“Ole, would you toss a blanket over us and dim the kitchen lights? Yeah, great. Thanks. No, don’t turn the lights all the way off.” Asbjorn gave Ole a grin.
“See you at breakfast, yeah? You’re waking up early, right?”
“Doubt it. This game is awesome.”
As Ole considered Asbjorn’s expression, Asbjorn knew that his grin didn’t reach all the way to his eyes. Sean had said they could be as cold as arctic ice, and Asbjorn knew they were the same as the infamous glacial glare of his mother on a bad day. That stare was now mingled with the explosive Lund anger. His late father’s heritage. An incredible amount of anger, laying in wait and biding its time.
“Let me know... let me know if you need anything, will you, Bjorn?”
He forced his eyes to soften. “I will. Ole. Thanks.”
ULRIKA CRACKED THE kitchen window open to let in the cool, fresh Baltic air. Weekend mornings were hers to dominate the kitchen and cook her experiments, to learn without the overbearing advice of her stepmother. She’d make crepes with lingon berries for her step-brother and his boyfriend.
She smiled. Lingon berries were nigh impossible to get in America, and she bought a package of frozen ones just yesterday. She’d make it special for Asbjorn and Sean.
Due to the amount of food in the house over the holidays, Ulrika and Helga were forced to use the garden bench outside the kitchen door to hold frozen items. It was cold enough outside, and with the masonry wall surrounding the garden, dogs couldn’t get into the food.
Ulrika slipped out of her house shoes and took a few, gingerly steps in the snow. Her bare feet sank into the white cushion, making her sigh with satisfaction as she relished the refreshing tingle of cold against her skin. She was careful not to slip as the snow grew slick under her soles, and she made quick work of retrieving her ingredients. Arms full, she came inside through the wide open door. She set her ingredients down.
A fresh gust of Baltic air danced in a sudden eddy and swooshed with glee as it roared through the garden and into the kitchen.
The door slammed shut.
SEAN HOVERED ON THE edge of wakefulness, just barely noticing the activity two rooms away. His mind’s eye was still dark when, out of nowhere, he heard a sharp crack as though a door was kicked wide open. The wooden panel, helped by the salt-laden wind, slammed into the wooden frame with a sharp and violent crack.
Familiar. Alarming.
The specter of Frank Pettel appeared in his twilight dream. His door was kicked open, the intricate wooden frame yielding to the impact of a heavy boot. Glass panes bursting, falling, shards chiming with a surreal sound of a deadly garden wind chime. A heavy weight landed on his chest. He screamed.
“SEAN!” ASBJORN WOKE at the sound of Sean’s voice, shrill and laden with pure terror. The quick, sharp sound of a world being tilted sideways. His ears registered the slamming kitchen door, but his mind saw glass spilling in the moonlight, its pattern a surreal kaleidoscope and its sound a tinkling wind-chime of destruction.
“Sean!” He squeezed him around his chest, comforting, soothing.
Sean’s loose elbow hit his cheek with a resounding crack, a fist landed on his nose with a painful crunch.
Asbjorn threw his hands up to his face as he let go of Sean completely only to see him spring to his feet. Sean’s brown eyes were wild and unseeing.
“Sean, it’s just a dream!” He sprung off the sofa and went after him.
Through is peripheral vision, Asbjorn took in their audience. Ulrika stood rock-still in her cooking apron, wet footprints and bare feet on the wooden floors. Out of the corner of his eyes, he picked up the smooth glide of Ole sliding down the banister.
Asbjorn glanced at him – Sean’s scream had yanked Ole right out of bed, as evidenced by his stepbrother’s wild hair and red-rimmed eyes that squinted against the light of the day. His mother and Olaf stood at the top of the staircase.
“What is it, Asbjorn?” his mother asked.
“A bad dream.”
“Bjorn, your nose is bleeding.” Olaf ran down the stairs and handed his stepson a clean handkerchief.
Asbjorn nodded his thanks and pressed it against his nose with his right hand while his left snaked around Sean’s waist. “Wake up, sunshine. Wake up. Everything’s all right.”
