Isobel nodded, and he started walking again, his pace deliberately slow. Above them, the sky was growing dark, clouds gathering fat and heavy, the wind picking up speed. She was grateful for his pace because her steps were growing shorter and stiffer, a sharp pain shooting up through her ribs. Her face pinching with confusion at his continued silence. “You’re not acting at all weirded out by the fact that I’m seeing dead people.”
“I’d be more surprised if there was nothing more to our abilities than what the officials tell us,” he responded lowly. “There was some quiet chatter back in the San Bernadino Settlement around five years ago about a Sigma. Apparently, she was seeing visions of her dead husband, but then the visions changed into other people, and she never saw him again, so she finally killed herself to be with him, thinking he was alive somewhere in some sort of afterworld.”
“Do the Gifted believe in an afterworld?”
“Not from what I recall.”
“Oh.” She tried not to sound disappointed. That would have been convenient.
“They believe in fragments.” Mikel shot her a guarded look. “Like memories. Kept alive by the people who knew them and kept safe by one of their gods. They believe that lighting a candle can bring back one of the fragments on loan from the god who protects it. You can speak to the dead that way. They just don’t speak back.”
“What do you believe?” she dared to ask, shooting him a quick, timid look.
As much as standing up to her father had given her a wobbly boost of confidence, having Mikel belittle him and toss him around like a rag doll made the stoic professor far more terrifying than he had ever been before.
“I believe it’s going to rain,” he responded shortly. “And this is where I leave you.”
They were standing by the doors to the fitness centre. “Go straight to Kalen. No detours.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?” One dark brow twitched up.
“Professor.” She swallowed.
A flash of lightning and the sudden crack of thunder had her flinching violently, but Mikel didn’t look furious. He didn’t even feel furious. She had gained enough distance from her father to be able to tell where all the rage was coming from, and none of it was originating from Mikel.
It was almost like he was directing it all into the sky instead.
She reached out like she was going to catch him when he turned away, but he smoothly slid his hands into his pockets, looking at her hand. She pulled it up, tucking a flyaway strand of hair behind her ear just to give it something to do. He didn’t say anything, but he was clearly waiting for her to explain why she had almost stopped him.
“Is it happening so that I don’t have to feel it?” she asked quietly.
His gaze flickered upward for just a moment, and the rain started to lightly pitter-patter around them. A short melodious few notes rang out over hidden speakers all over the academy, signalling the end of the third period.
“Yes,” Mikel admitted, sighing slightly. “But don’t feel bad. The lake could use a top-up.” Then he turned again and stalked off without waiting for her response.
“Thank you,” she whispered anyway, wishing he had stuck around to accept it.
17
Good Luck With Oscar
Isobel stepped into the climbing room, surprised to find Kalen already waiting there since the fourth period had yet to begin.
“Cameras are already off,” he told her, stepping around her to hang the Session in Progress sign on the door, before closing it. He flicked the lock and then eased back so that he wasn’t crowding her as he quickly surveyed her, his broad face clear of any particular emotion. “It didn’t go well?”
She laughed awkwardly. “It was fin—”
“The truth, Isobel.” There was a sharpness to his words, a subtle command, but there was no anger brushing up against her from his emotions.
“It was awful.” She rolled her shoulders back, trying to loosen some of the tension that held her muscles in such a tight grip. “My parents weren’t even bonded. There’s a special medication that can sustain a Tether indefinitely—unless you skip every other day, which my mom did. It seems like she was probably trying to save up enough pills to run away from him. Anyway, that’s how she died. She weakened herself so that when he went to dump his usual load of emotional filth onto her, her heart just stopped. Apparently, I’m selfish, manipulative, and stupid. And I can’t even argue with that because who doesn’t even notice that the two people she spends every day with don’t even have matching eyes?”
“A person who doesn’t make a lot of eye contact.” Kalen’s gravelled voice lowered to a gentle hum. He drifted closer and touched her chin, easing her gaze up to his. “A person who has been taught to stay out of the way. That doesn’t make you selfish or stupid, and only manipulative people call other people shit like that. You’re perfect the way you are.”
She scoffed, searching his face for anything resembling humour, but he looked completely serious. “You don’t even know me that well,” she managed. “You can’t say that.”
“I’m an excellent judge of character.” He rolled his eyes, releasing her chin and motioning to the harness hanging on the wall.
She immediately put herself through the motions of preparing for their climbing session. It was almost a guilty pleasure, and sometimes she worried that he knew how much she looked forward to him tying that blindfold behind her head.
It was strangely exhilarating to hand over complete responsibility for her well-being to someone she trusted instead of having it forcibly taken away from her by people she didn’t trust. It was slowly cleansing her, session by session. Instilling a fragile hope inside her that one day she would be able to blindly trust someone outside the climbing room, and they would never let her down—just like Kalen had never let her slip or fall.
He reached out to tighten her harness, and then he spun her around, pulling the blindfold down over her eyes.
“You’re perfect because you’re angry,” he said. “Deep down, that’s what you have at your core. A quiet, persistent fury, kicking to get out. But what are you choosing to give people? Measured words, thoughtful gestures, and relief from their ugly emotions. I don’t think you have a single bad intention in your body, and I think perfection is all about intention, because if it depended on action, none of us would ever achieve it.”
He was right, of course, but it was harder to apply his words to her, specifically. She wished she felt anything like how he saw her, but it didn’t seem real. Maybe he was just used to his volatile Alphas, and a quiet Sigma was a novelty to him.
She waited for his hands to land on her shoulders, to direct her to the wall as his heat crept over her spine, his rich vanilla scent digging into her muscles and forcing them to loosen.
“But what if I did?” she finally responded. “Have bad intentions? What if I changed?”
He leaned closer to her, his hands finally settling over her shoulders, warm and big, his breath tickling the back of her ear. “Even the most perfect girls can be bad sometimes.”
She shivered and then jumped up and down just to try and mask the tremor in her limbs as her body prepared for the climb.