Honesty (Mark of Nexus)

by Butler, Carrie

  She rose and followed my line of vision. “Yes?”

  I didn’t say anything else. Choosing, instead, to give her the best demonstration possible. I ran full tilt for the end of the roof and pushed off hard, flying over the alley like some kind of parkour god. A roll stopped my momentum mid-way across the roof, and I scrambled to the edge.

  A few tugs brought the grommets free of their bindings, and I practically flew back, the flag balled up in my fist. “Here.”

  Rachel jumped with a start, and I steadied her, eyeing the ledge. “Easy.”

  “H-How…?” She blinked at me, and then the pole where the flag used to be. Me. The pole. Me—

  I shrugged.

  Her tears sprang anew, and she shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m not upset. I just really don’t know what to do with all of this.”

  “Nothing,” I told her, bending to meet her eyes. “Nothing’s different. So you know my past now and a few things I can do. That doesn’t change how I feel about you. And I sure as hell hope it doesn’t change the way you feel about me.”

  She took one step, and then another. Slowly, she laid her head against my shoulder. “This doesn’t seem real.”

  “I know.” I rubbed her back, carefully taking her into my arms. “It won’t for a while. Rena was the same way.”

  Her words muffled against my shirt. “You didn’t use your powers to kill Gene, did you?”

  My powers. She acted like I shot energy blasts from my hands. “No, I told you what happened. That ‘antagonize the gangbangers’ thing was me sparing him for you. Though, he’s probably Swiss cheese by now…”

  She slumped against me. “Is it wrong that I almost felt relieved when you said that?”

  My lips twitched. “Don’t ask me. I’m a bad moral gauge—though, since you reclaimed your hymen, maybe I can reclaim my innocence in terms of violence.”

  She leaned back with a raised eyebrow. “Mine involved a vow before God.”

  I coughed. “Yeah, okay, I’ll get back to you on that.”

  Whether it was the early hour or the ridiculousness of my statement, we both started laughing. Hysterically. The tension cracked between us, and before I knew it, we were back on the concrete.

  “This is going to sound weird,” I admitted, leaning against the bricks, “but I’m glad you’re sticking around—and not just because I have feelings for you. Wallace thinks you’re a good influence, but in reality, you’re more like a good reason. When I think about you, I want to fight my impulses. I want to stop taking shit out on people and feeling nothing at the end of the night. Sometimes it scares me what I’m capable of…”

  She reached over and clasped my hand with cool fingers. “You know, the way I see it, anything can be used for good or evil. This knife is a scalpel; that knife is a switchblade. One helps. One hurts. Same thing with your abilities. It all depends on the guy wielding them.”

  Huh. A horn honked down the street. “I never thought about it that way.”

  “So, is that why you did all of those things?” she asked. “Impulses?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it.” I looked up, searching the lightening sky. “Sometimes I like to see how people react to things—to see what they’d be like at their breaking points. I know it sounds sick, but try living a day in this slow monotony. You become interested in things you’d never expect to.”

  “What do you mean slow monotony? I thought because you were fast…”

  “I seem fast, because everything is slow to me. It was tolerable when I was a kid, but by the time I’d hit puberty, life had slowed to a crawl. I see things as they’re happening. I speed read. I have time to soak in details—too many details. I get bored.”

  “That makes sense,” she acknowledged in a soft, sleep-deprived voice. “I guess you just need to find a way to make that time worthwhile.”

  I leaned over, stopping a breath from her lips, and whispered, “I think I’ve found it.”

  Her hazel eyes brightened in the dim light, betraying a smile I was too close to see. The reaction was all the encouragement I needed to kiss her, and she did not protest. Eager hands ran lines of warmth up my chest and over my shoulders, before she pulled me closer.

  I wrapped my arms around her waist and returned the favor until our bodies were pressed against each other. The wind picked up and blew her hair around us, and it was all I could do to suppress a moan as I tunneled my fingers through the coppery strands. “You’re beautiful…”

  “Cole, look,” she rasped, pulling back to nod over my shoulder. “The sunrise.”