ADRENALINE COURSED through Sean’s veins as he struggled against the strong arm around his waist.
Now he knew.
There was no stopping him. He had to fight, fight all the way before his adrenaline ran out on him.
Like before.
His elbow found a target and his opponent let out a loud whoosh.
“Sean. Wake up, Sean.”
He struggled some more.
“It’s just a dream, sunshine.”
A familiar voice fought through the sound of blood roaring in his ears.
“It’s me. Asbjorn.”
Asbjorn. Calm blue eyes, like a sky on a summer’s day.
He emerged from the clutches of the evil phantom like a diver who held his breath for too long. As though his body was breaking the freezing water’s surface from beneath, he was brought forth into the world of flesh and blood with a sudden gasp. Breathing hard, he shook his head and looked around. A strong arm still held his waist from behind.
“Sean. You’re all right, Sean. I’m with you, sunshine.”
Asbjorn’s voice hummed in his ear, English and smooth and hypnotic, and Sean turned in his arms to embrace him back. He hid his face in Asbjorn’s woolen thermal shirt. The adrenaline subsided and his knees felt weak. He leaned in.
“Come sit.”
He sank onto the sofa next to Asbjorn.
“Here, Sean, have some water.” Helga handed him a glass. He could barely force himself to meet her eyes. A tide of warmth rose up his neck to his ears, and he just knew he was painted crimson with sheer embarrassment.
He grabbed the small glass, but that only gave away how badly his hands were shaking. Water sloshed over the lip of the glass, straight into his lap. A larger hand steadied his.
“Breathe, Sean. Ground and center.”
Ground and center.
Asbjorn might have said the words, but Sean had lived by them long before they met. They had resonated in his mind for so many years. His memory brought forth Burrows-sensei’s calm gray eyes, and he could almost hear his smooth, soothing voice. He took a deep breath and tried to make it sink past his diaphragm, down to the pit of his belly, but failed. His breath insisted on staying shallow. The adrenaline surge was still there and his body wasn’t ready to relax.
Ground and center.
He visualized a ball of spinning energy right below his navel. It was too big and way too untidy, like an overblown beach ball, reaching outside his body in untidy and confused tendrils.
“Now cut its size in half.”
Burrows-sensei’s voice was in his mind again as he shrank his out-of-control one-point to the size of a large cantaloupe.
“Now cut its size in half.”
The cool, melodious voice spanned years, miles, and continents. Sean’s one-point became the size of an orange. His hands steadied around the cool glass of water, and his chest and belly expanded with the next breath.
“Once again.”
A lemon.
“Cut it in half.”
A bouncy ball.
“Again.”
A marble.
A dry bean.
A grain of rice.
A poppy seed.
His one-point, an imaginary center of his being located below his belly button, whirled fast. Its power concentrated and focused and small. He felt his body grow heavy and light at the same time, substantial and attached to the world.
Centered. Grounded.
Now the air could enter his lungs with long leisurely draws, the weight of it sinking all the way to the pit of his belly. Now he was able to relax and think. Spent air left his body in an extended, controlled exhale, and he visualized his breath rush forw
ard in a stream of ki, crossing this room and the next, exiting the house and the garden and the neighborhood, shooting past Copenhagen and across the Baltic, where it mingled with the frigid Northern air.
For the first time in months, he felt as though he truly owned the space around him. He turned to Asbjorn, the glass of water in his hand still untouched. His gaze glanced over Asbjorn’s bloody nose. “Sorry ’bout that.”
Asbjorn shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”
Sean nodded and moved past the superficial injury to the critical problem that would face him in less than a week. “We need to spar later, Asbjorn. I need to be ready for this asshole.”
