Qaletaqa (7 page)

I couldn’t delay any longer.

Taking my hand out of Claire’s, I brought the
key to the ignition and pushed the sputtering engine to life.
Driving down the two lane road proved to be a lonely experience. I
was actually glad to see two headlights appear behind me as we left
the back roads and once again reached the main street. We were back
out on Highway Thirty-Six before Claire finally spoke.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

After how I had completely dropped out of the
conversation with Harvey and then nearly bit his head off, it was a
fair question to ask. I didn’t really know how to answer it,
though.

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” I muttered. “I wasn’t
expecting any of that. How could she be married?”

“If I were a few months older, we would be
married too,” Claire said, her soft voice trying to cover her
amusement.”

I sighed in irritation. “You know what I
mean. Melody being married makes everything that much harder. I
can’t handle any more pressure. I’m about to crack as it is. I
can’t stand the thought of what will happen to Harvey if…” I
couldn’t finish that sentence. The dip of Claire’s head said she
knew exactly what I didn’t want to say. “I’m so scared of failing,
Claire. I’ve hurt so many people already. I can’t bear the thought
of harming anyone else.”

Rubbing her hand comfortingly up and down my
thigh didn’t do as much to calm me as I would have liked. “I know
there’s a lot of pressure on you,” Claire said, “but you have to
focus on the positive side.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“She has someone she wants to come back to.
Harvey absolutely adores Melody. That was obvious. And I’m sure
Melody loves him just as much,” Claire said. “If Melody didn’t have
someone she wanted to run back to, well, that would only make this
harder than it already is. Harvey is a blessing.”

Even with how much added pressure I felt
because of Harvey, I had to admit Claire was right. If I didn’t
have Claire, there would be nothing to stop me from falling for
Melody. It would be Claire and Daniel all over again. Only many
times worse.

“Do you think I was wrong to lie to him?” I
asked.

“No,” Claire said quickly. “Harvey wouldn’t
have understood what’s going on. It was hard enough for him to
accept what you did tell him.”

I nodded. I still wasn’t sure either of us
was right, but it made me feel better to hear Claire agree with me.
Selfish reasons or not, I didn’t want Harvey coming with us. Claire
fell into a thoughtful silence and I hoped any other questions she
had after meeting Harvey would stay buried for now. Some of those
questions, I didn’t think I had the strength to answer. Settling
into my seat again, I wanted nothing more than to hold Claire.
Claire, however, suddenly decided she wasn’t done with her
questions after all.

It was a simple question, but one I had
purposely not covered before.

“You already knew what she looked like?”

Taking my right hand off the steering wheel,
I dropped it into hers and held on tightly. “I saw her when she was
taken.”

“You saw her?”

“The second he grabbed her, these images
jumped into my mind. I saw her face. She was crying and terrified.
Then I saw the Matwau standing over her laughing. I was so scared
for her.” I had been terrified of what might happen to her. The
vision left me lying on the floor, curled up in pain. I didn’t
share that part with Claire. Her grip had already grown tighter on
my hand. She was scared. I was still scared of what my future held,
but I had to have faith in my love for Claire.

“It didn’t stop you from bringing me the
potion, though,” Claire said. Her voice was soft, almost
unsure.

“No, I had already made my choice about that.
Whatever happened to Melody, there was no way I was going to leave
you to fend for yourself any longer,” I said. “It was a mistake to
have left you in the first place.”

Claire sat quietly for a few minutes. I
wondered what she was thinking about. I wanted her to know that I
was just as scared as she was, but at the same time I was afraid
that admitting my fears would only deepen hers. I wanted to turn
away from Melody and be sure of my fate, but I knew that I never
could. My happy life with Claire would always be tainted by the
memory of the young woman I had condemned to death. I wanted no
regrets when I finally met Claire in front of the Elders. Our life
together as man and wife should start with hope, not sadness.

