Rock Star (Dream Weaver #2) (22 page)

             
“Maybe you should share this with him?” I asked.

             
“No. I don’t think I can go there again. It’s too…”

             
I knew how to finish that sentence—too painful. I nodded. “I understand.” I began to walk away but Sabre clasped my wrist to stop me.

             
“I know you do,” he said. “Thanks, Em. You know, for…”

             
“Sure thing, Sabre. No problem.”

             
I left the room, still feeling the weight of his pain in my bones, like a shift in the barometric pressure.

             
Nick was uncharacteristically quiet, almost brooding, when I skipped down the stairs.

             
“Hey,” I said.

             
“Hey.” Not ‘hey back’, no smile, no invitation into his arms.

             
I wandered the sunken living room of Sabre’s sprawling home, drawing memories from knickknacks and furniture. Pretty mundane stuff. Memories of movies that had garnered intense emotion, concerts like the Queen Live at Wembly I’d watched my first day here to meet Sabre. I laughed out loud as the image of Nick and Sabre nearly holding hands while watching that concert, until I realized Nick had transferred the image of me with my hand on Freddy Mercury’s crotch to Sabre. I shot him a defiant glare, which he blatantly ignored.

             
The massive painting of the bustling provincial town that hung in the dining room, once again, called to me. I stood before it imagining the stories of the lives of all the little people. I stretched my senses toward Nick, trying to ascertain his mood. But I backed away. I’d chastised him once for the very same thing. I understood now the temptation to get into people’s heads.

             
“Are you mad at me?” I asked instead.

             
“No,” he said too quickly. “Yes. No.”

              I turned to him. “A girl could get whiplash with an answer like that.” I dared a smile. He returned it in kind, finally. I went to him and wrapped my arms around his waist. “What’s wrong?”

             
He started to push away, but pulled me tighter instead. “It’s nothing.”

             
“I could just find out on my own, you know? But I thought I’d have some respect and not do that to you,” I explained.

             
Nick shot a glance up to Sabre’s closed door. “It’s just—I don’t know. When I saw you with Sabre, like that, I just…”

             
“Got jealous?” I asked astounded.

             
His grimace tugged at my hair. “A little,” he confessed.

             
“I was just giving a friend a hug,” I defended.

             
Nick stepped back and eyed me incredulously. “Friend? Since when are you and Sabre friends?”

             
“All the more reason for you not to get your boxers in a knot. And I use the term ‘friend’ exceedingly loosely.” I laid my head on his chest, listened to the thrum of his heart. “He shared some things with me. Things you’ve only guessed about.” His muscles tensed and the green monster raised its ugly head.

             
“I’ve followed him for decades, fought by his side, nearly died at the hand of
his
enemy and he shares that information with you after five minutes?” he softly raged.

             
I took Nick by the hand and led him to the living room. “Sit. Please,” I amended. He obeyed and I crawled onto his lap, rested my head on his shoulder. “The things Sabre shared, they’re very painful to him. Kinda like,” I paused unsure if I should tread this ground. “Kinda like Felicia is for you. He only shared the details because I knew so much already from the rock star weave he did. He couldn’t maintain the weave without some things leaking out. He worked so hard at making those images real that his guard went down around his own sacred memories.” We sat quiet for a few moments. “I can show you, if you want.”

             
“Sabre should show me,” he retorted.

             
“Honey. If I asked you to relive your worst nightmare, not once but twice, would you be willing to do that? I wouldn’t ask you to show me what the Wraith torment you with.” Nick sat rigid and silent, contemplating—battling his anger and his dedication to his aloof mentor.

             
His chest sank with a breath of resignation. “Show me,” he relented.

             
After the images poured from me to him, we sat in silence. Nick replayed the image of that one hot tear falling from Sabre’s eye and trailing a cooling course down my neck.

             
“I’ve never seen him cry. In all these years, not once has he let me see him cry. I just thought he was a hard ass,” Nick said.

             
“Yeah. Not so much,” I said. “But don’t tell him he’s not.”
 

Chapter 24
Cherry Bomb

              I shivered in the cold, puffs of breath chattered from my mouth. The guys weren’t the least bit affected.

             
“So, how come I’m freezing and you two seem fine?” I asked. “Is this another Caphar thing.”

             
Nick looked askance at Sabre, who shook his head as though the answer were elementary. “Your body still thinks it’s human. As you adapt to the Capharism, sensory stimuli will affect you less. The more often you phase the quicker you’ll convert.”

             
“Ha, yeah. Mr. Paranoid here won’t teach me how. He’s afraid my molecules will scatter across the face of the Earth and never reconstitute,” I complained.

             
Sabre’s eyes narrowed at Nick. “You’re not doing her any favors by protecting her. You’ve got to teach her how to defend herself. We may not always be around to save her pretty little ass.”

