The Alignment (17 page)

“There’s something very gratifying about this kind of work,” she says when I kneel beside her. “I would’ve never thought.”

“Nah, you just enjoy it because of the great company.”

“Yes that’s definitely part of it.” Her tone is too serious to be teasing me back.

“Tell me about ballet. You said you’ve been doing it your whole life?”

“Mm-hm.”

“How old were you when you started?” This will give me something to tap into.

“Five years old. They put me in lessons just to give me something to do, and I loved it. They said I was a natural, but I think I just enjoyed it enough to work hard. Classical lessons at first. I do mostly contemporary nowadays. I took gymnastics too.”

Ah, gymnastics. Bonus. “Your parents must have seen something in you.” Just like I do.

“Not my parents. The people at the children’s home. I didn’t have a family.”

“You were an orphan?” I’m surprised I haven’t found this out already. “You never knew your parents?”

“No. I never knew any of my biological family. But someone left a trust fund in my name, and I used it for the best ballet lessons money could buy. And then medical school. Years and years of medical school.” She claps the dirt off her gloves and sits back on her heels like she’s ready to clock out.

“Medical school?” I flip open the tops of two more cold frames and hand her the shovel. Two more varieties of potatoes to dig and we’re not going in until it’s done.

“I was studying to be a doctor. But then…I lost interest. I already had my nursing degree so I just left it at that.” She stabs her shovel into the ground. “You had no idea there was more to me, did you?”

“No, I just wasn’t expecting it. I should’ve done better homework before taking you as my captive.”

“Oh, so this was all deliberate? That car accident was no accident at all?” She pulls out a potato that’s almost as big as her head and holds it up like it’s a trophy. “This one needs to be measured for a world record. Look at it.”

“It wasn’t an accident. I ran the light on purpose.”

“What?!”

I take the potato from her. “I was chasing someone. I didn’t want them to get away again.”

“Who was it?” she asks, more gently.

I stall by fetching a couple more empty buckets from under the porch. Evasion has become second nature to me. Like all my bad habits it’s a hard one to break. I have to keep it up with everyone else. Not with her. “It was the car that was parked near the house the night Kate and Aaron were taken. I’ve seen it around a couple times, but it always gets away. Must be them, checking up on me.”

She shields her eyes from the sun and looks up at me. “There’s a reason for everything. You can judge something with your own eyes, but to someone else, it’s completely different.”

“Yep. And you just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

River darts from the woods at the far end of the yard and I curse under my breath. I have too much to do today without having to deal with one of them. Or two, according to River.

“How far away, girl?”

And then I see that glint in her eye. She’s messing with me. Getting me back. I point at her and she scurries past us and around the house.

“She’s just playing around,” I tell Liv, who’s frozen in place, a potato in each hand like she’s ready to clobber someone. Not a bad idea, but it would be a waste of good potatoes.

We carry the loaded buckets up to the kitchen. After washing, drying, and storing all the vegetables, she rinses the mud down the sink and I set the empty buckets outside on the porch. When I return to the kitchen she looks at me expectantly like she knows something’s up.

“This is where it gets weird. You can stay up here in the normal world if you want, or you can join me in the basement while I prepare a few things.”

“Are you going to mix up some potions?” She clasps her hands together, exaggerating her excitement with a wide smile.

“Exactly.” I’m unable to contain my own grin.

Chapter 20

Liv

D
ucking to avoid
the low ceiling beams, he turns on all the lights in the basement and drags a stool to the workbench for me. I sit and watch as he scans his books, his fingers tapping a number of volumes before pulling three of them out.

Each book has its own unique fabric cover, but they’re all equally faded and worn with age. One was formerly a deep maroon with a gold stripe, another a fuzzy gray that must have once been silver velvet—the material hinting of another century, or some lost world. Inlaid in each cover are nearly identical bronze medallions about the size of a quarter, suggesting these volumes are part of a series.

He stands next to me at the workbench and flips through the first book. The pages are thick and stiff, their edges uneven. Apparently finding nothing, he slides it in front of me. I study the faded indigo cover and age-worn medallion before gently tying it closed with its cord.

“Here it is,” he says.

Handwritten words from another language fill the page in front of him. He runs his finger down what looks like a list before turning to the shelves holding the jars of unknown substances. I take each jar he hands to me, lining them up on the workbench.

He unscrews the lid of an empty jar and picks up a set of measuring spoons he brought down from the kitchen. He carefully measures ingredients from the jars, double-checking the book each time. The new mixture in the clean jar morphs into a brown, gluey substance. After tightening the lid, he sets it in front of me.

“What is it?”

“Binding agent.”

I hold it up to the light. “For what?”

“To bind our minds.” He squats to search underneath the workbench.

I set the jar down. “What are you looking for?”

“This.” He sets a Bunsen burner on the counter.

“Oh my god.”

He attaches a rubber hose connected to a tank of g
as to the burner. He flips through his open book, stopping on a new page with a new list. The handwriting on this page is different, and small notes are written in the margins. After making selections from his inventory, he sets a beaker on the counter and adds the ingredients, glancing back at the list each time. He lights the burner and holds the beaker over the flame with the tongs. He whispers to himself, fixated on the task before him. I feel like a spy in the room.