Claire dumped the Shaxoa’s potion down the
sink, knowing full well the risk she was taking. She smothered the
bond with her love for me. That gave me strength beyond anything
else. She had faith that we would be together despite the battle
looming in the distance. If she had wanted to take the easy way
out, she could have. But I think she would have had the same
problem following her through life if she did. Guilt. I was in need
just as much as Melody. I needed her help and she knew that. Claire
could no more abandon me when I needed her than I could turn my
back on Melody. It was a strange chain that had linked us all
together, but somehow we would make it work.

“Do you know how far away she is?” Claire
asked.

The words broke me out of my thoughts. “I
have a sense of the distance between us, but I don’t really how far
away she is.”

Claire bit the corner of her mouth and turned
away from me briefly. When she looked back at me, her cheeks were
flushed in the pale moonlight, her breathing a little faster than
before. The sudden change worried me. I desperately wanted to know
what she was thinking. Why couldn’t my connection with Talon have
stretched just a little bit further to other humans?

“Is she far enough away that we’ll need to
stop for the night?” Claire asked.

The question startled me. My mind raced to
understand the emotions playing on Claire’s features and in her
body language. Did the blood rushing to her cheeks show
embarrassment or desire? Had her breathing changed because she was
worried about spending the night with me, or because she thought it
might be our last night together? A few days earlier I would have
been able to guess her desires, we had talked about it often enough
to know what we wanted, but sitting next to her now, I felt
lost.

My own emotions were roiling inside of me. I
hadn’t even thought about sleeping until Claire’s question left her
lips. The feelings I had experienced after learning that Claire had
been sleeping in my bed while I was in Hano came flooding back,
intensified beyond belief. I wanted her as close to me as possible.
I wanted her to fall asleep in my arms and wake up in the same
place. There were definitely things I wanted to do between those
two events as well.

I realized I still hadn’t answered her
question. Melody’s presence hovered in the back of my mind. The
distance between us was almost tangible. I would never reach her
tonight. Breathing in a deep, steady breath, I tried to answer in
the calmest voice possible. “Yes, I think we’ll have to stop for
the night.”

Even with my careful preparation, my voice
came out a touch too high and shaky. I waited for Claire’s
response.

Her body softened and leaned against me.
“Okay,” was all she said.

The breath I had been holding wanted to
explode out of me, but I forced it to leave slow and smooth. Okay?
What did that mean? Glancing away from the road, I looked down at
Claire. Her eyes were closed, her face peaceful. I looked back into
the night. The striping arched into the darkness, leading me on. I
had no idea what the next few days would bring, let alone the next
few hours, but I knew that for some reason my answer had been the
one Claire needed.

7: Shield

The deep quiet left after the harsh rumbling
of the truck’s engine woke Claire. She looked up at the hotel sign.
An expression I had no interpretation for flitted across her face
before she quelled it with a yawn.

“Give me a minute,” I said. “Talon needs to
talk to me about something. I’ll be right back.”

Smiling at me sleepily, Claire dug her cell
phone out of her pocket. “I’m going to call my mom and let her know
we’re okay. She was furious when she found out I left San Juan. I
promised to keep her updated.”

“Good idea,” I said. “Would you mind calling
my mom too? Tell her I love her and I’ll call her in the morning. I
need to talk to Talon right now.”

Claire nodded and absently tugged at her
rumpled shirt as she started dialing. The movement drew my eye, and
for the first time I looked at what she was wearing. Green and
yellow were our junior high’s school colors. Claire turned to look
at me and I saw the cracked white lettering on the front of the
shirt. Carlos F. Vigil Junior High School Track and Field. A grin
broke out across my face. Claire never ran track. I did.

Following my gaze, Claire looked down at her
shirt. She glanced back up sheepishly. “Do you mind?”

I leaned in close to her. “I love it,” I said
before stealing a kiss from her.

