The Revealing

I went inside to clean up, and Willow followed me. The boys and the blond stayed to keep a rally going.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Obsidian?”

I tried to wipe some blood off my face, but it just smudged. “Yeah! I’m okay. Don’t worry!” I tried to be as enthusiastic as possible.

She laughed at my false enthusiasm. “All right then, let’s go get you cleaned up.”

We went downstairs to the showers. After scrubbing the blood off my face and hands, I inspected my nose. “Wow, Mason did a pretty good job fixing it. It doesn’t even look like it broke.” I turned my face to look at my nose from another angle.

“Yeah, it’s his job. You’re just lucky that he was there. Only your guardian can heal you, unless someone’s born gift is healing.”

Willow’s smile was sympathetic. I smiled back, reassuring her once again that I was fine. We went upstairs, and I checked on Peridot. I creaked the door open sluggishly and peeked inside. She was still sleeping on the bed. It was a good thing too; she needed to rest. I opened the door wide and walked in. She was clutching the teddy bear Car had given me. She turned over and faced the wall. I went to my window again and continued to read. I had had enough excitement for one day.

Sometime during my reading spree, I fell asleep. I woke up to my book landing with a thud on the ground. The sudden way I awoke caused my balance to falter, and I fell over. I landed as my book had—with a thud on the ground. I got up rubbing my lower back, where I’d hit one of the legs of the other chair. I went over to the bed to check on Peridot. It was dark. I couldn’t have been asleep for that long, but she wasn’t there. I felt panic tighten my chest. The covers looked as if she had left the bed, but where would she have gone? The teddy bear was lying on the floor.

I stiffened as I heard the door open. I wasn’t facing the door, so I had to think of anything I could use as a weapon just in case. I grabbed the book that had fallen out of my hand earlier. It wasn’t really weapon worthy, but it had a decent weight. I turned around and saw a tall, broad figure. I panicked and threw the book as hard as I could. It hit the intruder with a thud and then bounced off him. He grunted at the impact, so I was slightly proud of myself, but I was still suspicious of this person. It was dark in my room already, and the shadows on his face made the intruder unidentifiable. He stood there quietly facing me, looking at me. His posture didn’t seem menacing; it was cautious. When he stepped into the light, I saw that it was Car. At least it looked like him. There was something odd going on. His face didn’t have his usual easy smile on it. He looked nervous.

“Uh? Car?”

He walked right toward me, looking in all directions except at me, and then he held out his hand. I was afraid to take it, but then his smile slipped through his lips, and I knew it was him. I took his hand.

“Come with me,” he said.

Still holding on to my hand, he led me out of the room. As we passed Willow’s room, I noticed that Peridot was sleeping in her bed, and relief seeped into every muscle and bone in my body. She was okay. Willow had probably taken her to do something in her room, and Peri had probably fallen asleep in the bed.

After the thoughts of worry and worst-case scenarios stopped replaying in my head, I had nothing else to think about. Other than Car’s weirdness, I could think of nothing except how warm his hand was in mine, how his fingers felt curled around mine and how tight his grip was. He was leading me somewhere, and I didn’t know where it was. We turned a corner into a hallway I hadn’t been down before, and he opened a mystery door. Mason, Willow and, unfortunately, Damian were in the middle of a huge room with an indoor pool. My heart rate started to pick up as Willow ran to me and dragged me into a changing room for girls.

“We are going midnight swimming!” she squeaked. Why was she so happy? It wasn’t as if she’d never had a chance to do this before.

“Are we?” I raised an eyebrow. “I’m not.”

She frowned. “But you have to!” She clung to my arm. “I don’t want to go alone! I am going to be the only girl if you don’t come!”

She pouted, her turquoise eyes stinging into my free will.

“I don’t even have a bathing suit. And I am not skinny-dipping!” I said.

Her face scrunched in distaste, probably because she would not enjoy skinny-dipping with her brothers either. I laughed at her expression with nervousness eating at my insides. I knew how this would end. I was going into that pool no matter what I said, even if I had to swim with my clothes on.

“That’s no problem. I would not be here if that were the case. I would never be able to sleep soundly again if I saw my brothers skinny-dipping.” She smiled and squealed, “You can wear your brand-new bathing suit!” She took a suit out of a bag that seemingly appeared out of nowhere. It was small.

