Deadly Expectations (49 page)

“Okay,” Paul said sheepishly.
 
“Anna, may I?”

“Yes Paul.”
 
I said looking up at him, watching his face as he put his hand back up and started again.
 
It felt much different.
 
Wonderful in fact.
 
Well, better than that even.
 
More like something I would feel in my bed with Paul but extremely focused in my chest.
 
I took a quick couple of gasps of air.

“Jesus Paul,” I whispered.
 
“Make it quick or I’m going to need a smoke.”

“Awkward,” Denis muttered but Paul ignored me.

I turned my head away from them and tried to think about something else but it wasn’t working.
 
My cheeks were hot with embarrassment, breathing deepening.
 
It had all happened in the space of a couple of seconds.
 
I could feel exactly where he was focusing in me.
 
It was like every night we had spent together getting rolled into one.

“Anna, compose
yourself
,” Bee hissed at me.

“You go compose yourself,” I growled at her and I put my hands behind my back.
 
My right hand went around the fingers of my left and I started to squeeze as I tried to distract myself from the intense pleasure with discomfort.

The pleasure started to decrease as I squeezed my fingers even harder.
 
I closed my eyes and relaxed my breathing trying to keep strength in my right hand.

“It’s my daughter’s,” Paul said quietly.
 
His voice sounded further and further away.
 
“She was protecting it … it stays so close to hers.”

Bee said something.
 
I wasn’t really listening.
 
The pleasure in my chest was building again so I put more force into my grip and something popped in my left hand cancelling it out.

“Hers …” Paul said.
 
“Isn’t all hers, is it?”

Bee didn’t say anything.

“It’s like there’s something stuck to it … through it.
 
Making it stronger than it would be on its own.”

I risked opening my eyes and looked up at him.
 
His brow was knotted together, little beads of sweat on it from the effort of what he was doing.
 
His mouth opened a bit; quickly a couple of times like he was trying to say something he didn’t know the words for.
 
The pleasure in my chest grew again and I reacted by tightening my grip on my fingers even more.
 
Another small pop, something shifted in my hand and the pleasure subsided again.

Then suddenly the pleasure disappeared replaced by a huge feeling of more invasive pressure.
 
He was doing something in there he shouldn’t.
 
He would damage me … take something if he kept it up.
 
I released my hand and brought my right around to block him with my palm like before.
 
The pain in my left hand now that the pleasure in my chest was gone startled me and I felt real power surge in my right as I thrust it at his chest, not his palm.

He reacted instinctively like a soldier to a suddenly drawn weapon, grabbing my wrist with his left hand and holding it out and away from us.
 
I heard growling and then cold air flowed in over my teeth when it paused.
 
Paul looked at me, flinching at the look on my face and then to Bee.
 
He didn’t know what to do.

“You’re not taking it,” I whispered through my teeth.

“Sshhh,” Paul whispered in my ear.
 
“Sshhh …”

After a moment the growling stopped and I turned my attention to the soft humming and snapping I felt in my hand.
 
Other than Paul and
I
breathing hard it was the only thing that seemed to be moving in the room.
 
I couldn’t see my palm but I could make out a soft blue glow between my fingers and the odd blue arc of light circled from my palm around my hand before it re-entered through the back of my hand.

“Anna,” Bee said loudly.
 
“Do you have control of yourself?”

I nodded.
 
I hoped I did anyway.
 
What I had done when Paul first started was weak, like brushing dust off.
 
This was an attack.

“Don’t move yet Anna … Paul step away.”

He looked at me then cautiously let go before going to stand near Bee.

“Anna … you need to take that back.
 
You can’t let it loose at anyone.
 
I want you to imagine your other hand opening up … like an eye.”

I closed my eyes and pictured it. I could actually feel it, like my palm was gone and there was a tunnel running into my arm.
 
It hurt … my twisted fingers were still behind my back.
 
I nodded.

“Now put your hands together and let it flow back in to you.”

I did as she said.
 
It felt odd … the blue arcs that had been circling my right hand now entered my left, pulsing for a minute until they faded and stopped.

“Anna … your hand,” Paul said.

I looked at it, palm up, two fingers were bent in the wrong places and starting to swell.
 
The whole thing hurt.

“Composing myself,” I said.
 
“It didn’t hurt at the time.
 
It helped to distract me from feeling what you were doing to me.”

Ray got up to look.
 
He cautiously stayed away from my right.

“You dislocated two fingers,” he said.
 
“Denis, can you run upstairs and get an ice pack from the bag in my room please?”