I was sorry to pull back, but a nudge from
Talon reminded me that he was waiting. I gently closed the truck
door and walked toward the edge of the deserted parking lot where
Talon hid behind a stand of decorative bushes. An old, dark colored
sedan pulled into the far end of the hotel parking lot, leaving me
pretending to casually stretch my legs. I watched the car drive
around the side of the building before continuing my walk.

“I am going hunting,” Talon said when I
finally reached him, “but before I go, I need to teach you how to
shield your thoughts from me.”

His phrasing struck me as odd. He needed to
teach me?

“Yes, I need to teach you. I will hunt, but I
will not go far enough away to be spared what you will undoubtedly
be thinking about tonight,” Talon said.

Blood rushed to my face, lighting up my
embarrassment. Why hadn’t he taught me to shield my thoughts
sooner? My embarrassment turned quickly into irritation at my
friend when I realized that he could have taught me the trick at
any time, but chose not to.

Talon’s strange feline laugh filled my mind.
He was not sorry. I wondered if it were possible to embarrass a
cougar.

“Yes, I could have taught you at any
time.”

“Then why didn’t you?” I asked. Talon had
proved immensely helpful, as well as being a good friend, but I was
still pretty annoyed with him.

“I kept you safe by listening to your
thoughts. If I had taught you how to shield your thoughts in the
beginning, I may not have gotten to you in time, and you would have
ended up dead. I could not take the risk of letting you decided
what you would pass on to me,” Talon said. There was no apology
really, just a statement of fact as usual. His logical mind had so
far never been wrong. Most likely he was right again. I gave up my
irritation reluctantly and came back to the reason I was standing
behind a row of bushes.

“Alright, tell me how to do it,” I said.

“Close your eyes.”

I did.

“Shut away the noise coming from outside of
you.”

Every distant chirp and purring engine seemed
to rise in volume as I tried to push them away. Talon waited
patiently as I cleared my mind, one by one, of all
distractions.

“Every thought is a signal. These signals
have substance. Form a thought in your mind and hold it. Feel its
weight and shape.”

What he asked was not easy. Thoughts flooded
into my mind. I struggled to hold only one and banish the rest.
Eventually I found a thought substantial enough to overpower
everything else. Claire. I focused on my love for her until nothing
else remained. Slowly I began to understand what Talon was talking
about. I began to sense the form and shape of my thoughts. In the
blackness of my mind I saw and felt the single strand that held my
love for Claire. The strand was smooth and long, gliding through my
mind in a beautiful ballet.

“Forming a shield is very much like forming a
thought. The substance and shape of your thoughts should be exactly
the same as your shield. Try forming a barrier around your mind
that will keep your thoughts safely inside,” Talon instructed.

My jaw tightened with effort as I attempted
to create a barrier. It was several long minutes before the
invisible cage closed completely and sealed away my thoughts of
Claire. A deep breath blew out of Talon in something similar to a
sigh. I kept my eyes closed, making sure the barrier wouldn’t
dissipate too quickly. I reveled in the peacefulness a few seconds
longer before releasing my hold to ask Talon a question.

“Do I have to let go of the barrier every
time I want to speak with you?” I asked.

“You can, but it will be much easier if you
simply change the shape of the thoughts you want to release. The
barrier will only keep in the thoughts you design it to hold,”
Talon said. “Try to do exactly that. Form your barrier, then create
a thought that is different enough to slip through.”

“I’ll try,” I said. What he asked made very
little sense, but I tried anyway. Pushing away the external noise
was much easier this time. I captured a single thought and measured
its makeup. My barrier came up much more quickly than before,
bringing with it the quiet peace I needed.

I enjoyed the solitude for a few seconds
before moving on to my next task. I remembered how my usual
thoughts felt and struggled to shape a new thought into something
different. I focused on my need to speak with Talon. Thinking of my
animal companion helped, warping my thought into something heavier
and thicker. It reminded me of the way his fur felt.

Awkwardly I pushed the new thought out of the
barrier.

“Can you hear me?”

Talon’s response was colored with pride.
“Yes, I can.”