He removes the beaker from the heat and holds it in the air to cool. A thin curl of smoke rises from it and the thick scent of gas becomes flavored by something spicy and pungent that gives the slightest sting to my eyes. It smells like peppermint.

“Were you chanting a spell?”

He grins and looks at me. “No, I was counting. Twenty-five seconds.”

“Oh.” I chuckle at myself. Stupid.

He searches my face as if to gauge my level of seriousness. “We’ll do that later.”

He turns the beaker upside down on a piece of brown paper, and out slides a little round glob. “That’s not what it’s supposed to look like.” He goes back to the book, leaning over it on his elbows.

I spin away from the table. This shouldn’t feel so normal. If someone relayed this exact scene to me in conversation, I’d never believe them. I’d want them to get their head checked. Just because it’s happening to me doesn’t make it normal. Our attraction has stripped my defense, making everything he does seem safe when I should be cautious. He’s not someone I would have ever trusted, but I’ve never trusted anyone more. I’m not sure what I’ve signed up for, what I’ll be party to. Somehow, it doesn’t matter as long as I’m with him.

I notice the glob has shrunk to half its size. “It looks different now.”

His concentration takes a moment to break. “Good. And now I’m supposed to…” He takes a knife and cuts the round sides off the glob to make a perfect cube. He wraps it up in the brown paper and ties a string around it like a tiny gift.

“For you, for later.” He hands it to me.

“For what?” I ask a second time.

“Roughly translates as ‘mind sleep.’ To turn off your active mind. Usually tastes like shit. I added something that might make it better.”

“Sounds like a blast.” I stare at it in my palm. This is what I’m going to be party to.

He takes it back. “But I’ll hold on to it in the meantime. I know about you and your lack of restraint.”

“Me? I hope you’re kidding. You’ve started it every time.”

“I have?” He glances away as if to think about it. “Well, you provoke me.”

I laugh. “I do not!”

He puts one palm on the table and turns his body to face me. The simple action sends a fluttery rush from my chest downward, like a wad of feathers floating through me. He’s about to start something and prove me right. “See, you’re provoking me right now.”

Knowing I’m not, I decide to taunt him anyway. “What are you going to do about it?”

He leans down, his lips an inch from mine. “Absolutely nothing.” He smiles. He is so handsome I almost fall off the stool. Sure, there’s a textbook definition of our attraction he seems to accept as pure irrefutable science. Even without that, he has a rugged charm he wears well. Hair dampened by sweat from our work outside, strong blue-collar hands, an obvious finesse with this craft. And the confidence he emits while in his element.

I stretch up to him but he backs away just in time. I wonder what he’d do if I really did try to provoke him.

He returns to his work, leafing through another book. More meticulously measured ingredients go into the beaker and over the flame. He counts to himself again, removes the beaker, and dumps the contents out on brown paper just like before. Again he cuts it into a cube, wraps it in the paper, and ties the string.

“What’s that one for?”

“For me. Translation is something like ‘projection effect.’ Also tastes like shit.”

“Yours sounds more exciting than mine.”

“That’s because I have to do all the work. There’s one more thing we need…” He opens a cupboard below the shelves of jars and pulls out a massive book. It drops onto the counter in a cloud of dust. “This is going to take a while.”

I ask him if he wants me to start putting everything away, and he nods. When the jars and books are returned to their shelves, I wander to the other side of the basement and find his boxing bag split in half and covered in dried blood. What is wrong with him? I know he has a temper, but this is unreal. It’s like he doesn’t know when to stop.

I turn around with a reprimand on the tip of my tongue. His broad shoulders are slumped over the book as he copies something to a piece of paper, and I decide not to break his focus. Nothing I say will change who he is. The way to protect a self-destructive person from hurt is to remove the triggers. Go to the source of the trouble. Make the person happy. It’s going to be a long road.

Returning to the stool next to him, I notice his knuckles, which look almost healed now. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t stop. He knows whatever damage he does will fix itself before it has a chance to render him vulnerable. Maybe now that he knows he’s mortal, he won’t be so brutally self-destructive. But if he’s mortal, his wounds shouldn’t heal like time-lapse photography.

I trace the scar on his bicep, now just a discoloration. He’s so deep in thought he doesn’t notice. The scar on his neck is no longer visible. The wound on his forehead I Steri-stripped at the clinic is only evident if you know to look. His cheekbone scar is still a tender pink line, but it looks much better than it should considering how bad it was.

I shouldn’t be doing this. I’m cheating on my husband. I’ve gone to bed with another man, and I don’t feel bad about it. He could be at our home in Chicago right now waiting for me, worried about me, sitting by the phone just like I did for him. I’m as bad as he is.

“Done.” He folds his slip of paper and puts the book back in the cupboard.

I start to hop off the stool but he stops me with a warm hand on my knee. “One more thing.”

He opens my hand and places a gun in it. I stare at it.

“How does that feel in your hand?”

“Like an accident waiting to happen. Can you take it back?”

