The Alignment (19 page)

I stop walking and turn her toward me.

“You look so tired!” She places both palms against my cheeks. Worry seeps from her voice.

Her worry washes through me as if it were my own, and I push it away, knowing it only belongs to her. “It’s okay. We’ve been walking for a long time.”

“I don’t think it was the walking. Otherwise I’d be tired too.” Her easy smile tells me she must have just been dosed with my calm.

“I have to leave now. You can stay here as long as you want. I’ll be waiting for you, out there.”

“Okay.” She’s disappointed this has to end. Her disappointment touches me, mingling with my own. She tilts her head and looks away, still smiling with her eyes full of contented wonder. She feels it too.

I let go of her hand and start walking back the way we came. I don’t allow myself to look back.

My eyes open to the dome of stars above me. Cold air fills lungs that expect the warmth of the sea breeze. It was so straightforward. Effortless. I didn’t expect it to be this easy.

I sit up, unclasp my hands from hers and wipe my palms on the ground. She’s still asleep as I scatter the rocks to erase our presence. River bursts out of the woods to check on us.

“We’re fine, girl. Go back to what you were doing.”

I strike a match and burn the page of my notes. I wipe off Liv’s palms to put the gloves back on her cold hands. It must be about three a.m. We need to start heading back so we can get a few hours of sleep.

I wonder how much she’ll remember. Whether it’s every last detail or nothing, it won’t change what’s in that text or how it just got handed to me in concrete proof. She’s harboring a piece of me that’s been gone so long I forgot it was missing. It’s a component in what drives a person forward, powers the will to live. And it’s at home inside her for the same reason I was. It’s meant to be there.

No place I’ve ever lived has felt like home because she was never there. She’s my home. She found me, drove across this wide country like a bullet to a bull’s eye, and her timing couldn’t have been better. The text is right.

A breeze builds, ruffling Liv’s hair and bringing my attention back to her. There’s no way to avoid explaining the rest of the prophecy to her now that I know it’s the truth. I could spend eternity in her mind and never want to leave.

She stirs and I clear my throat, afraid my voice will give me away. “Liv? I’m here. You can wake up now.”

“Hmm?” She mumbles something and sighs. She abruptly raises up, resting on her elbows. Looks around, squinting her eyes. She focuses on me.

“Do you feel okay?”

“Um. Yes. I think. What time is it?”

I check the sky. “About half past three.”

“God.” She rubs her eyes. “That was…amazing. No word to describe it.”

“Do you remember it?”

“Maybe not all of it, but enough to know it was amazing. God. Just amazing.”

I laugh. I can’t help it. “Do you think you can walk back to the house?”

“Um. Yes.” She starts to get up so I stand and help her. “I guess we didn’t get ambushed.”

“Nope.” I shake out the blanket and fold it up.

“Whoa. I think I need to sit back down for a second.”

I start to spread the blanket out again but she stops me and we both sit on the ground.

“The beach!” she says. “It was all so real. I could feel the sand on my feet. And you…you were so real. I could almost…feel what you were feeling.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What kind of nails would you use to re-roof a house?”

“Galvanized twelve gauge one and three quarter inch roofing nails with a three eighths inch diameter head. Oh my
god
.”

We both erupt in laughter, her hand on my knee. I want to kiss her so badly it hurts. Instead, I pull out my gun, remove the magazine, and set it on the ground between us.

“See that rock on the edge? It’s your enemy.”

Without hesitation she picks up the gun, loads the mag, chambers a round, and blows the rock off the side of the cliff. She hands the gun back to me in slow motion.

Now it’s my turn to be speechless.

Finally, she gasps. “Did I…?”

I feel my smile creep back to my face. “Fuck yes you did.”

She holds her hands out in front of her, staring at them. “I have never shot a gun in my life.”

“What you just did shouldn’t have been possible without some kind of adjustment period. Some time to sink in. Think you could do it again?”

The furrow in her brow smoothes and her eyes narrow, her confusion replaced by competitiveness. She takes the gun from me, aims, and blows another rock off the edge. Triumphant, she lowers the gun casually, like she’s done it a million times.

“Do you feel any different?” I’m worried I lied to her when I explained this wouldn’t change her as a person. Worried I did just turn her into a killer.

“Not at all. It feels so natural.”

She hands the gun back to me. I stick it in the holster and we stand together. I search her face to make sure she’s still the same person she was before we came up here. The wind stirs her hair, and she looks up at me curiously.

