Talented (27 page)

I’d never felt this way with Donavon, who I’d been so convinced I loved.  Donavon, who I’d defended anytime that Erik spoke ill of him.  Donavon, who I’d trusted, and who had made me question everything that I thought I knew in my life.

Suddenly Erik stopped kissing me.  He backed away, stumbling backwards off of my bed.

“This is wrong, I can’t do this,” he stammered.

“W-w-w-what?”
I stuttered, hot tears pricking the corners of my eyes.  “Why?”

“You’re drunk Talia, it would be wrong.”

“Drunk?” I repeated.  He had a point, I was drunk, but I would’ve wanted him even if I were sober.  Since I
was
drunk, I actually said, “It doesn’t matter, I would still want you if I was sober.  I mean I do want you when I’m sober.”

“No, this is wrong,” he said firmly, shaking his head.

I scrambled off the bed and moved towards him, only vaguely aware of the fact that I wasn’t wearing any clothes. I reached out to him but he kept backing away.  The tears that had welled up in my eyes were now falling down my cheeks.

“Did I do something wrong?” I sniffled.

“No,” his answer was clipped.  I did something wrong, I just didn’t know what it could be.  I cried harder.

“What can I do?  Tell me what I did wrong,” I pleaded with him.  This is when I should have been biting my cheek, so I didn’t say something I would regret.

“Natalia, you’re drunk.  I don’t think this is the best time to have this conversation.”

How could he do this to me?  I might not have trusted myself with him, but I did trust him.

Erik started walking toward me.  He grabbed my bathrobe off of the hook on the bathroom door and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“I should go, Tal,” he said kneeling down in front of me.  My chest was heaving with my silent sobs. I couldn’t catch my breath, and my drunken brain feared I was hyperventilating.

“Please stay,” I begged.  “I don’t understand what I did wrong,” I cried, but my words were incoherent, even to me.

Erik ran the back of his hand against my cheek and then stood to leave.  I shot my hand out and wrapped it around his wrist, forcing him to turn back around and face me.

“What did I do?” I shouted, anger replacing humiliation.  “You owe me that much.”

“Owe you?” the fury that flashed in his eyes scared me.  Under sober circumstances, I probably would’ve shrunk away from him.  “I don’t owe you shit, Tal.” He yanked his arm, but my grasp was firm.

“I was about to sleep with you, Erik,” I screamed.

“Why?” Erik demanded.  He yanked harder and his wrist broke free from my grasp, but he didn’t make moves to leave the room again.  Instead, he bent down with his face inches from mine.

“Why, what?”  I asked, confused.

“Why do you want to sleep with me, Tal?” he demanded.  His eyes were blazing and his face was contorted in rage. This time I did shrink away from him.

“I don’t know,” I stammered.

“To get back at Donavon?” his voice turned eerily calm, and I leaned further back away from him.  I knew he had a temper, we both did, but his had never been directed at me.  He terrified me, but I refused to back down.  I straightened my spine.

“NO,” I screamed at him, shoving him hard in his bare chest.  “Why would you even think that?”

“You know how amazing it is to be with you?” his voice turned gentle, but his eyes still had that if-looks-could-kill thing going on.  “When I’m with you, I can feel how you feel.  You project your feelings on to me so strongly that no matter what I do, I can’t keep you out of my head.  And I don’t want too.  It feels too incredible.”

“Then what’s wrong?” a fresh wave of hysteria rose up inside me, threatening to overtake me again.

“Donavon!
  There hasn’t been one time I have kissed you that you haven’t thought of him!” Erik screamed, pounding his hands against my bed, sending me bouncing up and down.  If I thought his eerie calm voice was scary, it had nothing on his losing-his-temper voice.

“No, no that isn’t true,” I sobbed, hugging my knees to my chest. “I want to be with you.”

“Yes, Natalia it is.  And I’m not going to be anybody’s fucking silver medal.”  Every apartment in the building was soundproofed, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if my neighbors could hear us screaming.

Erik backed away from the bed, grabbing his shirt as he did.

“No!” I screamed after him.  “Erik, please!”  I briefly considered reaching out to his mind and mentally forcing him to stay with me, but thankfully all of the yelling had sobered me up enough to realize how terrible that plan was likely to turn out.

Erik paused near the door, and hope filled me. Then he pressed his hand to the interior sensor and the door swung open.  My strangled cries filled the room when he walked out.

Curling up on my bed, I sobbed until I had no tears left to cry and my throat was so raw that it felt like it was bleeding.  I choked on my sobs and dry-heaved over the side of my bed.  I dreaded falling asleep, because every time I woke again, I’d have to relive the pain and embarrassment of what had happened.

