Malina's Revenge (11 page)

“Okay, we"ll stop,” I said then I gasped when I looked at the clock. “Is that clock right?”
“I don"t know, why?” he mumbled.
“Because it says it"s midnight,” I said. “Are you too tired to fly?”
“Not if you try to help a little, can you?” he said.
I nodded. “I"ll try, but I haven"t had any practice since that first day.”
“That"s okay. You"ll do fine,” he said and he stuck his hand out to me. “Help me up?”
I walked over and pulled him up, wrapping my arm around his waist and putting his arm across my shoulders. As we walked toward the door, I reached out to Matt.
‘I’m so sorry. We lost track of time. We’re on our way home, I think. He’s pretty worn out though,’
I thought
‘It’s okay my sweet. Do you need my help getting him home?’
he thought.
‘I don’t think so, but we’re not in the air yet. If he can’t fly, I’ll let you know, okay?’
I thought
‘Okay, I love you,’
he thought.
‘Let me know when you’re in the courtyard, and heat up dinner for us and bring it to the room, okay?’
‘Okay,’
I thought.
‘I love you too.’
I opened the basement door and got him up the stairs, through the chapel and outside. The fresh air helped revive him a bit. He stood facing me and put his arms around my waist and mine were clamped around his.
“Okay,” he said, “you first. Close your eyes. When I feel you rise, I will too, okay?” I nodded and closed my eyes,„lighter than air" I recited in my mind „lighter than air." I felt my hair move in the breeze and opened my eyes. We were above the trees and moving toward home. Suddenly I felt Carlos start to slip through my arms.
“Carlos!” I yelled.
“Huh? What?” he mumbled. “Oh, sorry.”
“Look,” I said, “I don"t want you to fall, because I"m not sure I could move fast enough to catch you. Can you climb around onto my back?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he mumbled.
“Carefully,” I said as he began sliding around. I gripped his arm as long as I could then I relaxed when I felt his weight on my back. I clamped my hands together under his legs and leaned forward, smiling when he began snoring after his head slumped down on my shoulder. “Okay,” I said, “now comes the tough part.” How, I thought, am I supposed to link with Matt and stay airborne? I needed to contact him because I had no clue how to land without tumbling head over heels. Landing alone was tough, landing with someone on your back? No way. I took a deep breath.
‘Lighter than air, lighter than air, Matt? lighter than air,’
I thought.
‘Uh, honey?’
he thought.
‘Sorry, lighter than air, new at this, lighter than air, could use your help, lighter than air, with the landing, lighter than air, k?’
I thought.
‘You’re flying? On your own?’
he thought.
‘On my way.’
I could see the lights from the courtyard about a mile ahead – and I could also see that I was no longer high enough to clear the wall. “Uh oh” I said. I leaned back a little, slowing us, and tried to climb, but the wall just kept coming. Suddenly a flash of white came streaking towards me. I smiled as Matt"s arms wrapped around me and he lifted us up and over the wall, landing us softly on the other side with his forehead pressed against mine and Carlos sleeping soundly on my back. I raised my eyebrow. “Um, honey? Why are you wet and only wearing your boxers?”
“Huh? Oh,” he grinned, “well, I was waiting for you in the shower like you wanted me to and this was all I had time to grab.”
“Nice,” I said and I leaned in to kiss him. He pulled me tight at first, kissing me hard, then he quickly moved back a step.
“Oh no,” he said, “you are not doing that to me two nights in a row. These boxers are too flimsy.” I smiled at him. “Chicken,” I said.
“You bet,” he said then he nodded at Carlos. “You want me to take him?”
I looked over my shoulder at Carlos. “No, I"m okay. I"ll take him to his room. Grab dinner for us on your way back to the shower,” I said then I kissed him on the cheek and hurried inside. He ran past me a second later and into the kitchen. I walked past our room to Carlos" door and stopped when I saw Tracy sitting outside his door. “I"m so sorry Tracy. Someone should have called you. Obviously he"s way too exhausted tonight.”
“That"s okay, I understand,” Tracy said, but I could see the disappointment in her eyes as she turned to go.
“Hey Tracy,” I said, and she turned around,“are you busy tomorrow morning?”
“No,” she said as she checked her Blackberry, “nothing until the afternoon, why?”
“Why don"t you come back in the morning, say nine o"clock? I"m sure he"ll be awake by then. Tell him I said he doesn"t have to work until noon, okay?” I said.
