Chapter 2
It was pointless to try and read but I did make the attempt. I’d barely gotten past the first few chapters before she’d awoken three days ago. And now that she had, I was still too distracted to make much of a dent in the novel. I rubbed the back of my neck as pain began to radiate from the jagged scar back there and up my head.
It was an old injury from a training exercise when I’d first joined the Archive Special Investigators Unit. Whenever I became stressed, it would flare and give me headaches. And, needless to say, I’d had a fuck ton of these headaches in the past year and half.
I dug the ibuprofen out of my pocket and dry swallowed five of them, the only thing that took the edge off. I’d been offered stronger pain relief by many doctors over the years but my job hinged on being aware and sharp; anything stronger would hinder that.
So I dealt with it as best I could.
I winced as I rubbed the spot just below my skull that had the largest knot of scar tissue. It was where the pain always seemed to radiate from the worst and yet, every time I talked to my doctor with the Sinners, he’d said it was fine, nothing he could do.
Nina stirred in her sleep, drawing my attention away from myself and to where it should be.
“No,” she moaned and twitched.
I braced myself for her to wake up screaming again, as she had every single night since she’d arrived here. She never remembered her nightmares, but sometimes I heard her murmur something about a voice or his voice.
Nina whimpered quietly and I put my hand on one of hers. Just my touch seemed to calm her and she let out a long breath before settling back in.
Since she’d awakened, Nina had been poked and prodded, her powers tested until she was too tired to eat at times. I’d ordered the staff to stop on more than one occasion. I wasn’t making any friends but I really didn’t care.
Today had been grueling and I didn’t understand why Angelica was pushing Nina to use her supernatural abilities so quickly. The agents that were training her in the room downstairs had mentioned that Angelica wanted her as close to back to normal with her abilities as possible before she was discharged, but why? What was the purpose? I could tell that something was happening behind the scenes by the way the agents and doctors looked at one another when Nina did something especially powerful, and by the way they looked at me. Half the time I wondered if they were trying to figure out how to kill me.
They could try, but it wouldn’t end well for them, that’s for damn sure.
Now, she was napping again, but this time I didn’t have that ball of worry lodged in my throat, wondering if she would wake up. She had, and while there was pain dulling her beautiful eyes, it was still Nina.
That had been perhaps the worst part of watching her sleep those first few days; not being sure who would wake up.
Would she still be in there? Or would the awful trauma of her capture have killed the person I knew, the one who’d changed my life so profoundly?
When she’d smiled, it was as if I could breathe again after a year and half. She’d brought me back to life with one look, one touch. And now, I would move heaven and earth to protect her.
With a sigh, I set the book down and checked my weapons. Then I double checked the bug out bag in the closet, trying to think of how to get Nina a few fake passports in case we had to leave the country. I’d already gotten her some clothes I knew she’d like, as well as the terrible gummy candies she used to hide all over her room and car. I also acquired enough cash to get us to the next state and I had a car stashed nearby as well. I’d never be unprepared again.
I should get her some of those fuzzy socks she likes. Comfort will be key, the blanket proved that.
As I sat back in the chair, I sent the acquisitions person here at the Archive hospital another request. I had a feeling she was getting annoyed with me but, again, I really didn’t care. I’d already gotten an essential oils diffuser for the room so it didn’t smell as medicinal, and in addition to the weighted blanket, I’d asked for a white noise machine. The diffuser arrived yesterday but the machine had not.
Once I sent the request for the socks and asked for an update on the sound machine, I picked up the book and was able to sink into it, knowing that I was doing everything I could to not only protect Nina, but help her heal too.
Though everything was not alright, not even close, there was a peace in sitting here with her. I could look up and see the gentle rise and fall of her breath, the flush of her round cheeks, the snore that she always denied she had. I no longer had to worry about what was happening to her. When I woke in the middle of the night now, my panic was short lived because just across from my uncomfortable bed on the couch there she was.
I was staring at her now, my book forgotten as I reacquainted myself with the sight of her. Every curl, the faint dust of freckles on her nose and cheeks, the curve of her lips. I’d cherished the memory of her when I’d been searching, but it had faded over time, like a painting in the sun. Now I could soak her up, tuck every detail away so that when she was well and I was no longer needed I would have those memories to warm me.
As I watched, her eyes opened slowly at first and then flew open with a start. I leaned forward and put my hand over hers. Nina’s eyes were wild, searching for threats until they locked with mine, and then she let out a slow breath through her lips and nodded.
We didn’t need to say anything, I understood exactly what had happened and she knew that. It was how we’d been before she’d been kidnapped. I could look at her across a room and though to everyone else it looked as if she were having the time of her life, I would be the only one to catch the fatigue in her eyes, the tight set of her smile.
And in spite of all my efforts to keep myself at a professional distance, Nina had found a way past my defenses too. She knew when I was annoyed, when I sensed a threat, when I was angry. It had frightened me that this small Mundane woman who was so much younger than me could have found a way into my heart, that it wasn’t too cold to be penetrated.
