Wake of Darkness (13 page)

“Good,” he interrupted. “You ready
for round two?”

“Round two?” she asked cautiously,
standing up and walking towards her new brother of sorts. “Do I want to ask?”

He grinned wickedly at her. Suddenly
Alexander was there, appearing behind Jim’s shoulder.

Sophie glanced down at her feet and
then raised her eyes and smiled sheepishly at him, not knowing what else to do.
A smile played at the corner of his mouth as he nodded to her.

Jim looked from her to Alexander
and chuckled under his breath, shaking his head.

“Let’s go see what you can do,” Jim
said and held his hand out for her to take.

“Um,” she hesitated. “…okay.”

She placed her hand firmly in Jim’s
and suddenly found herself outside of what looked like an old storm cellar in
the backyard. With a rush of wind that hit her in the back, Alexander, Zoey,
and Laney had joined them.

“You wanna warn me next time you do
that?” Sophie asked, gripping his arm to steady herself.

“Where’s the fun in that?” he
asked, and she playfully punched him in the arm.

Jim typed a code into a small
keypad to the right of the door and it suddenly opened to a dark, damp, gaping
entrance.

“Come on,” Jim said and led the
way; flicking lights on ahead of them.

Laney, the last one in, turned and
pushed a button and the large metal door slid silently shut behind them. They
followed Jim down a steadily sloping hallway that dead-ended in a large,
brightly lit room lined with what at first glance looked like gym equipment. On
closer examination, Sophie saw shelves of weapons mingled with medicine balls,
punching bags, and weight benches.

“Seriously cool,” Sophie whispered.

“This is where we train,” Jim said.

“Train?” Sophie asked skeptically.

He shrugged. “You can’t decide to
go fight vampires without learning how to do it first. It’s pretty obvious that
they’re not gonna leave
you
alone.”

“True. I guess it would be nice to
learn how to use a stake or something.”
Then I wouldn’t feel so helpless.

Alexander stepped forward. He took
a deep breath. “We are going to see what your
abilities
are. Before we
start, please do not take offense to anything. We have to provoke you to elicit
a usable response from you.”

“A
useable
response?” she
asked incredulously.

“Think of it as…” he looked to the
others before turning back to Sophie, “a diagnostic exam.”

“Okay,” she replied and took a deep
breath. “But, I don’t really understand.”

“Our abilities are very connected
to our emotions. Our emotions tend to be…
volatile,
but through
channeling them, we learn to harness our abilities, to use them to our
advantage,” Alexander explained.

“Huh?”

Jim grinned. “We have to piss you
off to see what you’re capable of.”

“Oh, well
naturally
,” Sophie
replied with a sardonic shrug.

Alexander looked at Jim. “Do not
forget how raw the emotions are at this stage,” he warned him.

Jim nodded and grinned at Sophie.

Laney jumped over to the opposite
corner and perched on a weight bench to watch. Zoey silently glided over and
took a seat beside her. Alexander turned to Jim, communicating silently with
him in a way that Sophie couldn’t hear.

That’s a nice trick,
she
thought. She looked at the other girls questioningly.

“Don’t think,” Laney replied. “Just
run on instinct.”

Zoey nodded.

Sophie was still looking at the
girls when she heard something whizzing towards her. The faint sound of the air
whistling out of its way became more noticeable as it got closer. She couldn’t
tell exactly
what
it was, but she knew it was coming right towards her
head.

She turned just in time to see an
arrow cutting through the air. Alexander stood behind it, a bow in his hand. She
stepped to the side and snatched the arrow from its flight as it flew past her
head. It twirled on her palm and she hurled it back—arrowhead first—directly at
Alexander’s head. He swiftly “jumped” out of the way just before it hit him,
disappearing and reappearing a few feet away.

“Dodge these if you can!” Jim
taunted.

His words alone infuriated her, but
she turned just in time to see him fling two handfuls of throwing stars at her,
one after the other.

Somewhere deep within her chest, a
snarl crawled its way up her throat uncontrollably. She crouched like a lioness
about to attack, her hands held out at her sides. She saw him through the
tunnel vision of her fury and something instinctual inside her took over.

Counting a total of eight stars without
thinking, she sidestepped the majority of them with a spin on her heel. Her
hand fell upon one of the shelves of weapons to her left and she reflexively
grasped something long and metallic that lay there.

“What the hell are you doing?” she
roared at them, her eyes flaming.

“Get ready,” Alexander warned Jim. He
dropped the bow and crouched closer to the ground.

“Are you trying to
kill
me?!” Sophie screamed at them.

She rocked back on her heels and
then barreled towards closer of the two of them. Jim jumped quickly at the last
second, disappearing only to reappear behind her. She whirled and tried to grab
him from behind. He jumped out of the way right in time. Reappearing several
feet away, he turned and charged Sophie. She held her hand up in warning half a
second before barreling towards him herself. Her instincts told her that she
was in danger; she reacted to them without thought.

The two struggled. Sophie clawed at
his face, and Jim just tried to keep her off of him long enough for someone
else to help. As she began to gain an advantage over his brother, Alexander
suddenly sprang to action. She suddenly had a silver stake in her hand and was
about to plunge it into Jim’s neck.

Alexander tackled Sophie. The
situation escalated faster than he’d anticipated.

The two fell against the opposite
wall in a snarling ball of aggression and flesh. He tried to pin her down for
her own protection and the safety of the rest of his family. Jim stood up and
dusted his shirt off. He ran over to stand between Laney and Zoey. Laney jumped
to her feet in horror as they watched Alexander try to wrestle Sophie under
control.