I wasn’t ashamed of my body, but I didn’t like flaunting it. The suit was a black two-piece. I took it in my hands and, with a shaky voice, said, “Well, they do say that black is slimming.” I smiled weakly. She was ecstatic. Then there was a loud knock on the door.

“Hurry up, girls! We aren’t going to be here all day!”

I stopped. That was Damian’s voice muffled through the closed door. I suddenly remembered why I didn’t want to do this.

“Oh, shut up, Damian! We are coming!” Willow said. She turned to me. “Jeez, brothers. What can you do?” She shrugged.

Brothers? I wasn’t shocked, but the thought that she was their sister had never really occurred to me, though for some reason, I had already assumed they were related. Good looks must have run in their genes. I wondered what their parents looked like. Does that mean …? “Are you guys triplets?” I said.

She looked at me and smiled. “No. Damian and I are twins, and Car is a year younger than us.”

Damian and Willow—twins! This was unanticipated. “How old are you?” I asked.

She glanced at me and then went into the stall to change before I did. “Well, Damian and I are nineteen, but we started school when Car started. He is eighteen.”

She was 19? Damian was too? My heart dropped. She was a year younger than Mason. I frowned a little. She came out looking amazing in a red bikini. She saw my facial expression and jumped.

“But that doesn’t mean anything needs to change! You’re turning out to be a close friend already. You know more about me than anyone at our school does. You know I’m not human! Please don’t think of me differently.”

I smiled at her, and she relaxed her tense shoulders. She did not look 19 at all. I gave her a parting smile in the mirror behind her as I walked into the stall to change. It took me a lot less time to put the bathing suit on than usual, probably because it was a two-piece. I looked in the mirror in the stall, and I was impressed. I walked out of the stall, and Willow was jumping up and down with excitement, her French braid bobbling around.

“That looks so good!” She beamed at me. “Hey, do you want me to French braid your hair? It will look nice. Plus, you have a pretty neck; you shouldn’t hide it with your hair.” She smiled tenderly.

I sat down on the bench beside her, and she went to work, finishing with surprising speed and not pulling any of my hair too tightly, which I always hated. I stood up next to her. She was half a foot taller than I was, and her legs were all the height. She squeaked at our reflections in the mirror. The braid looked pretty. She was taking the role of best friend in my life. I felt comfortable around her. Then another pounding on the door started up the pounding in my chest. Willow turned her head to the closed door.

“We’re coming! Get in the water before I put you there myself, Damian!”

The pounding stopped, and in the distance, we heard a splash. He had jumped in. This was my chance to get in the water. If I held my breath and ran, I would be able to get in the water; there was no other way. Willow held the door open, and I walked quickly to the pool. Mason’s and Car’s eyes widened, and their eyebrows raised as they saw me coming. I felt as if I were blushing with my whole body. I wanted to turn around and never come back, especially since Damian had just popped his head out of the water in time to see me. His eyebrows raised, but his eyes didn’t widen. I wondered why. I was about to turn around, when I felt Willow’s hands on my shoulder blades, pushing me toward the pool.

“Oh no you don’t,” she whispered just loudly enough for me to hear. So I let out the breath I was holding and then cannonballed into the water. I was expecting to hit the bottom with my back, but the bottom never came. I looked down, and the floor was almost 15 feet down. I was already five feet in, so this pool was 20 feet deep. I swam up to the top just in time to see Willow dive over me into the water. She did it as gracefully as possible. I wondered whose idea it had been to go midnight swimming. I swam to the stepladder and sat down with my body still under water. Willow came up for air after about two minutes. It must have been a Tharsion thing, because she, Car, and Damian seemed to be able to swim for an extended amount of time. Mason had to come up more often since he was a Halfling. I shivered.

“Are you cold, Bunny? Come over here. I’m warm.” Damian grinned artfully at me, and I glared at him.

“Not in one million years.” My teeth chattered. I wanted to be warmer, but I wasn’t willing to cuddle up to Damian in a bathing suit to achieve the warmth my body craved.

He shrugged. “Whatever you say, Bunny.” With that, he immersed himself in the water.

