Devil Inside (33 page)

“Aw, keep it up and one day you might be able to kill a Burner all on your own,” Rafe laughed.

Anger flashed through Harley again.  “I have killed an Ignis on my own before.  Want me to demonstrate on you?” Harley snarled. 

Rafe laughed again and opened his mouth to respond but Nya stopped him by simply pointing at the door.  Rafe hesitated before laughing again and left shaking his head.

“Why is he such an asshole?” Harley asked, glaring after him.

Nya shrugged.  “Lots of reasons,” she laughed.  “Some part of him worries that someone is going to come along and take his position, I think.  Also, he grew up privileged and his arrogance is natural to him.  Also, he and Levi have never liked each other.  By getting to you he acts out his dislike for Levi, I think.”

“Why do he and Levi dislike each other so much?”

Nya looked at her sideways.  “That’s their story to tell,” she said with an impish smile.

Harley’s intrigue was peaked, but she was too tired to keep digging.  “Whatever,” she shrugged.  “He’s an asshole.”  Nya didn’t disagree with her.

“OK.  No more sparring for the day,” Nya said moving on and ending the training session.  “But I want you to work on something else.  I want you to try meditating,” she said.

Harley looked at her as if she had sprouted another head.  “You want me to meditate?”

“Yes.  You need to learn to let go.  I want you to spend time thinking about letting go.  No sleeping, no overthinking, no worrying, no stressing.  Just concentrate on letting go.  Early in the evening you’ll spar—with as many different people as we can find.  Then in the afterwards I want you to you to find a quiet peaceful place and meditate.  Have you ever meditated before?”

“Yeah, kinda.  A long time ago—it was a part of some therapy I went through.  I never had much success with it though.”

“Well, try again,” Nya insisted.

Harley agreed with a shrug, thanked Andrei for nearly killing her and left the training room to lie down.  The pounding in her head was making her nauseous and she just wanted to sleep for a while before she tried meditating.  She had tried meditating at different points in her life for some therapeutic healing but she usually just ended up falling asleep.  She was willing to give it another shot, though, if Nya thought it would be worth it.  She would try pretty much anything to finish the bond.  The embarrassment and anger still left her feeling as raw as the pain in her head.  She worked on shutting everything out except the call of her bed as she made her way towards her room—taking the long way to avoid Rafe, because she had no energy left to deal with him anymore this evening.

Harley was pulled from sleep by her phone ringing.  Nya had given her the phone shortly after Levi left.  So far, the only person she had talked/texted with was Levi.  Several times she had almost dialed Jason’s number, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to do it.  She missed the last human friend she had but she knew she shouldn’t—and besides…how would she explain what had happened.  Or where she was?  Or what she was doing?

Not only had she not been able to face Jason or Jamie’s parents, Harley still hadn’t been able to bring herself to check the news for the official account of what had happened that night.  She didn’t want to know if she was wanted by the police.  She didn’t want a wrong or false story to make everything harder than it was.  Instead, she had avoided the world outside of the Den at all costs.  She didn’t deny the fact that she was hiding from the real world as much as she was learning to be a Nocte.  That was a fact that had come to accept, even if she wasn’t proud of it.

The phone continued to ring until Harley gave up on ignoring it and snatched it from the bedside table.  She knew that the caller was Levi and she just didn’t want to have to tell him that nothing had changed. 

“Hello,” she mumbled into the phone.

“Hi,” she could hear the slight smile in his voice.  She could tell because his voice was smoother when he smiled—even when it was his half smile.

“Hi,” she said again and waited.

“Still no progress, huh?”

Harley fought the urge to snap at him.  “Nope.”

“Did Nya start having you spar with other people?”

Harley sighed, “Yep.”

“Well…who did you spar with tonight?”

“A guy named Andrei.”

“…No shit?”  Levi asked warily.

“No shit.  Why?”

“Andrei’s a nice guy.  But he’s pretty…bad ass.”

Harley snorted.  “Yeah, and short tempered too,” she retorted humorlessly.

