Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen)

by Christine O'Neil

  My partner. I liked the sound of that way too much. “So it’s kinda like I’m the car, and you’re the crash test dummy?”

  His cocky smirk made my pulse kick a little.

  “Don’t get all crazy. More like I’m the master and you’re the apprentice. But you don’t have to call me master or anything. ” He winked. “Sir is fine.”

  My lips twitched, and I tried not to grin. “I’m sure it is, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. I have some other suggestions, though.” I held up a hand and started ticking off options on my fingers. “Let’s see, there’s fuckwad, dic—”

  He grabbed my hand and squeezed. His power battered at me, pushing its way into my mind, and I froze. What the hell was he doing in there? It didn’t hurt, but it was unsettling as hell. Like my brain was a computer and someone else had taken over the mouse.

  It was all fun and games until you realized that, just because your super-weird powers didn’t work on a person didn’t mean their’s didn’t work on you. It was a sobering moment, and one he seemed to take a little too much enjoyment from.

  “Wow, so that’s how it is,” I said, clearing my throat and pulling away. “You’re going to muscle me around.” I tried to keep it light, but we both knew he’d shaken me.

  “It can’t hurt for you to know some self-defense techniques in case things ever get out of hand for you.” He held my gaze.

  Falser words had never been spoken. It could hurt a lot. All he had to do was ask Eric.

  If he ever woke up.

  Mac reached out his hand, and I tried not to grimace or show anything on my face as I relaxed my death grip on my power and blasted him with it, hard.

  He threw back his head and laughed out loud. The sound sent a ripple of joy running through me.

  “Let’s try moving objects, then, yeah?” He stepped back and made some space between us.

  I nodded, elation making me a little dizzy. I’d done it. I’d channeled my powers in a way that made sense. I’d hit it and stopped exactly when I’d wanted to. It was like magic. If only it could be that easy all the time. Maybe we could be superheroes after all.

  “Ready?” he called from about twenty feet away.

  I would’ve said yes, but the opportunity disappeared as a ball of snow came screaming toward the center of my face. I put up a hand, fast as a cat, and batted it away. Only I didn’t bat it, I exploded it. Blammo! I had channeled just enough power to turn the packed ball of snow into a shower of icy crystals. Not my hand. Not the contact of skin to object. Only my power.

  “Interesting,” Mac murmured. His eyes narrowed on me, and I had the sudden sensation of being studied. Still, I felt no fear. Just a hyperawareness as I drilled down deep and tried to focus. A branch crackled underfoot. The crunch of snow to my left. The flap of a snowbird’s wings. A flash of movement, and again, a ball coming straight at me, this one faster than the last. And again, my hand shot out, this time with just one finger. The sound of the atoms separating cracked through the quiet afternoon, and the spray of white made a corona around me, twenty feet high and wide.

  “Very. Interesting.” Mac shoved his hands into his pockets and continued murmuring to himself as I crunched my way through the snow toward him. By the time I got there, though, the conversation between him and himself had concluded, and I stood there waiting for him to fill me in on the details.

  He didn’t. He just stared down at me like I was a parasite under a microscope.

  “What?” I demanded, resisting the urge to smooth my hair.

  “Nothing. It’s just…”

  I waited, knowing if I bugged him too much he wouldn’t tell me at all.

  Finally he spoke. “I’ve never seen that before.”

  “The snowball thing?”

  He nodded.

  “Well then why were you launching them at my face?” I asked, lifting my chin and glaring at him.

  “No, no. I knew you could block it. But the other…” The reassurance coupled with his bemused smile deflated my indignation some. “The whole mini-explosion thing. I have no clue what that was. It’s…interesting. Could your mother and grandmother do that, too? Before?”

  He’d already commented more than once on my mother’s lack of parenting skills, so I wasn’t about to tell him that I had no clue what they could or could not do. I settled for vague. “I never saw them do that particular thing, no.”