Chapter Thirty

When I finally dragged myself out of bed the next morning my eyes were so swollen that I could barely see.  I wandered into my bathroom, only to find that I actually looked worse than I felt.  The purple color of my eyes wasn’t identifiable in my reflection.  Makeup streaked my cheeks and across my forehead, from where I’d smeared it rubbing the tears away.  My loose curls were tightly knotted and sticking out all over my head.  I groaned.

I had several hours until I was due at the hangar for my flight to Nevada.  I should’ve spent that time doing last minute preparations for my Hunt, but I lacked the energy.  I had a horrible headache that I wanted to blame on the alcohol, but I remembered that it was supposed to be hangover-free, so I correctly attributed it to my uncontrollable hysteria over what had happened with Erik.

I filled my oversized bathtub with water as hot as I could bear, added scented oils that Gretchen had sent me.  I plastered a cucumber-carrot cream over my entire face and slipped over the edge of the large tub and into the steaming water.  The cream was one of Gretchen’s own concoctions; she used to slather the tangy-smelling lotion on both mine and Donavon’s injuries when we were younger to reduce swelling.  It worked wonders, and I hoped it would do the same for my puffy eyes.

Floating in the scented water, I tried to clear my head of Erik, of Donavon, and of anything else that didn’t directly relate to my upcoming assignment.  It was a fruitless endeavor.  I couldn’t erase Erik’s accusations from my mind.  Did I really think about Donavon that much?  I guess I did, but most of my thoughts weren’t exactly friendly.  And really, what did Erik expect? Donavon was the only guy that I’d ever dated.  The only guy I’d ever kissed.  The only guy that I’d ever done anything that a teenage girl does with a teenage boy.  Of course I was going to think about Donavon, right?  I didn’t still have feelings for Donavon, unless hate counted, right?  Even if I did, was it really fair for Erik to expect me to just turn off my feelings for Donavon, even after what he’d done to me?  And why was Erik fishing around in my head while we were making out, anyway?  I didn’t reach in to his head.  Sure I opened myself up to his feelings, but that was a lot different than rummaging around in his head, to find out how I compared with every girl that he’s ever done whatever it is he does with.

My bath ended up being less relaxing than I’d anticipated.  When I climbed out of the tub, trailing watery footprints across the bathroom floor, I was less ashamed about the way that I’d acted with Erik, and more enraged about the way that he’d acted with me.  Actually, I was more than angry; I was fuming.  I threw my necessary belongings into my black regulation backpack with way more force than necessary, roughly packing my clothes and gadgets while muttering to myself the whole time.

When a knock on the door interrupted my angry packing, my stomach was suddenly full of butterflies.  I wanted to open my mind to find out who was there, but I wasn’t sure if the fluttering in my stomach was because I hoped that it was Erik, or because I hoped that it was Donavon.  The epiphany made me irrationally angry with Erik, for being right about the whole Donavon thing.

Instead of opening my mind, I used it to throw open the door.  The door slammed into the wall, chipping the purple paint; the doorjamb had failed to even slow its swing.

“Hey,” Penny called, tentatively.

“Oh, it’s you.  Sorry, come on in,” I called back.

“Nervous?” Penny asked, jittery herself.

“Huh?  Oh, about the Hunt?  Of course I’m nervous, but I’ll be fine.  It’s just a graduation Hunt after all.”  I tried to smile at her, but it came out strained.

“You’re distracted,” Penny said, matter-of-factly.

“I. Am. Not. Distracted,” I practically growled at her.

“Tal, I know you’ve done really well on your Hunts up until now,” she spoke softly as she slowly lowered herself to the floor to sit beside me.  “But you really need your head in the game right now.  This Mission is extremely dangerous, I’ve seen all the intel –”

“I’ve seen it all too, Penny,” I snapped at her, annoyed.

“Is it Erik?” Penny asked quietly.

“Yeah . . .  kind of,” I relented, softening my tone.

“Why don’t you tell me what happened?” she suggested.

I gave her a hard look.  As angry as I was with Erik, I knew that the minute I actually said the words out loud, I would be reliving possibly the most mortifying experience of my life.  I thought it better to remain heated.

I intended to tell Penny I didn’t want to talk about it, but somehow I found myself launching in to a detailed account of the night before.  I stared at my hands the entire time I spoke.  The only thing worse than a drunken fight, was recounting a drunken fight while sober.  I might as well have put it up on my wall screen, and played it back in slow motion.

Penny listened without comment.  When I was finished, I finally looked up and met Penny’s green eyes, hoping to find something that made me feel better.  Her eyes were full of concern, but I wasn’t sure what exactly it was regarding.

“Erik will calm down.  He cares a lot about you,” Penny finally said.  She hesitated before continuing.  “Do you want Donavon back?”  Her voice was so quiet that, if I hadn’t been sitting right next to her I wouldn’t have heard her.

“No.  No, I don’t,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster.

