Chapter 10
I awoke to a headache that felt as though a lumberjack had decided to chop down my skull. Light was shining through a window and there was a faint rattling that I was sure was between my ears, the remnants of my brain trying to escape its own stupidity for drinking too much last night. I groaned and realized that the buzzing was not in my head: it was in fact to the left of it, on the nightstand next to the hotel bed I was sleeping in.
I rolled over and grabbed my phone, slapping the talk button without bothering to check the display. I wondered for a half-second if this was what life had been like before Caller ID. “Hello?” My voice was little more than a croak.
“Hey.” I heard the quiet voice of Zack on the other end of the line and sat up, far too fast for my own good.
“Owww,” I said, my hand rushing to my temple, which felt as though it were about to explode.
“You okay?” Zack sounded a little resigned. Or cautious. Actually, it was hard to tell because the pain in my head was so sharp.
“Yes. Just…have a headache.”
“Hm. First night on a mission, away from the Directorate…” He sounded like he was brainstorming. “Let me guess, they gave you cover as an FBI agent, complete with an ID that said you were over twenty-one.”
“Should I worry that you immediately assume the worst about me?” I tried to cram some reproach into my words, but I’m pretty sure it failed. I dangled my legs over the edge of the bed. Apparently I hadn’t managed to shed my suit before I passed out.
“You should assume that I’ve been a college student at roughly your age. My fake IDs weren’t as realistic as what the Directorate can produce. Also, I’ve been on some of those ‘sit around and wait’ assignments. They’re moments of excitement followed by long stretches of boring nothing.”
“That sounds familiar.” I stood up and hung my head, because it felt better for some reason. I paused, trying to string together some thoughts. “About last night…”
“It’s all right, you don’t have to apologize. I know it’s been tense for you lately.” His voice was soothing.
“Yeah, I…wait, what?” I bristled, every muscle in my body tensing as the meaning behind what he said made it through my fog-addled brain. “What did you just say?”
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I…I said…”
“Did you just say ‘I don’t have to apologize’?” I felt my jaw clench. “I know damned well I don’t have to apologize. I was just minding my own business in my room when you came in and we had a lovely conversation about how you secretly resent the fact that I can’t put out, which is something that you’ve never had the balls to say to my face.”
I waited for a response, and when it came, there was a little heat on it. “This isn’t the time to have this conversation.”
“Really?” I almost yelled at him. “When’s a good time to discuss the fact that we’ve been dating for months and can’t touch for more than two seconds per day? Wedding night? Golden Anniversary? When would be the appropriate time to talk about the fact that we can’t have sex, Zack? Please, tell me so I can write it into my schedule!”
There was the barest gap of silence on the other side. “Fine, you want to do this now? Yes, it’s grating on me, okay? But that doesn’t mean—”
“It’s grating? Grating?” I let fly with my disbelief. “Just say it, okay? It’s frustrating and it’s never going to get any better! Unless you really love the touch of heavy leather gloves, you’ll be enjoying a nice embargo of skin-to-skin contact for the rest of your life.”
“I – what? Touch of leather gloves? You mean, like—”
“I mean it’s never going to get better, Zack.” I was firm, final.
“So, what?” He didn’t even sound real on the other end of the phone. “You want to be done? Finished with me?”
It felt a little like someone was choking me, and the pain in my head was splintering, telling me to say something I didn’t really want to. “I think we’ve gone as far as you can go with me, Zack. If you ever want to have anything approaching a normal life, yeah…I think we’re finished.”
There was a smoldering quality about the way he said his next words, like there was a fire underneath every single one of them. “If that’s the way you feel—”
“It’s not the way I feel, Zack.” I should have been on the edge of panic, ending things like this. It’s not like I set out to do it the day before, when I was content on the campus, in training, and with my boyfriend. “It’s the way it is. You’re too big a boy to keep holding back; time to grow up. My life is solitary confinement – it’s a prison sentence, and you don’t deserve it, even if you do act like an ass sometimes.”
“That’s it?” I could hear the edge in his voice. “It’s over?”
“Yeah.” I didn’t have an edge in mine. I was just tired. “It’s over. Be safe in Michigan.” I pushed the end button on my phone without waiting for his reply and sagged back onto the bed, taking a deep breath. I felt a burning at the corner of my eyes, and I couldn’t believe what I’d just done.
In a way, I was sorry I hadn’t done it sooner. I mean, I kissed another guy at the bar last night, and almost got carried away. That’s not the strongest sign that things were going well in my relationship with Zack. In fact, it was probably a sign that there were some deep, serious, underlying problems. Well, one anyway. And just because I had to live the rest of my life to less than the fullest didn’t mean he had to.
There was an insistent knocking at my door and I levered myself back up and opened it to find Kat waiting. “Ariadne wants us all on the phone in an hour to make our report.”
“Fine.” I massaged my temples. “You want to come to my room or what?”
She shrugged. “Sure. I think I can have Scott up and moving by then.” She looked down at my attire and made a face. “You might consider showering and changing your clothes. You look—”
I looked down at myself, at what I was wearing. “A little ragged, yeah. I’ll do that. See you in an hour.”
I shut the door and got to work. I rummaged in my overnight bag and found pain relievers and the other drug I was taking. I popped the acetaminophen, then an equal dose of ibuprofen, then got my syringe ready for my morning injection of chloridamide. The injection was critical because if I didn’t take it, the souls of the people I’d absorbed tended to get a little…feisty…in my head. I took a deep breath and plunged the needle into a vein. I was fortunate in that I was a meta; if not for my continuously regenerating vein structure, I’d likely be out of places to inject the drug by now.
The shower brought me back to life, and after I spent a few minutes getting my hair straightened and had changed into a fresh suit, I felt worlds better. The pain was still lingering behind my eyes, but it was in the recesses of my mind rather than front and center. And it didn’t hurt to blink.
An hour later, there was a knock on my door and I opened it to find Kat, who was as sunny in her disposition as ever, and Scott, who wore sunglasses and looked as though he’d had an anvil dropped on his head. He grumbled some sort of greeting as he slouched into the room and flopped in a chair at the table. Kat sat across from him, a small smile seeming to be her only defense against laughing at both of us.
When Kat’s phone rang, I caught a nearly imperceptible twitch at the edge of Scott’s eyebrow. I might not have noticed it but for the fact I felt one myself. “Just a second,” Kat said to whoever was on the phone. She pulled it away from her ear and pushed a button. “You’re on speaker, Ariadne.”