  I turned, and a lungful of air hitched in my throat. A fiery sliver hung low in the horizon, casting rays through dark clouds. They seemed to part for it, drifting to the sides like a scroll that’d revealed a glowing piece of heaven. Just for us.

  The things I’d listed yesterday surged through my mind, stopping with ‘watch a sunrise with Rachel’. Not only had that milestone come to pass, it’d been completely unscripted—making the experience more beautiful than I could’ve ever imagined. This wasn’t just a sunrise. It was some kind of sign.

  I turned to my new girlfriend, radiantly bathed in sunlight, and blurted out, “We should get married.”

  Rachel’s jaw dropped.

  “Someday,” I quickly elaborated. “When you’re ready.”

  Ready to get rocked by your husband every night. And morning. Three times on Tuesdays. While skipping jury dut—

  She laughed. “Well, we have been dating almost an hour now.”

  “Ever seen a Disney movie?” I quipped. “‘Cause they usually know each other less than ninety minutes before they get hitched, and they’re happy enough to sing. The wait is a formality.”

  It’d come out as an impulsive declaration, probably because I didn’t know any other way to express my feelings and desire to bone her, but now that I thought about it—damn, it wasn’t that bad of an idea. Being chained to someone for the rest of my life had always terrified me, but when I pictured Rachel in that scenario, I felt like I was cheating life. Like I was snatching up something good I wasn’t supposed to have.

  “I’m fairly certain weddings take saving up,” she told me.

  “Rena and Wallace are getting married. We could just piggyback theirs.”

  She facepalmed. “I think you need sleep, Cole.”

  “Sleep?” I scoffed, though it was a distinct possibility. “Nah.”

  “Come on,” she laughed, standing to grab my hands. “We’ll finish watching the sunrise, and then head in.”

  “Can we finish the other thing we were doing, too?” I let her pull me up. “Because I was just getting started.”

  “Later.” Rach reached up to tilt my chin back. “Sunrise, bed, and then we’ll figure it out.”

  “Fine.” I smirked at her assertive side, letting her manhandle me. Seems like I’m a good influence on you, too. “So, we’re calling pause on the making outage?”

  She smiled and rolled her eyes. “Yes, Cole. Pause.”

  ~

  Later that morning, I went back to my usual routine—music, a cig, and bare-assed yoga. I had just gotten to Virabhadrasana I, when a knock preluded the door swinging open. “Hey, I’m making panca…”

  Rachel trailed off, gaping. “O-Oh, I am so sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I shrugged, holding my straddled pose. “Just come in and shut the door. I’m getting a draft.”

  Her face blazed pink. “I can wait.”

  “Does the vow prohibit you from watching your boyfriend stretch out?”

  “No…”

  “Then have a seat.”

  She shut and locked the door behind her, shaking her head as she moved to my bed. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  “It’s like a dream, right?” I teased.

  “Something like that.”

  Her timing was perfect. I could use the situation to finish what we’d started on the roof and then some. I flexed for effect. “You know, they call t
his the warrior pose.”

  “I…can see why. Do you do yoga often?”

  “Every day.”

  She mouthed a ‘wow’ and crossed her legs. “So, is it a religious practice of some sort or…?”

  “Nah, I’m just a big fan of doing things that feel good.”

  “Feel good,” she echoed in a mechanical voice, her eyes glazing over. “Right.”

  I shifted to the next position and looked at her across my shoulder. “You ever do things that feel good, Rach?”

  I am a bad, bad man…

  “Um…” She bit her lip and lifted her gaze to meet mine. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.” I stifled a laugh and straightened. There was no way I could keep going like this. There was morning wood, and then there was…well, being alone with the most beautiful woman on earth. Naked.

  But then again, I’d been known to make situations worse…

  “Now is when I do pushups,” I half lied. Since I was starting now, it seemed technically true. “Wanna help?”