“You’ve been here the whole time?” she asked. “Don’t you ever take a break? Not that I mind you being here but you should get out a little bit.”
I reached for the pitcher of water and poured her some, making sure to include a slice of lemon.
“Yes, and I don’t want a break.”
She took the cup and sipped. She let out a small sigh of delight when the tart lemon hit her tongue and then gulped down most of the cup.
“You remembered that too,” she said with a smile.
I shrugged, uncomfortable with her pointing it out.
“Are you hungry? It’s nearly time for dinner.”
“I slept that late?”
“It’s to be expected. You’ve been through an ordeal.”
She sat up and I reached behind her to arrange the pillows.
“An ‘ordeal’? Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“What would you call it?”
“A fucking nightmare,” she said, her voice tight.
My chest tightened and I stood up straight. Nina saw it, of course she did, and shook her head.
“I don’t blame you.”
“I blame me,” I rasped.
“Well stop it.”
I snorted.
“Just like that?”
She nodded emphatically.
“Yeah, actually. I need you on your game, not mired in guilt. And I…we were friends before and I’d hate to lose that to you blaming yourself.”
“Friends…” I tested the word on my tongue.
It was easy, simple actually. Far from what I truly craved between us. I couldn’t have that, not if I was going to keep protecting her. But friendship, like we’d had before? It was also risky; look what happened. But I was also greedy and weak when it came to this woman. So yes, we’d be friends. I’d take what I could get and protect myself from the rest. Because while I’d seen and done some horrifying things in my life, nothing scared me like loving Nina.
“Aren’t we?” Nina asked, a hint of fear in her voice.
“Yes, we are. But,” I leaned down to meet her eye, “I’m also your bodyguard so you need to do what I say. We aren’t out of the woods yet.”
She gave me that same playful salute as before.
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t call me sir,” I said going to the phone so she wouldn’t see how my dick stirred at the honorific.
“Why not? You used to—”
“I don’t like it. Just call me Darius.”
“Okay.”
I knew I was being gruff but it was crude to be lusting after her when she hadn’t even recovered fully yet. What kind of fucking monster did that?
“I’ll order dinner,” I said, picking up the receiver.
While I did that, Nina turned on the flat screen mounted on the wall across from her. She was a rapid channel surfer, her attention short when it came to most entertainment unless it could stimulate her intellect. She couldn’t watch a movie in one sitting to save her life and it used to annoy the shit out of me. Now I couldn’t care less. Let her watch in five minute increments, at least she was alive.
I had just hung up the phone when she squealed in delight.
“Oh my God, look!”
I walked over to her side and chuckled.
It was Jeopardy, one of the few shows that would hold her attention. I used to record it and we’d watch it late at night, her eating junk food, as we tried to guess the answers.
“Wanna watch as we eat?” she asked.
“Sure.”
I hadn’t seen a single episode in a year and half, and now, sitting with her, I realized just how much of my life I’d buried and ignored while I searched. So many things that were wrapped in her that I couldn’t even think about because it had been too painful. Now, she was shaking them loose, needing the normalcy of those things as much as I did.
The questions started, or rather the ‘answers’ and Nina wiggled in excitement and clapped her hands together.
“Alright, hit me!”
The categories were no harder than usual, yet Nina had a hard time with some of the answers, things that she would’ve been on top of before. By the time the food arrived, just before the first commercial break, I could see some of her enthusiasm waning, a worried crease above her nose.
“Give yourself a break,” I said as I settled the tray in front of her on the bed.
“No,” she said with a determined set to her pouty lips. “I don’t want to. It probably sounds stupid but I don’t want time, I don’t want to be gentle on myself. I want to jump into healing, into getting my life back. All of it. Even something as stupid as Jeopardy.”
I gazed down at her, my heart squeezing at the determination and longing in her voice. I was desperate for all those things too, but I also knew that healing like this wasn’t always a matter of sheer will. No matter how much someone might want to return to ‘normal’ that wasn’t usually an option and I had no idea how to tell her that.
So instead I sat down with my own tray and decided to go along. If it did get to be too much, if there was a moment in the future that she realized that just maybe she couldn’t force her way into being all better, then I’d be there to help her get back up. Until that moment, I’d go along for the ride.
Dinner was steak with mushrooms, roasted carrots and mashed potatoes with sparkling water. As per usual, I had twice the amount of food Nina did, and that included my least favorite vegetable. I gathered up my carrots into a napkin as the show came back on and handed them to Nina.
“Ooh, thank you!” she said, taking the disgusting root vegetables. “How can you not like carrots? They’re healthy and if done right, very tasty.”
“I’d ask you the same thing about mushrooms.”
“Ugh, fungus is an entirely different matter.”
