Holy shit! I’m alive? he thought incredulously. He had been shot many times over and remaining alive was an impossibility, an aberration of the natural order of the universe.
For the first time in quite a long while, his powers left him in awe. This thing that he had considered a defect – something that set him apart from everyone else all his life – was now beginning to feel more like a blessing.
But then again, I wouldn’t have even found myself in this situation had it not been for these blessings in the first place. It’s still a big, fat liability.
He tried to move but realized his wrists and ankles were bound with rope and attached to cinder blocks. Ponytail and his henchmen had definitely taken pointers from “Becoming a Mobster For Dummies.”
He tugged his wrists apart, the rope snapping easily, then bent down and freed his legs from the cinder blocks. He kicked his legs and swam up towards the sunlight, marveling at his newly discovered ability to breathe underwater, wondering what other abilities were just waiting to be discovered.
A few minutes later, he emerged from the freezing Hudson Bay and felt the biting chill of the wind penetrate his clothes. A couple was sitting huddled together by the water, and they gaped in open-mouthed curiosity at the man who just emerged looking like he’d just been dredged from the bottom of the ocean, which was not all that far from the truth.
“Just out for a swim?” one of the onlookers quipped.
Daniel walked on, lips tight, not in the mood for a chat. More than anything, he just wanted to lose the wet clothes, take a scalding shower, and burrow under a pile of thick blankets.
At that moment, his stomach let out a savage growl.
Deciding that he couldn’t very well go to eat looking like a swamp monster, he went back to his apartment, sopping wet and freezing to the core. He finally felt some relief as he stood under the hot spray of the shower, clothes and all, leaning on the tile wall for support. Several long minutes later, when he felt like he finally had use of his fingers and limbs, he peeled off his clothes and surveyed the damage in the mirror. The drug boss had been brutal; Daniel counted no less than seven red welts where bullet wounds had been, and though the skin had already healed, his insides still felt like they’d been stirred with a mace. But the shower, along with two aspirins, helped to alleviate the pain immensely. At the very least, he was no longer shivering uncontrollably.
Once he was dressed, he noticed the blinking light on his ancient, pawn shop-find answering machine. The tape rewound; the first message was from Stephen. “Daniel, you were scheduled to work today. Call me when you get this message.”
Dammit, he cursed silently. He’d missed one whole day of work!
The other two messages were from Olivia. “Daniel,” the first one began. “I have procured a ticket for you to opening night tomorrow. Give me a call and I’ll drop it off at your place.”
The second: “The opening’s tonight. If you want to go, give me a call. Otherwise, I’m giving it to someone else.” He was still contemplating her terse voice when it suddenly occurred to him that the Swan Lake opening performance was actually four days from the night he’d disappeared.
“Crap!” He picked up the phone but only received her voice mail. “Liv?” he said, his throat raspy from his cold marinade. “Sorry for not calling sooner. If you still have the ticket, I’ll take it.”
His hands were shaking as he replaced the phone in the cradle. His blood sugar was hitting record lows. He needed to eat now.
Johann’s Diner was warm and welcoming, like falling into your favorite tattered recliner at the end of a long day. Daniel ordered coffee from the waitress as soon as he stepped inside, before sliding into his regular booth. As soon as the mug was placed in front of him, he guzzled down the onyx liquid like an elixir from God, not caring that it burned his throat. Captain America had his Super Soldier Serum, Daniel had his Black Hero Coffee.
The waitress came by a few minutes later, refilling his mug and taking his order. As she sauntered away, popping her gum, Daniel noticed a petite Latina woman with glasses and long, curly hair stalking towards him.
He sighed deeply, dreading the distinct possibility that she would initiate a conversation, something he wasn’t even remotely ready for until he had food in his belly. He eyed her with apprehension as she slid into the seat across from his and laid her purse down with the obvious intention of staying a while.
“Do I know you?” he asked, getting straight to the point.
“No. No, you don’t,” she said with a hint of an accent. She reached across the table and offered her tiny hand. “I’m Coral.”
He shot her a withering look then extended his own hand with a soft grunt. As soon as their fingers met, Coral’s brown eyes widened behind her glasses and she dropped his hand quickly. “What the hell…”
Daniel could not find it in himself to care about what was bugging her. The smell of bacon and sausage in the air was sapping him of any remaining energy. He was rallying his last crumb of strength to tell this outspoken stranger to leave him the hell alone when his food suddenly appeared before him like a little platter of heaven.
Her eyes were still glued to him with shock as he attacked his food. She kept opening her mouth to say something but thought better of it each time, which irritated him to no end.
“What do you want?” Daniel finally asked after finishing the last of his scrambled eggs. He would need to order again, he was so damn hungry.
She licked her lips before she spoke. “I don’t know how to say this without freaking you out, but… I had a dream that I needed to be here today to meet you.”
“You dream about me?” he asked skeptically, stuffing an entire sausage link into his mouth and stifling a groan of ecstasy as the flavorful oils exploded on his tongue.