“You’re afraid of me.” Her smile fades. I can see this idea bothers her.

“No. I’m afraid
for
you. I didn’t expect the change to be so severe.”

She looks away, over the bluffs. When she turns back, her face has become playful again. “Didn’t I tell you I am your biggest nightmare?”

A vision flashes in my mind of the night she said that to me. Those words are engraved on my core, triggering an explosion of desire in every nerve of my body. My ability to suppress it is missing in action. After all my mental exertion tonight, I have no strength left to fight.

“You shouldn’t have said that.” It’s all I can manage. I close my eyes and reach for her. She’s in my arms, drawing me down, her lips against mine. My head swims like I’m about to tumble head first down the side of this mountain. I breathe her in, taste the flavor of her tablet. Of what I’ve done to her.

She pulls away. I open my eyes and lean for her again, but she puts her hands on my chest and pushes away, shaking her head. “It’s not fair,” she whispers.

I tighten my hold on her, but she places her fingers against my lips.

“We need to go back,” she says. “Please. Let’s go back.”

A slave to her wishes, I pick up my bag, sling it across my shoulder, and take her hand.

Chapter 22

Liv

B
y the time
we get back to the house, I know he’s about to collapse. What he did tonight exhausted him, and the long hike back to the house drained whatever he had left. Inside the door, I take his bag, and he falls onto the couch. I pull his arms out of his coat, pull off his boots, his hat, and his jeans. I cover him with the quilt and put a pillow under his head. From his deep and even breathing, I can tell he’s already asleep when I turn off the light. I try not to think about what happened because if I do I’ll never get to sleep. Despite trying to clear my mind, my body hums with excitement too strong to welcome easy slumber.

My eyes open to a sunlit room. I don’t know when I finally fell asleep, but it couldn’t have been more than a few hours ago. I lie in bed and revisit the events of the night. My palms display the proof—two round brown stains. As if the new knowledge swarming in my head isn’t enough. Today is the day for experimentation, and thinking about what I can do already has me exhilarated. It’s like waking up and remembering you have a brand new toy.

I get up and pull on a robe. The stillness of the house tells me Trey is still asleep. I long to wake him up and share the newness with him, but I know he needs rest, so I take a shower and dress. He’s still flat on the couch in exactly the same position I left him. I make breakfast and wonder how long I should let him sleep. When I’m finished eating, my patience has run out.

I sit on the edge of the couch next to him. “Trey? Can I wake you up?”

He doesn’t even stir. I kiss his eyelids, his cheek, his lips. His breathing changes. I kiss his lips again. His hands come alive, searching clumsily, finding my hand, gripping their way up my arm until I am pulled down to him.

“Lay with me.”

“Hell no. Get up.” I try to wriggle free—a useless effort until he releases my arm. He could snap bones with that grip.

He yawns and rubs his face.

“Do you need more sleep?”

“I’m up.” He pushes off the couch and heads straight for the bathroom, and I hear the shower turn on.

I pace around the house, tidying up, looking for something to occupy me. I heat up his breakfast, and when he joins me in the kitchen I try to sit still in my chair.

“What are we going to do today?” It’s hard not to sound too anxious.

He shrugs. “I’m spent. Won’t be very good company to you today.”

Disappointment crushes me for about two seconds before my energy ramps back up again. I put on some coffee. He needs to wake up.

“I don’t think you should have any more of that.” He gives me a sleepy grin.

“I’m not. It’s for you.”

“If you have something you want to do today, don’t let me hold you back.”

“It wouldn’t be the same without you.”

He sighs. It’s obvious he doesn’t want to disappoint me. “What did you have in mind?”

“I really have no idea.”

He cleans his plate. I remove it and get out a mug for his coffee. He leaves the room and comes back wearing his boots with the laces still untied. He loads a bucket with the potatoes I dug up yesterday and walks out past the garden. I watch him make a line of the potatoes across the backyard then he comes back inside and retrieves the gun we used last night.

“Practice.” His eyes are tired.

“Do you have another nine millimeter?” I make no effort to mask my excitement.

He looks at me like he’s surprised. Snorts. Shakes his head. “It’s going to take me a while to get used to this.” As he steps toward the basement door, he stops and turns. “But now you can just help yourself. Right?”

“Don’t mind if I do.”

I hop down the stairs and come back up with a second loaded nine millimeter. He’s already outside on the deck, sipping his coffee. I join him.

I aim both guns and shoot down the line of potatoes two at a time until they are all pulp.

