Defiance, page 19
"Yep," was Bish's clipped answer.
He looked at the other council members and they nodded. "Then I say everything is settled. Meeting adjourned." He closed the big, red leather book with a loud bang that reminded me of a gavel and made his way down from the table.
"That's it?" Dad said. "They make such a fuss and then cave just like that?"
"Dad," I replied in unbelief. "Take a victory where it comes, ok?"
"Whatever, I'm just saying." He put his hands in his pockets. He looked very uncomfortable. "What the heck am I supposed to do here while y'all rule the world, huh?" He scrunched his brow. "I feel like I crashed a wedding."
I laughed and suggested, "You can be happy that you're alive."
"Ok," he said and softened a little. "Ok, you're right."
Music started behind us. I looked over to see the invisible band had been started up. Dad's eyes watched the instruments play themselves with fear and fascination. People started to dance to relieve the tension in the room. It was a folk dance where they dance with a group in a circle.
It looked pretty easy to follow. Everyone just followed the person next to them.
"You want to dance, Jenna?"
I squeezed my eyes before turning to make sure that Jonathan was still alive. He was quite alive and his hand was open, willing Jen to accept his invitation. Bish looked away and put his hands on his head. My heart ached for him. I had to figure a way to stop this thing between them or make them see that it wasn't worth it to live in worry. I'd work my fingers to the bone to try to stop that vision.
"Come on, Bish," I said and gripped his arm, my fingers not even meeting each other all the way around. "Dance with me?"
"I feel sick," he said in a groan of agony. I watched as Jen turned a guilty expression to Bish's back before taking Jonathan's arm and letting him lead her. When she touched him, he half expected them to imprint and was disappointed. He thought he felt a real connection with her, but it was nothing compared to Bish and Jen's. I turned back to Bish as he spoke. "It felt so good to see her again, like my body just…was whole or something. But now…. I just hurt."
"I know, and I'm sorry. I wish there was something I could do," I said and he gave me an odd look.
"You know something. What do you know?"
Bish was oddly open and raw. He was never this way and I hated to refuse him when he was so willing to that way. "I think you're both in withdrawal…for each other. The imprint that would happen if you touched wants you two to be together. You haven't been able to stop thinking about her, right? But it's different. It's like you have no control over it."
"Yes," he sighed. "It's like she's…in my head, in my skin. I can't do anything anymore without having her there with me. Sometimes it feels like she's right there. And when I saw her in your room, it took every ounce of my control not to grab her to me." He grimaced. "I hate this, Maggie."
"No, you don't," I said.
"Yes, I do. If my wanting her hurts her that much, if she wants nothing to do with me and is so upset at the thought of being with me, then maybe I should go."
"She wants you, Bish, but she's scared."
"I didn't mean to scare her," he answered and glanced over at her. When he saw her he looked away like it was painful.
"No, she's scared of the consequences. She thinks about you all the time. I know," I told him and gave him a look. "I'm in her head. I'm in everyone's head. She hurts, too. Her body feels strange, too, when she thinks about you. She's only doing what she thinks is right. And don't say it," I stopped his thought, or his pity party. "She's yours, right?"
"Gah, yes," he groaned.
"Then fight for her. Show her that it's worth it to leap."
He sighed and his mind seemed to clear some. He stood straighter. "Ok." He nodded. "I know that she's worried about Maria. About her being left alone, but I have complete faith in you." He looked at me and slung his am over my shoulder as we walked out into the hall. "You've changed. You've changed so much in such a short time. From what I've seen, I'm not sure there's much that you can't do."
I bit my lip hard. "Thanks." I saw Marcus strolling leisurely down the hall and I knew an altercation was coming. Marcus would not be able to shut his mouth. "And Caleb…" Bish said and made an annoyed noise, "he let that guy get away with all the crap he did to you."
"Well, Caleb tried to choke him when we got here, but everyone stopped him. They are really strict on the rules, especially if others can see you."
"Huh," he said and smiled. "Well, no one's around right now." He turned, just as Marcus started to spout off something smart, and clocked him right in the mouth. He shook his fist as I gawked at his quick thinking move.
He shrugged. "What? I guess I haven't changed that much."
I laughed into my fist and accepted his arm as we started back down the hall. Maria ran out to meet us, though. "Where are you…going?" She stopped when she saw Marcus on the ground, out cold. Then she shook her head and carried on. "I wanted to dance with you!"
"With me?" I asked.
"No, silly. You," she said to Bish and held her hand out with childlike assurance. "All the other boys are taken. Please?"
He flashed her a prince charming smile and bowed as he took her hand. "Alright, we'll dance, but you have to teach me how."
"Sure!" They stepped over Marcus to go back onto the ball room. I went around him and we left him to 'slumber' while we went back inside. It wasn't as intimate dance, like I said, it was a circle so you only touched the person's arm next to you.
