Nirvana - In The Pine

Despite my exhaustion from the wearing day, both emotionally and physically, I still couldn't sleep. I wrote out my schedule instead, trying to decide which days would be the worst. I couldn't make an accurate guess yet since I still hadn't met Danny or Katz, but I was sure Tuesdays and Thursdays would be the worst. Grayson in the mornings, Levi at noon, then Cordelia before ending the day with Parish and Prey as usual. Hating two out of the four lessons didn't sound like great odds to me.

Saturday through Monday looked to have the most potential. Sundays I had completely off, so I would be able to train on my own, something I was greatly looking forward to. Mondays I only had Zodiac in the morning, and Parish and Prey in the evening, neither of which I dreaded, and Saturdays had Grayson in the morning, which I figured I could survive if Abby joined, Levi at noon and then a break until combat with the brothers in the evening.

I felt like a student again, pouring over my classes, deciding what days I would wake up with a feeling of anxiety already wrapped around me and which I would possibly enjoy. It all came down to Danny and Katz now. 'Visions' and my Gift. I hoped they wouldn't be like Grayson, I hoped I wouldn't want to separate their heads from their shoulders. Though I also hoped they wouldn't be like Levi, so likeable it was insufferable. I hadn't even talked to Abby about him, but I figured there was no use. Abby had his own plans for me, and if they involved me making friends he would be sorely disappointed. I would be kind to the kid. I probably couldn't be cruel to him even if I tried, but I wouldn't be his friend or sister or anything close. It was a bad idea and I knew it. Bad things happened to the people around me, maybe not always death, but always misfortune.

I sunk into my bed, exhausted, but my eyes still wouldn't close, maybe I didn't want them to, laying awake was often more calming, more tranquil than having to battle my demons in sleep. I called on an endurance name and an energy one, not because I wanted to do anything, but simply because I didn't want to fall asleep. I stared at my ceiling until late in the night, or early in the morning, depending on perspective. I got up around four and grabbed a small crossbow I had been working with lately, and headed for one of the secluded rooms in the Vault, hoping to still my mind with some solo training.

I pulled my Shift around me as I entered the dark room, loving the feeling of it, the strength it gave me. My Shift wasn't like Jevin's blood had been, but it made it easier to think, easier to not feel the constant onslaught of emotions and pain and self-loathing. My Shift was like armor in a way, armor against myself, my biggest enemy. Sometimes I wished I could keep it around me constantly, feel the added strength, the stability, the added cover against myself all the time, but that was impossible at the Vault. Ailech hadn't even seen me Shift since my first day, when I had come out of his heal. He had asked me several times, even tried to goad me into breaking Abby's one rule, but I never rose to his bait. I didn't need my Shift to hurt him anyway, he was only human.

Even though I was already there, with my bow and my Shift, I couldn't make myself train. I just wanted to be still, to feel nothing, to relish my Shift as I sat in the dark, watching the shadows run from my eyes wherever I looked. I sat by the door, playing with my knife instead of my bow, spinning it in my hand, letting it flip over my knuckles, between my fingers, letting it fall before I'd twist my hand under it and catch it. I tried to let my mind wander, though my thoughts in my Shift were different than without it, darker, bloodier, more violent. All my thoughts revolved around killing, around hurting people, even people I didn't know, imaginary people my mind created just so I could kill them.

Eventually I pulled it back, letting the darkness of the room become starker, stronger, until I couldn't see the far wall like I had when my vision was grey and white. I needed my Shift, needed the block it gave me, but I also hated it, hated that I could only find peace when I wasn't even human.

...When my powers come through, my Fallen blood takes over, and the part of me that's human is forced out. It's called my Shift...I lose some of my humanity...You could say I am less human than when I'm just standing here with you...

The memory of Kael's words made a deep ache start to spread through my chest, my headache returning with a vengeance. I missed him so much I almost pulled my Shift back around me just so I wouldn't have to feel the sadness, but I didn't want to think of death anymore, feel the desires of my damned half.

It was frustrating how I couldn't seem to win, either I could control my violence, but then be too weak, too human, too emotional and broken, or I could shove all my emotions and sadness and pain aside with my Shift, but then be left with the very worst parts of me, the hate and anger and violence. It was impossible to choose, so I didn't, I switched between them instead. When the pain was too great, I Shifted, when my nature was too great, I buried it. I wondered absently if that was the start to losing control, not being able to live in either form, not really, not fully.

