Bad Blood (Book 4 of The Warden series) (14 page)

“I can see that.” Belus looked between the two of them, like he was assessing what damage had been created by this debacle. “I can’t really say I expected you to follow through with it.” Cori wasn’t sure if that was meant as a statement or an accusation. He walked over to them and leaned against the railing on the bed. “We have a lot of tests we need to perform.”

Cori sat up on her elbows. “It really doesn’t matter. You aren’t going to remember any of this. The only reason I even told you guys, was so that when this is all over and you guys ask why I didn’t tell you about it, I can honestly say that I did.” She looked to Danato, smiling sympathetically at him. “It doesn’t matter whether I’m honest, if you don’t believe me.” Cori turned back to Belus. “You told me once today to trust you, and I do, but that doesn’t matter either, if you don’t trust me.”

Belus shook his head. “You just…make so many mistakes. I don’t want you to end up…” He glanced at Danato and trailed off.

“Belus,” Cori said firmly. “I am not going to let you die. Somehow, some-when today, you get shot. If I need to break Efrat out of his cell to get your heart pumping again, I will do it, even if that means defying a direct order from you.”

Cori could see him trying to reconcile his desire to have control of the situation, with his desire to be living at the end of the day. “Do you know why this is happening?” Belus asked finally allowing for the possibility that she was telling the truth.

“I assume it had something to do with the time bubble since I was there when Efrat shocked me the first time. I haven’t repeated that part of my day yet. I think it’s my starting point. The latest memory I have is you dead and Efrat reviving you. I think that’s my end point, but I haven’t repeated that part of my day either, so I don’t know how you get shot.”

“It could also be that these are fixed points,” Belus added. “You may not be able to change these points in time. Whatever happens will happen and you can’t stop it because stopping it might be what causes it. It’s best to follow your instincts. If Efrat does indeed save me, then there is no reason to interfere with that incident.”

“I don’t understand how she could be moving through time without the sensors detecting it,” Danato told Belus.

Belus nodded introspectively. “Unless our time bubble has attached to her.” Danato’s eyes widened momentarily. “
Just
the bubble,” he clarified. “The energy that creates the field and breaks the barrier of time and space.”

“It wouldn’t register as anything abnormal because it holds the same signature as the original,” Danato added with further realization.

“Right,” Belus agreed and they both nodded with a thoughtful “hmm” silently passing between them.

Cori raised her hand. “Hello. Does anyone care to explain to the inept one?”

“Part of the time bubble may have broken off when Efrat attacked you the first time,” Belus said. “If it’s attached itself to you somehow, then you are an extension of the time bubble. Instead of your body going anywhere though, your consciousness does.” Belus gave Danato a furtive glance. “As long as you are staying within your own mind, and a confined timeline I don’t think you will incur any damage.”

“So, how do I stop it?”

Belus raised his eyebrows and pulled an answer from his mind as he thought it. “This skew should only be temporary. As soon as you make it to the end, you should be able to break out and continue with your normal day. I can’t imagine that a time bubble fragment has a long lifespan.”

Cori got the distinct impression that this was Belus’s way of saying he had no idea. She leaned back in the bed and groaned. “Why does this stuff keep happening?”

“This was Efrat’s fault, not yours,” Danato said putting his hand on hers.

“I know. I just wish you could have an employee that doesn’t accidentally screw everything up.” Cori clasped her hand over her mouth.

“What?” Danato said.

“I accidentally touched a lamp in the prop room.”

Danato’s mouth gaped. “Did you make a wish?”

“Not then, but just now I said…”

“I doubt the wish would transfer through different timelines,” Belus pointed out. “But you may want to put a clamp on the wishing words anyway.”

“See!” Cori threw her hands up. “Even in the middle of an already messed up crisis, I can find another way to…” She broke off feeling a lump in her throat.

Danato gave Belus a look, and Belus meandered out of the room leaving them alone. Danato pressed a lever under the bed, and pushed the bars on his side down. He scooted up on the bed closer to her. “I knew a woman, a lot like you once upon a time. She was even more headstrong than you. She got herself into all sorts of trouble. I used to think it was her fault. We would have terrible arguments about it, but I came to realize, as you will, some people are just destined to be on the back end of a bucking bull. You can’t stop it. Fighting it only makes it worse, trust me.

“You’re doing the right thing. Belus and I can’t help you when we don’t understand. You’re just going to have to do things your way until you can get out of this.”

“I don’t suppose you could write a note to your future self on that.”

“You don’t need a note, Cori. You’ve had a firm grip on my heartstrings for quite some time now. Just give a little tug.”

Cori smiled and touched his cheek again. “I don’t know how much longer I have.”

“Do you want me to stay?”

She nodded and he found a chair in the far corner to pull over. He sat down beside her and she closed her eyes. He rested his hand beside hers, and she took hold of it.

The hand felt softer and smaller than she expected. The slight tingle from it reminded her of when her foot woke from a pinched nerve.

26

“Is there some reason you need to be holding my hand?” Efrat said from beside her.

She looked over at him from her prone position on the floor of the elevator. She could feel the pain in the arm that wasn’t quite covered by the shot he had given her. He was sitting cross-legged beside her. She had a hold of his knobby-fingered hand. Tiny prickles of electricity came through his hand into hers.

“I was holding Danato’s hand.” She let go of his hand and pushed herself up so she could sit against the wall. She pushed with her good arm and rested against the cold metal.

“I’m surprised you can tolerate touching it,” Efrat said.

“Danato is the gentlest man I’ve ever met,” Cori said defensively. “You don’t know anything about him.”