Rachel and Peter were next to Gran and Caleb, who'd been obviously pulled out by her given by his playful scowl. I watched them for a while. Bish was being a seriously sweet guy, letting Maria teach him how to do the moves and laugh with her. I caught Jen looking at them several times with a blindsided look. She didn't want to think about possibilities or consequences, so she just looked blankly.
Eventually, someone came up and tapped my shoulder gently. I turned to see the Watson who had been appointed the new council member.
"Haddock, right?" I asked.
"That's right," his deep, rich voice said. "And you're Maggie," he said knowingly.
"Yep. And thank you for not calling me Visionary."
He nodded once at that. "Care to take a spin with me?"
"Sure," I said. I decided I needed to look diplomatic, so I let him. He wasn't wearing gloves, which I'd notice that most of the Watsons were wearing them, and he must have my blood as well, because I was completely blind to his mind.
We latched onto a circle. I wasn’t sure which way to go and fumbled my steps a bit. "Just follow me, Maggie," he said and I felt a strange calm, like I could trust him not to lead me astray. So I let him lead me and soon, I was stepping with the rest of them. And it was so much fun.
Laughter could be heard all around and when the music finally stopped, I was a little winded. Haddock smiled at me in a strange way, but not creepy. "Thanks for that," I told him.
"It really was my pleasure," he said and bowed. "I look forward to many more in the years to come."
"Sure," I replied and smiled.
Something struck me as very weird with him. I turned to find Caleb and almost ran into Marla and a man. She was smiling and looking very proud of herself. The man, who wasn't a Watson, but I couldn't hear his thoughts either, just stared at me.
"What?" I barked, done with even pretending to be nice to her.
"I have someone I want you to meet, but first. I'd like to take this somewhere private."
"I’m not going anywhere with you," I said.
"Bring your precious Caleb, I don't care, but you need to hear what we have to say." She gripped the older man's arm, indicating that he was important. I weighed my options.
"Ok, fine. Let's go to the roof."
"Perfect!" she purred and smiled. "We'll meet you there, while you grab your boy toy."
I rolled my eyes at her and went to find Caleb. I found him with a young girl, one of Paulo's clan members I believed, and she was obviously half in love already.
I giggled to myself as I sidled up to Caleb. "Hey."
"Hey, babe," he said roughly and made a noise in his throat. "This is, uh..."
"Jacquelyn," the girl said, hurt that he'd forgotten her name so quickly.
"Yes, Jacquelyn, sorry. She's Paulo's daughter." Aha. "Jacquelyn, this is my fiancé, Maggie, the Visionary."
"Hi," the girl said softly. "I was just asking Caleb what had changed since the last time we were here together." She smiled at him and her eyelashes seemed to bat themselves.
"Oh?" I asked and felt Caleb tense beside me. "How old are you, Jacquelyn?"
"I'm nineteen, though I know I don't look it." She smiled again. "Anyway, so the last reunification, Caleb showed me the roof. It was so…dreamy up there at night."
Ok, so I wasn't giggling inside anymore. "Oh?" I repeated. So he'd shown another the girl the roof. Our roof that had been so romantic. So what, right? So what if I wanted to jab a cocktail shrimp down her throat? I cleared my own throat to keep from saying the words out loud.
Babe, it's not like that. She was crying, she was sad about something. I never even really got it out of her what she was crying about. It was last year. I took her to the roof to get some air. We did not go to the greenhouse. Do you hear me? That's yours and mine.
I shook my head a 'no'. It's fine. I'm not upset. It's just so weird to hear other girls talk about you, that's all. I rubbed my chest. My imprint isn't too happy with you taking other girls to the roof.
I promise you it wasn't like that.
I know that. I looked back to Jacquelyn, who was eying us with disgust as she realized we were speaking without her involved. She was remembering the night she tricked Caleb into taking her on the roof. She had been fake crying in the hall and said she needed some air when he stopped to see what was wrong. Naturally, he took her to the only place with air, the roof. She tried to touch him several times, but he eventually just scooted on out of there and left her to her air.
She was trying to make me jealous with her insinuations, but why?
"Ok, well it was nice to meet you," I said and took Caleb's hand. "Marla's waiting for us. She has something she wants us to know so we'd better go."
She looked longingly at Caleb. "You know I always thought you and I would imprint. It was like…I don't know, a feeling. I was so sure of it. So when I heard about you two, naturally, I was…upset."
"I'm sorry," Caleb told her.
"Maybe if you'd just given me a real chance instead of always being a good little boy, I could have been the one-" she started.
"Nope, I'm going to stop you right there," Caleb said and pulled me to him. He spoke gently, but firmly. "Everything is happening for a reason. It may not seem like it at first, but all this was supposed to happen. I'm sorry, I hope you find your significant one day, but I won't listen to you wish away the fact that I found mine."