  He seemed to digest this little nugget of information for a moment and then shrugged. “It’s nothing to be concerned about, especially until you come of age. A lot of random shit will happen as your body changes, and you won’t know what you’re going to end up with until it’s done changing. I was just expecting some combination of typical stuff for your kind. Like the whole love-sucking thing and the heightened senses typical of any semi, but that was a new one. You likely had some other semi in the mix generations back so you’ve got a bit of something else in there, which is fairly common. Anything else I should know?”

  I was still stuck on the “heightened senses” comment and held up a hand. “Whoa. Heightened senses? You mean like Spider-man?”

  Please say yes, please say yes.

  “No.”

  My crushing disappointment must have been all over my face because he chuckled.

  “I mean, not exactly.”

  I perked up, and he laughed harder.

  “You’ll have sharper hearing and eyesight than your average human, which is how I knew Banto was walking toward the closet last night. And you’ll be better connected with your sixth sense. But seriously, don’t go running out to get your cape or anything.” His gray eyes twinkled. “Any other hidden talents you haven’t mentioned?”

  I mulled it over. “I can pulverize the shit out of fruits and vegetables.”

  “Excellent. If I need a smoothie, I know who to call. That it?”

  I nodded. “So far.”

  “Okay, let’s work on what we know first and then later down the line we can see if you’re hiding any other tricks up your sleeves that you don’t know about yet, all right?”

  I readily agreed, happy to change the subject. Being compared to a succubus was bad enough. The Spider-man thing was cool, but the last thing I needed was to find out I was also going to eventually sprout snakes from my head on top of it.

  “So what now?”

  “Hand-to-hand combat. It should be your first go-to in any situation, from someone trying to steal your purse to a date deciding he’s going to put his hands on you when you rather he didn’t.”

  That one hit a little too close to home, but I played it off. “No need on that last front. I’m just never going to have a relationship. Done.” I’d been saying that to myself for so long, it came to my lips instantly.

  Mac raised one annoying brow. “A daughter of Aphrodite not on the prowl. Doubtful, Magpie.”

  I grabbed his hand and hit him with a blast of light energy. A direct, straight, outward pulse instead of one that arced out and then bounced back into me like an unseen hand scooping frosting from a can. He stiffened.

  “Is that what you did to the snow?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess. I hadn’t really thought about it.”

  “Do it again.”

  So I did.

  “That’s amazing. Now go the usual way. The kind where you pull in.”

  For once, I wasn’t annoyed or angry with him, so it took a second to free up the energy. I let it loose and sent it into him, then tried to pull it back, along with some of his. Like always with him, I was stonewalled.

  “And you can just turn it back and forth that way?”

  I thought about it and jammed it into reverse. His hand tightened on mine, and I shivered as his forefinger traced my wrist. “Amazing.”

  I swallowed hard, trying not to let my body’s reaction to his touch show. “What’s the big deal?”

  “I’m wondering if you can give energy to a person without taking anything away.”

  “And if
I can?” My heart galloped at the possible ramifications of that power. Something good might come from all this. And then… “Could I fix Eric?”

  My excitement was short-lived as he shook his head grimly. “No. The exchange of energy isn’t the same as healing. I’ve never known a kardia-Aphrodite to have healing powers.”

  It was a crushing disappointment, and I tried to pull my hand away, but he tightened his grip.

  He held out his other hand. “Come on. Give me both and really let it rip. We’ll play a game of chicken.”

  …

  It was way past dark by the time we were done. We both lay in the snow, side by side, too exhausted to move. My arms and legs felt like wet noodles, and all the pent-up energy that usually made my skin crawl was quiet. The moon above us was fat and yellow and the stars were bright enough that, when I turned my head, I could make out the dark fan of Mac’s eyelashes against his cheek.

  “Are you asleep?” I whispered. How he could doze off in this weather was beyond me. My nose was so cold it was a wonder it didn’t crack and fall right off, leaving me looking like some sort of ice sphinx. Still, the rest of me hummed pleasantly with the warmth of strenuous activity, and the cool snow against my back felt kind of good.