Then he looked at Paul and nodded.
 
I thought he was letting Paul know it wasn’t too bad and Paul came over and put his arms around me.
 
Ray was still examining my hand.

“I’m sorry,” he said.
 
“I had no idea that you would feel anything.
 
Was it that bad?”

“No Paul,” I whispered.
 
“It was that good.”

“Really?”
 
He had put his lips near my ear and was brushing them over my skin.
 
“I never made you do that before.”

“Paul …” I swallowed, starting to feel like I would need distraction again.
 
“Not in front of—Ray!”

There were two quick painful snaps as he fixed the dislocated joints.

“Sorry Kiddo … it’s easier if you don’t know it’s coming,” he paused, looking at Paul.
 
I understood why he did it that way but I was still glaring at him.
 
“You’re not going to hit me for that, are you?
 
Someone hit me once when I set their broken finger.”

“Ray … that was ten years ago,” Paul said.
 
“And I said I was sorry.”

Ray harrumphed.
 
Denis had already crushed the little plastic pouch in the ice pack so Ray put it on the back of my hand.
 
It was cold and it seemed to help with the pain.
 
I took a seat next to Paul at the table and waited for Bee to either say something or stop staring at me like I’d turned orange.
 
She did
neither so I closed my eyes and
rested my head on Paul’s shoulder.

“What just happened?” she finally asked.

“I—,” Paul and I answered at the same time before we stopped.

“Anna … what was Paul trying to take?” she tried again.

“I don’t know,” I told her.
 
“I think whatever he found stuck to my line.”

“Mmm,” she thought.
 
“Is that true Paul?”

“Yes Bee,” he said.
 
It sounded like he felt terrible for doing it.

“I’m not sure whose behaviour I’m more puzzled by,” she said.
 
“Anna, you have part of a man’s line reinforcing yours and you tried to attack your mate.
 
Paul, I’m disappointed that you would try and take it from her particularly after she gently blocked you once and I told you to just look.”

“Yes Bee,” he said again.

“Where do you think you got it from?” she asked me.

I knew but I had no idea how.
 
Paul had never asked me what had happened with the man on the hill and I hadn’t volunteered it.
 
He didn’t like Andre much.

“The man on the hill,” I said quietly.
 
“I cut his line from him when I killed him.
 
My hand was on his back when he died … making sure.
 
I couldn’t reach to search him properly when I was standing on his head.”

“That’s hardcore Anna,” Denis said.
 
He sounded impressed but Ray elbowed him.

I shrugged.
 
Hadn’t really given it any thought.

“Pilot told me I’d cut it loose … maybe part of it stuck to me.”

“Can you read it?
 
Does it match his?” she asked.

I sighed and closed my eyes.
 
First I remembered the man from when I tracked him as he ran along the slope and stored it under my nose.
 
Then I put my fingertips on my chest to read the spot in me that Paul read and put that under my nose too.
 
I took a deep breath to clear my mind and began to look for anything similar.
 
Nothing, so I shook my head slowly trying to move my samples around and tried again.
 
Still nothing.
 
I continued to check until I started sneezing.

“Excuse me,” I said as I put my elbow over my nose as I sneezed a few more times.
 
“Nothing similar at all.”

Bee nodded.
 
“I didn’t think you would find anything.
 
We travel along our lines … you have the end he hadn’t used yet.
 
Untouched.
 
That is what I meant when I said your line was tangled with another.
 
It got tangled with yours when it was free of him … before it could drift away.
 
Your line loops too.
 
The four of you have looped now.
 
Your lines exist elsewhere now and into the future but Anna has looped them back here … moved them … and you have travelled along them to this place.”

“Time and place,” I said quietly.
 
Then I understood.
 
“The three men … that’s why I knew where they would be and what they would be thinking when they got there.
 
Somehow I knew where their lines would be.
 
It’s how I knew the first one was moving for a better shot.
 
That he was hoping to get me first while I was still in the open before he finished Paul off.
 
I knew when the other two would be at the pond and what they would do after they got there.
 
You were right Paul … your father would be able to explain what happened to me.

“What about the blue light in my hand?” I asked her.

“We all have it.
 
Inside us,” Bee said.
 
“Pilot could sometimes control his in such a way.
 
You use it to travel also … you drain it.
 
It needs to recharge.
 
You must never use it on anyone like us unless you are completely focused on the outcome.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose …” I told her.
 
Paul tightened his arm around me.
 
He knew I didn’t.
 
If his reactions weren’t so fast I would have hit him with it.