Are you saying when you put on your headphones, you think you can hear with the vibrations? But that it doesn’t work with anything else unless you are wearing them?”

  Seb laughed ruefully. “I didn’t say I understood it, and I haven’t exactly had the opportunity to find out, but there are stories of enhanced with incredible healing powers. I did wonder if it was anything to do with that.”

  “And,” Gray continued, “you basically think your dad’s doctors, scientists, whatever, would go nuts until they found a way of duplicating it?”

  Seb rubbed his head, got up, and went into his room, but he was still talking about doing his own research. Gray heard his bathroom door open. He knew Seb kept his pills in there.

  “What pills do you take now?” Gray called and then rolled his eyes. Seb wouldn’t hear him until he came back. Then he smiled to himself, wryly acknowledging he believed Seb’s story, even as unbelievable as it all was.

  “What pills do you take?” Gray asked again as Seb came back into the room.