I put myself lower down in the water so that I felt no breeze from the fans. I didn’t like swimming at midnight.

We stayed in the pool for about half an hour more. They played some kind of find-it game at the bottom of the pool, and I soaked at the top. Mason came up occasionally for air—more often than the others but not as often as I expected. I tried to join in at one point, but the farther down I swam, the colder it got, so I decided to soak near the warmer temperatures.

Finally, they’d had enough, and we decided to exit the pool and go to bed. After Willow changed, while I was in the stall, she was quieter than usual, and then I heard a small sound come from her while I changed into my comfortable sweatpants and hoodie. I came out of the stall with my hair still dripping. She stood there looking at me. She wore plaid pajama bottoms and a plain lavender T-shirt.

“What is it, Willow?” I stared at her expectantly.

“Um, you have known Mason for a long time. Right?”

I smiled, knowing where this was going. She was too nervous for anything else. “Yes, I have. What’s up?”

She looked at the floor, rubbing her arm. “He isn’t dating anyone, is he?”

I laughed a loud laugh that lasted a little too long. “No, he isn’t. He hasn’t dated anyone for four years.”

Her eyes bugged. “Really? Because that doesn’t seem likely judging by how he looks and his personal—”

“Stop right there. I know he isn’t my brother, but he is close to that, and I don’t really like seeing him as attractive, even though I did when I was younger. Now it’s just awkward.”

She laughed her tinkling laugh and sat on the bench, obviously relieved. Had she thought I was into him? “Oh, well, that’s good,” she said.

I smiled at her. “Willow?”

She looked up, blushing. “Yeah?” She extended the length of the word, obviously stalling.

“Do you like Mason?” I couldn’t hold back the smile spreading across my face.

“A little,” she confessed.

“Well, I have good reason to believe that he has something for you, but don’t act on it. He is weird sometimes, and I know he hates when girls go for him and make all the first moves. He believes that is a guy’s job and that he would be a coward if he didn’t make a move.”

She nodded frantically. “He is so not a coward.” She sighed with delight. Then we both stood up, and she hugged me so tightly I thought she would snap me in half. She pulled back and said, “I think they like you, though.”

I was confused. “Who?”

She looked at me with a sarcastic expression. “Who do you think, dummy?”

I stepped back, a little stunned. “Them? No, Car is just my friend, and Damian—well, he is a jerk. Why would he like me? He even told me today that he would rather do anything else than sit with me.”

Her expression soured. “He told you that?” She looked surprised.

“Yes, and how could he like me, when he said he wants to do anything other than spend time with me?”

She glanced at me as if the answer were obvious.

“What?” I asked.

She said, “That’s because he is afraid of being with you alone. He is such a chicken sometimes. I actually think he likes you more than Car does, and that is weird because Damian never gives attention to a girl for more than two hours. His goal is to get a girl to either like him or get scared of him so that he can turn her down. He is a total dork sometimes.”

I stared at her in disbelief. “But he hate—”

“Trust me. I think I know my own twin,” she said, interrupting. She looked straight into my eyes. “And he definitely doesn’t hate you.”

Her words sounded so genuine that I almost believed them myself, but then I remembered what he’d said to me and got my head straight. I thought she was mistaking like for attraction. The attraction was also probably mostly mine.

We left the changing room, and I walked with Willow to her room. Peri was still sleeping soundly on the bed, so I left her there to sleep with Willow for the night. After all, Willow did have a bigger bed. I dropped Willow off and sleepily walked to my room, dragging my feet on the ground. For some reason, swimming always sucked all the life out of me, and I was prepared to collapse into the night.

I turned the corner and saw Damian in front of my door, standing with his hands in his pockets and without a shirt. I tried to glare and tell him to get out of my way, but I had no energy left; all I could do was stare at his bare chest. I noticed what I was doing after he held his breath. I panicked. How long had I been staring? Why was I still staring? I snapped my head up so fast that my neck made a sound of resistance. Luckily, he hadn’t heard it. I looked at his eyes, which were glowing, just as everyone else’s had been in the pool.

“That was a nice bathing suit, Bun.” He looked down and gave a wicked smile—a smile I knew every girl in school would have lusted over, the smile of a bad boy. He was a bad boy.