  “H-How?” Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat. “Sorry, how?”

  “Just give me a little resistance. Sit on my back or something.”

  “Are you going to put clothes on first?”

  “Not when I’d just sweat in them. I’m going directly to the shower after this, so it saves laundry.”

  “I probably shouldn’t…”

  I got down on the floor and assumed the position. When she didn’t move, I raised my eyebrows. “C’mon, it’s not sexual. We’re exercising.”

  She swallowed so hard, I heard it from the floor. “R-Right, sorry.”

  Two steps brought her to my side, where she carefully perched on my back. “Like this?”

  “No, the weight isn’t distributed. You’ll have to straddle.”

  She hesitated before swinging her leg over, clenching her thighs against my ribs. “Better?”

  “Much.”

  I did the pushups with no problem, wondering what the experience was like from her end. Even through the cotton of her shorts, her core pressed warmth against my bare skin—increasing with each dip and raise. After a few more reps, she grasped the muscles bunched at my neck for balance.

  “H-How many of these do you do?” Her breathing pattern had changed, rivaling my own from the exertion. If I had the empath gene, I’d probably be able to ascertain that someone was enjoying this ride.

  Okay, maybe two someones.

  “Two hundred,” I answered with little strain. “Why?”

  “No reason.” A second or two passed, and she blew out a sharp breath. “Actually, you know that thing you said last night that was crazy? I was just thinking about it.”

  “Are you asking me to marry you?” I chuckled beneath her, a wicked grin curving my lips as I paused mid-pushup. “Because I’d be down with that.”

  She gave a stilted, disbelieving laugh. “No, I wouldn’t…we can’t…”

  “Why not?”

  “We haven’t dated long enough; we haven’t known each other long enough.”

  I went back to work. “Societal traditions mean nothing to me. Besides, what if ERA kills me, and you never get to know me in the biblical sense?”

  “I think I would be more upset about the fact that they killed you,” she gave the back of my head a little shove. “But you do make a compelling argument.”

  “Good.” I lowered myself to the floor and turned around so she was sitting on my chest. “I accept.”

  “Accept what?”

  “Your proposal.”

  She laughed again. “I didn’t propose to you!”

  “You can’t just take it back now,” I told her. “I’ve already picked out china patterns.”

  “Cole!” She collapsed against my shoulder, giggling like a mad woman. “We are not getting engaged yet. This is crazy. You’re not serious.”

  I grinned. “And yet I am.”

  It looked like another refusal had found her lips, so I cut in. “Okay, how about this? We date for the next however many months, and if it still seems like a good idea at the end of summer, we’ll just go through with it. If not, we’ll laugh about what crazy, hormone-driven freaks we were when we first started dating.”

  Rachel sighed. “You drive a hard bargain.”

  “You can feel that?” I stretched to see around her.

  “Oh my gosh.” She bailed off and covered her eyes, still lost to hysterics. “You have to stop.”

  “Okay, okay…” I pushed myself up to sit cross-legged. “Serious face now. We wait, but we revisit the topic before your classes start up again. If ERA gets bold, none of us might live to see that day anyway, so it’s not too much of a risk. Sound good?”

  She shook her head. “How can you be this comfortable naked?”

  “I think you can see why.”

  “Well, it’s more than a little distracting.”

  I snickered and got up to rummage around in my drawers for…well, my drawers. A second later, I was clad in black satin boxers. “Happy?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “As happy as a girl can be, when her boyfriend is deliberately trying to tempt her.”

  “Oh, that imagination of yours.” I ruffled her hair, plopped down, and reached for a handshake. “So, do we have an almost-proposal or what?”

  She shook her head and smiled, accepting the gesture. “Yes, Cole. I must be just as crazy as you are.”

  “Good. That should make this fun.” I tugged her toward me and flashed a wicked grin. “Unpause.”

