Pure (9 page)

I flushed as I realized I must’ve been dream-screaming. “I’m sorry. Everything’s fine.”

“Make sure this window is locked.” She smiled. “Good night.”

Nodding, I closed the window and threw the lock. My cheeks still felt bright red as I climbed back into bed and pulled the covers over my head. Although my childish screams had brought a Sentinel and not a daimon to my bedroom, the creeped-out feeling lingered all night.

I stumbled through the day, feeling out of it and sick. Not throwing up sick, but nervous sick. I dozed off beside Deacon in class. He woke me up before the teacher spotted me sleeping. My hands trembled when I picked up my soda at lunch, which earned me a slew of concerned questions from Caleb and Olivia.

Maybe I was coming down with something. Or maybe it was the nightmares I’d had for the last two nights. I really didn’t know, but all I wanted to do was crawl back into bed and sleep.

In Gutter Fighting, it was hard for me to follow the movements of my sparring partner. Luke took it easy on me, only knocking me to the floor a couple of times. And my day wasn’t anywhere near over.

Practice with Aiden immediately followed, and I sucked at that, too.

I feinted to the left, but my movements felt jerky and too slow. Aiden’s leg came around viciously, striking me in the calf. The impact knocked me forward, face-first into the mats. Dropping very real blades, I caught myself awkwardly. All my weight landed on my wrists and I let out a sharp gasp.

“Alex! Are you okay?” Aiden came to my side and reached down.

Ignoring the pain, I pushed myself up. “I’m fine.”

Aiden’s arm was still extended, as if he’d forgotten he had been reaching for me. He just stood there, staring at me. “What’s up with you today? You’re going to break your neck at this rate.”

Fire scorched my cheeks as I grabbed the blades off the mats. “I’m okay.”

I wanted to apologize for accusing him of being like other pures while we had a few moments of downtime, but the words “I’m sorry” just wouldn’t move past my lips, and then Aiden was falling back into an attack stance.

He flipped the blades over in his hands. “Again.”

I attacked. Aiden brought his blades down on mine, the sound of metal clashing rung through the training room. He pushed me back, jabbing one blade at my midsection. I caught his arm with my forearm, knocking his aim off.

“Good,” he said. “Keep moving. Never stay still.”

I darted under his arm, staying out of his range while I studied his moves. There was always something that gave away the move, the technique. Sometimes it was just a fine tremor of the muscle or eye movement, but it was always there.

Aiden jabbed, but it was a ploy. I saw it an instant before he dropped down, going for my legs with a low kick. I jumped out of way and then went for the kill shot. This game would have been over for an untrained half, being caught on the mats like that.

But Aiden wasn’t untrained and he was incredibly fast. He jumped to his feet in one swift movement, simultaneously tucking both blades into one hand.

I leapt, bringing the blades down. Aiden met me midflight, catching my arm. Within a second, he had my back pinned against him and two daggers pointed at my throat.

He bent his head down, his breath dancing over my cheek. “What did you do wrong?”

I felt his heart slamming against his chest. We were
that
close. “Um…?”

“You saw me moving the blades to one hand as a vulnerable move. You should have gone for the hand that held the blades. One clean swipe and you would have disarmed me.”

Mulling that over, I saw he was right. “Well, hell’s bells.”

He leaned his head down further, the longer strands of his hair brushing my cheek. Neither of us moved. I let my eyes fall shut as his warmth surrounded me. I think I could’ve fallen asleep standing against him. “Now you know.” He released me. “Go again.”

And I did. Again and again, we squared off. I blocked a series of his jabs and he blocked all of mine. After a few rounds, I was slick with cold sweat and exhausted. All I wanted to do was sit down.

Aiden rushed me, and I pushed him back. With distance between us, I launched to the right, fingers spasming around the hilt of the blade.
Kick. Use a kick,
I ordered myself. Aiden dodged my jab, but not my kick. He lost his grip on one of the blades, and it clattered to the mat. Surprise and pride flickered across his face before he charged me with one blade. I blocked his attack, arms trembling. He dropped down, moving into position to sweep my legs out from underneath me. I saw it coming a mile away.

I just didn’t—couldn’t will my legs to move fast enough.

Everything slowed down, ensuring that the lameness of what was about to occur would be perfectly captured. I jerked back toward the edge of the mat. His long leg swept around, catching both of my legs. I lost my grip on the blades and fell backward. A second later my head cracked off the floor.

I lay still, stunned and queasy.

Aiden’s face popped into my vision, but his features were a bit muddled. “Alex, are you okay?”

I blinked slowly. My head hurt so bad my teeth ached. “I… think so.”

“Can you sit up?”

Every part of me protested the movement, but I sat up. Aiden immediately checked the back of my head for damage with swift and gentle fingers. “That… was kind of lame of me.”

“It’s not a big deal. You were doing really well. You even disarmed me.” He sat back; his hands cupped my cheeks and tilted my head back. He smiled. “I don’t think there’s any permanent damage.”

I tried to smile, but failed. “I’m sorry.”

A frown creased his brow. “Alex, don’t apologize. It happens. You can’t always be the fastest—”

“I saw your move, Aiden. I had more than enough time to get out of the way.” I lowered my eyes. “I’m just so freaking tired.”

Aiden scooted forward, his knees pressing against my thigh. “Alex, look at me.” Sighing, I lifted my eyes. He smoothed my hair back with a little smile. “Are these practices too much?”

“No—”

“Alex, be honest with me. You’re training all the time. Is it too much?”

If he kept touching my hair I’d admit to anything. “It’s not too much, Aiden. Really, it’s not. I’m… just not getting a lot of sleep.”

