The 52nd (The 52nd Saga Book 1) (17 page)

“Lucas, I wouldn’t. Trust me when I say I want to protect her as much as you do.” He glanced down at my tense posture. “Maybe it is not wise that you watch her
train.”

I waved the piece of paper still clenched between my fingers at him. “What do you plan on doing to
her?”

“Whatever it takes to make her strong.” He shrugged.

“That’s where you are wrong, brother.” I shoved the paper at his chest. He clung to it, confused, as I walked away. “You can’t. She’s only
human.”

There were flurries in the air Monday morning, but it wasn’t cold enough for snow to stick. I envied Dylan and Gabriella as they went to school, while I had to go to the hardware store and the sporting goods store and the hunting store. My list detailed a ridiculous amount of lumber, steel poles, rope, bolts, screws, and rubber balls. I rapped out my requests briskly at each store and hired a delivery service before going home and waiting nearly two hours for them to arrive. The deliveryman eyed me suspiciously and asked what I intended to do with all the supplies. After I told him I would unload the supplies on my own, his chattiness stopped. He stood there stupidly until I ordered him into the taxi waiting on the roundabout beneath the graying sky, confused with the prearranged transportation.

“Your truck will be at your office in one hour,” I said as I closed the door of the
taxi.

I was again amused as the human sputtered, driving away in a taxi instead of his truck. It only took me ten minutes to unload enough wood and equipment to train an army from the twenty-six-foot truck. I was grateful when Father offered to return the vehicle while Mother was out with Zara’s mom at the club. I wanted to get as much done as possible before night fell so I could spend my night watching
Zara.

We had kept the basement empty, knowing we wouldn’t be here long; I couldn’t have imagined it’d be used for this. I grabbed a two-by-twelve from the lumber pile I’d created near the stairs and leaned it against the wall in the back corner. As I ran across the basketball court-sized room to fetch more wood, I noticed the folded paper Tez had handed me on the ground. Somewhere between the meeting and now, Dylan had strategically placed it on the floor, knowing I might need
it.

Although I vividly remembered what they wanted and didn’t need directions on how to build the rope climb or the pyramid of stairs or the hanging bars, I glanced at it out of boredom. I was embarrassed to be putting Zara through this, but the boys were right. Zara needed training to survive. I tucked the paper into my back pocket and got back to
work.

Hours later, I was sweaty, so I took off my shirt, which only made my smooth chest clammy. Any rope burn or slice I endured while working vanished almost the very second it
came.

As I was sawing a wood beam, I heard them return from school. I left the project and zoomed upstairs, covered in sawdust. They were getting out of Dylan’s convertible. It was getting too cold for a topless car now. We’d have to change to something more suitable for
winter.

“How is she?” I asked. They took their time getting
out.

“Upset.” Dylan smirked.

He brushed past my shoulder. I followed him through the house to the kitchen while Gabriella trailed behind, snickering under her
breath.

“Really upset,” she added, pouring herself a glass of
water.

“I knew she would be. I will explain everything to her on Friday,” I said, remembering that the first rule of women was to
never
make them
upset.

Dylan laughed, swallowed a piece of chocolate, and surveyed my appearance. He looked amused. “How’s it going down
there?”

“Don’t worry about me, just be ready to do your job. It’ll be done by Friday,” I called, returning to the basement.

When sunset came, I had only mitered a few more angles of wood, but I called it a day anyways. I was progressing more quickly than I’d expected. I had completed one of the cages and the platform for the rope climb and only needed to add the rope. On my way up to the main floor, I stopped at a thought and turned to survey the new arena. The distance from the floor to the platform was too high. Should Zara fall and hit the concrete floor, she would surely break a bone.
Not a good thing if I want her to like me.
Tomorrow I would buy a tumbling
mat.

Later that evening, out of nerves, I showered, dressed, and was in my car, on my way to Zara’s, in a short five minutes. When I saw her bedroom light on and the shades open, excitement fluttered in my stomach. I parked a few houses down and sped soundlessly on foot through the shadows. When I reached her house, I glanced around for peeping bystanders and, in one quick leap, jumped up to perch myself in the darkness of the
roof.

Zara was near the window, sitting at her desk. By the way her face leaned toward the bright screen, I gathered she was intrigued with something on her computer. I wasn’t surprised to find she was researching her observations of us. It was only literature off the Internet, so I hardly called it credible. She looked dissatisfied when a herd of unicorns and fairies showed up as results for her search on
mythical creatures
. She hit delete. Her attention went to my old journal, sitting on the corner of her desk. After tapping her fingers a few times, she hesitantly propped it open and typed
demonio de mundo terrenal
.

