"Go." Ben pointed at the door. "Just don't ever screw up like that again on my watch."
“Then don't ask me to do something that's not in my job description.” Tess held her head high as she exited Ben's makeshift office at the west end of the Detroit Avenue Bridge. Her limo waited there to take her back to her hotel. With shaky hands, she slid into her seat and smiled as the driver closed the door behind her. Alone at last, Tessa's whole body began to shake with the severity of what she'd done.
I've never defied Soma before. In all her years as a student, she'd always done whatever was asked of her. Always eager to please, she towed the line and never gave anyone trouble. She could have been expelled for what she just did. And she'd risk it all over again for another night with Dean.
Tessa rested her head against the leather seat, taking a deep breath as the driver took her back across the bridge to her hotel downtown. She scoured the night for a glimpse of Dean, but there was no trace of the boy who claimed he was her equal.
She brushed her fingertips across her lips, trying to hold on to the memory of his kiss.
You have to forget him, Tess. Equal or not, there was no room for Dean in the life she'd built for herself.
~~~
“Tessa! It's good to have you back," Chase called as she made her way down the long white corridors of Sterling Tower, her suitcase rolling along behind her. Coming home was always a relief to Tessa, but this time she was returning a little bit heartbroken over what might have been. Talking to her trainer was not on her list of things she wanted to do tonight.
"I'm glad I caught you.” He stood between her and the door to her apartment. “We have to step up your training for the rest of the year. You've got some progress to make before you meet with Livia in December for your yearly review. That gives us a little more than three weeks before you're leaving for Amrita again at the end of the month. Let's meet at five tomorrow morning and again on Thursday to get a jump on it before November starts slipping away from us.”
"That's double my regular training hours." A stab of panic shot through Tessa at the thought of what it would cost for so much extra time with Chase. He was the best Soma had to offer, and her time with him was worth every penny. But he was also the most expensive and sought after trainer in Sterling Tower.
“Come on, Tess. You just came home with a huge Amrita purse. The 'I can't afford it' excuse doesn't work when you're pulling in the kind of money you are every month.”
"You do know I don't get all of the purse, right? I don't even get half of it."
"That's still a lot of money for a nineteen year old. Don't you have a financial advisor? I hope you aren't spending your money on frivolous things. I'd hate to see you unable to afford your time with me. It's so important as close as you are to becoming a full agent.”
"I'll be there," Tess promised. She would figure out the finances later. Thankfully, Soma covered most of her living expenses, so she could cut some corners to come up with the extra cash. Soma would float her a loan if she really needed it.
"How were my last samples?" she asked.
"Not bad but still not pure yet. We're almost there, Tess. And then I'll feel confident enough to recommend you for your first assignment."
"Thank you, Chase. I know I couldn't do it without you."
"Bright and early tomorrow?" He squeezed her shoulder.
"See you there," she promised. She'd give him the moon if he'd just get out of her way, so she could get into her apartment. Only a few special students got to live in the apartments at Sterling Tower, rent free. The luxury space was just one of the many perks she enjoyed, but it was by far her favorite. Most of the other students lived in the dormitories. Tess had hated her time in the dorms. It was torture with so many screaming tweens swarming the small spaces with the walls pressing in on her, and never having a single second alone.
Tess dropped her bags in the white marble foyer, the echo sounding through her silent apartment. Her cleaning lady would see to it her clothes were washed and put away.
Her cell beeped with a call from the front desk.
"Welcome back, Ms. St. James," Eric said as soon as she answered. "Can we get anything for you this evening?"
“Knock it off with the professional bullshit, Eric.” He was a riot, and she loved having him as her personal concierge. But he didn't understand personal space at all-nor her desire for alone time.
“You want pizza again, don't you?”
“Yes, please. Order from that place I like.” She tapped her fingernail on the cool granite surface of the kitchen counter. It felt good to be home, but at the same time, she suddenly felt lonely.