He shifted so that he was right beside me, his other hand falling to my shoulder. I inhaled his unique scent of sea and burning leaves. With him this close, with one hand curving over my shoulder and the other continuingly smoothing back my hair, I was putty in his hands. I think he knew that.

“Why are you not sleeping, Alex?” he asked, voice low and soft.

The words just kind of spilled out of me. “I have nightmares—every night and all night.”

“Nightmares?” he repeated. He didn’t sound like he thought it was funny, but that he just didn’t understand.

I closed my eyes, taking a shallow breath. “You don’t know what it was like all those hours… in Gatlinburg, not able to really do anything. And all those tags—it felt like they were breaking off pieces of
me
. You don’t know what I would’ve done to make them stop—
just stop
.”

Aiden stiffened, his fingers curling around the nape of my neck. “You’re right, Alex. I don’t know, but I wish I did.”

“You don’t mean that,” I whispered.

“I do.” He went back to moving his fingers through my hair. “Then maybe I’d be able to help you somehow. Is that what you’re having nightmares about?”

“Sometimes they’re about Mom and other times it’s the other two—Eric and Daniel. They’re so vivid, you know? Like it’s happening again.” I pressed my lips together, stopping the ball of emotion from making it past my throat. Talking about that night, about what they’d done, curdled my stomach like sour milk. “So yeah, I don’t get much sleep.”

“How… how long has this been going on?”

I shrugged. “Since a week or so after everything happened.”

“Why haven’t you said anything? That’s too long for you to deal with this alone, Alex.”

“What was I supposed to say? It’s pretty damn childish to be having night terrors—”

“They’re not night terrors. It’s stress, Alex. What you’ve had to deal with…” He looked away, a muscle working in his jaw. “No wonder you’re having nightmares. She was a daimon, Alex, but she was also your mother.”

I pulled back, looking into his face. Concern etched across Aiden’s features, shifting his eyes to a thunderous gray. “I know.”

He shook his head. “And then you’ve been running nonstop. You haven’t had a moment to just… shut down. The daimon attack probably added to it. I don’t know why I didn’t think about that—why no one did. This is all too much. We have to—”

“Please don’t tell Marcus.
Please
.” I started to climb to my feet, but he kept me on the mat. “If he thinks something’s wrong with me, he’ll take me out of the Covenant.” And he would, too. If Marcus thought I was damaged, I’d be in servitude. Halfs didn’t go to counseling. They didn’t get posttraumatic stress. They
dealt
with things. They didn’t lose sleep and screw up in practice. “Oh, gods, Marcus is going to kick me out.”

Aiden caught my chin again. “That’s not what I was going to say. You worry too much,
Agapi.
I’m not going to say anything to anyone. Not a single word of this, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to forget.”

“What does that mean?”

He smiled, but it seemed off and a little sad. “Well, you need to get some rest, and you need time to just chill out. I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”

I covered his hand with mine. At once, he let go of my chin and threaded his fingers through mine. My little heart just got all kinds of happy. “What does
Agapi
mean?”

Aiden sucked in air. “What?”

“You’ve called me
Agapi
… a couple of times. It sounds beautiful.”

“Oh. I… I didn’t realize I had.” He pulled his hand free. “It’s the old language. It doesn’t really mean anything.”

That was kind of disappointing. Reluctantly, I climbed to my feet. I drew in a deep breath and watched Aiden stand. “I feel okay—”

The gym doors flew open, banging against the wall. Seth strode in like he owned the place. “What’s going on?”

I glared at him. “What does it look like?”

Aiden swiped the blades off the mats. “I really need to find a way to bar those doors.”

Seth shot Aiden a look. “I really wish you’d try.”

Aiden lowered his arms, his fingers inching over the hilt of the blades. “Don’t you have something you should be doing? I cannot believe your sole purpose of being here is to help Alex a few days a week and prowl the halls of the female dorm.”

“Actually, that is my sole purpose. Didn’t you know? I’m here—”

“Uh, is practice over, Aiden?” I cut in before the two choke-slammed one another.

“Yeah.” His eyes stayed on Seth.

I felt there was a good chance he might stab Seth. There was also a good possibility Seth might zap Aiden. “Okay. Thanks for the practice… and everything.”

Seth smirked and raised his brows at Aiden.

“No problem,” replied Aiden.

Groaning inwardly, I hurried over to my bag. On the way out, I grabbed a fistful of Seth’s shirt. “Come on.”

“What?” Seth protested. “I think Aiden wants to hang out with me.”

“Seth!”

“All right.” He spun around, straightening his shirt.

I didn’t look back. Once outside the building, I dared a glance at Seth. “Did you need something?”

He grinned. “Nope.”

“So, you busted up my training for no apparent reason? I call bullshit on that.”

Seth dropped his arm over my shoulder. “You can call whatever you want. Let’s go get something to eat. You can still do that, right? Or are you grounded from showing your face in the cafeteria?”

“I’m not supposed to be hanging out with friends.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing that you and I aren’t really friends.”

CHAPTER 6

AFTER ANOTHER LONG AND BORING DAY OF CLASSES, I WAITED for my turn with Seth, praying I didn’t crack my head again. Last night, I’d gotten another decent night’s sleep after Seth had shown up and popped in a DVD. I was feeling pretty rejuvenated.

Since I was alone for a few moments before training, I approached the wall of mass destruction. I was about to pick up the dagger Aiden favored when I realized something was off about the wall.

The weapons hung from little black hooks, and now several spots were empty. Of all the times I’d practiced in this room, I’d never seen any spot open. Daggers and blades were kept in this room for training purposes only. Each blade required a different handling technique and were used at different times throughout the day. Did they remove the blades for cleaning? It wasn’t like they gathered much dust in this room.