  “Nope. Just done for, you know?” His voice was deep but a little unsteady.

  I did know. Once he started tossing power back at me, our games had gotten a lot more serious and pretty aggressive. I had refused to be the first to suggest we stop, though, so it went on and on, until we were both shaking from the effort. And still, lying there in the snow, too weak to move, my fate uncertain, I was happy. The happiest I’d been in a very long time.

  “What’s your favorite movie?” Mac asked softly.

  The question was so unexpected…so un-Mac-like, I had to ask him to repeat it. I flopped onto my side to face him and stuffed my arm under my head for support.

  “You can’t laugh if I tell you.”

  He half smiled but didn’t open his eyes. “Nope. No promises there.”

  “Dirty Dancing.”

  “That’s that old movie where they’re not allowed to put babies in the corner, right?”

  I snorted and he full-on smiled. Not the mocking one I was so used to. And not the one that came and then turned to a scowl before I could even process the fact that it had been there. An actual smile. He was too beautiful for words, but I dug deep and found some anyway.

  “Not babies, you doofus. Baby. That was her name. Baby. And he was sick of people treating her wrong.”

  He squinted up at the sky for a long moment and then nodded. “Well, that’s a stupid fucking name, isn’t it?”

  I barked out a laugh and popped him in the arm.

  “It’s super corny, but I don’t care. I love it. It’s the dancing. Reminds me of my mom and dad before he died.” Maybe I’d said more than I should have. I wet my lips and tried to keep my voice light. “What about you, then? Favorite movie.”

  He moved his arm and suddenly it was brushing my shoulder. I could barely feel it through my coat, but I knew it was there and it was comforting.

  “Mine’s just as embarrassing,” he admitted with a chuckle that sounded forced.

  “Then by all means, let’s hear it.”

  “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The whole series, really.”

  Funny, I’d never have pegged him as a Potter fan, and I said as much.

  “It’s not Harry. It’s the Weasleys that get me.” His eyelids slid shut again as he spoke. “They don’t have any money, and some wizards look down on them, but they don’t give a shit because they have one another, right? Like, no matter what, Ron always knows he can go home and Mrs. Weasley will be there making him a meal, and Mr. Weasley will be bumbling ’round the house, and Fred and George will be pulling pranks. That’s brilliant, isn’t it?”

  It was. I’d had that with my parents before. If I being honest, I probably still had it with my mom if I wanted it. She’d messed some things up, but the further down this crazy path I went, the more I started to realize that everything she’d done had been because she thought it was best for me. She was wrong, but the decisions she’d made had been out of love and a misguided attempt to protect me. The wistful tone of Mac’s voice made me wonder what had happened to his mom after his dad had died. Had she checked out emotionally? Fallen apart? He looked so lost and young at the moment, my heart gave a little squeeze.

  “Mac, I—”

  He cleared his throat and sat up abruptly “We better get you home. Come on.” He stood and held out a hand to me.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and took it. Okay, so he didn’t want to talk about his family. I wished I’d kept my mouth shut so we could have just stayed there forever. Already, I could see his face tensing as he shut me out.

  He pulled me up and for a second, it was dicey. My legs were still so weak, I felt like I was on a ship in the middle of a storm. He took my arm, but the touch was impersonal. Like a Cub Scout helping an old lady across the street. As we walked, I wracked my brain for something I could say to get back the feeling of those few minutes we’d been lying in the snow, but I came up empty.

  We were both breathing heavily by the time we got to his car, the exertion from the short walk using the very last reserves of our energy.

  “How long before it comes back?” I asked, turning to put on my seat belt.

  “Your power or your physical strength?”

  I thought about that. “Both. Either.”

  “You’ll be able to run a mile in a few hours.”

  In spite of my melancholy, I almost laughed because I couldn’t run a mile on my best day, but he didn’t need to know that.

  “Then your powers will come back more slowly. You should be back to normal by morning.”