“Should we do something?” she asked
Jim.

“Just wait,” he said, holding her
back and refusing to turn away from the wrestling match.

Laney remembered her own such test;
she never had the amount of fury that poured out of Sophie now. It was astounding.

Sophie’s flaming eyes looked at
Alexander, but didn’t see him. He struggled to control her.

“NO!” she roared, another animal
snarl ripping through her chest. She disappeared and was suddenly out of
Alexander’s arms and standing over him, about to strike.

He jumped and was immediately
behind her, his arms around her waist. She lost her grip on the stake and it
fell from her hand to the ground with a metallic ring. Laney saw it, and with a
gesture of her own hand, she sent it rolling across the room and out of
Sophie’s grasp.

“Watch her!” Jim warned just as
Sophie jumped again and was behind Alexander this time.

He turned on a heel and grasped her
arms at the wrists securing them in his iron grasp behind her back.

“Get off of me!” she screeched and
hissed, trying to kick him off of her.

He took three steps forward and
finally had her pinned between his body and the wall.

“Stop it!” he warned. “Stop it,
now!”

She exhaled her breaths out
furiously and glared up at him. Her lips curled back from her clenched teeth as
she stared at him, trying to wrench herself free.

“Calm down, Sophie,” he ordered
sternly, his face mere inches from her own.

Her chest heaved with her frenzied
panting. He held her there, against the wall, against his chest, keeping the
rest of his family safe. She pressed her heels into the concrete wall behind
her, trying to launch herself off of it, but he was stronger than she was. She
struggled to pull her arms out of his grasp, but he had the advantage of
leverage against her.

“Calm down!” He ordered again at an
ear-splitting volume.

“I’ll
kill
you!” She vowed,
spitting mad. She tried to shove off the wall again.

“Oh, I know,” he assured her in a
commanding tone. “But I would appreciate it if you wouldn’t.”

Jim snickered. He exchanged a look
with Laney who watched the pair nervously.

She’s a fighter,
Zoey
thought.

“Calm down, Sophie,” Alexander
commanded again. “We are not going to hurt you.”

He felt some of the tension leave
her body as he spoke to her.

“Get control of yourself,” he
warned. “You
are
safe, but I won’t let you go until you are safe for the
rest of us.”

Sophie took a few deep breaths. The
muscles of her face relaxed slowly as she stared back into his eyes, violently
at first. She struggled against him periodically, but sanity seemed to be
returning to her.

Alexander sighed and began to relax
himself.

“Everything good?” Jim asked from
across the room.

“Yes,” Alexander replied, still not
moving from his position. He didn’t look away from Sophie.

Laney, Zoey, and Jim glanced
awkwardly at each other. “Uh…” Laney asked. “Do you want us to stay?”

“You may leave,” Alexander replied.

He and Sophie were instantly left
alone.

“I’m going to let go of your arms now
that they are gone,” he warned and slowly released her wrists, watching her
warily for signs of her previous fury. His hands slid down to hers, unwilling
to release her just yet. “Do not try anything sudden.”

Her eyes had never left his and in
a few moments, they blinked back to recognition. His strong hands no longer
felt like a threat; his presence no longer felt deadly.

As she calmed down and her heart
rate slowed, it became obvious how close they were to each other. Her body
pressed against his with every breath.

“What were you trying to do?” she
asked suddenly, still breathing heavily.

“Exactly what I did.”

She watched him for a moment
through suspicious eyes. “Which was what?”

“I—
we
—needed to see how you
react to attacks,” he explained, “now that you know you are not an average,
defenseless person and you understand your instincts better. That vampire would
not be so lucky if he tried to attack you now that you know exactly what your
potential is.”

She leaned back against the wall a
bit, losing more of the tension that had coursed through her veins like a drug just
minutes before. Her breath still came out in frustrated huffs as she watched
him.

“And did you learn anything?” she
asked sharply, raising her eyebrows at him.

He chuckled under his breath. “It was
educational. I have never seen someone react
quite
like you have.”

Sophie’s eyebrows furrowed. “What
do you mean?”

“Most of us are more human than
vampire, but some of us can access that other side more
easily
.”

“Great. And I’m one of those,” she
replied flatly, grimacing.

“Yes,” he answered softly.

“You’re not gonna hurt me,” she
said more for herself.

“No,” he vowed. “Never.”

She nodded and felt a little more
normal as her temper cooled. She couldn’t ignore the intensity in his voice.

“I’m okay,” she assured him
breathlessly, nodding her head.

“I know,” he said and released her
hands.

He placed his hands on the wall, on
either side of her shoulders, still leaning over her in case her temper flared
again. “How do you feel?”

She stared into his eyes, the fury
replaced with something else. “A little dizzy…” she admitted and laughed at
herself as she pushed away some of the hair that had fallen into her face.

He reached up and caught a strand
she missed and pushed it back from out of her eyes, letting his fingers graze
her cheek, a tingling flash of heat traveling along his touch. He ran his
fingertips along her jaw line. She froze as her heart pounded against her
ribcage in anticipation.

He suddenly dropped his hand and
pushed away from the wall with a heavy sigh and began to straighten the room
after their grapple.

She slumped against the wall a bit
and ran both hands through the top of her hair.

“What is it?” she asked firmly.

He turned and looked at her with a
strained look on his face. He was so difficult for her to read sometimes. It
irritated her when he was so cryptic.