She gathered up her mushrooms and handed those to me just as she shouted out the answer to a question about moon phases. When she was correct, Nina let out a whoop and I grinned as I bit into my steak.
“I just need a little practice,” she said, waving her fork at me.
“Obviously. What is the Sea of Tranquility,” I said, in answer to the game show.
“Why is it called a sea if it’s dry?” she asked around a mouthful of carrots.
I handed her my phone as I stuffed mushrooms into my mouth and she took it without question. This was also part of the tradition. She’d ask about something on the show and instead of answering I’d hand her my phone to look it up. Nina was voracious when it came to learning, though she didn’t have the support necessary to help her with the attention difficulties she had. It stunned me that with all the resources her father had, no one had ever pushed to get her tested for ADHD.
“Huh,” she said, brow furrowed as she read.
“What’s it say?”
“It comes from the Latin ‘maria’, from early astronomers that thought they were actually looking at large bodies of water on the moon. That’s fascinating, don’t ya think? How far we’ve come but how far we have to go? There are moons in our solar system that do have water deposits on them, they’re just frozen. Our moon could’ve had that I suppose, though not at that time.”
Her eyes became wide at the next Jeopardy answer and she waved excitedly at the TV with her fork.
“What is a clinch cover! Ha! I told you one day reading romance novels would come in handy.”
I held up my hands with a grin.
“I stand gladly corrected.”
We went on like that, shouting out the questions to the answers and eating our dinner. It was simple, peaceful and the most wonderful night I’d had in a very long time.
After two episodes and a cup of tea, Nina was yawning again and I insisted that she get some sleep. It was a testament to how exhausted she must’ve been that she hardly fought me.
Within minutes, she was snuggled under her weighted blanket and her breathing had become even.
I brushed the back of my scarred and tattooed hands across her cheek, relishing the softness of her skin, before going back to my chair and settling in for the night. But I wasn’t sitting for very long when my phone buzzed in my pocket. When my eyes landed on the message, my stomach dropped.
I’d been expecting a message from my handler with the Sinners for the past few days. What I hadn’t expected, was that I’d have a new mission, one that made rage flood my veins in molten floods.
Nina’s father had been the one who negotiated with the Sinners for protection for his daughter. She’d come into her Witch powers and he’d wanted to make sure she wasn’t taken because of it. The Yorks had a long history of exceptionally talented Witches, but after two generations of less than gifted Witches, Nina’s fast-increasing powers had been something her father had been desperate to keep close to the family.
I’d hated the way the old man had seen her as nothing more than a means to an end, a status symbol. But I’d always told myself that at least I saw her for the incredible woman she was. And I’d been grateful that, for once, my assignment was one that I didn’t have to twist morality into knots to make myself feel better about.
And then she’d been taken and I’d been half crazed in my need to find her.
It had seemed odd that the Sinners hadn’t taken me off the assignment after losing Nina, but I’d been too relieved to question the decision. But now I knew why.
My new mission parameters were simple, and disgusting: to assassinate Nina.
The Sinners had a shaky relationship with the Archive, believing that threats to the world should be destroyed, not locked up in a secure facility. They’d been especially angry with Angelica when she’d pardoned some of the staff of the Archive upon stepping into her position, citing that they’d been under duress. It didn’t matter to those that ran the Sinners; they believed that keeping the world safe was worth any sacrifice. It was part of the creed “To sacrifice our souls for the safety of the world.”
We did the unthinkable so everyone else could go on with their lives.
And now, they wanted me to do something that I could never get past, that would utterly destroy me, because they believed that whatever Nina had been changed into was too great a threat to be allowed to live.
I glanced down at the text and wrapped my fingers around the phone, squeezing as I tried to keep myself from erupting. With a glance at Nina’s sleeping form, I stepped into the hallway outside her room.
I needed to send a confirmation within the next few minutes. There was never a second message, never a second chance. We either took the missions we were given or we were considered AWOL, which meant a team would be sent to not only take care of me, but Nina too.
I have to tell Angelica. And we need to leave, tonight if possible.
I wiped a hand down my face and felt bile rise in the back of my throat.
There was only way to leave the Sinners, and that was in a body bag.
There wasn’t a choice; no matter the consequences, I couldn’t kill her. They might as well ask me to cut my own arm off, it would be easier.
So that’s it then.
I took a deep breath, an odd calm descending on me. I’d been with the Sinners for so long that a future without them, for however brief a time I might live, was decadent and strange. I could make my own decisions, live what was left of my life on my own terms. Maybe I’d even die with some pride in knowing that I went out in full control of my destiny.
I disassembled the phone, crushing some of the components. Then I went up and down the floors of the Archive hospital and tossed different parts in several waste baskets.
When I got back to Nina’s room she was still asleep, much to my relief. As I watched her, unable to help myself, I dialed Angelica’s private number from the phone on the wall.
“Yes?”
“We need to talk.”
“Be right there.”