I was amazed at the extent of information given on personal websites. The translation, “demon of the terrestrial world,” brought up websites that called the executioners “phantoms” and “spirits of the dead.” One website had pictures fairly close to what she had witnessed, noting that it was more common for these “Aztec ghosts” to appear as puffs of black smoke or dark clouds than in human form. She was smart to abort that search after she ran into vampire myths. Aztec ghosts—yeah, right.

I liked her persistence, though, and she looked back to my burgundy journal. Finding something of interest, she hurriedly typed it in the search engine. She didn’t back down even when it called me “Vanquisher of Evil.” Rather, she went back to the journal, gathered another phrase, and typed “legend of the cosmic balance.” She weeded through the junk quickly, but I stiffened when she stopped on a website with tiny cursive print. I read it, feeling rather paranoid at how I was now being perceived.

Our world is living on the brink of destruction after Celestial gods descended to Earth out of fear. . . . Underworld gods ambitious for blood. . . . The cosmic family have become immortal warriors to protect us from these ghosts of hell and keep the cosmic balance . . .

I looked at the bottom left of the screen. The author of this site was just an old man, but it was jolting how accurate he was. He was right to say that the imbalance of heaven and hell began when Cortez overthrew the Aztec empire. That scum. Hell, the writer was good enough to throw out the fact that the damage Cortez caused the New World was so unimaginable that it immediately became a myth. No one would have believed that Celestial gods descended to Earth out of fear of losing their idols and temples.

Zara’s gasp was audible through the closed window, although she clasped her hand over her
mouth.

Great, based on this website she thinks we are here to save everyone.

As she went on reading, curiosity about what she really thought of me started killing me. I wondered if she and I would ever be possible—for me, not her. I’d never been into someone as young as she was, or anyone so uneducated, or even anyone considered average financially. Money buys you freedom to not worry about the day-to-day logistics of saving money or paying bills. In my case, it buys privacy. For others, it buys status or fake friends. Zara’s house was decent, and they had enough to get by, but I wondered about it. What made them happy, when they had none of the security I
had?

I continued to observe Zara, turning my back only when she changed for bed. The waves in her blonde strands highlighted the frame of her face when she turned around. She was stunning. In fact, I couldn’t recall if I’d ever met a human as pretty as her. She had a raw beauty; her lips puckered even when they were still, looking plush and full, and her thick eyebrows arched innocently. She looked harmless, but there was a fierceness in the depths of her dark brown eyes that sucked me in, and my eyes stayed on her until I had not a second
left.

The heavy clouds overhead began to drop light patters of rain on the rooftop, just as Mother had said they would. I peeked through Zara’s window one last time. She had lain down in bed; her eyelids were closed, and she breathed smoothly as she started to fall asleep. It was peculiar, this feeling inside me, that I thought I’d like to wake up next to her—if I slept like I used to. I stared back with envy, bothered with that thought, and left her to sleep in
peace.

On my way home I imagined for the briefest second what horrific things Zara must think of me—a monster, a demon, or even a ghost—but I executed that train of thought quickly and focused on the training facility. After all, I would see Zara on Friday, when I would make everything perfectly
clear.

But I couldn’t overcome my curiosity and went to her window every night after that. I
had
to go. I passed several sunsets watching her fall asleep. A mortal life was simple. Wake, eat, and dream. I had never cared about losing that cycle when I changed, but I did now. Watching Zara made me miss its simplicity. She was a pretty sleeper, and the desire for there to be an
us
worsened a deep-rooted fear. I could get lost in her, and I would lose sight of the consequence of what I was doing . . . and I, or she—or both of us—could get killed. I would have to break with tradition first, without any blood; otherwise I feared she would never forgive me for what I’d done to be free of it. War and killing came easy for me
because of my past, not so much for her. She was too fragile, too clean to be involved in or even equipped with a way to cope with the ugliness. I had to protect her from that, or I feared the hurt would be unfixable.

Mother protected her throughout the night while I worked on the basement—wondering what she was dreaming—and then I returned in the dewy sunrise to see her wake up. As I watched, I tried to separate myself from her, reminding myself that I was nothing like her anymore: physically, mentally, or financially. But the more I watched her, the more I wanted a new life. The more my money didn’t matter. The more my years of education—which, combined, added up to her mother’s age—didn’t matter. The more I didn’t want my old life anymore, but rather a new one, complete with aging and a job and a relationship.

