Swerve (17 page)

Romia was unable to sleep. Weeks had passed and things seemed to be headed nowhere. Aside from Maxwell's secretiveness and meetings in town, she wasn't sure at all what was going on. She felt like a member of a ring of thieves the way they all seemed to be just waiting around for the next victim. The only difference was their abilities. These people were not mere thieves; they were more than that. What they knew how to do could be very valuable in the right—or wrong—hands. Just then her door opened; it was Royale.

“I had locked the door.”

“Locks mean very little to me,” he chuckled. Moving close to the bed, he sat on it. She sat up, noticing his troubled face through the light coming in through the window.

“We are going to move soon. I can tell. Maxwell has had too many meetings in town and we are going to be moving soon.”

“What is it you do when you move?” she asked.

He looked at her. “We go to work,” he said.

“Work?”

He looked around as if knowing the walls had ears.

“You're okay with just doing as you are told, yes?” he asked.

“Well, do I have a choice?” she asked.

“You always have choices. Our parents had choices, we have choices.”

“What do you know about your parents?” she asked him.

“I know my mother was a witch. At least, that's what the nuns say.”

“That's awful for them to say that.”

“No, I mean, what kind of mother carves her child with a knife days after he's born and—”

“She what?”

Clicking on the small lamp beside the bed, Royale propped his leg up on the dresser and raised his pant leg. Around his ankle was an ugly keloid. “See.”

“I'm sorry,” Romia sympathized. “Maybe she wanted to…” Romia thought about the implications of such an act by a mother. She knew her mother had put a small tattoo on her ankle but that was to always know her, or so she said. It was nothing so disfiguring as what was on Royale's ankle. Although it was a huge scar, it was ugly and oddly shaped. Using her imagination, she would say it was shaped somewhat like her tattoo, only raised above the skin as keloids commonly are.

“They say she read minds and had clairvoyant abilities,” he went on, sharing with her thoughts on his mother.

“That still doesn't make her a witch. Many people have extrasensory perception. It's just how they use it.”

Turning to the papers on her small dresser, he focused on them until smoke began to rise from them and eventually a small flame. He stamped it out with her slipper that lay on the floor. “A lot of people set fires, no?” Royale asked rhetorically.

“Well, Royale, that too is an anomaly, but not demonic. It's just an ability, sort of like Jerry and his electricity buildup, or me and the way I can open anything locked,” she said. She got out of bed and walked over to the door. She turned the lock and showed him that it was locked by the twisted knob. She then closed herself outside the door. Turning the knob again, she walked in. “Locks mean very little to me as well.”

“Wow,” he said. “That could be useful for Maxwell. He seems to like people with ‘ability,'” he added. “He's been complaining how few you showed.”

“Yeah, well.” She smirked, moving back over to her bed. “I'm not a circus performer. There is a lot I know how to do that he doesn't need to know about.”

“You don't like him much, no?”

“I'm not sure what Maxwell is up to and I don't like that. I'm not sure I want to do what he wants me to do. I'm not sure I want to hunt down people for him.”

“Cherie
,” Royale said, looking around. He pointed at the light and then at the window.

Together they slipped through the open window and climbed silently onto the roof, closing the window behind them. “I just feel…” she whispered. He put his finger to her lips.

“Since the first time I kicked your ass,” Royale began. He sounded tongue-in-cheek, and all Romia could do was smile. “I felt a connection to you. Maybe it's love, I don't know. I don't want to kiss you, or make love to you, so the feeling confuses me. I know you love someone and I could never take his place, nor do I want to, but,
cherie
, you and I, we are soul mates, of this I am certain. My loyalties are with you. Just say what you want to do and I will do it.”

“What about Maxwell?”

“Maxwell has been like a father to me, this is true. But he is not my father, and I have dreamed about such a man for a long time, but I…I have been with Maxwell for many years, hunting for men, killing them or betraying them for the government. I am trapped to him as a son. I don't like the life and I want out.”

“You will help me find my father and I will help you find yours.”

“It is not my father I seek, it is my mother. It burns at my soul not knowing who she is.”

“Then I'll help you find her.”

“I think this is why we have been brought together in this space in time.”

“Maxwell claims the people we are going to find need to be brought to justice. I don't believe it.”

“I don't either. I've seen him kill,” Royale confessed now. He looked off. “I have seen him kill not for the government, but for himself. I killed for him.”

Romia touched his arm. He stared at her hand and then into her eyes. “I think I have too and I think he will have me kill again and…” She paused. “If I kill again, it will be for me.”