“I’m sort of psychic and I have dreams now and then. Last night, I dreamt I had to–”
“Uh-huh, come here and meet me. What else, are we going to get married, move to Brooklyn, raise two and a half kids?”
She gave him a sharp look that told him exactly what she thought of his sarcasm. He didn’t particularly like being a dick, especially to women, but he had been shot like Swiss cheese and had been left to die in a frigid river. Needless to say, his manners had become somewhat diluted.
Her mouth hung open. “You were shot? And you were thrown into the Hudson?”
Daniel froze mid-chew. What the hell? I didn’t say anything!
“But you must have…” She stopped and gasped. “Holy Mary, mother of God, I think I just read your mind.”
7 | THE SWAN ALIGHTS
Coral eyed the man before her with complete shock and a healthy dose of unease. How had she been able to read his mind? Could he read hers? She looked into his icy grey eyes and tried to project a thought: Can you hear this?
If he heard, he surely didn’t show it. His mouth still hung open, his dark eyebrows knitted in confusion. “So you’re a psychic who can read minds?” He drew out each word as though unable to believe they were coming out of his mouth.
Coral shook her head. “I couldn’t read minds until… just now.”
“Just mine or everybody’s?”
She turned her attention to the older man sitting a few booths away and concentrated. She found she heard his thoughts as clearly as if he were speaking into a microphone. “He’s thinking about his gay lover who died of AIDS several years ago.”
Daniel craned his neck to look at the old guy and snapped back after he was caught staring.
Coral stifled a smile. “You don’t even want to know what he thinks of you.”
The blush began on Daniel’s neck then quickly rushed up to his face, and she quickly decided that she had never seen anything more charming. He was so attractive, in the meathead jock kind of way, the kind whose heart of gold was hidden under that gruff, brooding exterior. He was unrefined and exactly the kind of guy she wouldn’t have dated in the past, which in itself was an encouraging thought.
/> He gulped down the rest of his coffee and took a deep breath. “Okay, so your dream told you to meet someone here. Are you sure it’s me?”
“It has to be. How else would I be reading minds right now?” She looked at the young, harried waitress with the bubblegum. “She is worrying about her Spanish grade. She thinks she failed because she didn’t study and went to a party instead.”
“Well, did she?”
“Did she what?”
“Fail.”
She let out an impatient gust of breath. “I don’t know because she doesn’t know. I’m only listening to her thoughts, remember?” A thought occurred to her and she leaned forward with narrowed eyes. “Wait. Why aren’t you more skeptical about what I just told you?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” he said, looking down at his empty, grease-swirled plate. Though he was trying to fill his mind with empty noise to block her out, she still plucked out several words: inhuman, super, freak of nature.
She opened her mouth to ask what those words meant, when an angry female voice pierced her thoughts, making her wince.
What the hell? Daniel?
Coral looked out the diner window and instantly recognized the obnoxiously gorgeous woman with violet eyes glaring at Daniel, her perfect little nose flaring in indignation.
Coral cocked her head towards the window. Daniel’s eyes followed and he gasped. “Liv!” he cried and jumped up with surprising speed. He flinched momentarily then pulled out his leather wallet and threw soggy money onto the table.
Dammit! he thought. This does not look good. Damn, damn.
Coral watched with a certain amount of glee as the sickeningly privileged brat with a sense of entitlement the size of Texas stalked off. “You’d better hurry.” She touched Daniel’s hand and her vision faded. Inside a blinding flash of white was an image of a log cabin within a snow globe, and standing on the front porch were miniature models of Daniel and Coral standing side-by-side.
“Bye,” he said and was out the door more quickly than she had ever seen anyone move.
She leaned back into the vinyl seat and tried to catch her breath. Slowly, a smile began to spread on her lips as she said aloud the name gleaned from the other woman’s mind. “Daniel,” she said, the vowels rolling slowly off her tongue. “I’ll see you later.”
And without a doubt, she knew she would. Their future had already been foretold.
“Wait!” Daniel chased after Olivia, his limbs moving more fluidly, less zombie-like, now that he had eaten. “Liv!”
Olivia kept walking, the anger radiating from her like a hot-road mirage. He caught her elbow before she crossed the street and she whirled around, her face disconcertingly composed.
“I can explain,” he said quickly but found he could not continue. Having never had a real adult relationship before, he was wholly unprepared for the petrifying death stare that she turned on him, and it froze his tongue to the roof of his mouth. What was this immobilizing power she was wielding over him?
“So. Go ahead,” she said impassively.
He led her away from the curb and into the partial shelter of a store doorway, away from the cold wind. But as he stared at her face, the thoughts in his head jumbled and found he couldn’t even string together a two-word sentence. He found himself wishing that she was also capable of reading minds. It would have made his life so much easier.
“You look like hell, Daniel,” she said, her voice as biting as the wind.
He ran a palm down his bristly jaw. “I feel like I’ve been through hell.” His head was still pounding and he had hurt himself from moving too quickly back in the diner. He didn’t know if he even had it in him to explain.
Olivia crossed her arms across her chest. “Well, are you going to start talking or are we just going to freeze out here?” He noticed that, though she wore a stern façade, her lips were beginning to tremble and she was hunching into her long, wool coat.