“But maybe it was a little too soon to start something with Erik?” Penny prompted.

“Probably,” I admitted.

“He’ll be okay when you get back, he just needs a couple of days to calm down,” she assured me.  I nodded and gave her a real smile.  “Now that you’ve gotten that off of your chest, will you please concentrate on your Hunt?” she insisted.

“Yes, I will.  You’re right – none of this is important right now.”  Penny’s point was valid.  This was exactly what Mac had been talking about; if I really wanted to be a Hunter, I needed to start acting like it.  Boys were the last thing that I should be devoting energy to.

Penny finished packing my stuff while I reviewed intel again.  Together, we made our way to the hover hangar where I would board the craft that would take me to Nevada.  We didn’t say much on the walk, but it was nice knowing that Penny was there.

Thanks to all of my mental anguish over Erik and Donavon that morning I hadn’t had time to get nervous about my Mission.  But as soon as the
hangar came into view, my stomach constricted, twisting my internal organs, as fear and anxiety set in.  I reached over and grabbed for Penny’s hand.  She gave it a reassuring squeeze, and I gripped hers tighter.

In a couple of hours, I could be face-to-face with my parents’ murderer.  In a couple of hours, I might kill Ian Crane, or Ian Crane might kill me.  None of these scenarios sounded very win-win to me; in fact, they all sounded lose-lose.

Best case scenario, I confronted Ian Crane.  I don’t know if I’d be able to restrain myself from attacking him, but if I attacked him, my cover was blown.  If my cover was blown, I’d better be sure that he died in that attack.  If he died, it was unlikely that I’d make it very far before one of his men killed me.  If I did somehow manage to Houdini my way out of there, it was unlikely that I graduate, since my official assignment was information gathering.  All in all the outcome wasn’t likely going to be in my favor.

Mac was waiting inside the
hangar with Captain Alvarez when we arrived.  His face was set in hard lines, his dark brown eyes unwelcoming.  At least Captain Alvarez appeared pleased to see me – his dark features lit up with a reassuring smile when he noticed me.

“Do you make it a habit to see off the Pledges on their solo Hunts, or am I special?” I asked sarcastically.  I was still miffed over Mac’s thinly-veiled threats.

“I happened to be here on business.  I thought I would come say good luck, and remind you that if you don’t successfully complete this assignment you won’t graduate.  Please take this seriously,” Mac replied dryly.  He must still be irked too.  Stalemate.

“I take every Hunt seriously,” I shot back, my temper flaring.

“You’ve done very well up to this point, Natalia.  I am sure this won’t be any different as long as you keep focused,” Captain Alvarez interjected, defusing the situation.

“I am focused,” I said, through gritted teeth.  Penny’s sharp intake of breath drew my attention away from Mac; her eyes were pained.  I looked down at her hand, still enclosed in mine, and her fingers were turning purple from lack of circulation.  I hastily released her.

“Sorry,” I muttered.

Mac walked over and gave me an awkward hug.  I half-heartedly returned it.

“Be careful, Natalia,” he said in a low voice.  His cold gray eyes found mine, “
You know what you need to do.”

“I do,” my voice was so icy that I gave myself a shudder.

Penny turned and leaned down, wrapping her thin arms around me.

“Keep your eyes and ears open, and remember that I’m always there with you.  I know you won’t be able to hear or see me, but I’ll be there on the other end of all your communications,” she choked.  When she released me, she wiped tears from her cheeks.  I gave her hand a gentle squeeze this time.

“Good luck, Lyons.  Just remember –when you come back, you’ll be a real Hunter,” Captain Alvarez engulfed one of my hands in my both of his, shaking it vigorously. 
If I returned,
I thought.

“Thank you sir,” I gave him a small nod, suddenly very glad that he was here.

I turned, walking my designated hover plane.

“Talia, wait!” Henri panted, as he ran into the
hangar.

I smiled, “I thought you weren’t coming.”

He gave me a huge hug, squeezing me tightly, “Good luck, Talia.  Be careful,” he whispered.

“Thank you, I will.  I’ll be back before you know it,” I tried to make my voice light.

He swallowed.  “I know.”

“Is Erik not coming?” The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them, and I hated myself for asking.

“He thought it would be better if he didn’t,” Henri’s voice was kind.

“Of course, he’s right. 
It’s better this way,” I mumbled, more upset than I should’ve been.

“We’ll
both
be here when you get back, okay?”

I nodded, feeling tears prickling the corners of my eyes.  I gave him another quick hug.  He grasped one of my small hands in both of his much larger ones, pressing a tightly folded square of paper into my palm.  I risked a quick glance before curling my fingers around the pointy edges; my name was scrawled across the front, and underneath my name it read, “For when you’re ready to hear it.”  I gave Henri one last nod and then turned, continuing to the hover plane before he could see the tears swimming in my eyes.