“Did I get them all?” I squint and shield my eyes from the sun. Maybe I missed a few. It’s hard to see with the sun in my face.

He explodes in laughter.

“What?”

“I’ve never seen anything like this.” He laughs again. “This is insane.”

He goes inside and returns with an apple. He takes a gun from me, flings the apple into the yard, and shoots it out of the air.

“Okay good,” he says. “Just making sure I still had it. You had me worried for a second.”

“Worried that I took all your skills?”

“Yeah.”

“Why don’t you use guns against the people who come for you?”

He drops to his chair and stretches out his legs. “Too easy. There’s no challenge. And I need the hand-to-hand combat to keep my skills sharp.”

“Will you throw some things for me so I can shoot them like that?”

“We aren’t going to have any food left to eat.”

“We can go to the grocery store.”

“Can I finish my coffee first?”

“Okay fine. But hurry up.” I go back to the basement to look through his inventory. My hands are itching to try them all, but I settle for a small rifle. I find a compatible magazine and run back up the stairs and outside.

“Good choice. Hey. There should be a target down there somewhere. That will save some of our food. Look in the corner past the bookshelves.”

I go back to the basement to search but cannot find anything that looks like a target, so he wearily comes downstairs to help. He finds it in his workout area.

On our way back up the stairs, he says, “I need to buy a new heavy bag. We’re going to need it.”

“Maybe you could get yourself a pair of gloves, too?” I try not to make it sound like an accusation.

“I have gloves. But we do need to get some for you.”

“Why didn’t you wear the gloves?” My voice rises in exasperation. He knows what I’m referring to.

He shrugs. “Didn’t think about it.”

I don’t feel like pushing him, so I drop it.

I walk the target far out past the garden and look back at Trey on the deck. He gestures to take it farther. I take another fifty steps and set it down again. I think he gives the thumbs-up, but he’s too far away to know for sure.

When I get back to the deck, I squint at the target and laugh. “That’s impossible! There’s no way.”

“Try these first.” His hands are full of apples.

I pick up the rifle and aim toward the yard. He flings an apple, I fire, and it explodes. He flings another, faster this time, and it explodes. He throws two, one right after the other.

“No fair!” I shoot and miss the first, quickly aim and hit the second one. I then go back to the first one and split it just before it hits the ground. “Ha!” I spin to look at him.

He is gaping at me, his mouth open wide.

“Nice try.”

“I’m a
fucking
genius.”

“You?” I laugh.

“Yes. I’m taking all the credit for this.”

I put the guns down and push him playfully with both hands on his chest. He grabs my arms and holds them down, straight against my body. I give him the most alluring smile I can, watching his face as he struggles with his faltering self-control. He said I provoke him. Well it’s about time I do. I wouldn’t want him to be wrong.

He leans down, but his lips pass mine by to brush my ear, his rough cheek against mine. “Let’s go buy a heavy bag,” he whispers in my ear before disappearing into the house.

I follow him into the kitchen and hear him downstairs. He comes up with a black case and opens it on the table. Inside is a sniper rifle. Now I know why he wanted me to walk the target out so far. I load the gun and take it outside. He follows me with a pair of binoculars.

I lie prone with the gun on its bipod and the barrel sticking through the rails. I aim and take a shot.

“Almost,” he says.

I aim again and fire.

“Bull’s-eye.”

I offer my place at the gun to him.

He raises his eyebrow. “A little competition?”

I watch through the binoculars as he fires three rounds, making three bull’s-eyes in a row. Smirking, he moves aside for my turn.

I fire three times, missing the last two. Pain shoots through my shoulder when I release the gun. “This one hurts.” I get up and rub my shoulder.

“I should have thought of the recoil. Sorry.”

“Yeah, I just didn’t expect it to hurt like that.” Deep in my mind, I knew it would have recoil, but not like that.

“You wouldn’t. You only know how it feels to me and I have about a hundred pounds on you. That’s what I was saying about you needing to adapt.” He picks up the gun. “You’re probably going to want some pain reliever after that.” He hesitates, looking as if he wants to say something else before abruptly going into the house.

Inside, he’s putting the gun back in the case. “You’re ambidextrous,” he says.

“No.” I wonder what brought this up.

“You shot with your left hand.”

I shrug. “So?”

“So if you’re not ambidextrous…” He watches me with a look I can’t read.

I think back to what I did. Maybe I did something wrong.

“You shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

Had I known I shouldn’t have been able, maybe I wouldn’t have tried. But the action felt natural to me. It was reflex. “Are you ambidextrous?”