JETS OF HOT WATER PUMMELED Sean’s shoulders and the citrusy top notes of his shampoo helped him cleanse the night away. Gone were the horrors, rinsed down the drain with swirling specks of foam. Banished was the darkness of that night, so many weeks ago, when his world was turned upside down. He shut the hot water off, waking his synapses with a cold rinse. This cold was nothing like the icy fear of that other night, or the flashback of only one hour ago. It cut through his hair, icing his scalp and waking his shoulders with elemental insistence. It cleansed him and scoured him. Its icy breath readied him for whatever might come next. The reality of his situation did not change, but his outlook was now fresh and clean. He needed information – and he needed it while they were still in Denmark. His coping strategy would be formulated here, on his luxurious Christmas break vacation. He laughed at the irony of it all and was startled when the sound of his voice bounced off the tiled walls.
When he returned to Boston – and he would return, on time for classes – he would be ready. He’d have to be.
Brunch was becoming a fashionable concept in Europe, and Asbjorn’s family was only too happy to adopt it. The food was still settling in their stomachs when Sean and Asbjorn sat next to each other at the family computer. They retrieved their mail, erased a ton of pre-Christmas advertisements, and logged in to a local Boston news station’s website.
“Oooh. Look, Sean, here’s news on the big bust Mark wasn’t allowed to talk about.” They scanned the article, extracting information on the fly. Asbjorn took written notes. “Looks like they nabbed some organized crime figure and his key people. No wonder Mark was so strung out.”
Sean scrolled down to another feature, and Asbjorn looked up, poised with pen in hand.
“Look, Sean, you’re in the news.”
Sean peered at the screen. He felt his stomach flip at the familiar, eerie image. He remembered that night. There he was, with his hoodie on, in the shadows of the student housing building near MIT, affectionately known as “the Pile.” The photo had been acquired without his knowledge during the false fire alarm at the Pile, and even though he could barely recognize his face in the rainbow glare of emergency vehicle lights, he could tell his shoulders and general stature were all him.
As he read the words that spoke of his effort to help the police capture Frank Pettel, he felt the floor grow a bit unsteady, as though he was tethered in outer space, unable to find purchase under his feet. He took a calming breath to center himself and focused on the content of the article again. The prey he had helped capture was a sexual predator wanted in the states of Louisiana and Florida, and there was a reward for his capture.
“Lovely. This sort of exposure is exactly what I wanted to avoid,” Sean said with a frown. He gripped the computer mouse a little harder to still the tremor in his hand. “All this information floating out there will make it easier for him come after me. There is no doubt in my mind that he will, you know. He said he would, if I went to the police.”
“You did the right thing.” Asbjorn kissed the hair above his ear.
“Yeah, but... I can’t believe the fucking press. I thought Mark was saying all this was confidential!”
“We’ll find out what happened. Let’s see what else is out there.” Asbjorn’s tone, calm and steady, told Sean they were back to business of catching Frank Pettel. They had to get a move-on, too, because neither one of them wanted the manhunt to interfere with their classes. A workload at MIT was famous for its grueling intensity, and this was hardly the time to fall apart.
Sean took another deep breath, moved onto the next link, and read on and on. The numerous articles and videos only reiterated what they already knew, though. Their hours of research amounted to one single, disheartening fact. Sean’s identity and location in Boston had been divulged by a local TV station.
“I’ll have to do it all over again,” Sean said, proud that his voice remained steady.
“You’re not alone, sunshine. And even if you were, you’d kick his ass. You already did once.”
“Bullshit, Asbjorn. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You’d have managed.”
Sean leaned closer, close enough to feel Asbjorn’s warmth and smell the coffee on his breath. He drew strength from this rock of a man. He was steady in any emergency. Sean never forgot that Asbjorn served in the navy and was accustomed to giving orders as well as taking them. His real-world experience made him seem like a steady, well-armed ship making its way through the choppy seas, and Sean felt like the California surfer boy he truly was, riding in his wake.
CHAPTER 2
“It’s only two o’clock.” Helga lifted her head from her book and gave both of them a searching look. “You could go see the Tivoli Gardens. Go have a little vacation while you still can.” She said it in English, and Sean noted her Danish accent was light. Probably because she lived in US for years. Or because almost everyone in Denmark seemed to speak some English – didn’t Asbjorn talk about that only a few weeks ago?
