Water (16 page)
I tried my best to suppress a prideful smile.
"Which isn’t always a good thing, mind you." Cato gave me a pointed look. "You need time yet to heal, but you can’t just sit around doing nothing. Otherwise I might be dealing with tantrums from three people. I want you to continue doing your exercises, but with another focus. You need to learn to interact with nature, not with Micah." He turned back to Micah, "Incorporate more elements into the exercises. And she needs to learn to do it under distress, or with severe distraction."
Cato stood slowly and looked at me again, "Once you have mastered that, you can go on to handling several tasks at once."
"Oh, can I?" I let slip a little more sarcasm than intended.
"I’ll leave it to Micah to mind the details." Cato placed a hand on my good shoulder. "I don’t envy you. Micah can be a tough teacher."
I glanced at Micah, but he appeared to be deep in thought. I let out a sigh of regret. Cato laughed and patted my shoulder hard, twice.
I listened to Cato’s slow footsteps echo down the hallway, then finished picking up the mess, letting Micah sit with his thoughts.
As I slipped the last card on top of the deck, he snapped to. I shook my head. "Questionable timing, as always."
He smiled, standing and grabbing my hand to pull me to my feet. "Come on, you need to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be an … interesting day."
Half an hour later, we were both buried under a nest of blankets, intertwined with each other. His breathing said he was having just as much trouble falling asleep as I was.
"Do you have any regrets?" Micah whispered hesitantly into the darkness. "I mean, with me?"
I didn’t respond right away, carefully concocting an answer in my head. "I’ll admit things moved quickly for us, but I don’t regret anything that has happened between us," I added, "so far." I was fully aware Micah was capable of anything, and I was certain I had not witnessed his worst hour, or his best for that matter.
Micah didn’t answer right away himself. He left it long enough that I began to wonder if he was going to answer at all. "I’m sorry," he mumbled under his breath, so quietly I could barely hear.
"For what?" I whispered back.
He never answered. A few minutes later his breath slowed with sleep.
Questionable timing, as always.
Eyes on the Prize
The next morning Micah escorted me to Alex’s training room without giving me a chance to finish our conversation from last night. Alex jumped into the lesson right away on, of all things, whips, using only my left hand. My right arm no longer needed a sling, but neither was it very useful.
I started by simply trying to hit a mark with the whip. Alex dipped the end of it in red paint every so often so he could track where my hits were landing. He instructed me to use some of my "voodoo" as he so eloquently put it to encourage the whip to hit its mark. Not that he knew much about that side of the business. I glanced at Micah for moral support only to discover he was no longer there; the distraction earned me a sharp bite at the ankle.
"Ow! You drew blood!" I accused Alex as I turned just in time to see him retracting his whip.
He smiled. "Keep your eyes on the prize – and the prize is not Micah."
"Says you," I mumbled underneath my breath. "Why are you in such a good mood, anyway?" I took a shot at his leg and missed, but managed to draw blood from my other ankle when I pulled in my whip using the wrong technique. "Damn it!"
Alex guffawed; his smile was contagious. I couldn’t help but follow suit. He brought over the first aid kit and started tearing open Band-Aids. We sat down in the middle of the floor, Alex bandaging my ankles, until our giggles subsided.
Silence settled over us.
"I talked to Cato this morning," Alex said.
"Aaand…" I prompted.
"Aaand, we are going on assignment," his eyes lit up.
"We, as in..."
"All of us." Now he sounded like a kid in a candy shop with a fifty dollar bill.
I did not share his enthusiasm, "I thought I wasn't supposed to be ready for missions until after a year of training." I fiddled with a piece of thread hanging from the hem of my shorts.
He cleared his throat and made a visible effort to tone down his excitement. "Cato said it is a small assignment, and that maybe we all needed a break from the Chakra."
"When do we leave?"
"Next week." He scooted closer beside me, "Don’t worry about it, you’ll do fine, Katie."
I lifted my eyes to him. Alex had picked up the habit of calling me Katie, just like my parents used to.
He opened his mouth to speak again, but the sound of the door opening cut him off.
"Alex?" Micah hesitated in the doorway. "I have to take Kaitlyn now..."
Alex hopped up, then extended his hand to me. "That’s okay, I have lots to do." He gave me a wink and took my whip. "To be continued."
"Yeah, just wait until I can use my right hand." I challenged, watching him over my shoulder as Micah led me out of the room.
We walked toward the kitchen in silence, Micah strangely withdrawn.
I tried to start a conversation. "Where did you go?"
"Cato summoned me," he said. "Did Alex tell you?"
"About the assignment?" I asked.
He gave something barely classifiable as a nod.
"Yes. Do you think I am ready?"
"I think you are strong, but, the only way to tell if you are ready is by trial. We only have a few days before we leave. We’re going to step up our game."
"Ok, what did you have in mind?"
He avoided my gaze. "You’ll see. Let’s just do this before I change my mind."
I frowned, discomfort hitting my stomach at the foreboding statement. He led me into the kitchen, then the walk-in freezer. Micah pulled on a handle and a gust of cold air rushed out at us. I looked up at him confused.
Taking a deep breath, he finally met my eyes. "Whatever happens, just concentrate. Try to remember this is only going to help you and…don’t hate me."
"What?"
He grabbed my arm and pulled me into the large freezer, forcing me to take a seat on a chair in the middle of the room before I could react. He tied my hands to either side of the chair and started in on my feet.
I thrashed, trying to free my arms from the bindings while keeping my legs away from the rope. I felt my shoulder wound rip open. The fresh whip cuts on my ankles fared no better. "What are you doing?"