  That was both a relief and a bummer because as tired as I was, I loved the relaxed feeling of not having anything roiling around in me.

  The short ride was a silent one, and when we pulled into my driveway, I turned to face him, disappointment leaving a bitter taste in my mouth but fully resigned to the quick “see ya” he so obviously wanted.

  Before I could open the door, though, he stopped me with a hand on my arm. “I forgot. I…wanted to give you something.”

  He dug into his front pocket, and I waited, telling myself not to get too excited. Could’ve been a stick of gum or the next edition of “That’s What He Said,” for all I knew.

  But it wasn’t.

  He held out his hand, and I held out mine. In it, he dropped a smooth circle that glinted in the moonlight. As soon as it hit my skin, I closed my eyes and moaned.

  “Jesus, what is that?” I wanted to open my hand to look, but the silky, juicy waves of power seeping from it into me made it impossible.

  “It’s a ring. It…means a lot to me, and I hoped maybe it would help you with the stealing while we figure out whether you’re going to be able to get a handle on this thing.”

  It sure as hell would. It was by far the best treasure I’d ever gotten, and I didn’t even have to steal it. Eventually, the power of it would fade until it was just a glimmer, but that could take weeks and until then, I had an outlet. An awesome, guilt-free, amazing outlet.

  I wondered where he had gotten it and why it meant so much to him. It had to be important or it wouldn’t feel so good. From a former girlfriend, maybe? The thought made my stomach cramp. Instead, I’d focus on the good part, and the good part was that he’d given it up, at least temporarily, to help me.

  Tears pricked my eyes, and I mumbled a quick thank-you and started yanking at my seat belt, desperate to bounce before the waterworks started.

  “You okay?”

  “Great,” I said, keeping my head down as I tried to remember how to work a fucking seat belt before I embarrassed myself.

  “Maggie?”

  The seat belt finally surrendered, and I pushed the door open.

  “See you tomorrow!” I said, aiming for bright and peppy but n
ot turning to look at him so he wouldn’t see the stupid tears streaming down my cheeks.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday. Rest up. We start again Monday. Four o’clock. Don’t be late.”

  He was all business again, and that made me cry harder. I ran inside, called a quick “I’m home” to Mom, and pounded up the stairs. I flopped onto my bed and let it all out. I probably bawled for twenty minutes straight, thinking about my night, about Mac, about his family and mine. And when I was through, I felt good. Clean. It had been a long time since I felt that way.

  I took down my box of treasure and then pulled my newest one from my front pocket where I’d stuck it. Flipping on the lamp next to my bed, I examined the ring. Two slim bands of shiny, brilliant silver intertwined together like a rope. It was buttery in my fingers, so soft, like if I squeezed just right, it might bend. I considered putting it on, but once I did, I knew I’d never have the strength to take it off. Mom would ask questions, Libby would notice, and if I kept it directly against my skin, the power of it would fade faster. But if I didn’t put it on…I wouldn’t have it on.

  I didn’t want Mac disappointed in me for squandering his present by using it up before we got through training, so I set it into the treasure box. But even then, I couldn’t seem to take my fingers off it. Just for one night.

  Because no matter how hard he tried to pretend otherwise, he cared about me. Even if it was just as a friend, he cared and wanted me to succeed.

  I fell asleep with the ring in my hand, and I dreamed of dancing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  When I woke up, I was energized again.

  I stuffed the ring in my pocket and walked to the hospital, my feet barely touching the ground, but when I got there, Mrs. Nelson told me Eric was having some testing done and wouldn’t be finished until much later, so I should come back next Saturday. I felt guilty and relieved at the same time.

  It had been a rough week. Still, the thought of hanging around alone all day didn’t sit well, so I texted Libby and asked her to come over to chill with me. I had forgotten to ask Mac whether I could tell her about him, but I was going to have to tell her something soon. She was going to notice us talking in the hallways, and I wanted to at least explain that we’d buried the hatchet, even if I couldn’t share the rest.