Feeling a healthy dose of regret, Daniel took one step forward and gathered her into him. She was stiff, not yielding to his embrace, but he rested his chin on her head and sighed with contentment regardless.
“I can’t tell you where I’ve been the past few days. Just know that I would have called you if I had been able,” he said into her hair. “I was, uh, tied up.”
“You’ll tell me one day,” she said with utter confidence. Gently, she pushed away from his chest and looked up at him. “Just tell me this: did your disappearance have anything to do with that woman at the diner?”
He was glad to finally have an answer. “No. She was just a stranger who wanted to talk.”
“About what?” Her eyes narrowed.
“About her dreams.” Which, technically, wasn’t a lie. In order to explain Coral’s abilities, he would first have to delve into his own, something he was definitely not prepared to do right that moment.
“So you don’t know her? Some random woman just came up to you at a diner and started talking about her dreams?” Judging from the skeptical rise of one eyebrow, he guessed that she wasn’t buying what he was selling.
“Yeah, she’s not quite right in the head.” Again, technically true.
With a small sniff, Olivia reached into her black purse and withdrew an envelope. “Anyway, here’s the ticket. I was just coming to drop it off.”
He blinked in surprise. “How do you know where I live?”
“I have my ways. You’re not the only one with secrets, Daniel Johnson.” She walked off then paused, looking back over her shoulder. “We’ll talk later. After the performance,” she added.
“Uh, sure,” he said, filled with dread at the thought of having to explain why he’d been missing for the past four days, and why he was then caught sitting across the table from a woman who claimed to see the future. And though he understood that he didn’t owe Olivia a thing – least of all, a debriefing on why he was such a freak – in his gut, he knew that he was bound to spill the beans sooner or later. He didn’t need a psychic to know that telling Olivia the truth about his secret nature was an inevitability.
Daniel was a useless bag of glop for the rest of the day, only leaving the warmth of his bed to use the bathroom. He should have been searching for the drug lord and his minions, but what he should have been doing and what he actually felt like doing were two vastly different things. Vengeance would just have to wait another day.
That night, however, he had recharged enough to make his way to the Lincoln Center, the home of the New York City Ballet, with one ticket to Swan Lake in hand. Once inside, he found his seat easily enough and was glad to discover that it was near the back of the auditorium, close to a door should he need to make an abrupt exit. He had awakened in that river without his balaclava, which meant that his identity had been compromised. Without knowing the extent of the drug lord’s reach, Daniel was taking a real risk by coming out to the ballet as he could be spotted and tailed. Which meant that he could not risk being seen with Olivia, at least, not until after he’d engineered an end to his problems.
As he was thinking of ways to identify the men who had tried to take his life, the curtain onstage rose and thus began the very first ballet he had ever attended. He found it highly amusing that he, Daniel Johnson, was at a ballet on his own volition, and without a date at that. Olivia King, dancer and quiet seducer extraordinaire, definitely had his balls in a firm grip.
The moment Olivia took her first steps into the light, she felt her muscle memory take over and she lost herself completely to the music. Her body had been conditioned to move in such a way that she no longer needed to think of her next move, leaving her mind free to focus on infusing emotion into the role of Odette. And though her friend Michael was dancing as Prince Siegfried, she imagined it was actually Daniel who saw her turn from a swan into a beautiful princess at dusk, the man whose love could free her from the evil sorcerer’s spell.
For Olivia, nowhere else could make her as comfortable as a brightly lit stage as she danced in
front of the world. She could feel the bright lights on her skin, as warm and nourishing as sunshine, and the music coursing through her veins. When she danced, she was light and delicate as a snowflake, a unique beauty to behold, a sweet-tempered force of nature.
“This is the nicest gift anyone has ever given me,” Natasha whispered to John Mathers as they sat in the audience for the opening performance of Swan Lake. “I’ve never even been to the ballet before. I’ve always passed by this building and wondered what it’s like. And now, here I am!”
“Uh-huh.” John nodded absently, unable to take his eyes off the woman dancing onstage. She was all fluid limbs, grace manifest. “I never knew ballet could be so… I mean, how can the human body move like that?” he said more to himself. He held his breath as the woman onstage performed a series of leaps with the elegance of a silk ribbon blowing in the breeze.
He heard a soft rustling of pages and a moment later, Natasha said, “Says here she’s been dancing all her life. Olivia King has been with New York City Ballet for seven years. Wow, that is dedication.”
John nodded, only vaguely hearing his girlfriend’s murmurings, as she had the annoying tendency to talk during times like these. Then a small detail caught his attention. “What did you say her name was?” he said, glancing down at the program in her hands.
“Ssh!” their neighbor hissed.
Natasha mouthed an apology then turned back to her boyfriend. “Olivia King. Why, do you know her?”
John stared at the program. “No,” he said, hoping wildly that the face that peered up at him in black and white was not that of Richard King’s much-lauded only daughter. Still, he needed to make sure. He needed to meet this Olivia King.
The Origin Page 6