Under Zenith (12 page)

Chapter 12

I instantly pulled away from Hayden, startled by his sudden speech and delighted that he wasn’t dead.

“You’re okay!” I practically shouted.

“Well I had an arrow stuck in my shoulder just so you could complete a stupid task, so I wouldn’t say I’m okay, but I’m alive,” he replied, sounding much stronger already than he had before he’d passed out. “Although I am quite troubled to wake up with my shirt torn practically off and a woman draped across my chest.”

“About that,” I began
, realizing just how bad the situation probably looked to him. “I don’t think I ever wanted to admit this to you, but I was actually kind of sad when I thought you’d died.”

“So you tore my shirt?” he asked, raising a thick eyebrow at me and slowly sitting up.

“I had to clean out the wound,” I explained, motioning toward his shoulder that was currently covered in the plant poultice.

“I can’t trust you with anything,” he complained.

Hayden wiped the goop away, flicking it onto the ground and, much to my surprise, his wound was now nothing more than an angry red welt on his skin.

“Okay, I knew I was good, but I didn’t think I was
that
good,” I said, letting my pride get the better of me just for a moment.

Maybe now that I’d actually done something right
, Hayden wouldn’t think I was such an idiot.

“Don’t be so cocky. It wasn’t your hillbilly plant recipe that healed me so fast. You did the right thing, but the task is what
sped the process up.”

He always had to rain on my parade.

The sky was rapidly darkening outside and I wondered how long I had until the snow began to fall. I didn’t feel like I had been in the cycle for very long, but it was quickly becoming evident to me that the cycle length was based on my progress through the task, not an actual assigned timeframe.

“Your shoulder is still pretty red,” I pointed out.

The room was darker now, though the orange tinted sky still shone through the open window and a fire I hadn’t noticed before was crackling in the stone fireplace. In this crazy place it was completely possible that the fire had started itself when we had our backs turned. I was quickly learning that the normal rules of life didn’t apply once you were dead.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, shrugging off my concern uncomfortably.

Heaven forbid someone be nice to him.

“Let me see it,” I said, scooting closer to him on the floor and pressing my fingers against the shiny skin.
“It feels burning hot still!” I exclaimed.

“It’s not burning hot, your fingers are just freezing. You
have the worst circulation ever,” he assessed, trying to play doctor.

“You’re so difficult,” I said, grabbing his shoulder and pulling him even closer to me.

“What are you doing?” he asked apprehensively.

It was funny to hear him
when he was caught off balance. In fact, it was nice to have the tables turned and be the one making him uncomfortable, since he made a point of making my life miserable on a daily basis.

“
My mama taught me that your lips don’t change temperature like your hands do, so this way I’ll be able to see if you’re actually burning up or if I’m just cold,” I explained, now pressing my lips against the skin on his shoulder.

“Oh, I forgot that’s what they taught me in medical school. Kiss the patient’s shoulder to make sure they don’t have an infection,” he mocked, his voice a bit
shaky.

I could feel
goose bumps spring up on Hayden’s arm that I held, but ignored it, trying not to be too proud of my victory. It wasn’t every day that you got to put a smug, overly confident man in his place with a few feminine wiles.

Okay…
feminine wiles was pretty generous. Mostly he was probably just uncomfortable if
anyone
touched him, but I was still happy to know that unshakeable Hayden could be made uncomfortable so easily.

“Are you done yet?” he asked, heaving a deep sigh beneath my lips.

I pulled away, satisfied that I had both taken his temperature, and made him significantly uncomfortable.

“Yes I’m done
, you big baby. And I think you’ll live. My hands are just cold.”

“Like I said,” he answered smugly.

I made a face at him, but didn’t say anything, standing from the floor and getting a better look at the small room now that I wasn’t panicked about Hayden dying.

Just like the previous two safe houses, this room had a rocking chair, a bed, a few cupboards, and a fireplace. It seemed like there had to be a reason that every room looked exactly the same on the inside, despite how different each safe house looked externally. Maybe there was some long forgotten memory from my past that made me feel safe in a one room shack.

I was sure Hayden could tell me exactly what memory had created these safe houses, but I wasn’t about to ask him and give him the satisfaction of knowing yet another thing that I didn’t know.

“You look like a murderer,” he p
ointed out, nodding to my blood-stained white dress.

I didn’t say anything to his accusation
, but shrugged my shoulders noncommittally. It didn’t matter what my dress looked like now, it would miraculously clean itself before the start of the next cycle anyway.

Hayden
joined me and stood up from the floor as well, but quickly brought his hand to the back of his head.

“What did you do to me?” he asked, touching the bump gingerly then wincing at the sensation.

“I might have accidentally dropped you once or twice,” I admitted sheepishly.

“Once or
twice
?” he repeated incredulously.

“It’s not my fault,” I protested. “If you didn’t weigh so much, it wouldn’t have been so hard to drag you through that stupid tulip field!”

“I thought you love tulips,” he pointed out, pulling from another one of my memories no doubt.

It really wasn’t fair that he knew so much about me when I didn’t know a thing about him.

“I
loved
tulips,” I corrected. “After dragging a mean, unconscious man through them for so long, they kind of lose their appeal. Besides, I still have a bump on my head from that awful zombie from the first task, so you can’t really complain about your one small bump.”

“Wait,” Hayden said, looking like he was actually concerned. “You still have a bump on your head?”