With the end of the semester and Sean’s role in the police action, it felt like a whole lifetime had passed. He felt untethered. Time flowed by at differential rates, and it all depended on his frame of mind. The feeling was disconcerting, relativistic. He took a deep breath and forced an exhale, trying to center on his one-point again.
“You okay?” Asbjorn whispered as he let go of him.
Sean nodded and closed his eyes. He always tried to hide his upset from the man by his side, and having fear written on his face irritated him. He drew another breath, and the universe rushed in, filling his body, his mind. The queasy feeling he had lived with prior to Frank Pettel’s capture – those countless weeks he’d never get back – got pushed out by the indigo blue of swirling galaxies, by the supercharged black void of space. Constellations, nebulas, swirls of lights that were billions of years old, yet immediate and comforting.
One with the universe... I’m one with the universe....
How could an escaped convict compete with all that void and matter that still swirled in the wake of the Big Bang? How could a simple sexual assault, one from which he had walked away with just a few trivial bruises and bad feelings, stand up to the flow of time, the pull of black holes and supernovas and gas clouds?
Suck it up, buttercup.
Just a few... trivial... feelings... just, breathe....
He felt it working, like the ki of the universe was going to push away the bad dreams and flashbacks and unnecessary, craven overreactions to loud voices and slammed doors.
Asbjorn’s baritone cut through the tumultuous void. It came to him as though from far away, and it was getting closer and sounding more urgent. Sean opened his heavy eyelids.
“Sean? You okay?” There was concern in Asbjorn’s eyes, and something else.
Sean realized he had been standing in the Jenssen’s family living room, arms outstretched and eyes shut. Motionless, like a statue. Helga Lund was sitting up on the sofa now with her book set aside, leaning toward him. There was a mixture of curiosity and alarm in her expression. Olaf stood right behind her, looking short and pudgy and accountant-like, and he was biting his lip in poorly disguised agitation. Ole and Ulrika were in the room too, but they were just to the side and he didn’t want to turn just to find out if they, too, were staring at him as though he grew horns.
&
nbsp; “Sean. Sunshine. You okay? We’ve been coming up with a whole plan for the rest of the day here, and you just closed your eyes and spaced out.” Asbjorn didn’t sound as weirded out as the others looked. Amused, maybe – and that was a relief.
Sean shook his hands as though to get rid of unwanted water droplets off his fingertips. “Nah, I’m okay.” He leaned his shoulder into Asbjorn, needy for a hug, but then he righted himself again. No sense irritating Asbjorn’s family with an unnecessary display of affection. Yet Asbjorn reached out his long arm and pulled him back in. Sean felt the touch of soft lips in his hair, and a wave of heat rose up his neck and cheeks.
Fuckin’ great. Now I’m blushing.
He rallied. “Just meditating. It helps with... you know. But you were talking about plans. So what are we doing?”
Helga adjusted her glasses. “You need some fresh air. Go outside! Go see something new. You could get your sister some amber. Didn’t you say her hair is bright, just as yours?”
“Ah... Sara’s is black, and Jeanne’s is like honey.”
“See? It would look good on both of them.” She smiled. “Amber would be a fine gift, and it’s small, easy to pack.”
“You like amber, Sean?” Asbjorn asked with a tinge of curiosity.
“For my sisters.”
“Oh for crying out loud, Bjorn, just take your friend to the Tivoli Market already. The Christmas stalls are all up and the weather is good. And take your siblings with you!”
“You really need us out of your hair, don’t you, Mom,” Asbjorn said with a sly smile. He leaned over to her and kissed the top of her head. “Okay, we’ll go.”
NOT AN HOUR LATER, Sean was dressed for the weather and following Ulrika, and Ole to downtown Copenhagen on a borrowed bicycle. Asbjorn was riding next to him. “Are you sure about this?” Sean called out. “It’s snowing!”
“Only a little, and it’s not that cold. The road isn’t even icy.” Asbjorn waved Sean’s concerns away.
Swordfall (The Fall Trilogy, #2) Page 2