“Then we will leave here.”

“No. I have to end things in America. I agree with Maxwell. I have to end things there before I can move on.”

Royale seemed to notice her sadness. “And the man Keleigh Jack?”

“I will love him forever,” Romia admitted for the first time.

Capri

French born, Capri had been trained to dance ballet before, at the young age of thirteen, she and her parents were involved in a horrible boating accident where she alone survived. Unable to live with relatives, she was moved to an orphanage, at a convent, where she thought all hopes and dreams of her happiness were lost.

She spent most of her time by herself, thinking, pondering, and visiting the voices in her mind for comfort. She would visit with her mother and father often in her mind, finding peace with their memory. Soon the voices became powerful to the point of angst to her soul. The voices were connected to people she wished she knew personally, for she hurt when they hurt and cried when they cried. One day, a tall, handsome, rich man and his wife visited the convent. They appeared to be lonely and looking for a child, at least, that was what Capri felt when the man brushed passed her. He said he wanted a son, yet, when they made that brief contact, Capri felt a pull from his spirit. He must have felt it too, as he turned around and looked at her. When their eyes met, one of the voices in Capri's head sounded out loudly.

“I know you,” she said to the man.

“What?” the man answered.

One of the nuns ran over to hush Capri's apparent ramblings. “She's got a little of the darkness in her. We work with her constantly. She may have been born that way, or else it happened when she lost her parents. But she sees visions and talks to herself.”

“What kind of visions?” the man asked.

“I don't see visions,” Capri denied rebelliously. “I only see what you see,” she admitted.

“And what do I see?” the man asked, squatting down to her eye level.

Capri touched his hand and closed her eyes. Instantly, they shot open and she stared deep into his steel grey orbs. The man smiled as if he knew his own darkness had frightened her, as if he knew she could not comprehend all the turmoil inside him. “I…I,” she hesitated, dropping his hand and rubbing hers together and along the sides of her dress, as if they were hot and uncomfortable to her. “I didn't see anything,” she lied.

That day, the tall, handsome, rich man and his wife took her home with them. He came to be known to her only as the Phoenix.

The man was Egyptian, not French, as she'd thought that day at the convent. He spoke many languages perfectly, including French, but the main was Arabic. His lovely wife was kind but it didn't take long before she seemed to fade away and another woman replaced her by his side. Then another, until she lost count and just accepted the women for who they were for the time they were. But the man was constant. He continued to treat her like a daughter of sorts, but then again, not. Capri got to dance sometimes with the other girls who lived there, and they all had fun and laughed. They too had been rescued from the grips of poverty, street life, and/or orphanages. They too saw visions, and some had even darker abilities.

The man was beyond attentive, making sure Capri had more than any girl could want. In return, she worked hard. She learned many languages, skills of self-defense, and marksmanship, at which she excelled. She was obedient and attentive, especially when learning the art of internal examination: extreme self-control over her extrasensory perception, better known as ESP. She became one with her mind and gained the ability to control many things, much the way a telekinetic person would, only she was unable to move things. She honed her intuition and ability to decipher dreams to the point where she was depended on to foresee the short-term future. Before long, and after meeting Malik, who was clearly telekinetic, she learned that she too could move things with her mind. Together they worked toward that end. They became fast friends.

Having these abilities was frightening to her at first. Usually, she only opened doors or unlocked things, which eventually came in handy…especially when she realized her attraction for Stone.

Her attraction for Stone was the biggest event that she failed to foresee, and falling in love with him was something her extrasensory perception did not pick up on. It just happened. Had she foreseen this and what was to come beyond it, she would have fought the urges harder when they hit.

Stone was powerful, even for the young boy he was. He was more aggressive than the other boys. And, despite the admonition by the Phoenix to treat each other as siblings, by the time they were seventeen, she and Stone were having sex.

Sneaking off to the meadow, they would bask in the tall grass, under the sun and the warm winds, tanning their naked bodies on the blankets while exploring all the ways to please each other physically.

By the time they were nineteen, they were old lovers. There were one in spirit and soul, with Capri having the ability to read his thoughts and interpret his tumultuous dreams without even the need to touch him. It was his eyes that she read. They spoke volumes to her.

Stone had a troubled spirit, which often translated into high libido and hunger for her. They no longer took precautions when making love, as Stone would want sex any time of day or place without embarrassment. And she, hungry for him as well, would allow him to take her body without care or hesitation.