             
At first, Nick looked abashed, but when Sabre mentioned my—back side, he returned Sabre’s glare. I hated it when they fought, and I didn’t care if Sabre noticed my butt. I hitched my hip and looked over my shoulder at my posterior, then looked at Sabre. “Gee, thanks Sabre. I was wondering if it was getting too big.”

             
Nick groaned, and Sabre snorted and returned to his work.

             
“Get it done. Or I will,” Sabre threatened.

             
Panic jolted my heart. By the horror on Nick’s face, it was obvious the idea repulsed him. He reached a hand to me. “Come on. Let’s get you inside where it’s warm. And I’ll give you lessons on phasing. Okay?”

             
I slid my hand into his and snuggled against his warmth as we walked into the house. Nick led me to the small music room in the basement Sabre used to weave his rock star dream. I shuddered but not from cold. The memories of that weave still clung to the walls like graffiti—swirling colors and shapes, alive and vibrant.

             
“Here,” Nick said. “Sit here.”

             
I shot him a questioning look, and he stepped up to me and brushed a wisp of hair behind my ear. “Honestly, this is the best room to do this. It’s confined enough that you shouldn’t scatter too much.”

             
“Shouldn’t?” I asked as a tremor of fear skittered up my spine.

             
“I’ll keep you safe. It can be very disorienting. I want to try and keep you anchored at first, instead of out in the middle of nowhere where any breeze can control you at its whim.” His thumbs caressed my cheek bones and he gently, almost fearfully kissed me. His heart thrashed against my palms and I felt him erect a barricade in his mind. What was it that he was so afraid of me seeing? What secret kept him constantly on guard, even against me? I thought we’d taken care of the nightmares the Rephaim tormented him with. Why did he still need to protect himself?

             
“Here, sit down,” he instructed, and I obeyed, though I still wanted to know what he was hiding. “Close your eyes and clear your thoughts. Don’t think about anything.”

             
“How do you not think of anything?” I smirked.

             
Nick chuckled. “Just try. Relax. Take deep breaths and think of the lightest object you can think of.” I closed my eyes and imagined cotton candy—sweet, airy, soft and weightless. “Good girl,” Nicks voice was so low and quiet it was barely a whisper. “Now, I want you to imagine yourself as cotton candy.”

             
I opened my eyes and stared at him. “For real?”

             
Nick shook his head and huffed a quiet laugh. “It was your choice of object, hon.”

             
“Yeah, but—tell me what it’s like. Tell me what’s going to happen to me so I don’t freak out when it does,” I begged.

             
“Well, you know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, the excitement when a plane finally lifts off the ground after lumbering down the tarmac?” I nodded. “It’s kind of like that when you shift into your ephemeral form. It’s a rush when the laws of gravity no longer apply to you. Physically, your molecules and cells, every fiber of your body is shifting from corporeal to incorporeal. You feel yourself get lighter, less—dense. Your spirit is cohesive but it’s constantly moving and it can be hard to orient yourself. That’s why I wanted to start in a small room.”

             
“And will you teach me to phase through walls like you do?”

             
“That’ll come next.”

             
“So, anything that’s touching you goes all sparkly, too?” I asked.

             
“Yes, well, like clothes and items we carry.” Nick explained.

             
“What if you were touching me? Would I turn spirit, too?”

             
Nick blushed, reticent to reply. “No. It doesn’t work on other corporeal entities.”

             
“What would happen if your ethereal body came in contact with me?”

             
Nick’s blush darkened. “Emari—it’s—it’s a very intimate thing. I could—I would touch you—everywhere.” My eyes blazed wide and my mouth drop open. Searing heat rushed into my face. Nick studied my eyes. “I’ve touched you before, in ethereal form. But I’ve never...” he swore. “I only touched your face. I wouldn’t do that to you.”

             
I watched his face, watched his fear, listened to the chilling expanse of silence that spread between us. “You’re telling me—it’s like having sex?”

             
He chest expanded and he measured its release. “Yes. It’s that intimate.”

             
I blinked and stared blindly across the room, imagining Nick’s touch over my whole body. “Do you think, someday, we could try?”

             
Nick breathed a small laugh and the corners of his mouth twitched up, but the shadow in his eyes darkened. “Someday,” he whispered, his voice husky with emotion. “If you want.” He was quiet for a long moment, gazing at something internal. “Are you ready?”

             
“Not quite. What happens when you shift back?” My mind was really still on the thought of his touch, but I needed to focus on his lesson not his hands. “If I’m up in the air and I shift back to my body, won’t I fall and kill myself?”

             
“Even if you fell you wouldn’t hurt yourself. You’d just shift from physical to spirit and your body would repair itself. Besides, I won’t let you kill yourself.” His thumb traced the tendons in my wrist—where I used to fantasize about cutting. He continued to explain. “You can control how fast or slow you make the shift. If you are up in the air and you begin to shift back, you can do it slowly, so gravity can take control again a little at a time.”

