“Did you get the elephant tranquilizer?” Amara’s head had poked into Pax’s bedroom to ask this, but she saw that her friend was sprawled on the bed fast asleep. She also noticed that the dark-haired woman was heavily bruised and battered, and leaking blood all over the clean white sheets. Wow, she never stops. We’re back for one day, and she’s already seeking out more danger. Addict.
Amara saw a pile of boxes stacked in the corner of Pax’s room, and determined that her friend had, in fact, gotten the sedatives they would require. She should have known not to question that Pax would complete everything on her to-do list. Carefully closing the door, Amara strolled over to her bedroom. She stood for a moment, staring at the beautiful room with a contented exhale.
“My dear curtains! My beautiful furniture! My glorious brand-name clothes! My imported, designer lingerie!” Amara turned on her heels, worshipping every corner of her room. “My beloved orthopedic mattress! How I have missed your soft, spine-supporting comfort.”
This was a good day. Amara hastily changed into a maroon silk nightgown, just to feel the luxurious, feminine fabric against her body. She looked down at her fingernails which she had gotten freshly manicured that very day. She pulled a fancy hairbrush through her blonde hair. It seemed that she was reclaiming the sumptuous, satisfying lifestyle she preferred. Walking forward happily, she stared adoringly at her bed. She had been looking forward to this moment for years. She had dreamt of lying in her own enormous, ultra-comfortable bed again, with the lullaby of the ocean to soothe her.
She released a deeply exaggerated sigh as she lowered herself to ‘her side’ of the bed, generously fluffing up the pillow behind her head. It suddenly occurred to her than she no longer needed to leave room beside her, and she rebelliously placed her pillow in the center of the mattress. Stretching her arms out, and taking up as much space as possible, she giggled before tugging her duvet snugly right up under her chin. At the very least, the vector zone had given her the gift of making her appreciate what she had. She breathed deeply and tried to relax and let slumber take her.
But then her eyes shot open. She sniffed the air suspiciously, before pushing her face into the duvet covers and inhaling. Her eyes widened and she turned over and sniffed the pillow. Amara crawled up on all fours and began sniffing the bed frantically.
“I thought I laundered these sheets a few days before I left,” she murmured weakly. “So either my sense of smell has become much more acute than it was before or...” Amara sprung out of bed and grabbed a robe, tossing it quickly over her nightgown. She rushed down to her basement laboratory, punching in her secret code for entry. Flying directly to her computer, her newly manicured fingers flew over the keyboard, bringing up the surveillance footage of the past few days. What she saw made her recoil from the monitors in perplexed shock.
“Whoa. I don’t understand... what are you doing, Ash?” she asked the monitor blankly.
She frowned as she watched Asher peacefully sleeping in her bed. She fast-forwarded the videos to watch him tossing and turning for several hours. She looked at the timestamp and saw that he had done this on several different days. Amara paused the video and put a hand in her hair, staring at the frame on the monitor.
Her first instinct was to call Asher and yell at him. She wanted to ask him what the hell was wrong with him—why would he leave her, barely speak to her, and then sneak into her bed? She squinted at the screen in confusion. She knew that she shouldn’t initiate contact with the man—it would only end in more frustration.
Finally, Amara felt the corners of her lips twitch manically. She put her hands up in the air, in a gesture of surrender. “I’m not going to do anything about this,” she declared. “Para is going to take care of you for me. She needs to throw you off a cliff or something… into the mud.”
Amara reached out and touched the screen, tracing Asher’s face with a perfect fingernail. Her eyes shone with their evil intent. “Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to sneak into your ex-girlfriend’s house and sleep in her bed without permission? You naughty, naughty boy.”
* * *
“Hey, sleepyhead! Wake up!” Amara reached out to shake her friend’s limp and bloody body, but as soon as her hand connected with the girl’s shoulder, she could see that Pax was deep in a dream—or a memory. Closing her eyes, Amara placed a hand on Pax’s forehead. The images came swimming into her own mind. She saw Pax tending to her wounds with Sakra’s healing water after a training session with Vincent. She saw Pax yelling at the older man with shock and dismay as they engaged in a heated conversation. Amara frowned as she spied on the exchange between her best friend and her father:
“… And if I am killed, in a permanent and irreparable fashion, I expect you to fulfill my wish.”
“You’re not going to die!” Pax shouted, wiping blood off her face. “I don’t know how you can even say such a thing.”
“Hush, girl.” Vincent extended his hand to her, offering a bottle of beer. “It may or may not happen—we will soon see.”
“Who is this visitor from the future? I want to know. It could be any of us, right? It could be me, or Amara, or any other deva…”
“That is irrelevant. Do I have your word, girl?”
“Really, Vince? Of everything you could have asked me… that!”
“Yes. You’re strong; you might be stronger than Thorn and Ash. You might even be as strong as your father, but I can’t be sure unless I see your true power. I will soon. You are the only one who knows the teleportation technique, and thus you will be imperative to this battle. I need to test your skill. You will come back and practice with me at least once a day. Got it? I don't care what your other obligations are.”
