The door flew open, rebounding against the wall with a thump. Justin jumped to his feet as Blake burst into the room carrying a woman in his arms. He was soaked with rain as was she. Her long hair swept in circles as he carried her towards the sofa. Blood trickled from her head and leg, leaving a trail as Blake advanced. The sight caused some ancient power to stir in him. It squeezed the breath from his lungs and made his muscles ache and he moved across the room despite his hatred for humans.
His arms reached to take the girl from Blake, and his eyes settled on her face. It was her, the girl who had mesmerized him with her laugh. All at once, he had gone from counting the ceramic floor tiles, to staring down at Jess as he cradled her. His soul froze while his brain tried to make sense of the situation. His lips wouldn’t move, and his gaze shifted from her to Blake and back again. Her skin was so soft against his. It reminded him of the fragility of the human body. Odd. He wasn’t sure how this mental nod to mankind made him feel anymore.
“What happened?” Justin looked to Blake again. Justin scanned his brother’s mind for answers, but saw nothing. Blake had locked him out. Fury rose like a hungry tiger clawing at his brain. “Blake!”
“Bro, she was attacked in the Quarter. I saw the whole thing.” Blake’s words came in gasps, as though the weight of her or the sprint to the apartment had winded him. “I heard her scream, and there was this dude on a motorcycle. Man, she hit her head. Maybe, I should take her to the…”
Justin frowned and waited for Blake to calm down. He knew if his brother focused on the girl, the truth of her identity would sink into his clouded memory. “No, we got this, really. Did you see him? The guy on the motorcycle. Did you recognize him?”
“I think it was Dawson. He had on a helmet. Justin, I thought he had killed her.”
“If Dawson wanted to kill her, she’d be dead.” Justin touched his fingers to the gash on Jess’s forehead. She flinched and his spirit shifted once more, causing a stab of pain in the center of his chest.
“I didn’t know if I should, you know. I just didn’t know what to do.” Blake was still breathing hard, and Justin smiled. Things still shocked Blake, and he loved that about him. His brother still found humans mystical, and still questioned his own place in the universe. It was an attractive quality; one Justin lacked.
“It’s fine. She’s okay now. Where was she?”
“Side street, no tourists, pretty stupid.”
“Aren’t they all? Delicate little lives, yet stupidity abounds.” Justin delivered the words that were expected, but he felt protective of her. It wouldn’t stop him from impressing upon her how reckless she had been.
Jess repositioned pain contorting her face. Her slight features became hard under the fire of her injuries. Justin reached up and stroked her face again, and then her knee. She relaxed and closed her eyes.
An entire hour passed before he saw her move again. Justin waited, motionless, propped on his elbows at the kitchen counter. She sat up, a sleepy confusion filling her eyes. He eased himself down next to her reaching for her head again. Fury ignited in her eyes, and he prepared himself for a fight.
“Where am I?” She squinted against the light streaming in through the heavy drapes. It was only a street lamp, but she shielded her face from it and grimaced in pain.
“My apartment. How’s your head?” Justin rose and drew the drapes together.
“How’d I get here? Who? My head. I hit my head.” She wasn’t talking to him, but to herself rather, running her fingers across the uneven flesh on her forehead.
“Yeah, someone was after you. Blake yelled at the guy, and he dropped you.” Justin struggled to conceal his concern. His true thoughts would alarm her. For that matter, they alarmed him.
Jess pushed herself up on her arms, her eyes clearer now. “Yeah, I remember. He came after me on a motorcycle. I was trying to run, but he grabbed me…my legs.” She reached down and touched the bloody road rash on her right leg. “Dang it, I don’t remember after that.”
“There’s a huge criminal population in this city, in case you didn’t know. Are you hurting?” Justin might not like humans, but seeing this one in pain was more than he could take, even if it was because of a stupid decision on her part.
“Yeah, I am, but I think it’s getting better.” He observed her anxiety as she looked around the room, as though the walls may swallow her and wondered how she had the courage to walk alone in the Quarter, but his apartment made her squirm.
He brushed her head delicately with the tips of his fingers, waiting for her twisted expression to relax. When it did, he handed her two Tylenol. “Take this, and go back to sleep.”
She snatched the bottle of water and pills from his hand. “I need to go home.” She started to shuffle from the couch, but Justin pulled her back to him. He could smell the asphalt imbedded in her wounds, but beneath that he could detect the sacrifice and shame she’d endured; there was the smallest hint of grief, in her essence. The girl had suffered something more than her current injuries.
“Go to sleep. I’ll take you home when I know you’re okay.”