“Same with yours.” I blushed as soon as those words came out of my mouth. I knew he would take my comment the wrong way, so I tried to fix it. “It would have been better if you’d showed less skin.”

His smile was devilish as he looked at me through his eyelashes. “Yours would be better if you showed more.” His voice was dark.

I got angry and punched him in the arm as hard as I could. “Perv!”

He laughed and grabbed his arm. “I’m just kidding, Bunny. Jeez, you have a mean punch.”

I said nothing. If Tharsions bruised, he was going to have a whopper tomorrow. I tried to sidestep him and go to my room, but he just stood there looking at me and blocking my way.

“I have already had my daily dose of jerkiness from you. I would really enjoy going to sleep now,” I said.

He chuckled. “So would I. Can I join you?”

I stared at him and narrowed my eyes. He was doing well today. “Unless you want to be sleeping in a coffin, I wouldn’t recommend that!”

I shoved at him, and he grabbed my hand. His eyes lost all their humour; they were intense and secretive. He leaned in close. I was tempted to close the space between us and kiss him, but I knew that urge was just attraction speaking. He looked tempted too. He leaned in closer, and my lips parted—not noticeably, hopefully. This type of closeness was too much for my brain to handle. My hormones were going crazy, screaming in my head to kiss him. Then he went past my face and put his lips next to my ear, not touching it but so damn close that I could feel his breath. He whispered, “I would sleep in a coffin any day if it meant sleeping next to you.”

That was when I knew that I was a goner. I closed my eyes and awaited what was coming. He pulled his head back, looked at my expression and laughed. “You are too easy.”

Then he walked away. I blushed, and my face felt hot from embarrassment and anger. The things that I’d thought about doing when he was that close to me were unacceptable. I could not let myself become that weak again. Still stunned, I opened the door to my room and then plopped onto my bed.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

The next morning, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. In fact, I spent all night on the wrong side of the bed. I had a dream about getting too close for comfort to Damian again. The only difference was that in my dream, I gave in to my hormonal torment and kissed him. It got intense, and I woke up pissed off at my dream self for being that stupid.

Willow came into my doorway, holding Peri’s hand, and she looked angry too. Willow looked at me. “Stop being angry!”

I was confused. I was usually good at hiding my emotions from her, mostly the negative ones.

“And don’t say you’re not,” she added, “because I woke up to Peridot apologizing for punching me.”

I sighed and looked at Peri as she calmed down and loosened the grip she had on Willow’s hand.

“All right then, Obsidian. It’s time for breakfast, and then it’s time for training.”

I looked at her. “Training?”

She nodded. “You don’t think we all just hide out acting helpless, do you? We all need to know how to protect ourselves just in case. Also, this type of training helps us control our powers, and since you have more than one, you need training stat.”

I rolled my eyes. I did not like athletics. “Fine.”

We went to eat breakfast. After breakfast, Willow handed me a change of clothes. They were all black.

“What is this for?”

She looked at me as if it were obvious. “Well, you can’t train in jeans, can you?”

I nodded and went to change. The clothing consisted of a tight black tank top and skinny black pants. The shoes were, oddly, the right size, and they were black as well. I had my hair in a high ponytail at the top of my head. I looked like a gym junkie when I came back to Willow. She had on all black too.

I followed her down the hallway with the door to the swimming pool, and we walked into the poolroom, but we walked past it, even though some of the girls were swimming and doing laps. Maybe they had water-related powers. One girl looked as if she were hitting record speeds, and she wasn’t even trying. As we walked by, she climbed out of the pool, and I saw that she had webbed feet and fins on the sides of her legs. Once she saw me looking at her legs, there was a click, and her legs looked normal. She could probably turn it on and off, unlike Peri, who tended to feel what I felt now. I only realized I had stopped to look when Willow tugged on my arm.

“Don’t stare. She is self-conscious about the fins.”

I turned away and whispered, “And not about the webbed feet?”

She laughed. “Those too.”

We walked around the pool to a door at the back of the room. Willow walked in first, and then I did. The door was not the doorway to a room but to an elevator. We got in, and it went down.

Two floors later, we were in the training room. The room was huge. I didn’t understand how all of this could fit in one big house.

