Family
Growing Pains
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The high bars were my favorite activity in the gym back home. These are very basic compared to those. The gym at TTH was expansive and formidable. There were twenty bars at various heights, fathoms apart, and reaching the topmost one without cheating was a challenge that took me a hundred days to master even with James’ help.
I have to develop a new routine to suit the four short low staves I find here but after a few tries, I manage to find a way to flip and twist between them without touching the mat or the relatively low ceiling while keeping a measure of my customary grace. As my body warms up my mind travels and I can almost imagine myself back there.
* * *
“Hey, you lazy little slug!” I wince. I am well out of easy reach, from my perch on the sixteenth bar, thirty fathoms above the ground but Teag is angry. He can move quickly when he wants to.
It’s my fault. Because I beat yet another hacker, before they could instill the lesson. James is away on an assignment for the Queen and Teag has been looking for ways to punish me, but his useless head-hackers aren’t worth the name.
I wait for him to get close, then drop straight down to the mat cushioning the impact with a whisper of energy, just enough to avoid a broken leg. He notices and is not impressed. If I had done it right, he wouldn’t have noticed.
I keep my eyes down. “Have I displeased you, sir?” I ask, the picture of obedience. His fist heads towards my right cheek. I brace for the impact, just enough to keep from going flying. I almost manage to not flinch. Almost. Then my head snaps around, but I keep my feet. He snorts, satisfied.
“You will return to your cell, without dinner and await your lesson, to which you will submit without a struggle. Or I will flay you.” He orders and I shrug, wiping away the trickle of blood from my split lip. Teag’s threats are never idle.
* * *
I slip under the third bar, catch the fourth, hang by my knees and swing up to the top. Hop back across to the third, slide down, grab it with my hands, use the momentum to bring my ankles up to touch the bar, and flip around it again.
I feel the blood gather in my legs as I swing, the rod bending under my weight. I let go, tuck my knees, flip over, straighten, catch the first bar, then use the backswing to reverse direction—one hand holding, the other pointing, and inertia grants me a slight pause, before reversing the direction of my swing.
For half a second, I am straight up relative to the ground, with my left arm outstretched, hanging from my right, my feet are only half a pace off of the padded mat with my back to the doorway and something grabs my hand from behind. I am so lost in thought at that moment that I can’t completely stop the trained reflex in time, only slow it a bit. No.
I whip around, my right foot extending to connect with Logan’s cheek. He drops onto the mat with a spin at the same moment I do. No!
Oh, no!
For a heartbeat, I’m frozen, then with a grimace, I bend in close to check if he is still alive. He isn’t moving. He is lying on his stomach with one arm underneath and legs tangled up from how he spun around. I can see the tips of his shining white teeth and a thin trickle of blood dripping out the corner of his mouth onto the gray mat. His curling black hair flops over his forehead covering most of his face, disturbed by his breathing. Alive.
I touch his reddening cheek with my fingertips, gently tracing the outline of my toes by his ear. The skin is soft and a little prickly where the hairs have been shaved off. I press, nothing grates. His face bones are okay. I let out the breath I was holding.
Logan groans and screws his eyes up. I jump back, my mind racing with all the ways he might choose to punish me for attacking him.
I really didn’t mean to. It was reflex, an accident!
With my eyes on the ground, I hold my hands behind my back, a respectful distance away. Fidgeting uncontrollably and breathing too fast, I wait for him to pick himself up. He will be angry. He will be justified. I messed up. Bad.
As Logan regains his feet, rubbing his cheek and frowning, I await my punishment.
He steps toward me.
I suppress the urge to cower and peek up at him, forcing my frantic hands into fists at my sides. I will not flinch. I am ready.
He laughs. First a chuckle, then full on belly laughter, puts a hand on my shoulder and pulls me into a hug.
“Teach me to sneak up on you, huh?!” he says, still laughing and then turns to go.
I don’t know what to do.
“What happened to you?” Tom laughs as he takes his seat opposite me at the dinner table. I look away and grit my teeth, resisting the impulse to reach up and cover the large purple and blue blotch in the shape of Elle’s foot that adorns my cheek.
Tom has been scarce since Elle woke up, avoiding me and Luke, so he won’t be roped into settling her in. It’s actually nice to see him, or it would be, if not for his stupid smirk.
“Our dear Elle didn’t take Logan’s dinner invitation kindly, apparently,” Luke answers with a mocking snort, and chuckles into his bowl of pasta while Tom grabs a plate. He snickers, piling on a generous serving. He can’t keep his eyes off me.
I scowl at the both of them, then skewer a meatball and shove it whole into my mouth, so I have an excuse to not respond. It doesn’t stop all my blood rushing to my face, which only makes them laugh more.
That’s right, laugh it up.
With a deep breath, I force my expression to neutral. “So, Tom, how was your commute?” Anything to change the subject.
“Ugh, air traffic solves the problem of road congestion but falling debris sure comes out of nowhere when there’s an accident up above. Although, I swear the new dents in my shuttle don’t look half as bad as your face,” he laughs. I grimace. “What? Did you try to hold her hand or something?”
I roll my eyes then fix them on the plate in front of me, grumbling under my breath while Luke chides him for teasing. The food is actually delicious. Luke’s new cook has pulled out all the stops. This has got to be the best bolognese I’ve had in my life.
