The Fire In My Eyes (34 page)

“And what did you say to that?” I asked after a moment of silence.

“See, this is where I did something bad. I'm kind of afraid to admit it.”

“That's not like you,” I said. “Just get it out. I promise I won't laugh.”

He stood up and turned away from me. “Well, I told her, 'I'll show you something sensitive' and grabbed my crotch.”

I dropped my hands into my lap. “Are you serious?”

“It gets worse.”

“I don't see how.”

“Well, first of all, if she had a pen at hand, I'd probably be breathing through it, right? She went right for me, teeth and claws and fury. You know how I've held her off before? I'd have a stump, a raw bloody stump.” He shuddered. “So you know what I had to do?”

“You didn't hit her, did you?” I pointed to my forehead. “She had a huge red welt.”

“She does? Oh, shit, she really is going to kill me,” he groaned.

“You hit her? Seriously?”

“No! No way, I'd never do that! We were circling around the room and I grabbed her blanket off the bed, right? I did a bullfighter thing, waved it like a cape. She didn't fall for it. I think it got her angrier. I don't think the things she was saying were words, at least, not in any language I know. So I threw the blanket over her head and ran out of the room, pulled the door shut behind me.”

“She ran into the door,” I guessed.

“I thought she fucking broke the door down!” Drew laughed. It sounded forced. “I looked back in and she was laid out on the floor. Of course, that's when Jess shows up. She looks at me, looks down at Lisa on the floor with a blanket over her head, looks back up at me. Awkward. I told her it wasn't my fault, I had to get to class, and ran like hell. Ran like a bat out of hell, man. After a few minutes I came back in, all stealthy and shit, and locked myself in here. When I heard you unlock the door I hid in the bathroom. Good thing, right?”

“Drew, I don't think Lisa's as stupid as you think she is.” I pointed toward the door. “If I were her, I'd be staking out the stairwell. You've got to come back at some point.”

His tanned face started to whiten. “Maybe she's listening at the door.” He spun to face the door. I watched expectantly. Nothing happened. “Or maybe she's waiting for the worst possible moment to break in!” Nothing happened again.

“Like I said, she's probably camping out in the stairwell,” I said. “I doubt she can hear you through the door. Want me to go check?”

“Don't you dare,” he said. “Kev, dude, she'll kill me.”

I got up and stretched. “I don't think she'll kill you. Just hurt you a little. Maybe a lot.”

“Please. Kev, don't do it, man!” Drew's voice turned pleading.

“Why don't you just apologize to her?” I asked. “That's probably all she wants.”

“No, Kev, you don't know her as well as I do. She wants my head on a stake. She'll mount it like a trophy. She's going to be out for blood. Blood, man, blood!”

The door opened. Max walked in. “Why are you talking about blood, and why is Lisa stalking up and down the stairs? Are you planning something kinky? Not in our room, please.”

“Close the door! Close the fucking door!” Drew shouted. It was far, far too late for that. I bolted for the door as Lisa came barreling up the stairs. I grabbed Max in passing and dragged him out just as she raced in. She pushed us both out of her way and slammed the door shut. A moment later, the lock clicked, and then there was silence. Not even a whimper.

Max looked at the door, then over at me. “Do I want to know?”

“Later. Do you know if Andreas has a mop?” I said.

My third trimester seemed like it would be the most difficult to date. Ripley expected serious work out of us this trimester for his course. Absynthe continued my psionic training with a variety of new techniques. For the first time since beginning college, I felt challenged.

I wasn’t the only one. Nikki’s frustration boiled over the first weekend of October. Ripley had assigned us yet another research paper and I was frantically trying to finish it Friday night so that I could work on another paper on Saturday and actually have some free time on Sunday. My grades from the previous trimester had been worse than I expected. I hadn't failed anything, but I had to put more effort in or risk losing my scholarship. If I lost my scholarship, Mom would pull her support, and I’d have to drop out.

There was a knock on the door, breaking me out of my research trance. “Kevin?” I heard her voice as she opened the door.

I looked over my shoulder and stretched. “Hey, you. What's up?”

Nikki walked in, hands held behind her back. I heard plastic crinkle as she moved. “Nothing. Guys not around?”