I finished Tez’s project in the middle of the day on Friday, leaving more than enough time to shower, polish my already shiny car, and show up at Zara’s house before she left for the evening. The gloomy clouds Mother had brought in remained, shedding a heavier rain as I pulled up to Zara’s curb. I stayed in my car, listening to the fabric of Zara’s shirt rustle as she slid it over her head. I was confused. My body was pulsing in places dormant since I had turned immortal as I wondered what she was wearing—or, rather, what color her bra
was.

When I heard the crushed fibers of the carpet as she walked downstairs, I suppressed my personal feelings and brought my focus to the task of swaying her to our cause. As her hand twisted the doorknob, I flew across the lawn in a millisecond, stood up straight, and put on a smile. The door swung open, and she
jumped.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Cosmos

“How do you keep popping up like that?” Zara asked, startled.

She wore a green cardigan underneath a small peacoat. From the way she looked me up and down, I gathered that my summer attire was unacceptable.

“Where’s your coat?” she asked suspiciously.

“Never mind that.” I handed her my cell phone. “Here, call Bri and tell her I will be escorting you to school from now
on.”

I was preparing a reason, but she grabbed my phone and began dialing. “How do you—” She stopped, covered the earpiece as the other line buzzed, and snarled, “Is that why you showed up uninvited, to arrange my traveling arrangements for
school?”

“Would it matter either way? Do you want me to play the good guy or the bad
guy?”

Bri’s answer cut off Zara’s rebuttal. Bri sounded confused about why her caller ID read
Private,
but Zara made up a lie that left out any details about me. I was surprised when Bri didn’t put up a fight, but then her questions turned to my and Zara’s relationship. I held back laughter as a pretty, rosy color surfaced on Zara’s cheeks. That was when Zara ended the
call.

She handed back the phone, her other hand playing with her hair. “Here.”

“Zara, who’s there?” When her mother stepped into the doorway, her hand rose to her chest and a large smile appeared on her face. “Oh. You’ve got company.”

Zara rolled her eyes as her mother made herself comfortable against the weathered doorjamb.

“Hey, are you Valentina’s boy?” she
asked.

If she could see the resemblance, Mother’s gambit was clearly paying off. The plan was panning out perfectly.
Don’t mess it up,
I thought, and I smiled more
widely.

“Yes, I am. My name is Lucas. Nice to meet you, ma’am.” I leaned in to give her a small kiss on the cheek, which is what we do whenever we greet someone. It wasn’t anything special, but she suppressed a
giggle.

“Oh, I’m Lori, nice to meet you too. I just adore your
mother.”

Zara finally unfroze, shifting her weight to acknowledge her mom. “Wait, how do you know Lucas’s
mom?”

“She joined the club where we play tennis. She is so sweet,” Lori said, flapping her hand at
me.

“I hope you don’t mind that I came here uninvited, but I was just about to ask your daughter out to dinner,” I
said.

Lori’s mouth struggled to stay closed as she held back a chuckle. “Not a problem at all. Zara has no plans. She was going to join her dad and me for dinner in town, but I’m okay if she goes out with
you.”

“Perfect!” I beamed. Zara looked embarrassed, irritated, and shy all at once as her mother practically threw her at
me.

It was Lori who moved first, taking a step back into the house. “Well, you two have fun. Curfew is twelve, young
lady.”

“Mom, it’s just dinner,” Zara muttered. “And I’m not in high school anymore.”

“Oh, okay. It’s
one.”

After Lori closed the door, Zara stood still, eyeing me. She looked scared—debating whether she should get into my car. I pressed my hand gently to the hollow of her
back.

“You ready?” I
asked.

She jumped subtly away from my touch and folded her arms across her chest as she crossed the lawn. When I opened her door, she stopped abruptly and held on to the door for support.

“Where have you been?” she
asked.

I suddenly realized the toll my abandonment had taken on her this week.
She needed me.
It pierced my conscience, a task not easily done. I didn’t understand how she could make me feel so wrong, but in a nice way. I felt sick for creating a training arena designed for strong men, not petite girls. And then I suddenly felt guilty for having to involve her in this dangerous
plot.