She paused and stared at him before nodding. “Sure.”
“I will use this time to teach you everything I know in a heavily condensed fashion. You must pass it on to your children, and to Amara’s children, to any partial devas that might ever be born. This will be your responsibility, do you understand?”
Pax frowned and nodded again.
“It’s important that we plan carefully for the upcoming battles. We need to exercise caution. When a select few of us head off to destroy the comet, we will need to make sure that we leave several devas here on the planet to protect our families.” Vincent waved his hand over a few bottles of beer, instantly absorbing the liquid within them. “You will be crucial to our mobility, so you will not be allowed to fight. I want you to be in charge of the home front. You have already proven your merit, and I do not want females on the front lines. It’s too dangerous. Once you transport us to the necessary locations, I will require that you remain on Earth and stay safe.”
“That’s not fair!” Pax interrupted. “You can’t…”
“Now, Pax. Answer my previous question. Do you promise?”
Pax remained quiet, shaking her head in disbelief. Vincent had never asked anything of her before. He never requested anything from anyone, except in times of desperation—it seemed that this was quickly beginning a desperate time.
“I know it is a terrible thing to ask,” Vincent admitted. “It contradicts the advice I’ve given you in the past. I would not have asked this of you even a few days ago, but now...”
“You’re not asking,” Pax said angrily. “You’re not speaking to me as a mentor—let’s call this what it is. You’re commanding me to do this as the King of Devas. Am I right?”
“No. You will know when I give a command. This is just the dying wish of an old warrior.”
Pax bowed her head forward, feeling the world collapse around her. “Vince…” This day was probably ranking among the top ten worst days of her life—and there had been some pretty bad ones.
“Will you?” Vincent asked, clearing his throat. “Pax? I need an answer now. If I die, and you both survive this, will you marry my son and bear him strong children?”
“Fine,” Pax answered, “but only if I can fight on the front lines to make sure you don’t die.”
“It is my command that you remain on the home front…”
“Fuck your commands! I’m not just any other female or else you wouldn’t have chosen me as your potential daughter-in-law. And I’m not letting you die, because Amara will whine about it forever…”
“Damn right I will!” Amara shouted at her sleeping friend. Pax immediately woke up, and realized what Amara’s hand was doing on her forehead.
“Get out of my head.” There was murder in each emphatic syllable.
Amara immediately felt guilty. “But he’s my daddy...”
Pax’s marble frown softened. She took a deep breath to try to soothe her anger. “I didn’t mean to snap. I’m a bit tense right now because of the situation with Thorn and the comet. Look Mara, nothing is going to happen to Vincent. He’s just talking crazy.”
“He said something about a visitor from the future?” Amara asked nervously.
“Yeah. Apparently someone came back to warn about the comet, but I’m not sure who it is. You know what that means? It’s going to be really bad.”
“My dad really asked you to promise…”
“Relax, Mara.” Pax sat up, groaning at the pain in her entire body. She clutched her head. “Listen, when it comes down to zero hour, I’m going to be on the front lines. I promise you that I won’t let anything happen to your father. Not that he can’t take care of himself, but I will die before I let anyone hurt him. Besides, dying has got to be better than marrying your brother.”
“I’m sorry I woke you up,” Amara said softly. “You obviously have more important things on your mind than I do. I saw Ash doing something insane on the cameras, and I panicked and rushed to ask for your help in getting back at him—but here you are, trying to solve a global crisis in your REM stages. I’ll leave you alone.”
“No, it’s cool.” Pax rubbed her eyes. “What happened with Ash?”
“You have to see! Come down to the lab. You’re going to flip!”
Pax got out of bed groggily and stumbled forward. Her knees gave way a few times below her and buckled slightly as she placed her legs one foot before the other.
“What’s wrong with you?” asked Amara.
“Your dad beat me silly after the thing... the thing with Thorn,” Pax mumbled. “Worst day ever. I would have been fine if I could have slept for more than one hour. Just tell me what happened with Ash.”
“He was sleeping in my bed the whole time we were away!”
Pax remembered catching her uncle sleeping in Amara’s room before. She considered telling her friend this, but she had promised her uncle…
“Oh my god!” Amara shouted, reading her friend’s mind. “You knew!”
“He said he couldn’t sleep anywhere else. I felt so bad for him.” Pax yawned and returned to the bed where she had been lying a moment before. “I kinda understand him. You have really comfortable mattresses.”
Amara sputtered angrily. “Well, Ash should get his own damn orthopedic mattress!”
“It was a joke, you doofus. He loves you, and misses you. He wants to feel close to you.”
“Really?” Amara sat down abruptly on the side of the bed. “You think so?”
“Mmm,” Pax responded in sleepy confirmation. Her own mind was drifting back to Thornton, and she could taste the bittersweet kiss in the middle of her broken, burning coffee table.
Amara glanced at her half-unconscious friend in surprise. “Whoa. How do you get so much more action than me? I’m the pretty one.”