“Sure thing, Sarah,” she grinned as she headed down the hall.
I held him with one hand as I quickly opened his door then walked gently into his bedroom. I turned around and sat us both down on the bed, then quickly flipped around and caught him before he fell. I laid his head on his pillow and gently covered him up. I sat next to him for a second, caressing his forehead. “We"re gonna be just fine, hun,” I whispered then I leaned down and kissed his forehead. As I turned to go, he grabbed my wrist.
“We might be fine,” he mumbled, “but your flying skills suck.” As he started snoring again, I gently pried my wrist away and walked into the hall, laughing and shaking my head.
I felt my heartbeat quicken as I walked toward our room, I could hear the shower running. I pulled off my clothes before I had even reached the bedroom, tonight he didn"t get to make me stay in them. I quietly hoped he"d have something else up his sleeve to tantalize me tonight. I climbed into the shower and wrapped my arms around him. “Where"s dinner?” I asked as I looked around for the pints.
He pushed away from me, grinned and held his arms out. “Right here, baby,” he said.
I looked around him. “Right where?” I said then my eyes flew open as it hit me – he drank it all and wanted me to share. In an instant I was totally aroused. I moved to spring at him but he put his hands out to stop me.
“Uh uh,” he said, “you don"t get to just have it. You"re gonna have to pin me and take it.”
“Oh my God,” I moaned, thinking how much I definitely liked this new trick he had up his sleeve. It took me fifteen minutes to pin him– and I didn"t let him up the rest of the night.

“I hate Malina,” I grumbled as I rolled out of bed at just before noon.
“Don"t we all?” Matt mumbled.
“Yeah, but I hate her more, because I would love to spend all of my time in your arms, but right now I can"t because of her,” I said.
“I could come with you,” Matt said. I turned and stared at him for a second. “I know,” he said. “No I can"t.”
“I wish you could. Really I do,” I whispered. Suddenly a voice came from the living room.
“Up and at „em,” Carlos called. “I"m coming in.” I quickly grabbed my robe and threw it on.
“Morning, who"s hungry?” he said as he held up four pints, grinning ear-to-ear. I took two and handed two to Matt.
“Well, somebody"s in a good mood,” Matt said.
“Yep,” he grinned, “thanks to your wife.”
Matt"s eyebrow went up as he turned to look at me. “Really? Honey, I don"t remember you leaving earlier,” he grinned.
“Ha ha,” I said.
Carlos" face fell and he blushed. “What? No, not like that,” he said, backtracking. “She asked Tracy to give me a wakeupcall this morning.”
I squeezed my eyes shut as I hoped that Matt didn"t notice the completely un-Carlos-like un-funny response.
“Are you ready, Sarah?” Carlos said, trying to change the subject.
“Give me a second,” I called over my shoulder. “Is everyone out in the courtyard?”
“They should be,” he said.
“Good,” I said as I walked out of the bathroom, dressed and ready to go. I walked around to Matt"s side of the bed and bent down to give him a quick kiss. Apparently quick wasn"t where he was at though, as his hands slid to either side of my face and he took my breath away with a kiss filled with so much love, passion and tenderness that I was overwhelmed and totally speechless when he finally stopped. I opened my mouth to try to say something at least three times.
Finally, from behind me, Carlos said, “Dude, she totally loves you.” I managed to smile and nod my head.
Matt smiled at me. “I love you too,” he said. “I"ll miss you every second until you"re home and in my arms again.” Holy shit, I thought, does he ever want me to be able to speak again? Once again I opened my mouth to try to say something, but he put his fingers on my lips. “Not now,” he whispered. “Tell me tonight.” I managed to nod again then I climbed off the bed. I slowly walked out into the hall ahead of Carlos, and, completely oblivious to where I was or even
who
I was, I turned the wrong way in the hall.
“Uh uh, Sarah, wrong way,” Carlos said as his hands came to my shoulders and he turned me around.
“Huh?” I mumbled. “Oh, sorry.” clear my head before we walked out I tried to into the courtyard. We walked out into the hot sun and saw everyone gathered over in the shade by the wall. “Good afternoon everyone,” I said, finally finding my tongue. “Sorry to rush you, but we can"t talk here. I"m going to pair the new vampires with the old and we"re going to fly to another location, okay?” They all nodded as I began pairing: Stacy with Billy, Rashidi with Bahiti, Maggie with Trevor and Jared with Anne. I grabbed Carlos" hand and we rose up.