My connection to her was a weakness, a thorn in my side that needed to be removed, but I was very much intrigued by her—and I didn’t want to resist it or ignore it. I wanted to act on it and see where the tenderness would take me. It was then that I knew for certain I wouldn’t need to beguile her; it would come naturally over time. So I tossed out Tez’s
rules.

As she stared at me, I dazzled her with a grin. She muttered under her breath and got into the car. I would give her the answers she desired sooner rather than later, but I took my time closing her door and walking around the car. I breathed deeply and smiled, enjoying the simplicity of the moment. I would open the door for her a million times
more.

As I slid into my seat, pretending nothing else mattered except for this moment, her stomach grumbled.

“Is takeout okay with you?” I asked. “I know it’s nothing fancy, but I’ve got somewhere I want to take you when the sun sets.” I watched her breathe in and out through her nose. A small smile parted her mouth, but I grew self-conscious.
Do I smell?
“I will tell you what you want to know there,” I added, casually pretending I was scratching my leg but really sniffing my
armpit.

She looked sick, but she said only, “That sounds
great.”

“Any recommendations?”

“Chinese?”

I shifted gears and accelerated down the sleek blacktop. The glare from the late sun blossoming through the clouds made her blushing cheeks more
golden.

“I’ve got a question,” I
said.

“Funny, I was thinking the same thing,” she said. The edge of anger in her tone exposed her frustration, and I felt that thorn wedge itself deeper into my side.
Don’t let it control
you.

I gripped the wheel tighter. “Do you believe that two enemies could ever work together to fight off a bigger
cause?”

She laughed. “What?”

“I’m being serious. Can two people who hate each other be civil enough to join forces and be stronger for something that’s bigger than
them?”

She shrugged and looked out the front window. “I guess.” She didn’t look back, but calmness spread over her face. “I think my brothers are like that. One minute they hate each other, the next minute they love each
other.”

Love? Hah! The Mayans and Aztecs will never love each other.
“I wouldn’t say
love
, but a mutual understanding that they want the same
thing.”

“Oh, I get ya. Yes, I suppose
so.”

“You suppose?”

“Yeah, you know. Like you and
me.”

I laughed. She was a feisty one. “Like you and
me?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’s the hater and who’s the
lover?”

“Oh.” She looked down at her knees with an embarrassed grin. “Why are you talking about us like this? I don’t hate
you.”

“So you love me?” I chuckled.

“No!”

“Don’t worry, I wasn’t talking about us . . .” I leaned closer to her shoulder. “And I don’t hate
you.”

The tension in her upper body relaxed, and she leaned back in the
chair.

“I’m asking you this because the answers you want go deep. I’m talking centuries of human history, and explaining the nuances would take
days.”

“So?”

“In short,” I said, pleased with her eagerness, “two groups of people that I knew a long time ago joined forces to fight off a bigger threat. Sometimes I think I still don’t understand it, and I wonder when they’re going to explode.”

“Still? I thought you said you knew
them.”

“Knew, know, it’s not relative,” I
said.

The skin on her powdered cheeks tightened when her eyebrows lifted. “Lucas, who are you talking
about?”

“Aztecs and Mayans.” I studied her face, watching for her fear, but there was none. Only silence. “An elite group with members from each tribe was formed to ward off a greater
evil.”

“And you’re one of
them?”

“No . . . thank goodness.” She didn’t reply, but she stared at me like I was suddenly an open book. “So, how long have you known Jett?” I asked to take her attention off
me.

She suddenly looked uncomfortable and made a temple with her fingers as she stared out the windows into the grayness. “Since I was
twelve.”

“And you two never tried the dating
thing?”

“No.”

“He’s an idiot,” I
said.

“Jett . . .” She finally looked at me, tongue-tied as she searched for words. “He’s not an idiot. He’s just . . . comfortable. So comfortable with having me as just a friend that I guess he never thought about us being together. At least, not until a few months
ago.”

“Why the
change?”

“He said it was graduation that got him thinking. I don’t know, is this what you want to be talking about?” She shrugged.

“No. I’ve just always wondered about
that.”

She pressed the palms of her hands together and tucked them between her knees. Her thighs distracted me from the road; I had to look upward to the steeples of the fir trees to distract myself. Now more than ever, because we were alone, I needed to focus. No
risks.

I cleared my throat and clenched the wheel tighter, fighting back my immoral, primitive self. I’d grown closer to her during my nighttime watch than I thought I had.
Problem? Nah.

“Where are you from?” I
asked.