I was taken aback by his reaction. Surely Hayden didn’t care if I had a small bump on my head. Heck, he had almost given me worse injuries than that just for fun.

“Yeah…
is that important?” I asked.

“You should be…
how do I put this? You should be ‘resetting’ after every cycle,” he explained.

“Is that why my dress is never dirty when I wake up?” I asked.

“Leave it to a woman to care more about her dress than her actual health,” he scoffed, walking behind me. “Let me see.”

Hayden gathered my long hair around my neck and moved it over one shoulder, lacing his fingers through the wavy strands at my scalp
gently.

“I’m sure it’s not too serious
,” he said quietly, startlingly close to me with his chest pressed against my back.

His fingers searched over my scalp, finding the bump and sending a stinging pain through my head.

“Ouch!”

“Now who
’s being the baby?” he teased.

He pressed around the bump a few times before untangling his hands from my hair and
sliding them from my scalp, down my neck, and finally resting them on my bare shoulders for a moment. I hadn’t realized how cold my skin was until Hayden’s warm hands pointed out the difference in our temperatures.

Now I know I said he was awful and rude and had a t
emper and I couldn’t stand him…but I’d be lying if I didn’t become instantly aware of the fact that Hayden and I were standing very close together, and he was extremely attractive (when he didn’t open his mouth to speak). Really though, who could blame me for wishing he was the boy in my daydream, who liked to joke around and compliment me?

Neither of us spoke and I had to wonder why he kept his hands on my shoulders. I wished I could see his face to read his expression
, but if I turned around now, I knew our little moment would be broken; and it was the first nice moment we’d had since meeting each other. I had to take full advantage of that. It wasn’t like I got a lot of time at the end of the day to sit and think about my experiences with him.

The snow fell and I slept.

It may have been the most effective sleep aide ever, but it also left me no time to recuperate at the end of each cycle.

His thumb ran
across my collar bone just for a moment before he pulled away all together, clearing his throat and breaking whatever spell had fallen over us.

“The bump isn’t that bad,” he said, sounding odd.
“I’m not sure why it isn’t healing, but if you stop whining about it I’m sure it’ll go away.”

I turned to face him, still distractingly close.
He looked down at me in a way that was meant to be strong and intimidating, but somewhere in his scowl, I could see that he was hiding behind his sarcasm and insults.

“What
, are you a doctor now?” I asked him with a small laugh, lightening the mood.

“Personal question,” he said simply, turning away from me and sitting in the rocking chair; his self-proclaimed spot.

I went to lie down on the bed just as I always did, ready for the snow to fall and sleep to take me.

“I almost forgot about your aversion to mixing business with real life,” I said, feeling quite put out by the lack of balance in our knowledge.

Even though he was completely crazy and had random outbursts of rage, I had grown to trust Hayden (as much as I could trust a crazy person). It didn’t seem fair that I’d had to build that trust without knowing anything about him, yet he didn’t trust me one bit and he knew everything he could ever want to know about me. All he had to do was somehow pull the knowledge from my memory that he had full access to; without my permission might I add.

“I don’t suppose you’re ever going to tell me who you are?” I pressed, hoping I could get something out of him.

“I’m your Guide,” he said stiffly.

I’d lost him.

We’d had a nice moment and now he was back to being closed off and keeping me safely at bay. Still, it was nice to not be alone. No matter how stiff the company was.

“Sorry you had to get shot for me to complete my task,” I said after a moment.

Hayden let out a little laugh, still staring into the fire and not looking at me.

“Yeah
, I don’t know how that ended up being fair, but I guess if it motivated you then it was worth it,” he replied, still laughing softly.

“It was weird,” I began. “I didn’t see anyone out in that field who could have shot you. I swear we were completely alone.”

“Of all the odd things that little imagination of yours has come up with, I think that is the least of your worries.”

I nodded in agreement.
I still wasn’t convinced that I was responsible for these odd and breathtaking landscapes we found ourselves in every morning, but I’d take credit for it if Hayden really wanted to give it to me.

“Any idea what we’ll be facing tomorrow?” I asked, closing my eyes as a few cold white flakes fell on my
cheek bones, tickling my skin.

“No, but I can only hope it doesn’t involve me getting shot again. Thanks for that, by the way.”

“Anything for you, Hayden,” I joked. “Still, as unpleasant as you are, I am sad to see you go.”

I wasn’t sure where these words were coming from and honest
ly, I wished I could stop them, but the snow was making me tired and my roommate Monica could attest to the fact that I said some crazy things when I was tired.

“Thank you for that backhanded compliment,” he answered, sounding much closer to me than he had been before.

I opened my eyes to see him standing over the bed looking at me with a bemused expression.

“You know, I think ‘tired Isla’ is my favorite. She doesn’t whine as much.”

“You’re the worst,” I informed him with a smile, just as my lids drooped closed one final time.

Chapter 13

I seemed to wake to a new sensation at the beginning of every cycle. For the ill named ‘motor skills’ task it had been the sun on my face. With the ‘reasoning under pressure’ task it had been the smell of wet earth. Today, however, the first thing I noticed was slightly unpleasant and more than a little panic inducing.

As with the b
eginning of every cycle, it was sunny outside, for just a moment. Of course, in the time it took me to notice that the sun was streaming in between the slats of the window, it had already disappeared behind the thick fog. But today, a loud metallic screeching could be heard outside of the cottage.