“You want your regular grocery order for the week, too?
“Just don't sneak brussel sprouts into my veggie order again. Like, ever again.” Tessa paced across her apartment to the living room.
“You'd like them, I promise.”
“Not unless they're deep fried and wrapped in bacon.”
“All right, I'll bring your unhealthy pizza up in a bit.”
“Hey, I earned at least two thousand calories of junk food this weekend.”
“Good to have you back, Tess.”
“It's good to be back." She flopped onto her white leather sofa. Now that she was back in her favorite place, the tension she'd felt since leaving Ben's office should relax, but if anything, she was even more tense.
She gazed around the apartment that had been her home since she was sixteen. She loved it. It was the first thing she'd ever had that was all hers. Bookshelves lined the walls on both sides of her living room. On one side, the shelves housed her television, opposite the large sofa, and on the other side, her bed. The kitchen and bathroom flanked the foyer entry, making it all one big space.
For one brief second, she let herself imagine having Dean here with her. Then she shut that line of thought down tight. She could not pine over a guy when she had so much work to do.
Waiting for her food to arrive, Tess fired up her iPad and did her weekly shopping. All the clothes, books, music, and gadgets she could find on Primely.com were hers for the taking. Everything she needed went on the Soma account and arrived at her door the next day. She practically had an unlimited budget, and rarely had an order Soma wouldn't approve. It was just too bad she couldn't charge her tuition and training fees to the account too. She lost herself in some guilt-free shopping, driving all thoughts of Dean from her mind.
Her phone beeped again.
"Ms. St. James?"
"Becky, hi," Tessa replied.
"Your new uniforms are ready. Should I have the concierge bring them up, or would you like to stop by for a fitting?"
"I'll stop by your shop tomorrow. Everything is always too long for me." The Soma uniforms were typical training gear: black fatigues tailored to a perfect fit with the Soma logo along the sleeve, just above her status rank within the hierarchy of the agency. Her newest uniforms marked her as a four star student with a third level training status, meaning she worked with the kids from the Fold on a weekly basis as a trainer. Only the most talented students could become trainers before becoming an agent.
“Perfect. I'll schedule you for a fitting on Wednesday. Shall I charge it to your account?”
"Yes, thank you, Becky." Tessa smiled as she ended the call. It really was a relief to be home. Every time she left for Amrita, it felt like traveling to another planet. The mortal world was so vastly different from her world. Venturing into it was always such a culture shock and coming home to Sterling Tower reminded her that Soma was her family. Always had been and always would be. She owed it to them all to make something of herself.
"Pizza's here!" Eric called from the foyer.
"Come in. I'm starving.” Tessa scrambled off the sofa to meet him in the kitchen.
"You sit and eat; I'll put the groceries away," Eric ordered. "How was Cleveland?"
"Cold."
"And the fights?”
"Same game, different town." She shrugged
.
"Give me something, Tess. Meet any hot guys?"
Her answering smile was the only reply Eric needed.
“Dish it.”
"It's all anonymous, Eric. You know that," she insisted. "It was nothing."
"Nothing?"
"Absolutely nothing." The lie tasted bitter on her lips. Eric was the closest thing she had to a real friend, but she'd never let him get close enough to truly know her. There was no way she was telling him about Dean.
"Girl, we gotta get you a boyfriend."
"I don't have time for that."
"Tell me about it." He sighed as he put her groceries away. He was familiar with her home and how she liked her things arranged.
"How's school?" Eric was one of the few who actually got to go to college on campus and major in something useful. He was going to be a Soma psychologist someday. Tessa was just a part-time, online student majoring in Liberal Arts. A basic degree that would give her the education she would need to perform her assignments. Her real education came in the training room and she usually preferred it that way. But sometimes she longed for the real college experience.
"Good. Classes are boring as hell, but the socializing is what I'm there for anyway.” He winked.
"You have a perfect GPA. You know you like school."