As if she needed a distraction as well, she began twirling her platinum hair around her little finger. “Originally Las Vegas. At first my parents were fascinated with Howard Hughes’s vision of the desert, but it didn’t take them long to get sick of the dry
heat.”

The Lexus’s headlights glistened against the fogged-over window of the Chinese restaurant, detailing every fingerprint and smudge as I pulled
up.

“What do you like here?” I asked, talking over the rain that tapped against the
car.

She scrunched her nose. “Anything but seafood.”

“Okay, wait here,” I replied, locking the doors behind
me.

As I waited for the food, my eyes were locked on the steamy window, looking through the rain and past the crossing windshield wipers to the inside of my idling car. Zara sat there, examining the interior as if she’d never seen the inside of a car before. She stiffened when I came out a few minutes later, holding two paper bags stuffed with food. The drizzle wet my back as I placed the takeout on the backseat. Though the chilly water didn’t faze me, the billowing exhaust of my car told me the temperature was dropping.

We drove back to Zara’s place in painful silence. I knew that Zara wanted to talk only about the one thing that I did not want to talk about—not yet, at least. I diverted my attention to keeping the temperature inside the car at a comfortable degree of warmth. Every minute or so, I checked the hot air leaving the vent. I was sure humans didn’t do this when they turned the heat on, but I couldn’t tell what was too hot or too cold. My new habit seemed to distract Zara from her disappointment in
me.

“We’re not going to your place?” she asked as I pulled into her neighborhood.

“No.”

I stared at the horizon, where the sunlight had poked through in the final minutes of evening, pouring a rosy gold color underneath the puffy gray clouds. I parked at the flooded curb and shut the engine off. Zara stepped out into the downpour and ran for the cover of the porch while I grabbed the food and followed her. She directed me to a small loveseat on the front
porch.

“My parents aren’t home, so we’re eating out here,” she
said.

I admired her for respecting her parents even when they weren’t home. The older women I knew didn’t have such rules, but Zara had this maturity that made me want to break the rules with her even more. I was about to set the bags down on the small coffee table when she shivered.

“Want a blanket?” she
asked.

“What
for?”

“Oh.” Her face changed, and I suddenly felt embarrassed that I couldn’t feel the temperature. “I mean, I’ll go get a blanket for
me,
then.”

While she was inside, I emptied the bags and arranged their steaming contents neatly across the table. I was leaning back against the wicker seat before she returned with an old quilt and sat down by my
side.

“I didn’t know which one you wanted,” I said. “Kung pao beef or almond chicken?”

She bit her bottom lip as she decided. When I felt my bad qualities poking around, wanting to take advantage of her purity, I looked away.
Damn it. I can’t do this.
This virgin had no idea how much power she had over me. She was like a black widow,
una viuda negra
, luring me into her web of lustrous desire. Her pinched lip was hot, and I tried to focus on anything other than wanting to bite it with my own teeth and tug it into my
mouth.

“Kung pao beef,” she finally
said.

I piled mounds of saucy beef onto her plate next to the huge piles of fried rice and chow mein I’d already served. She took it graciously and loaded a large forkful.

“So, how did your parents meet?” I asked just as she put the heaping fork into her mouth, steam and
all.

I watched with great pleasure as steam escaped her mouth through the hand she covered it with. I couldn’t tell if it was because the food was too hot, or if she was trying to be modest while she spoke, or both. But there was nothing modest about her mouth, opened wide and breathing steam. I took a bite quickly to fill my mouth, which I couldn’t seem to keep
shut.

“At college. And
yours?”

“Nuh-uh. I’m not done.” I smiled, relishing her frustration at my refusal to give over any answers at all, though she had no idea how crazy she was driving
me.

“This is so not fair; you know that, right?”

I swallowed my bite and grinned. “Favorite
food?”

“Mexican.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” She chuckled, a sound that trapped my emotions and made me dizzy—if a pleasurable dizziness existed.

“Favorite animal?” I asked quickly.

“Horses. Although having a pet jaguar would be pretty
cool.”

I smiled dangerously as I eased further into her web. “Jaguars
are
pretty cool. Favorite course at
school?”

“Photography . . . easy
A.”

Zara answered my every question instantly, waiting anxiously for the next—or for the part where I would tell her about me. When the rain finally lifted, and the clouds rolled out of the valley, leaving a clear sky streaked with pink and purple, I knew it was almost time to show her the Cosmos. I pondered the darkening sky for a moment before turning to her. Her plate was almost
empty.