Efrat looked her over stone faced. “I meant mine.”

She met his eyes, but he looked away right away. “What do you mean?” She looked at his hands. As if he sensed her eyes on them, he crossed his forearms over his bent knees. He fisted his hands in anger or frustration. She wasn’t sure which. A thin blue crackle of electricity shimmered over them as he did.

“I just mean my hands don’t exactly have a shut off switch,” he said without looking at her. “I can’t usually touch people with my hands.” He looked at her with a glare of hatred. “You’re the first person I’ve touched with my hands in…a long time.” His sneer faded into something she might have assumed was sadness if his fist weren’t shimmering with trickles of electricity. “I don’t suppose you have an answer for that.”

Cori could feel the hair on her arms stand on end as the energy feeding into the room rose with his temper. The lights above brightened with the proximity of the power as well. Her fingers itched where her gold rings had singed her skin.

“Why are you so special?” His face still looked sad, but the radiating threat said otherwise. She didn’t have an answer for why his touch was tolerable to her. She didn’t know why her tolerance was building as the day went on.

“I don’t know Efrat. I really don’t. Maybe traveling through time dulls the sensation. Maybe that first blast knocked out my nerve endings.” She struggled to find any dimwitted theory that might appease him before her hair caught on fire. She knew she could reach for her gun, but she got the distinct impression this topic was just sensitive enough that she shouldn’t risk it.

His eyes were still on her. She wasn’t even sure if he knew how much energy he was putting out. Even his furry arm hair was starting to stand on end. She noticed a ring around his forearm. It was on both arms, in the same spot just below the elbow. His flannel had been covering it, but now that she saw it, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it earlier.

The ring was a pencil thick line wrapped around the arm. The scars were puckered and pink. She tried to think of what could have caused two uniform scars like that.

The bulbs above burst sending her thoughts elsewhere. She yelped and shielded herself from the raining glass. “Efrat stop! I don’t know! I’m sorry. I just don’t have any answers. I don’t know why the hell any of this is happening to me.”

“Cori,” Danato said from above her in the darkened room.

27

Danato sat at his desk doing yet another batch of paperwork. It was standard paperwork involving requisitioned materials, specifically toiletries. He hated that he had to explain any change in the amount of toilet paper they used. If the cafeteria made chili more than twice a month, he was likely going to have to requisition more T.P.

Belus sat across from him sipping his coffee. His paperwork was already done for the week. He never procrastinated like Danato did. He also didn’t have nearly as much as Danato.

If Danato wanted, he could delegate his paperwork to Belus, but they already had a precariously balanced relationship. Asking Belus to do more than his share would enrage his inferiority complex. Danato valued Belus too much to ever make him feel like an underling.

However, watching Belus sip his coffee so sedately made him wonder if he wasn’t flaunting his procrastination free work ethic.

Before he could ponder if that would count as a passive aggressive attack, he saw Cori come up to the office door. Since she grabbed right for the handle, he knew she hadn’t bothered to deposit her gun. As the doorknob turned, Belus’s head perked. “Gun!” They both hollered.

He heard Cori grumble in frustration as she placed the gun in the bin. He afforded a glance to Belus, who was smiling at her antics, but shaking his head with frustration. Belus had struggled to find a common ground with Cori. He very much wanted to train her to be the kind of second he was, but since Cori was erratic and compulsive by nature his patience was wearing thin.

Unlike himself, Belus had managed to keep an emotional distance from Cori and Ethan. Mostly that was because he didn’t live with them, but also because he preferred it that way. Unfortunately, for him, Cori was a very emotional being. Her reasons for being at this prison were based on her love for Ethan, her need to belong, and her desire to please.

Belus expected that he could treat her, the same as Ethan and get the same result. Ethan had flourished in this place because he craved the structure that he had missed in his former life. Ethan was a boy of clay ready to be molded into a man, and mold they did. Between Belus’s training and Danato’s tutelage Ethan was an easy transformation.

Cori on the other hand, to put it as delicately as Belus, was a pain in the ass. She came from a life where she had love and attention, but it was consistently taken away from her. Her father effectively abandoned her. Her mother died before she made it to college. Her aunt, the last of her functioning family, died before she graduated. To top it all off, she was kidnapped, raped, and sold into slavery. It was no wonder Cori necessitated so much more than structure and expectation.

Cori was capable of doing great things. She was a forward thinker, with creative and logical solutions. Despite some ill-conceived plans, she was a smart girl and had the potential to change the face of the prison for the better.

Danato learned early on with Cori that brandishing his anger and authority would produce the opposite result. If Belus wanted Cori to be the bright and winning student that Ethan was, he was going to have to release his heart to her. Danato wasn’t sure if that was too much for him. Belus had his reasons for keeping his distance from Cori, and although Danato couldn’t blame him, he knew it wasn’t fair to Cori.

“Sorry I’m late,” Cori apologized before sitting on the arm of her chair. He ignored that for the moment and looked up at the clock. She was notorious for being late, but the clock only read 8:05. That might have been objectionable to Belus, but he certainly wasn’t going to fret over a few minutes.

“Five minutes? That’s hardly worth apologizing for.”

Cori double-checked the clock. She must have thought it was later than it was because her face muddled with confusion. She shrugged off the mistake and rubbed her hands together eagerly. “Are we going to the time bubble today?”

There was no hiding her excitement. Cori had been begging him to let her plant a garden in the wizard world for weeks. She had even recruited Belus to provide an objective perspective regarding the cost of garden produced food over shipped food. Little did she know, he thought it was a justifiably experiment, but he let her work for the privilege rather than hand her the reigns immediately.