His only response was a rough tug at my ankle, tying it to the leg of the chair as quickly as possible. He stood, grabbed a flower pot off of the shelf, and set in on my lap.
I looked at it, still doing my best to pull myself free, only succeeding in making the chair rock back and forth. A pot of dirt. He reached into his pocket, pulled out something small, and tossed it unceremoniously on the dirt.
"This is a seed; you need to make it grow. When there’s a bud, I will let you loose." He turned toward the door.
"Wait!" I called after him, my teeth already starting to chatter. "Why in here?"
"Cold is a good distraction." He didn’t look at me.
I suddenly remembered Cato’s orders and groaned inwardly. "You are just going to leave me here? Why can’t you freeze your ass off too? I thought we were partners!"
He stepped outside, pushing the door halfway shut. "Because anger is also a good distraction." The door closed with a loud thump.
So help him, if by some miracle I ever did get this plant to grow, and he let me loose… I thought of all the things I would do to him, put a mental push behind the images and sent it to Micah. All I got in return was the image of a budding plant. I set the plant on fire in my mind, but erased the picture before sending it out. I needed to conserve my energy. I clenched my jaw, trying to stop the chattering, but it was no use. It only spread, making the rest of my body shiver violently. The thin workout clothes I wore did nothing to ward away the cold. He wasn’t going to let me die in here, but resolve set in.
Damn if I would fail this task. I’ll finish quickly and then let Micah feel the full brunt of my anger.
I looked at the pot sitting on my lap. First things first, the seed needed to bury itself. I tried to send the seed images of dirt completely surrounding it but nothing happened. Stupid idea. Probably only animate objects could receive thoughts. Next I let half the pot slip in between my legs and I held it firmly there. The cold ceramic instantly stuck to my bare skin and burned. I shook my entire body as violently as I could. The seed just bounced around on top of the dirt. I shouted. "Stupid seed!"
I huffed in anger and continued to think. The brief undertaking kept my mind off of the cold, but now it was quickly seeping back into my bones. I thought of Micah, warm in the kitchen, probably enjoying a hot lunch. "Anger is a good distraction," I huffed under my breath. "I’ll show you anger." Then it hit me. "Yes, I will show you anger."
I conjured memories of the typhoon in India, memories of my parents funeral, and even memories of Shawn. I kept them strong and stable in my mind, then tapped into the frequency of the earth below the house, drawing in its energy. I felt it shake slightly in response. "Not enough," I muttered. Next I sent the borrowed energy back, shooting into the ground. The earth rolled harder. I repeated the process, sucking in waves then returning them with all the anger I could conjure. Frozen food began falling off of the shelves around me, but the rumbling and shaking was doing its job. Small dirt particles were jumping around in the pot, and the seed slowly disappeared into the nest of soil. As soon as I thought the seed was down far enough, I stopped the energy waves. The earth didn’t subside immediately, but slowly settled. I focused back into my surroundings. I wasn’t shivering anymore, which was probably a bad thing. Exhaustion was starting to set in. The cold and my exertions were causing my body to shut down.
All I had done so far was bury the seed. At least the seed was warmer, maybe I could bury myself in the dirt too. My thoughts drifted…I was falling asleep, and I didn’t care.
Several loud bangs on the door snapped me to, and I almost instantly received another image of a budding plant. I blinked twice, trying to focus. Oh yeah, back to work. So we had the dirt. What else did a plant need to grow? Water and sunshine. Not sure how I was going to get sunshine, short of mooning the plant. I decided to concentrate on the water part of the plan. Water, water, water. All the water in here was frozen. I sighed. That sunshine would come in handy. Enough about my butt, back to the water. Water, water, water. After considering my own spit another thought came to me. Would pure energy melt ice? I looked up and saw ice had formed on the ceiling of the freezer.
That’ll work.
I reached for what energy was left, without drawing from anything else. I figured it would be more pure coming from one source. I directed it at the ice right above me and sure enough it began to melt. Small drops of cold water fell from the ceiling, and only a few hit the soil in the pot. I needed more. I dug deeper within, finding the last scraps of energy and directed it at the ceiling. After a few moments more water began to fall; enough to soak the soil at least in the middle of the pot. I tapped into the frequency of the water, found at a much higher pitch than earth, and encouraged it toward the center of the pot. The last of me went into that seed.
Sparks
An annoying rubbing at my legs woke me. I couldn’t move well, still stiff from the cold. I turned my head and a chair came into focus. The binds which previously held me now hung off in shreds. I kicked my leg awkwardly. "Quit it."
Micah’s head popped into view. "She’s awake."
Next, someone I didn’t recognize also came into view and shined a bright light in my eyes. I squinted. "She looks like she is going to be ok. Can you get up?"
"I think." I was pulled to my feet and several hands worked to steady me as I wobbled.
The stranger looked at Micah. "She could use a few hours in the lab."
"No." Micah shook his head. "We aren’t done training. I’ll keep an eye on her. Just stand by."
The stranger shrugged his shoulders, packed his things, and left. Micah let go of me long enough to fetch the pot, and he shoved it in front of my face.
I peeked in to find a tiny green bud poking out from the dirt. A wide smile creased my face. "Hey! It worked!" My excitement turned to disdain once I remembered the freezer. "You! You’re a jerk!" I took a step away from him and the potted wonder, slipped on something that went sliding across the floor, and fell hard on my backside. My fall wasn’t broken by something with sharp, jagged edges. I winced, not yet willing to move again. "What happened in here?" I carefully turned over to find the floor covered in broken plates, bowls, and glasses. I looked up to find the cupboards had all swung open.