             
I sat mesmerized by his inky blue eyes, then drew a bracing breath. “Okay. I think I’m ready. Let’s do this thing.”

             
Soft and hypnotic, he said, “All right. Close your eyes. Empty your thoughts. Breathe deeply and imagine—cotton candy.” I could almost hear his eyes roll and the teasing twist of his lips. I smiled. “Imagine the lightness, the airiness, the weightlessness of it. Imagine releasing every tension, every pressure, every pain. Will yourself to drift.”

             
My body, my very cells lightened and lifted.

             
“That’s it…”

             
The buoyancy shifted and re-solidified.

             
“Just relax. Just let it happen,” he encouraged.

             
I concentrated on lightness, clouds, vapor, molecules that transcend gravity, but all of my grief, all of my anger and anxiety weighed on me like lead. My soul felt bloated like one of the corpses on Sabre’s wall. My heart was black, dirty, too corrupt to defy the laws of nature. Nick’s warm fingers tracked down my arm.

             
“Emi, let it go…”

             
I knew Nick meant more than I needed to relax, just like when we did a weave. He believed so much more of me than I believed of myself. How was I worthy of such gifts? Of Nick? Of freedom?

             
“Em, let it go…”

             
With my innermost being, I pushed at the darkness that weighed on me like a thousand nightmares. I opposed the press of gravity, like being under water in a murky pond, the cold and dark and wet, enclosing and dragging on me. My lungs and heart ached for release. Above me was light, dancing through fathoms of water, so far away and yet not so far I couldn’t reach. I thrust toward the refracting light, prayed I’d make it before my lungs burst. The light split and scattered, twisting, pulling, drawing me. The dark heaviness peeled away like a wet woolen cloak, sank away from me into my abandoned mayhem. I was light. I was air. I was free.

              “Emari?” Nick’s voice was soft and distant, though it echoed as a shout. I swam in light and freedom.

             
“Emari?”

             
Hush! I’m flying.

             
“Em, listen to my voice. Don’t lose yourself.”

             
No, I don’t want to be lost.

             
“That’s a girl, Em. Come on.”

             
My cells re-densified and my body slowly shifted back to corporeal form. My heart battered my ribs as the rush of adrenalin streamed through me. My body felt grossly solid after my spiritual journey. I opened my eyes to heaven.

             
“Hey,” Nick said, peering into my eyes.

             
“Hey back.” My voice was breathy and weightless.

             
“You all right?” he asked, concern twisting his voice.

             
“Sure, sure.” I stretched languorously. “That was—um—ya know, amazing just doesn’t really describe that.”

             
Nick smiled, honest and true. “You need a break?”

             
“Heck no. What’s step two?”

             
Nick spent the next two hours teaching me the right and wrong way to phase. He looked worn out when we finished, like his reticence in teaching me this had worn him down. But the more I phased the better I liked it. It was—intoxicating. Just like the banger high I got during Sabre’s weave.

             
We trudged through the muddy yard back out to the garage where Sabre continued to work. His work bench was now covered with odd-looking paraphernalia; small, olive-green orbs that looked frighteningly like grenades, the familiar garrote had found a mate, sleek black throwing daggers and Tasers were all lined up and ready on the table. Next to the table sat four metal drums, two with their lids slightly askew. Nick examined some of the weapons. He hefted the daggers, checked their balance, fingered the taser trigger until it zapped a rattling charge that set my synapses ablaze.

             
“So, what is all of this?” I asked when it became apparent neither of them was going to be forthcoming with information.

             
Sabre picked up one of the orbs and showed it to me. “Lye grenade,” he said. “It can cause a lot of irreparable damage, but we only want to use them as a last resort.” Sabre showed me the pin. “We’ll teach you how to use them.”

             
“No, we will not,” argued Nick. “She needs to stay as far out of this as possible.”

             
“Look, Mr. Serve and Protect, you were the one who brought her into this in the first place. The least you could do is teach her how to defend herself. And she
will
need to defend herself.”

             
Nick scowled but said no more.

             
“This is a garrote. I believe you’ve witnessed the finer points of its use already,” Sabre continued.

             
“I can’t use that.” The thought of slicing someone’s head off curdled my stomach. Besides, I didn’t have the strength—physical or mental—to behead someone.

             
“Nick and I will handle the garrote. But I do want you to learn the basics, just in case.” Nick breathed a snort through his nose and aimed a pointed glare at Sabre—which Sabre ignored. “I believe you are extremely familiar with this weapon.” Sabre lifted a Taser off the table. “Ten million volts ought to fritz their wiring, at least temporarily. Your demonstration with Nickolas was very eye opening.

             
“Any of our own weapons could be turned on us, and the lye grenades are absolutely, positively last resort. They can be unpredictable and we could potentially get caught by friendly fire.”