“No. But I trained myself to be.” He continues studying me in that pointed way. “Guess I trained you, too.”

He drives us to a large sporting goods store and parks the truck. At the entrance, he pulls the door open for me and I walk directly into Shawn.

“Liv!” Shawn picks me up in his customary giant hug. “I was just thinking about you.” He releases me and I take a glance at Trey, who looks like he just tasted something foul.

“Want to do dinner again tonight?” Shawn asks, oblivious of Trey standing behind me.

“Not tonight. Shawn, this is Trey. Trey, Shawn.” I step aside, and Trey grabs Shawn’s hand, a little more aggressively than necessary.

Shawn turns back to me. “Tomorrow night then. I’ll see you after work.” He flashes a huge smile to me, nods to Trey, and walks off to his car.

Trey snorts. I can tell he’s seething. He’s either very bad at hiding it, or he doesn’t care that I know he’s bothered by Shawn’s attention. Maybe a little competition will give him a much needed ego check.

As we move through the store, he continues to fume. I try to make conversation but he’s unresponsive and completely irritating. He doesn’t own me. If I want to go to dinner with someone, it’s none of his business. Maybe I need to make that clear.

“See if these fit you,” he grumbles, shoving some boxing gloves toward me.

Startled, I look up at him, at his deeply creased brow, his averted eyes. I’m reminded of the scowl that was a permanent fixture on his face when I first met him. The scowl that hasn’t appeared in a long time. A reminder is all it takes. I don’t want to tell him he doesn’t own me. I don’t want to tell him I’d go to dinner with another man.

“What’s the matter?” I ask instead.

He looks at me but doesn’t answer.

I put the gloves on and hold them up. He checks them to make sure they fit before gently taking them off me. I browse around while he looks at heavy bags, and when he’s done he finds me.

“What size pants do you wear?”

“It depends. I’d really have to try them on.”

He looks at my hand before he takes it in his. I sense an effort to the action, a sweetness to his grasp. I wonder if it’s an apology. He leads me over to the military and hunting clothes and points to a display of multi-pocketed cargo pants. “You need a pair of these in black, and a pair in green. Make sure they fit snug. Do you have any close-fitting T-shirts in black or green?”

“Umm…” I try to think. He drops my hand, and I instantly miss the bond.

“Just get some new ones then. On me.” There’s a dimple in his forehead, a sheepish hang to his head.

I get to work finding my size, and he heads off to another part of the store. In the dressing room is a vent in the wall large enough for a person to climb through. Its metal cover is secured by screws. There would be no quick escape through there. No ambush possible, either. With those two thoughts comes another: Trey Bevan has warped me for sure.

I find him at the gun counter holding a Ruger LCP which he hands to me. It feels like it was made for me. He seems satisfied with my expression, so he nods to the man behind the counter.

“Are you sure you don’t want a snub nose thirty-eight? I have a few at home but they are all beat to hell.”

“You can’t buy me all this stuff.”

“Yes I can.”

I open my mouth to protest but he silences me with a look.

“And you need some holsters.” He finds them nearby and piles them on top of the stack of my pants and tees.

The man behind the counter returns and Trey fills out the paperwork. He points to some sturdy laced boots. “Grab a pair of those, too.”

I get them in my size and follow him to the checkout, where his boxing bag is waiting for us. We take everything to the truck but he doesn’t start the engine. “He’s just a friend, Trey. You don’t need to get all bent about it.”

He clutches the steering wheel and doesn’t answer right away. “I didn’t mean to be an ass. And I’m sorry. I’m tired today…but that’s no excuse.”

“Let’s just forget about it, okay?”

He has more to say, but he doesn’t seem to be able to find the words. “I just… I didn’t like…”

“Trey, please. Let’s drop it.”

“Guys like him…”

I put my face in my hands and groan. He seriously can’t be this jealous, this possessive. We aren’t exactly a couple. Are we?

“You don’t even know him.” As soon as it’s out I wish I hadn’t said it. It’s only going to egg him on. I look up at him and wait for the backlash.

He looks at me, still struggling for words. Finally, he lets out an exasperated sigh and turns his whole body to face me. “I want you to be with
me
.”

I stare at him, not knowing what to say. He can’t just drop something like that on me without warning and expect a rational response.

“It’s just, until things are sorted out, it…we…are going to be in limbo.”

When I don’t answer, he says, “You don’t have to say anything. Just tell me you understand what I mean.”