He puts it on the workbench and heads for the stairs. Apparently he sees no need to explain and I’m in no hurry to ask. I shrug it off and follow him upstairs.

He starts rummaging through the kitchen and I glance at the clock. Time moves at a different pace when I’m with him. And I’ve been in these dirty gardening clothes the whole time. I change into clean leggings and a loose cotton shirt. I push the couch a few feet back so I have room to do some stretching on the floor.

Not much later I hear him walk up behind me so I turn to face him.

“You need more space.” His face is hard. Brooding.

“It’s fine. I can work with it.”

“Let me move the furniture for you next time.” The flatness in his voice seems out of place after the light-hearted day we spent together.

I can’t grasp what got him in this mood. “Okay,” I answer to indulge him.

“Are you hungry?” He turns toward the kitchen.

I follow him. The exchange seems forced, and I can’t pinpoint why.

As we begin to eat, the silence weighs on me. I know he’s brooding, but I can’t imagine what happened between coming up from downstairs and now. With nothing to say, I simply put down my fork and look at him. When his eyes meet mine, they are troubled.

He stops eating. “No good?”

“No, it’s great, as usual. Where did you learn to cook?” Conversation couldn’t hurt, and seems a much better strategy than outright asking him what’s wrong—he’d take it as an accusation and become defensive.

He pauses before answering. “My mother.”

I have a feeling he was debating whether he should answer honestly. I’m certain it’s a touchy subject, but I can’t stop myself. “Your mother taught you a lot. Will you tell me about her?”

A whole minute passes and he doesn’t answer. Maybe I should change the subject. “You’re still wearing those dirty—”

“My mother is nothing like them.”

Relieved he used the present tense, I say nothing. I can almost hear the clock ticking when he finally takes a breath to speak again.

“
I
am nothing like them. My mother and I have always been the black sheep. Christian—he’s the only one who’s ever felt like family besides her.” His eyes slide past me, to the scenery outside the sliding glass door.

Hoping he’ll elaborate, I remain silent and resume eating. He returns his attention to his food to take several bites of his own, and just as I begin to feel the pressure to respond, he speaks again.

“My father—he and I never got along like I did with my mother. She taught me everything I know except combat. That was all my father. He pushed me very hard. I should be grateful. Without him, these last fifteen years would have sucked.” He laughs. His laughter is like a gift to me.

I restrain myself from interrupting. His voiced inner thoughts are too rare to spoil with an ill-timed response.

“But, they’re all his family. I’ve never met anyone on my mother’s side. Not even sure there are any. So that’s probably why I don’t feel like I’m a part of them. I’m just too much like her. She gave me her last name, you know. I don’t even carry my father’s name.”

“Really? That’s unusual.”

“Never seemed to matter. We aren’t like everyone else.”

“When was the last time you saw your mother?”

His eyes drop to his plate. “Fifteen years ago.”

And just like that, he’s withdrawn from the conversation. I want to keep him talking, but I’m not sure what to say. “Why are you so close to Christian?”

“My mother watched him when we were kids. His mother died when he was a baby.”

“You said you two are cousins?”

“Yes. His father is my father’s brother.”

It feels like the conversation has turned into an inquisition, so I drop it. He cleans his plate and waits for me to finish, staring past me again out the back window.

When I stand to clear the table, he doesn’t break out of his trance. I feel so helpless. He’s stressed about something and keeping it in. The running water and clanging of dishes amplify the silence instead of filling it, and I consider changing the subject to something lighter but fear it will close a door that has been left standing open for me.

With everything cleaned up, I turn around to look at him and suddenly, his stress becomes my fault, for asking about his mother to satisfy my own curiosity. He was already down about something, and I made it worse. I thought getting him to talk would be good for him, but apparently I was wrong.

I slip behind him, grasp his shoulders, and squeeze. His body tenses as the contact of my hands breaks his trance, so I squeeze again, working the knots in his muscles.

“You don’t have to—”

He tries to protest by turning in his chair, but I turn with him and continue to squeeze, marveling at his muscle tone. “Take off your shirt.”

His wary green eyes question my motive.

“It’s filthy. Come on.” I tug it halfway up his back.

He reaches behind his back and pulls his shirt over his head in one fluid motion. I try to ignore the rush I feel.

“Now come in here.” I pull his hand.

“Oh no you don’t.”

“Do you want to make me stand the whole time?”

He doesn’t look convinced.

“This is purely professional,” I explain, to him and to myself.

He gives me a long, hard look, and stands. I lead him into the living room and spread a blanket on the floor.

“Lie down on your stomach.”

“I’m trusting you,” he says slowly, clearly aware of his own fragile state.

I drop a pillow on the blanket.

With him flat on the floor, I use my elbows and my palms, which are more suited to his frame than my fingers. I work his neck and shoulders then move down his back. I decide I need a tool, so I tell him to stay put while I go grab one of my socks and fill it with rice from the economy-size bag in the kitchen. I put it in the oven and go outside, where a quick search yields two smooth river rocks, the perfect size. I immerse the rocks in a bowl of hot tap water, and when the rice-filled sock is warm enough, I dry off the rocks and take everything back to the living room.