“Max is at the library working on a group project for one of his courses, since the first stage is due on Monday. I think Drew is out with Lisa, probably still paying off his debt.”

“Ah,” she said. The story had been told and retold enough that I suspected it would become legend. Lisa had eventually forgiven Drew without bloodshed, but her conditions were draconian. I wouldn't jump through hoops, but then, they had a much different relationship than we did. Nikki seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “She's really something, isn't she? I don't understand why she's doing that sort of thing to him. I mean, it was crude and I can see why she’s upset, but really, what she's doing is just bitchy. She should just get over it.”

I shrugged. Maybe not the same exact lines. “I don't know about that. I think they treat their relationship as an elaborate game, and this is a penalty for Drew. I wouldn't hold it against her, it's just the way they work.”

Nikki's expression twisted into a frown. “I guess. I can't really respect a girl who'd do things like that, even if it's to a guy like him.”

“Everyone's different.” I looked at the clock and sighed. “Shit. I thought I'd be farther along in this paper by now.”

Nikki sighed as well. “I was afraid you'd say that.”

“Why?”

She brought a plastic bag out from behind her. “Guess what I have?”

“Not a clue.” I peered at the bag, trying to see what was inside it. “Food? Caffeine? I'd kill for an energy drink.”

She walked closer and put the bag down on the desk next to my laptop. “No, silly. It's a movie. Kaitlyn's out tonight, she won't be back until late. I thought we could hang out and watch it, since we haven't been able to spend much time together lately.”

“I don't know,” I said. “This paper's due on Monday. You know what Ripley's like when we turn things in late.”

“You've got all weekend to work on it.” She put her arms around me from behind, then leaned on me and kissed the top of my head. “You've got to relax once in a while.”

Her charms were in full force and I was tempted. I leaned my head back against her. “I was planning on working hard tonight and tomorrow so I could spend time with you on Sunday.”

“But Kaitlyn's gone tonight,” she repeated. “That means privacy.”

“You're a temptress.”

“Damn right I am.” She cradled my head against her. “I'll even sit on your lap, if you want. But I don't think we'll watch the movie at all if I do that.”

“It does sound nice,” I said.

Her embrace tightened. “But you're going to turn it down, aren't you?”

I had been about to accept, but something in her tone stung. “Well-”

“Of course. Just like every other weekend. We're lucky to have dinner together these days, I guess. I should just get used to only seeing you at training, right?”

“I just said I was trying to make time for you this weekend! Why can't you just wait a couple of days?” She let go and I twisted to glare at her. “Honestly, what's wrong with you?”

Her face flushed red. “Just wait? You've been pushing me away all month because of your fixation on getting perfect grades. But you've got time to hang out with your roommates, don't you? No time for me!”

“I'm not trying to get perfect grades, I'm just trying to do better than I did last trimester! And the only reason I have any time to hang out with my roommates is because they actually live here.
”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, how silly of me.”

“It is silly,” I snapped at her. “What about your courses? Keeping up with everything? Or did you just pick out a bunch of bullshit gen-ed courses again?”

Her eyes widened and I knew I was starting to go a little far, but she was being hurtful, and I wasn’t going to take it without comment. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Are you going to give me shit for my major? What does that have to do with anything here?”

I threw my hands up in surrender. “Nothing. Whatever. I was going to pack it in and go watch the movie with you, work on the papers later, but if you're just in a mood to pick a fight, I'm not going anywhere.”

“Oh, now you decide to tell me that?” She crossed her arms and turned sideways. “Naturally, it's my fault, right? I'm the one being completely unreasonable, right?”

“You did assume that I was going to say no,” I said.

Her jaw dropped. “I did nothing of the sort!”

Before I could point out that she had, in fact, done exactly that, a telepathic message flickered into my mind. Instead of a training session notice from Absynthe, it was a summons from Shade. I swore under my breath. I hadn't heard from him since before summer break, and I had hoped that he'd stay downstate for a good long time. As I looked up to tell Nikki, I saw that her fingers were pressed to her temples and a flicker of green was playing in the depths of her eyes. “You too?” I asked.

“What?” She blinked, then glared at me. “Absynthe called you too?”

“No, Shade,” I said.