“What happened?”

“A broken skull…and an even worse bruised ego.”

“Ah, shit.  I’m sorry,” Levi did sound sorry.  Harley was grateful that he didn’t sound pitying though.  That would only have pissed her off worse.  She relaxed a little more knowing that Levi wasn’t going to try to coddle her.

“I got a couple of good hits in, though,” she finally smiling a little.

“Good job!  Seriously—I know you are frustrated, but just try to be patient for a while longer.  It will happen eventually.”

Harley felt the jerk of anger in her chest but pushed it aside.  It wasn’t Levi’s fault.

“Nya wants me to start meditating.  She thinks I need to concentrate on letting go.”

Levi considered that briefly.  “Never hurts to try, right?”

“Right.”  Harley was tired of discussing her situation.  “Have you learned anything yet?  About whatever is going on in Miami?”

“I actually have made some headway.”

“Really?”  Harley sat up in bed and felt her Nocte shift and perk up eagerly.

“Yeah.  I’m still not even sure if I’m hunting a Lux or an Ignis.  But whatever it is, I think it’s in Canada right now.”

“Canada?”

“Yeah,” Levi hesitated to continue and Harley didn’t push.  She could feel her Nocte grinding her teeth.  Either he would offer more information or he wouldn’t.  Finally, he spoke again.  “Another Nocte died.”

“Fuck,” she breathed.

“Right,” Levi was grim.  “Well, Raymond—the Nocte that died—his stuff had been rifled through.  And I think this thing had been following him for a while.  It looks like whatever I’m hunting has been trying to find the Den in Canada.”

“Why Canada?”

“No idea yet.  But I’m going there to try to find out.”

“Any ideas why he was after Raymond?”

“Not yet.”

Harley ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach.  She felt the words start to push themselves from her throat and clamped her teeth together to stop them and they died in a soft grunt.

“What?” Levi asked.

“Nothing.”

“What?”

Harley sighed.  “Apparently, my Nocte is still set on helping you track this creature down.” She hesitated because she was never sure just how much Nya or Levi believed her.  “I almost said I was coming with you…but it wasn’t me saying it.”

Levi didn’t respond for a few moments.  “What has Nya said about this?”

Harley considered the question.  “Actually not much.  For someone who likes to talk—and share everyone’s business—she hasn’t said much about this.”

“I’m sure she has a good reason.”

“Yeah, yeah.  She says she doesn’t know for sure yet so she doesn’t want to toss theories out that could be wrong.  That it couldn’t only make things worse.”

“Makes sense,” Levi said reasonably.

Harley didn’t want to acknowledge that she agreed.  She wanted to be angry and impatient instead.

“Well,” Levi sighed.  “I need to call Nya and update her.  Then I need to make travel arrangements.  I’m planning on coming back to our Den as soon as I can.  I want to see what I can find out in Canada first.”

Harley sighed.  She liked talking to Levi but her frustration was leaving her rather disagreeable and she knew that if she tried to keep the conversation going she was only going to end up being bitchy.  Her Nocte wasn’t helping matters.  She wanted Harley to go chasing after the creature in Canada.  Not to mention her intense sex drive—she wanted Levi—or anyone really.  Harley was having a hard time controlling base desires like sex and hunger.  It only added to her frustration and kept her distracted from more important things.  She took another deep breath and forced her Nocte to calm down, “OK, I’ll talk to you soon.”

Levi hesitated before finally settling on “Bye.”

Harley hung up the phone and tossed on the bed next to her.  She ran her hands through her hair and rubbed the last of her nap out of her eyes. 
Meditating?  OK, let’s do this then.
  She knew better than trying to meditate while sitting on the bed.  It was too comfortable and she would only end up falling back to sleep.