  GLOSSARY - END OF BOOK 2.5

  Aiden Ross—modified human/SAGE; Rena and Gabby’s best friend; Josh’s former roommate; Wallace’s former suitemate; currently comatose

  André “Jinx” Jenkins—human; Maverick’s former roommate; Gabby’s fill-in date

  Augari—a bloodline of individuals who augment Dynari abilities; origin unknown

  Brittani Harcourt—human; Drew’s fiancée

  Clara Blake—Dynari; gifted with empathy and persuasion; Wallace and Cole’s grandmother; Faye’s sister; Elise's aunt; Gail’s great-aunt

  Clayhaven, Ohio—Rena’s rural hometown

  Cleveland, Ohio—the location of RSTL’s free clinic, ERA’s headquarters, May Realty’s home office, and Cole and Tits’ new apartment

  Corynn Catley—Nullari; former ERA intern

  Dr. Hannah Ferrell—human; Cole’s therapist; a character we’re unlikely to see again

  Drew Collins—Augari; Glen and Judy’s son; Rena’s brother; Brittani’s fiancé

  Dynari—a bloodline of individuals with various supernatural abilities; origin unknown

  Edwin Lawrence—Dynari; gifted with power sensing and locating; Clara, Henry, and Faye’s father; Elise’s grandfather; Wallace, Cole, and Gail’s great-grandfather

  Elise Frasier—Dynari; gifted with microscopic manipulation and disease immunity; Gail’s mother; Faye’s daughter; Wallace and Cole’s cousin; Henry and Clara’s niece; Edwin’s granddaughter

  ERA—(Evolution Requires Action) Faye’s project to forcibly evolve humans

  Faye Tobler—Dynari; gifted with searing and rejuvenating smoke; Edwin’s daughter; Henry and Clara’s sister; Elise’s mother; Gail’s grandmother; Wallace and Cole’s great-aunt

  Foster Hall—the dormitory where Jinx and Corynn live

  Gabriela “Gabby” Hernandez—human; pregnant; Rena and Aiden’s best friend; Rena’s former roommate; Maverick’s fling

  Gail Frasier—Dynari; gifted with visions and mental manipulation; Elise’s daughter; Faye’s granddaughter; Clara and Henry’s great-niece; Wallace and Cole’s cousin; Edwin’s great-granddaughter; Maverick’s girlfriend

  Gene Brewster—human; scumbag; Wanda’s former boyfriend; Rachel’s former almost-stepfather; assumed deceased or incarcerated; a character we’re unlikely to see again

  Glen Collins—human; Judy’s husband; Rena and Drew’s father

  Henry Lawrence—Dynari; gifted with ailment sensing; Edwin�
��s son; Clara and Faye’s brother; Elise’s uncle; Wallace, Cole, and Gail’s great-uncle

  Jackie Simmons—Dynari; gifted with weather manipulation; belongs to a different branch of the bloodline

  (Johan) Maverick—human working for ERA; Gail’s boyfriend; Gabby’s fling; Jinx’s former roommate

  Josh Noll—human; Aiden’s former roommate; Wallace’s former suitemate

  Jovon Porter—human; Cole’s conquest; Teresa’s sex tape stunt double; a character we’re unlikely to see again

  Judy Collins—Unknowing Augari; Glen’s wife; Rena and Drew’s mother

  Larry "Tits" Moran—human; computer enthusiast; Cole’s best friend

  Lexie Moretti—human; waitress at Sam’s Diner; Sam’s niece

  Mark of Nexus—a tattoo once thought to be legend, signifying the rarest and most powerful of alliances; a symbol of a Dynari and Augari’s bond

  Marlene Todd—human; the girl who made Cole reconsider his vigilantism; a character we’re unlikely to see again

  Nicholas “Cole” Blake—hero; Dynari; gifted with super speed and health regeneration; Wallace’s twin brother; Clara’s grandson; Faye and Henry’s great-nephew; Gail and Elise’s cousin; Edwin’s great-grandson

  Nullari—a bloodline of individuals who nullify Dynari abilities; origin unknown