I shook my head, wishing I could knock all the thoughts out, wishing I could just daydream like I used to, wishing everything wasn't tainted now because of what I was. My headache intensified and soon it felt like my head might split, like fire was racing under my scalp. I almost wondered if Cordelia was near. And then everything changed and I was no longer in the dark gym, I was in a nightclub.

Lights flashed around me, music boomed from every side, and people surrounded me. My Shift snapped its jaws, sensing that not all the bodies were human and I had to bite back the desire to let my eyes darken.

For a moment I was confused at what had happened, what was going on, but then I understood. I had never had a vision like this while I was awake, only in sleep. I turned in a slow circle, searching for whoever or whatever I was supposed to see, but I was only met by a sea of strangers' faces.

It was too warm in the club, too many people too close to me, so I waded through to an open pocket near what I assumed was the back of the room, feeling out of place, out of sorts, wanting nothing more than to be back in the gym. It was terrifying, suddenly being somewhere else, feeling like you were there but knowing you really weren't, knowing your body was somewhere else, empty and defenseless. I could feel people brush past me, smell the sweat in the room, feel the air shake from the music's concussions, but I knew I wasn't really there. I wanted to curl up in a ball in the corner until the vision was over. But then I saw them, Kael and Nevaeh.

She looked like she was enjoying herself much too much, though Kael evened it out, looking as if he would rather be enduring medieval torture than be where he was. He stood off to the side of a small sitting area, lounge couches draped with drunken people all around him. His eyes flicked about the room as if he was taking inventory of each patron, each movement, each conversation, it reminded me of James in a sad way. He had a dark look in his eyes, and his big arms were crossed over his bearish chest like a security guard. His hair was pulled back into a half ponytail, his array of piercings catching the beams of the DJs light show.

Nevaeh was on the couch closest to him, leaning in to a man whose teeth I could see even from my distance. My Shift bristled. I still hated Vampyres. I couldn't quite tell why they were there, Kael looked like it was for business, but Nevaeh seemed far from formal. Her dress was so short and the way she was arranged on the couch almost made me cringe. She smirked over at the man before whispering something in his ear.

Kael's eyes moved to the pair next to him, his jaw tightening. Then, as if he was finally fed up, he grabbed Nevaeh's arm and unceremoniously yanked her from her spot on the couch. She pulled her arm back, but it didn't deter Kael in the least bit. In one quick movement he swung her over his shoulder like a duffle bag and began pushing through the crowd toward the doors. Nevaeh was slapping his back with one hand while trying to cover the little bit of lace around her hips that her dress had ridden up over with her other, but it was clear she would lose both battles.

Kael didn't even slow when two men tried to block his path, he merely said a couple of words which were lost to me in the roar of the club, and shoved his way between them. By the time he reached the doors Nevaeh had stopped trying to free herself and instead held her chin in her hand, her elbow propped on Kael's back, looking bored, disheveled and very drunk. Kael set her down smoothly once they were outside, though she stumbled anyway, proof of just how intoxicated she was, before she tried to hit him. He stepped to the side to avoid the swipe and she fell into a line of trash bins, barely keeping her high-heeled feet under her.

"What did you learn from him?"

Kael's voice sounded just as dull as the first time I had a vision of my former Clan members, monotonous yet sad, like he wished he didn't have to speak at all, ever.

"I coulda learned more ifyu woulda lemme shtay."

"No, you would have gotten pregnant if I let you stay."

Nevaeh scowled at him before taking some unsteady steps down the sidewalk. Kael wrapped his arm around her after she stumbled, holding her in a gentle way despite his words.

"It's him, making the Skiashes, little bastard. The big, bad Coll-ec-tor."

She waved her hands at the end mockingly, though she almost tripped as she did so. Kael kept her up, his hair falling into his face as he watched the ground.

"Ezra said that? Knew that much? That the Collector is making the Skia?"

"He didn't say it, but it's him. He said itswash his 'boss', then later ea said um, he said uh, shomething about having no bosh but the devil himshelf. Ershomething."

"Or something, lovely. Good work."

Kael's sarcasm was the first emotion I had heard from him, but Nevaeh didn't seem to notice.

"I want fooood."

"We have food at our place."

"No, I want junk food. Gimme fries or I'll puke onyu."

Her words were slurred and her threat childish, but Kael let out a heavy breath before turning her down a side street.

"You wouldn't need to be sick if you hadn't drunk the entire bar."

"You're no f-"

Her words were suddenly cut off as she leaned over a trash bin. Kael held back her hair.