She smiled, and Justin’s tough exterior softened, as he watched her drift off to sleep. He wouldn’t admit it to Blake, but he liked to look at her, to watch her safely locked in slumber. He wanted to feel the familiar indifference he felt around humans, but what stirred in him was a desire to curl up next to her and wake when she did. Justin didn’t need to sleep, though. In fact, he couldn’t if he tried. So, he fell back into the leather cushion and waited.
Jess was the kind of pretty that attracted trouble, and the way she tapped her foot anxiously in his presence indicated she had no clue. He watched her lips quiver as tiny breaths exited her mouth. He wanted to take her home and forget she existed, to file her in the same place he filed the rest of the vile individuals sharing her world. He had difficulty measuring her grace against their stupidity. She needed protection from things she had yet to see, and he had waited centuries to defend her.
When her eyes opened once more it was morning, and he watched with great interest as she pressed her feet to the cold, tile floor. When he had given her ample time to adjust, he joined her on the sofa.
“How’s the head?” He looked away, but watched her from the corner of his eyes. He knew the effect the sideway glance would have on her and took more pleasure in the power to charm her than he should.
“Eh, less like I was hit by an eighteen-wheeler and more like it may have been a Mini Cooper.” She beamed at him and his heart reacted.
“Do you feel up for a walk? I’m about to go stir crazy in this apartment.” Justin stood over her coaxing her from the couch.
“Okay, but walk slow. My knees are killing me.”
He wondered if the pain would teach her a lesson, as she made an effort to get off the sofa. “Alright come on. We can go to Jackson Square and see what kind of freaks are hanging around the cathedral.”
She shrugged, allowing him to pull her to her feet. Justin did modify his strides to match hers. She was limping, and he felt a twinge of sympathy. Her jeans were torn, exposing the wounded flesh. If he allowed his attention to linger on her leg, he feared he’d use his powers to fix her, even though he’d have to suffer her reaction.
“I refuse to call you Lucky after the stunt you pulled last night.” He didn’t bother to look at her. He could feel the steam rising from her pores, and her temper amused him.
“Stunt? I didn’t do it on purpose. I mean, I didn’t do this to myself.”
“Yeah, and here I was so sure you didn’t need to be told walking through the Quarter alone is stupid.” He kept his voice even, unchanged by the sharpness of the jab at her intelligence.
“I know. It wasn’t my smartest moment. Don’t rub it in. I just made a mistake. It was foolish.”
“That’s an understatement.” Justin forced his face to remain expressionless. If he had any talent worth bragging about, it was the ability to prevent a human from reading him. This one gift had kept him occupied for hours at the poker table.
“You are such a jerk.” Jess, however, didn’t possess the ability to hide her contempt as it wrinkled her forehead. Her simplicity made her company more enjoyable. She was one of few humans he knew, who didn’t hide their true feelings.
He decided to give her a break. She was still wincing with every step and deep inside he wanted to take that pain from her. “So what made you leave Baton Rouge, Jess?”
“Do we have to get personal now?” Her eyes rolled in their sockets as she quickened her pace. Justin wondered if she honestly thought she could lose him with a gimp leg.
“Well, generally, people don’t leave all they know behind unless there’s a reason. What was yours? Just curious.” He lifted his hands exposing the flats of his palms, hoping she knew he didn’t want to hurt her figuratively or literally.
Every time she spoke she glanced down at her feet and then rubbed her cheek with the back of her hand, as though she were struggling to hold a conversation with him, and Justin wished she would relax.
“My mom died.” Her words ended abruptly, and he knew she didn’t want to discuss it further.
“And?” He didn’t tone down the sarcasm in his response, because it was a thrill to see the embers light behind her dark eyes.
She glared at him, attempting to push him away with her eyes. He supposed if she could raise a barrier between them she would have been content to drag it along. When he continued to watch her face in anticipation, she sighed and proceeded. “She was um, my best friend. It was horrible. I mean, what they did to her…the treatments. She had breast cancer, and it took everything from me. You know?”
Justin shook his head. No, he didn’t know. He had never been separated, save once, from someone he couldn’t live without, and he wouldn’t do her the disservice of pretending he could relate.
“Well anyway, my brother, Jordan, didn’t want me to stay. He didn’t want me to sink into a hole of self-pity. I guess he thought starting over would keep me from falling apart. So, here I am.”
“And you had the money to do that?” Justin was playing with a rock, flipping it over in his hand his eyes focused intently on its smooth surfaces.