She shrugged and turned away. I was kind of speechless about the whole thing. I figured I'd run across some girls who had their eye on Caleb, especially after all those stories about him running from the girls, but to actually meet one and hear her still be so bitter about it, was shocking. I would hope his people would be happy for him.
"Let's just…forget this whole conversation," Caleb suggested, with puppy dog eyes to boot.
I laughed sadly and leaned my head back. "Oh, gosh, that's such a good idea." I looked back up and blew a breath from my lips. "Alright, come on. Let's see what the witch wants."
The cool air felt like absolute heaven on my face as Caleb opened the door to the roof. I was ready for a few minutes of just rest and normalcy, but it looked like that would have to wait.
"Ok, what, Marla?" I said as soon as the door closed behind us.
"I'll get straight to the introductions," she said and smiled at the man. "Maggie, meet your father."
Twenty
"I'm sorry, what?" I croaked and looked at the man who looked as foreign to me as any stranger.
"I said this is your father."
"How do you know that my father isn't my father and this man is actually my father," I said and it made sense in my head, but came out weird. She must have gotten the gist because she smirked and went on.
"Because we made it our job to find out these things." She started to pace along the bricks, her fingers glancing along the surface of the short stone wall. "You see, when we used your blood we found out that it was Ace blood." She waited for the shock to set it, and it did. What… "So we set out to find what had happened and why you had mixed blood. We knew it had to be because an Ace had slept with you mother, a human," she shivered and made a small gagging noise, "and so we just started searching. We've been searching ever since Sikes had you in the compound. This is David of the Reinhardt clan of Tennessee. And he is your father."
Caleb leaned against me, or maybe I was falling onto him. "Show me the proof?"
"Tell her," Marla barked at him. He flinched and looked at me.
"I had an affair at your house with your mother while your dad was at work. I knew she got pregnant, so I called off the affair."
"You knew she was pregnant?" I asked and it hit me just then that I hadn't been able to read any of his thoughts. "Wait a minute. Why can't I hear your thoughts? You took her blood?" I accused and he stepped away a little.
"No," Marla answered for him. "You can't hear his thoughts because he made you. You have his blood running through your veins and you can't use your ability on yourself. It makes sense that you wouldn't be able to read him."
"But I could read my mother's thoughts."
"But she wasn't an Ace," she dragged out. Ok, that made sense and it pissed me off. My hands were shaking as I looked at that man. That man couldn't be my father. He was rail thin, scraggily brown hair on top of his egg shaped head with a pointy chin. He was weak and looked nothing like me as he cowered near Marla.
"I can't believe this," I said. "I just can't. Why would you tell me this now?"
"Well, I hadn't planned on telling you at all, but you brought Daddy dearest here, and the possibility of drama and the heartache I could cause was too much to pass up." I just stared at her with a hatred that I didn't know I was capable of. "Ask him something," Marla sang. "He'll make you believe it because it's true."
I thought about the vision I'd had of my mother and him. "Tell me what you used to say to my mom, when you'd…leave her," I said the words around my gag.
He sighed and his lips thinned. "I'd say, same time tomorrow."
That was it for me. I turned into Caleb with angry tears stinging my eyes. He held me and I could feel the heat from his glare over my shoulder at the one who made me cry.
His voice was harsh. "You're a real piece of work, you know that?"
"I'm here now, though," my father was saying with little conviction. No, scratch that, double scratch that. I was not going to call him my father. My father was downstairs. This douche bag was just a sperm donor. Caleb choked on his laughter at my thought as I turned to look at David, the sperm donor.
"I have a father."
"I just…feel bad." He reached out to give me an awkward sideways hug, and I didn't pull back. He had gloves on, but a little piece of skin from his glove to his sleeve was exposed and it touched mine. I jerked back with a hiss. Not from a vision…but an offense mark. I gasped at the horror of my father wanting to cause me harm, but it all blew up from there when Caleb reared back and punched the sperm donor's jaw so hard that I heard the crack as he fell back against the stone.
Twice in the same hour, two of the men in my life had knocked the lights out of two scumbags who had done me wrong.
"Are you crazy?" Marla shrieked at him.
"Nope," Caleb said and looked down at the man who groaned and held his battered face. "You want another one of those? You come and mess with my girl again."
Then he took my hand and led me into the stairwell.
I was reeling. I was proud and frightened and pissed and fragile all at once. I felt like I was about to overload again. Caleb stopped midway down the stairs and looked at me. He took my arm in his hand and did a half growl half sigh at the offense mark sitting there. His touch began to take the dark mark away and soon it was just a bad memory.
"Just…" he started, "I know that this is crazy, I mean the implications of what they said alone…"
"I know." I shook my head. "They're saying I was an Ace before I met you."
It was his turn to shake his head. "I've never heard of an Ace and a human having kids. I… We need to tell Dad and Gran and see what they think."