Harley climbed out of the bed and sat on the floor with her legs folded.  She concentrated on breathing slowly and steadily.  She worked very hard at thinking about nothing at all.  She needed to clear her mind before she could concentrate fully on letting go.  Eventually, she was able to slow her thoughts enough that they became black.  She watched the blackness behind her closed eyelids and waited. 
Let go,
she told herself.  With every breath she releases she chanted “let go” and imagined her stress flowing out of her and her walls coming down.

Eventually—absolutely nothing happened.  Harley opened her eyes and looked at the clock.  She had been sitting here for thirty minutes and nothing had happened.  Every time she tried to clear her mind and focus on a mantra some other thought would break in.  Worst of all, the thoughts that always seemed to break in were either memories of sex with Levi which got her heart rate and breath up.  Or they were memories of Jamie which caused her heart to beat with a dull ache.  It was so easy to remember how much fun she and Jamie had had together.  It was equally easy to remember the bad times too.  When Jamie would lecture her on something stupid that she had done again.  Harley wished she could go back to those times and apologize and agree that Jamie was right—that she should think things through more before acting on impulse.

No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t let go of all the stress that tumbled through her mind long enough to actual concentrate on letting go.   “Arrgh!” she growled in frustration and flopped back onto the floor.  Her Nocte, who had been uncharacteristically patient through the whole process, echoed her angry growl. 

“I’m trying my best you know,” she said out loud.  “Maybe YOU aren’t trying hard enough.”  She felt her Nocte gnash her teeth in response.

Harley climbed off the floor.  She was hungry and angry and she didn’t want to fight with anything else today.  Not even if it was a creature of darkness that lived inside of her.  She made her way towards the kitchen.  She suspected that another binge was coming on.  When she was the most frustrated Harley found herself craving either sex or food, or both with such an overwhelming desire that she couldn’t think about anything else.  She knew, just like the times when this had happened, that she would go into the kitchen and eat until she felt sick.  Both her and her Nocte’s unsatisfied desire to finish their bond manifested itself in gluttonous greed.  On the way to the kitchen Harley found herself wishing she would run into Rafe again.  She would love to vent some of this frustration on his face.  No such luck though. 
Never around when you actually need him.

__________________

Harley got used to her new routine.  Sparring first thing—meditating until sun up.  Another month went by with no change.  She fought as many different people as she could.  Evie—who always looked apologetic as she beat the shit out of Harley.  Nya—who seemed to thoroughly enjoy watching Harley grow angrier and angrier.  Andrei—until he left to go back to Europe.    Cassandra—who left Harley so broken that it took a whole night for her to heal enough to fight again.  That was one thing she was looking forward to about drinking blood—being able to heal even quicker than she did now.  She could feel her Nocte rumble in agreement.  She could feel the Nocte’s hunger and it only added to her frustration and anger at her delayed bonding.  Cassandra apologized and shook Harley’s (broken) hand afterward though.  It was a small consolation that she didn’t look like she enjoyed beating Harley into a pulp.  For every fight Rafe was there to irritate and distract Harley.

Harley hadn’t made much progress in either fighting or letting go.  But Nya kept reassuring her that she was quite skilled at fighting.

“It would take a human years to get as good as you and you did it in only four months.”

Harley sighed, “Yet, I’m still wholly incapable of getting more than a few lucky hits in on any Nocte.”

“You are further along at this stage of combat training than any other Nocte that I have trained.”

“Seriously?”  Harley was so confused.  Nya kept pointing out all the ways in which she was more advanced than some Nocte—but no one could deny that it was taking longer for her to complete her bond than any other Nocte had before her.

“Of course I’m serious.  I wouldn’t say something like that if I didn’t mean it.”

Harley was in no mood for Nya’s jabs this evening.  She had just gotten the shit kicked out of her by a male Nocte named Everett.  Harley and her Nocte both took it worse than normal.  For one this had been going on so long that Harley was sure that nothing was ever going to change.  And it was exacerbated by the fact that Everett was gorgeous.  He had skin the color of cocoa and velvety brown eyes.  He was tall and lean with a shaved head and razor sharp cheek bones.  Harley and her Nocte both kept thinking of things they would like to do other than fight with him