“You listen to me say that I couldn’t live at home, because my mother died, and you wonder how I could afford to leave?” The sardonic look on her face made him feel somewhat inept. Maybe she’d already decided he didn’t measure up, but it was hard to demonstrate the empathy she wanted, and he failed to see how the practical question confused her. She shared a similar range of emotions as her fellow humans, and if she needed him to understand, she would be disappointed.
“My parents owned their own construction company, and my dad passed a few years ago. Mom took over after he was gone and then she sold it for a ton of money. Jordan and I got the money when she died.” Her eyelashes fell against her cheek, as she studied her hands in her lap. He had the ability to delve into her brain, but he didn’t need to because, at the moment, her mind screamed for him to hear her thoughts. Before, she had imprisoned her ideas and beliefs, as though she knew he could see them, but now he could hear them, loud and clear, and she was thinking money was an unjust way to gauge a person’s value.
He saw her planning an escape as they were closing on the cathedral and hoped she wouldn’t leave.
Justin stopped in front of the building, admiring the lines of it and the spirituality that moved away then back into it from seemingly nowhere. The sun hid behind a cluster of clouds, and the shadows of the alleys were filled with noises.
The draw of the cathedral entranced him, caught him up in the majesty of the ancient place of worship. Slowly, he climbed the steps, touching the columns as he reached them. He could feel the tiniest vibration beneath their structure, and it calmed him. The sound of bagpipes rose in the distance, but he didn’t look to find the origin. Instead, he moved to the doors where he planted his hands on the wooden surface, searching for the heartbeat he sometimes felt there. The moments near this House of God were intimate and personal, and before this time, he had never shared them with anyone.
When he felt entirely draped in the peace he had been longing for, he sat next to her on the cement steps. Justin scuffed his boot along the concrete as he stared at the small lines etched along her temples. He wondered if they were the scars of grief. “Your mom is okay. I mean she’s happy. Isn’t that enough?”
Her eyes widened, drilling disbelief through him. She glared at him silently with her head cocked to one side and her jaw slack. And then, “Excuse me?”
Justin felt heat move from his brow, down his cheeks, and reach his neck taking with it any ideas he had of comprehending the brunette’s thoughts. He pulled his gaze from her and focused on the pesky mime across the street who delivered a spot-on imitation of a kid on a skateboard. The teenager popped from his board and stood nose to nose with the character. Even the humor of this incident couldn’t fill the void left by scorn on her face. He chewed on his thumb wishing he hadn’t spoken at all. “I just thought…”
“You just thought? You don’t know me. You didn’t know her either.” She was standing in front of him her eyes narrow slits of disdain.
He’d seen this look before from mothers who were scolding their children, but he didn’t know what she wanted from him. Her hands moved to her hips, then down her legs and back again, as though she struggled to stay up right while gravity multiplied only in the space she occupied. For the first time he could remember, he wished he was a different being.
Her eyes darted from him to a couple standing on the street nearby. He knew them and what they were. For a moment, it seemed to him as if she could actually see them. Then she moved again. No, he must have imagined her reaction. She'd merely looked in their direction by chance.
Her obvious distrust sparked a tiny inferno of hatred in her eyes. She seemed unable to keep focused on anything, until she found a spot on the asphalt where she directed her glare. The corners of her button nose turned up just enough to make him feel like a thoughtless brute. He wanted to take his words back, because he’d seen into her mind again, and he didn’t want her to be repulsed by him.
“I’m going home,” she said.
“Let me take you.” Justin moved towards her, ignoring her irritation.
“I’ll be fine. It’s not that far.” The pain in her knee must have surged in those seconds, because she reached for it while turning away.
Jess had turned her back on him, but he lifted his hands forming quasi-claws and shook them at her. Could she be this dense? He knew she ignored the significance of his warnings, but her intentional efforts to disregard his counsel made him consider abandoning her for simpler responsibilities. “Jess, not everyone cares about you. Just stop, please. I want to see that you get home intact.”
“Back off, Justin.” She spun around, her voice suddenly potent and full of spite. She moved towards him, as she spoke, endeavoring to shove him away. He didn’t give and fury reddened her cheeks, but there was something else. Was she impressed at the hardness of his body? The perplexity which flashed in her eyes made her the most enthralling creature Justin had ever seen.
He laughed at this and complied with her request in his own fashion, dropping a few paces behind but keeping his gaze glued on her as she limped several yards in front of him. The limp should have made her seem awkward, but she carried herself proudly and with grace that mesmerized him. Perhaps, she didn't want him anywhere near her, but he followed dutifully until he saw her go into her apartment and slam the door.