“He's back from the city?”

“Unfortunately.” I stood up and closed my laptop. “Looks like we'll have to postpone this fight.”

She sighed and pressed her fingertips to her cheekbones. “You are such an ass.”

We walked to campus in chilly silence. Even though the day had been uncommonly warm for October, there was frost in the air between us. I understood that she was annoyed because we hadn't had a lot of time together lately, but we both had responsibilities. It didn't give her the right to get so angry with me. I clenched my fists.

“Kevin?” she asked.

I forced my hands to relax. “Nikki?”

“I'm still mad at you,” she said.

I wanted to lash out at her, but I forced myself not to rise to the bait. One of us had to be the mature one here. “I see,” was all I said.

“I'm not as mad at you as I was before, though,” she said. “I didn't mean to get so pissed off. Sorry.”

“It's all right,” I said.

She stepped a little closer to me and we continued our walk to the building in slightly warmer silence. The administrative building was usually locked at this time of night, but our ID cards worked to let us in. The halls were dim and the elevator was uncommonly loud. When we got to the top floor and started up the stairwell to the roof, Nikki's hand found mine.

“About time,” Shade greeted us as we stepped out. “Took the scenic route?”

“Missed you too. How's Operation Kick-Some-Gangbanger-Ass going?” I replied.

“Funny. Not as well as we had planned,” Shade said.

Absynthe was leaning against the waist-high wall at the edge of the roof, but at Shade's words, pushed off and walked over to us. “Alistair's sending more people down there,” she said.

Nikki's hand clenched. I looked at her, then back at Absynthe. “Are we going?”

Shade laughed. “We don’t need cannon fodder.”

Absynthe shrugged. “Trainees won't get sent into an openly hostile situation. We couldn't guarantee your safety.”

“I thought you were head and shoulders above the gangs?” Nikki asked.

“We are,” Shade said. “We should be. They're holding up far better than we had anticipated. So, Alistair wants more agents down there. If it becomes a battle of attrition, we'll win, but we can't afford the losses we've been taking. Absynthe's coming down for medical support. Other agents for assault support. Alistair wants to bring the hammer down.”

“So, with you both down there, what's going to happen with our training?” I asked.

“No rest for you,” Shade said. “Special project time.”

“More than a special project,” Absynthe said. “Here's your chance to contribute. With so many agents occupied, we don't have anyone to keep an eye on the locals. It just so happens that we've been tipped off that a student at a nearby college is on the verge of announcing some sort of scanner that can detect paranormal activity. We want you two to go there, check it out, and take appropriate action to deal with it.”

“Paranormal scanner?” Nikki asked. “Can it detect psionic activity? Are we getting into some sort of Star Trek science here?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Shade said. “But if it's for real? Blows the covers right off. Not just for us, but for all the psions in the world. Get this straight. We don't know if it's real or not. Might just be some toy or hack job, but the geeks at RPI take two things seriously, engineering and hockey. If there's any chance it's for real, we need it, and we need to keep anyone else from getting it.”

“I love hockey,” Absynthe mused. “Maybe I’m working for the wrong school.”

Shade continued as if she hadn't spoken. “We're assuming that it's going to be kept by the geek in question at a lab in their main engineering building, right in the middle of campus. Lucky for you, their security is shit. They won't take it seriously. What engineer would take anything like this seriously? You won't need to worry about actual security, just their campus safety people. As long as you don't look weird, they won't even bother you, and believe me, it would take a lot of effort to look weird there. So you're safe, Wainwright. I don't know about you, Parker.”

I forced myself to let his jab go. This whole thing sounded idiotic, but I'd roll with it. “So we just check out the campus, go into this building, waltz into the lab and steal this thing, wipe the guy's mind on the way out? Doesn't sound too bad. What's the catch?”

Absynthe laughed and even Shade cracked a smile. “I owe you a drink,” he growled to Absynthe, then looked back at me. “First, you've got just under a week. That's when he's going to unveil it. Tight time limit. Once he releases information on it to the public at large, every psionic organization in the world is going to come sniffing around here. We can't deal with that while we're dealing with the downstate campaign. If you don't get it done in time, Alistair will take care of it. He tends to be, shall we say, excessive in cases like this.”