"I do. But it would be nice if I could choose my own classes. I like psychology, but I'd rather focus on abnormal psych and go the route of the forensic psychologist. But the Soma gods want me preparing for child psych. So I do what I'm told.”
Eric was never quite satisfied with life at Soma, but he was twenty-one years old and still lived in the dormitories. His job as a concierge barely paid for his training and he was tapped out on Soma loans for everything else. He didn't have it nearly as good as Tessa did.
“Well, I can't complain,” she said. “They usually let me take the classes I want, except the language courses. I wanted to focus on learning as many languages as possible, but my Soma advisor said it's not important.” Tessa shrugged. "Apparently, being multi-lingual isn't a necessity for what they have planned for me."
"Do you ever wonder what that is?" Eric asked, helping himself to a slice of her pizza.
"I'm anxious to find out, but I trust that whatever my assignment will be, it will be suited to my gifts and the training I've had."
"Well, you are clearly destined for bigger and better things." He gestured at her home. "Maybe college isn't as big a deal for you right now."
"Exactly. There's always later. We won't be Soma students forever. Eventually we will be agents and have more time to do the things we want." She held onto that thought like a lifeline. Just because she couldn't be with Dean now, didn't mean they would never see each other again.
“From your lips to God's ears. I gotta get back to work. See you later." Eric left her to her quiet night alone with her pizza … and thoughts of honey-brown eyes.
~~~
CHAPTER
FOUR
The alarm blared loudly in the darkness, shrieking the most annoying music on Tessa's playlists. She wasn't a morning person. Especially a "it's still dark outside" kind of morning person.
"Shut up" she grunted at the voice activated alarm. "I'm up. I'm up." She brushed the sleep out of her eyes. Three-thirty was an ungodly hour, but she was determined to get to the warehouse before Chase to get in some early practice. She wanted to be warmed up by the time he arrived, so they could make the most of the time she was paying him.
She slipped into her black and red uniform with the Soma emblem on the shoulder. Just like the brand on her ankle. The one she received when she was sixteen. Under the red serpent clutching its own tail were three stars underlined with four red bars, marking rank. The new uniforms added a fourth star-the highest you could go as a student, moving her that much closer to the coveted fifth star. The agent star, which would earn her an assignment. She was so close she could taste it.
Tess was the only one out so early-really the middle of the night. Few were as dedicated as she was. She hit the elevator button for the basement level, swiping her ID card for access. The car dropped to the lowest level quickly with no stops along the way.
The warehouse was Tessa's favorite place to train. She loved sparring and honing her lesser gifts in the gym, but working with her signature gift-what she deemed her signature gift-was the most rewarding thing she did all week. Most saw her ability to thrive off of the strength of others during a fight as her most defining gift but Tessa disagreed. That was a party trick. Her elemental gift would be her career maker, and that was where her focus went. She preferred being in nature to practice. And that was what the warehouse offered.
“At it awfully early, Ms. St. James,” the security guard said as she made her way through the tunnel connecting Sterling tower with the warehouse.
She nodded. “I've got some time to make up after my trip.” Amrita was her only source of income, but it took her away from her priorities every month. The time away was always an enormous set back.
“It's shaping up to be a beautiful day in there.” He held the double doors open for her.
Tessa stepped onto the moss covered ground. The darkness of night just beginning to fade with the first rays of light spilling over the horizon. The sounds of the city never touched this place. That was her favorite part about her time here. It was like stepping into another dimension. From the exterior, the warehouse looked like any other boring building, but it belied the immensity of what it concealed.
Inside, was a world of forests, hills, lakes, and trees. Even a mountain with foothills and streams. Birds and all kinds of creatures lurked within its depths. Some gentle. Some not. The creation of such a fathomless world within the confines of the warehouse was thanks to the ancient Immortal who lived there. Harold didn't like to be bothered, but Tessa appreciated all he did to facilitate her training. He'd created a training center just for her. A small cabin surrounded with various levels of polluted ponds. Her job was to purify the water using her gift. She had been able to clear the murky ponds for some time now, but traces of toxins were still evident in her latest samples. She needed to be able to make the water safe to drink. A feat she was determined to conquer any day now.