“What’s on the floor above this?” I asked.

“That’s the guys’ floor. There aren’t that many, so the girls get all the rooms upstairs. We keep the guys and the girls separated, though, for reasons you will find out soon enough. However, the training room is for both guys and girls. It’s the only room where they can be together. And it’s only because they train against each other.”

My eyes widened. “Why are we training? I bet that the elders can’t take on all of us at once.”

She smiled. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, Obsidian.”

Her voice sounded guarded. I was suspicious, but I didn’t say anything about it. “Where is Peri?” I asked.

She nodded at the far corner of the room. Peri was jumping around a jungle gym in what looked like a game of tag with some other boys a few years older than she was.

“The boys come from the youngest ages. The more guardians we have, the better. Plus, it usually helps the orphans.”

I felt a pang of sadness, not only for my parents, who had passed away not long ago, but also for these boys, who seemed so young. I turned my head away from the play structure and toward the mat that Willow was guiding me to.

“So the training starts here. We graduate throughout the day every day to different points in the room. But for you, it’s just combat.”

My eyes widened. “I’m not going to fight anyone, if that is what you are leading up to. I can’t fight people that haven’t done anything to me.”

Willow sighed and looked at a door on the far wall. “I had a feeling you would say that, but I’m just going to help you practice with dummies and stuff—you know, training gear. However, you will be fighting people, Obsidian. It’s necessary.”

I unwillingly nodded, and then she went to the door she had glanced at before and said, “You need to show me where you are with technique. I heard from Damian that you already have a pretty good strength behind your hit.” She said all this while huffing, puffing and dragging out a life-sized mannequin with a bottom filled with sand. After a few more grunts, Willow placed the mannequin, which was significantly taller than I was, in front of me. I looked up at it hesitantly. Willow looked at me expectantly.

“What do you want me to do?” I said.

She sighed lightly. “Uh, hit it?”

I felt stupid for asking such an obvious question. I looked at the dummy sternly and shot my fist out dead centre. It didn’t even budge; however, the spot where I’d hit it started to turn blue. Willow was shocked.

“Oh my! Did I break it or something?” I said. “Is it supposed to be doing that?”

Willow turned toward me with a big smile. She looked as if she were suppressing a laugh. “No, no, you didn’t break it, Obsidian, but you did bruise it, and that was not what I expected.”

I stared at her for an explanation.

“Well, the thing is, newbie fighters are usually pretty pathetic fighters when it comes to Steve here.” She patted the dummy’s back. “Unless they have superstrength. I guess Damian was right.” She beamed at me. “Hit him again, but keep going this time for as long as you can go.”

I did as she told me, and I hit him. I kept hitting him, and each spot slowly turned blue after I made contact. Willow was ecstatic.

“I think I’m done now.” I said each word between a pant.

I was sweaty and gross. I hoped that Car wouldn’t see me like this. I even hoped that Damian wouldn’t see me all gross and greasy, which was a new feeling. Willow took Steve by the shoulders and dragged him into the other room, which looked like another training room in this ginormous house. Typical. Then she came out of the room with nothing and walked over to me.

“Since Steve was a synch for you, I thought I would up the game for you—make it a bit more your level. We can only practice technique with a moving target, and since I’m obviously not a superstrength type of girl, I can’t lug him around to recapture movement. So we are getting another target for you.”

I looked at her, my eyes searching hers for the conclusion she was getting to, but she gave nothing away. I heard movement behind the door where Steve had come from. I turned toward the door just as it opened. Car stepped out in gym attire, looking amazing, as usual. I suddenly remembered how I looked. As Willow walked over to Car, I fiddled with my hair, trying to make myself a little more presentable.

Willow walked over to the light switch and dimmed the surrounding lights, leaving only the ones above our mat at their fullest brightness. Car walked over to the mat. His eyes were just as guarded as Willow’s had been before. He looked into my eyes when he reached the mat.

“Let’s get this started,” he said. He raised his fists and bent his knees a little, and my mouth dropped open. I looked over at Willow, who was twisting a strand of hair nervously.

“You want me to fight him?” I said, pointing at Car, when he grabbed my arm and flipped me onto my back. I let out a gasp, not of pain but of surprise. This was serious.