Tom mumbles the obligatory apology then moves on to small talk. I try to join in, but I am too distracted.
All I can think about while they tease and laugh, and carry on like it’s no big deal, is that they didn’t see how terrified Elle was. They didn’t see her standing there trembling, waiting for me to punish her as if she had done something unforgivable. It was clearly an accident, a reflex. What must her life have been like before we found her. What kind of violence it takes for someone to develop that kind of reflexes?
“What kind of reflexes, Logan?” Luke asks offhandedly, and I realize they’ve stopped talking and are both looking at me. I know I didn’t say it out loud, and even though I know Luke often unintentionally catches stray thoughts, my temper gets the better of me.
“Stay out of my head!” I push myself to my feet, stalk out of the dining room, leaving them staring and my half-eaten supper still on the table.
I know why they’re doing this. I’m the empath. If anyone has a chance of reaching her it’s me and she’s already attached, so I’m the logical choice for a chaperone. But they don’t have to mock me for it.
I groan as I climb the steps to her floor. She’s wild, she’s powerful. I don’t blame her for wanting to lose herself in the flow, to blow off steam after Luke’s endless testing. For a smart guy Luke can be incredibly obtuse.
I pause at her open door. Her dinner is cold and untouched under its glass dome on the tray table. I walk on towards the closed double doors of the gym. It’s nearly nine o’clock and she’s still in there, moving. I can hear the rhythmic squeak of the bars and the soft thuds of her feet on the mat.
I don’t go in.
James’ voice echoes in my head, the remembered lessons rising with each swing.
“The whole point of the routine is to correct the body’s natural rhythm, without losing your internal sense of it. The irregularity, alternating your steps, skipping random bars, doubling back… Besides building strength, it’s all to eliminate predictable structure in your movements. The over-under movement heightens your awareness of the timing and flow. Recognizing that in the movements of others is something that could save your life when faced with a seemingly unbeatable enemy. Practice until your body remembers it, and you won’t have to think about it in a fight.”
Every trainer at TTH had their own style, adapted to match the unique Talent of their student, but the goals were fixed. If I didn’t reach mine, Teag got the punishment, that’s why he pushed me so hard. That’s why I spent nearly every night with the Mind Smith.
James’ voice fades away when I sense Logan. His energy is up, like he’s irritated. He stops at the door but doesn’t come in.
It’s late, long past sundown. I’m actually pretty hungry. I am about to stop, maybe get some food, but then he leaves.
What do they want from me?
* * *
The next day, Logan is busy. He left me a tab and a note, saying his party plans that need attention will make it difficult for him to keep me company so I should play around with this thing and explore.
It looks boring.
A flat glass screen, three buttons and a few ports. I leave it on the nightstand, and hurry off to my four low bars, trying not to think about what I did. I do not succeed.
* * *
I’m hungry. There’s usually supper in my room when I go back there, but its early. The sun has barely set. I hope quitting early will mean my food is still warm for a change.
I stop outside my open door. My stomach grumbles.
Logan is inside. He smiles broadly when he greets me, like always. I can’t return his smile. The bruise is even worse today. I can see the size and shape of my foot in the purple and blue blotch. Suddenly I’m not so hungry anymore.
He laughs, again. My eyes dart to the ground as my shoulders rise and for the next few seconds, I am so busy kicking myself for letting my reaction show that I don’t hear half of what he says about dinner.
He’s staring at me, holding out his hand. Deep breath.
I take it, and he leads me—down the stairs, left to the end of the hall below the gym.
The doors are twice my height, a deep red wood with the edges stained black. Logan glances back at me as I take in the intricate mesh of vines and leaves then pushes them open and we walk into a room that I can only think of as a waste of space in a place like this.
The main dining room is huge. More of a hall than a room, only a little narrower than the gym and as long with tall, draped windows and an extremely long table. It reminds me of the Teleran Royal Council chamber that Teag once showed me. He said it has a place for every General in the Teleran Royal Guard, for them to discuss the state of our world and the security of the Royal Bloodline.
Luke’s dining room has the same low hanging crystalline lights as the foyer. The table is deep red with black edges, and the straight-backed chairs stand there all in a row, identical with their red and black pinstriped cushions. There is some kind of musical instrument, an ornate fireplace and a few easy chairs on the other side. There must be a hundred places here.
Logan shows me the seat beside his. Luke is at the head and Thomas sits across from us. They are all looking at me. I try to smile, and make my shoulders relax, tracing the elegant cutlery and place setting with my fingertips. Deep breaths.
Servants appear from a side door, and an elaborate meal is laid out in front of us. Then I finally recognize the importance of the etiquette training that seemed so pointless all those years ago.
“You like carrots, Elle?” Tom asks gesturing with a sweet-smelling orange lump on his fork. Luke cuts his meat, “Roast any good?” he asks. All I can do is nod and smile, but it makes them happy. I pick up the knife and fork.
Logan laughs. It gives me this feeling in my chest. Like I am welcome. Like I am one of them.
The food is weird, sweet and salty and juicy. The company is strange and a little uncomfortable. But when they laugh together, I don’t notice the number of servants or array of cutlery or even the size of the room anymore. I don’t hear about their day or the party plans. I don’t even taste the food.
It is the first time I have eaten as part of a family since I was taken away from home, and it is wonderful.
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Now she is being invited to be a 'family'' participant! My oh my, such stress on poor Misty! How to cope ?