She realized she was pregnant two weeks after he died. She wasn't sure how to tell the Phoenix, but it became almost a moot point the night Stix came to her room. They hadn't spoken much about that day since but he felt the need tonight to talk to her, to set her straight on what she and Malik thought about his actions that day. But talking was the last of the things they did.

“You will love me,” he said, as if now wanting to claim her as he had the team. He hovered over her in bed, pinning her to the mattress. He wasn't hurting her, as Stone was often rougher in his foreplay. But he wasn't Stone and she wanted him off of her.

“How can I love you?” she argued, attempting to pulled down her gown. He fought her for her dignity and what was not his—her body.

“You loved my brother. We are one, you know, he and I. You loved him, you can love me.”

“We are all brothers and sisters here,” Capri said, continuing her attempt to keep him from entering her body with his.

“No, we are not. You and I are not. We share no blood. Not like Stone and I,” he explained, forcing her knees apart. “We are twins of separate mothers, both giving birth on the same night. We share a father; the Phoenix,” he said, as if the mere sound of his father's name tasted bitter in his mouth.

Upon hearing it, Capri could not fight the bond that instantly was created between her and Stix. She searched his eyes for Stone. He was there. Until that moment, she did not know the truth about Stix and Stone's true bond.

Stix took her that night, claiming her as a conquest, and her impregnation as his own, once realizing she was with child.

The Phoenix was furious and refused to listen to the truth about whose baby she carried. He accused her again of betrayal and loyalty to Stix over Stone.

Malik helped her run away. Why, she never asked. She just took the offer and together they ran from the reach of the Phoenix, who she felt no longer trusted her and Stix.

Stix had become a tyrant in Stone's absence. Determined to be the leader, Stix had become insubordinate and downright subversive. He was at the root of two more siblings losing their lives on an assignment. His jealousy was apparent, and if he could not win the Phoenix's affections away from Stone's memory, he would destroy all that Stone had built. Why he hadn't been banished was a wonder to them all.

There was no way she wanted him to see the truth when she delivered Stone's baby. When Stone's spirit and soul poured out of her body on the face of his child, she knew Stix's jealousy would eat him alive. She feared he would kill the baby.

“You'll be safe here at the convent,” Malik assured her that night, as he dropped her at the doorstep of her sanctuary, the convent where she was found. How poetic to return there. Malik fought back tears with all his might. Since Stone's death he'd been easy to bring to tears, and perhaps that was why he had chosen to leave with her. He was a deep soul, Malik. He felt things that he didn't share with her, and she felt in her heart they were feelings concerning Stone.

Where Malik once had the stomach for killing, he'd lost his edge, and maybe feared losing this life under Stix's careless renegade command if he stayed in the fold.

“I know I will be,” Capri assured him. “I have Stone's spirit inside. He's always a part of me,” she told him. “He will always be a part of you,” she said, touching his face gently. “Thank you for believing me.”

“I know you loved him. I saw it in your eyes.”

“Yes. He will live forever now.”

“The Phoenix will live forever. I thought you knew that.”

“Yes, I do. I am to be damned for the part I play in that fact,” Capri quickly interjected.

Malik seemed to understand and said nothing. He simply kissed both her cheeks and left in the night, thinking he would never been seen again.

She found peace there with the nuns for the remainder of her time. She felt safe and secure. It wasn't until the nights the pains hit that she grew fearful. She dreamed of Stone and felt his spirit close by. He was alive. She felt it. She sensed his presence. But his presence wasn't alone. It was joined by that of Stix.

The two spirits fought to the death. Before she could see the victor, she gave birth.

The nuns helped her during her labor. She thought she would die producing the two babies that wrestled in her womb: a boy and girl.

The boy came out of her big and red, as if on fire, and crying loudly. Surely he was filled with Stone's spirit. The girl was quiet, small, and sullen. She was dark in her heart. Stix had made his mark on her. Capri felt it in her bones that a miracle had occurred here. She had the souls of two brothers within her body and now within her heart. There was Stone, through the boy, and Stix, through the girl.

Capri knew immediately that she would have to take Stix's child with her so as to always know where Stix was. She couldn't have him sneaking up on her. She would leave Stone's child with the nuns for safety.

The boy screamed loudly when she carved the tiny wing of the Phoenix in his ankle. The girl, on the other hand, didn't make a sound when she did the same to her. Crossing their blood, she bound them together forever.

It was during the night she wrapped up her daughter in a blanket and left the convent undetected.

She knew the children would find each other one day, and all she could hope was that the spirits of their fathers would not destroy them first.