I don't know how long it was before I realized I was back in the dark gym, staring out across the room blankly. My eyes felt dry as I blinked, my muscles tight as I got up, and suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be in my bed with the covers pulled up over my head like a child hiding from a monster. I missed Kael so much. And I felt terrible for him, for what he was going through. He was alone, but he still had the responsibility of watching over another. I hated seeing him like that. He didn't seem like a puppy anymore, he seemed like a sad, lonely man, waiting for death.

Cold fingers wrapped around my heart, he was going after the Collector, a Fallen. Maybe not intentionally, at least not to start, but they were hunting Skia, and Gabriel's father was responsible for them. I should have known that, been able to figure it out, that everything was connected to him somehow. And now Kael and Nevaeh were going to die, I knew it. The Collector was going to come after them and they wouldn't stand a chance. It was a miracle they were still alive now, that they had gone so many weeks killing the things Gabriel's father was creating, and hadn't been snuffed out yet.

I barely made it to my room before I began to cry. I sat with my back against the door, my knees pulled up to my chest, and buried my face there. Kael couldn't die, not because of Gabriel and me, he couldn't be yet another casualty because of the Collector. First Syn and now Kael. It wasn't fair.

» ✦ «

I had always been lucky a vision never found me in a fight, or at least I had always been able to fend it off until the battle was over, but with my recent increase in both combat and visions, I should have figured they'd overlap sooner or later. It would have been an easy takedown, should have been, but as soon as I stepped out from the shadow of the dilapidated church and into the streetlamp's artificial light, the familiar pain swept through my mind, slicing me like a white-hot blade.

The vision took me to my knees as the world spun out of focus, no warning, no preface, something that hadn't happened since my Gift was still young, since I was still learning it. The man ran, apparently not knowing he could have easily killed me, and the last thing I saw was his back as I fell to the slick pavement, feeling the fiery burn of the rough ice on my cheek quickly numb as the world blotted out around me.

I was in a night club, surrounded by all the supernatural the world housed, I couldn't even sense a single full human, as if the cover to get in was being mythical. Every creature within my arm's reach deserved death. I could smell their sins, the air was so thick with darkness I could almost taste it, something metallic and sour at the back of my throat, gagging me.

I felt the pull immediately, the draw to the purpose of the vision, and I let it lead me to the back corner. I saw Kael, towering over the men and women around him, his eyes scanning the room with such intensity it almost covered the look of exhaustion in them, the look of heavy fear hiding behind his carefully constructed veil of power. I felt my chest tighten just looking at him, knowing it was really him, not a dream, but really his body, really him that my mind was standing before, even if he couldn't see me.

I wondered where Nev was when Kael suddenly looked at a couple pornographically intertwined on a couch near him. I avoided looking directly at them, not used to seeing so much flesh unless I was ripping it apart, but when Kael grabbed one of the figures it became apparent that she wasn't just some exhibitionist patron, but my former Clan member. My chest constricted more.

Nev tried to bat Kael away, to go back to the man on the couch, a Vamp with more blood on his hands than in his rotten veins, but Kael was clearly finished with their field trip. He flipped his sister over his shoulder like a fireman's drill and began making his way through the club. I followed through the crowd when suddenly a burst of warm air covered me, quickly accompanied by the feeling of electricity jumping over my skin, and a familiar scent. Jordan. She was there, I knew it.

Was she with Kael and Nev? Had she rejoined them? Or was she following them? Protecting them? Watching over them like I should be doing? Had Abraham lied about her whereabouts just to get me to join him?

I turned in a full circle, sure I would see her, but every face I scanned was a stranger, even with my Sight flying through every being in the building I couldn't find her. She was gone. I heard Ambriel's sickeningly sweet laugh drift through my mind then, from the real world, and silently cursed that she had found me unconscious, slumped at the mouth of an alley like a drunk.

I wanted to follow Kael and Nevaeh, wanted to see them safely home, to look outside and try and figure out where they were, why they were at this club, what they were working on, but I could feel the vision thinning and I didn't have the energy to fight the pull my conscious mind was attempting.

I opened my eyes to see Ambriel leaned over me, her face too close to mine, her smile too widely stretched. The whites of her eyes almost matched the rest of her face, her icy blue irises matching the thin blue veins I could see laced under her parchment skin. It took quick reflexes to not jerk away from her but instead slowly stand, stretching my neck woodenly. I felt my nothingness cover me a moment later, my mask returned, my control, and began walking back to the old house I had taken up residence in.