As she made her way to the ponds at the base of the mountain, Tessa's thoughts were filled with grand ideas of a future visiting remote corners of the third world, cleaning the polluted and muddy waters, making them safe to drink for those without clean water.
She arrived an hour before she expected Chase, her palms itching to get to work. Chase's work station and chemistry paraphernalia were housed in the small cabin-a mini laboratory exclusively for the purposes of her training. She quickly had everything in place and her safety gloves and goggles on to collect her first samples. She could easily scoop up a bottle of water from the filthy pond and use her gift to make it safe to drink, but that was child's play. She'd been able to do that for two years. She needed to be able to restore an entire lake to pure, fresh water. Once she conquered the small ponds, she would be ready to tackle larger bodies of water.
Each of her ponds held a different range of pollutants. Every session, she would begin with the first pond and work her way through them all until she had samples from before and after the use of her gift. This morning she was using her "practice pond" until Chase arrived.
Tessa prepared her starter samples. Chase would compare them against her clean sample, giving them a baseline of what she needed to work on for the rest of their time together. Using her gift was both incredibly freeing and insanely difficult at the same time. Letting her power flood her body until she could practically see it crackling at her fingertips was one of the most euphoric sensations she'd ever experienced. In that moment, Tessa was at peace. But as she directed that power into the clouded, polluted waters of the pond, that sense of euphoria vanished. It was replaced with a feeling of loss and pain so profound it almost made her weep. She likened it to experiencing what nature felt in the presence of
such pollution. As she fought to pull the toxins from the water and into herself, she could feel the toll it took on her body. Her gift allowed her to extract the various particulates in the water and absorb the contamination using her body's natural filtration system, leaving behind pure H2O, or that was the ultimate goal anyway. Years ago the ability left her feeling ill for days, but with time, she developed a tolerance to the toxins coursing through her body. Now, she only needed a few minutes to rest before she could use her gift again.
The pond water was clear now. Just like it had been for the last several months. But it probably still wasn't safe to drink. Once Chase tested it for toxins, she would know if she'd made any improvement since last time.
Tess stumbled to the cabin to rest on the front porch until Chase arrived. Hands trembling, she reached for a protein bar and a bottle of water from her pack. Using her gift still left her weak, but she recovered quickly.
Sweat dripped from her brow as she sat on the top step. The morning was warm and humid already, and the sun wasn't fully up yet. Harold's temperatures fluctuated drastically from day to day. This weather usually meant someone was being punished. There were always others here. She could sense them, even this early. Some chose to live here like Harold while they trained and honed their gifts in a natural setting. Others, like Tessa, came just for training, choosing to live in the comfort of Sterling Tower instead. And sometimes, the warehouse was used for punishment when rules were broken.
Tessa heard the furious pounding of footsteps along the pathway that lead to the top of the mountain. A treacherous climb from what she'd heard. She'd never been disciplined before, but she knew others who had received this particular punishment.
The footsteps neared, and she saw a familiar face. He resembled Dean so much more than she realized. The shock of it sent her heart lurching to her toes.
How can I miss him this much when I hardly know him?
Quinn was younger than his nephew by a few years, but much more serious than Dean. She would give anything to be in Livia's inner circle the way Quinn and Santi were. They got to live and train with her, yet they seemed to despise Livia for it. It was no secret how often they were penalized for their transgressions. This morning Quinn was running up the mountain as fast as his legs could carry him. He streaked past her, like he had a horde of demons chasing him. The look on his face was one of grim determination-and hate. He would not fail at whatever task he'd been set.
Immortals of Indriell- The Collection Page 120