‘Can you fly a little higher?’
I thought to Carlos as I wrapped my arms around his waist so that I could watch behind us, over his shoulder.
‘I need to see farther behind them
.
’
He squeezed me a little tighter, then smiled at me and rose so that we were a few feet above everyone else. I smiled and blushed as I scanned the sky like a hawk. We landed next to the church steps and saw the priest in his garden.
He waved at us, “Hola Señor Carlos, Señorita Sarah, please go right on in,” he said.
“Gracias,” I said and I ushered everyone inside and down to the basement, locked the door and then stopped. “Oh crap,” I said.
“What?” Carlos said.
“We have three here who haven"t yet learned to communicate silently, don"t we?” I said and Stacy, Maggie and Jared nodded. I looked around the room, searching, as I said, “It"s not an issue with the clock part, anyone who hears that will just think we"re odd, but explaining the reason for the clock… ah, here we go.” I found a pen and pad of paper. On the firstpage I wrote, “Malina"s coming Sept 2.”
“Yeah, we know that,” Stacy said.
I tore off the first page and tossed it to Carlos. “Burn these,” I said as I wrote on the next page. “She can become invisible.”
“WHAT?!” some shouted, and I held my finger to my lips. “Shhhh,” then I wrote on the third page, “she might have others who can disappear too.”
“Great,” Billy said as he rolled his eyes. “What the hell do you expect us to do? We can"t fight that.”
On the next page I wrote, “I can still see her and them.” That perked them up again.
“Really? How?” Trevor said and I nodded.
“Does everyone here know about my unique ability?” I said then I watched as they all nodded. “That"s how.”
Then I began writing numbers 1 through 12 on squares of paper. When I finished, I grabbed the roll of tape from the desk where I had found the paper and began putting the numbers up on the wall, as I did I thought to Carlos,
‘Write this down: when this all goes down, we expect to all be in the main hall. If I call your name and then immediately say a number, it means someone is coming and you need to punch or kick toward that number.’
He held out the pad so everyone could see it. “Carlos, please burn all the pages now.” He walked to the furnace at the far end of the room and tossed them in, then came back. “Okay,” I said, “iseverybody ready to practice?”
I worked them hard until eight o"clock. “Good, great job everybody. That"s enough for tonight. Let"s meet tomorrow in the courtyard at, say, ten? Does that work?”
Theyall nodded, until I said, “Tomorrow I"m bringing blindfolds.”
“Blindfolds!” they said. “But why?”
“Because you have to do this without seeing. You haveto react on instinct,” I said.
I smiled at the grumbles I heard from everyone but Bahiti– she was stoic as usual.
‘They’ll get over it,’
Carlos thought.
‘I know they will, they’ll have to,’
I thought. “Okay, let"s go home,” I said.
‘You sure you and I have to leave, Sarah? I was thinking we could work some more on this. I need to make sure I’m perfect.’
Carlos thought.
I stared at him for a second.
‘Are you staying because you want to work or are you staying because you want to be alone with me?’
He looked down at the ground.
‘Kind of both. I really do want to work, but I want to work with you alone.’
‘Just work? Nothing else? You promise?’
I thought, and he nodded. Truthfully, I wanted to spend some time with him too.
“Okay,” I said then I turned to the others, “you guys go ahead. Carlos and I are going to work a little more.”
“I could stay too, Sarah,” Trevor said. “I"m not even tired yet.”
I glanced at Carlos then smiled at Trevor. “I appreciate it, Trevor. But I need to work on a few things that are specific to Carlos. You"ll have plenty of time to practice over the next few weeks.”
Carlos dashed out of the room with the others, saying,“Hang on a second, Sarah. I"ll be right back.” When he came back in he was holding a scarf that he had borrowed from the priest. He put it over his eyes and moved to tie it behind his head, but I stopped him.
“Oh no you don"t. You"ll cheat. I"m tying this,” I said as I pulled it tight.
“Okay, but don"t let me walk into any walls. I don"t want to damage this perfect face,” he grinned.
I rolled my eyes and playfully pushed him from behind. “Perfect, my ass,” I mumbled.
“Okay, I"ll give you that. I have a perfect face and you have a perfect ass.”
“Ignoring that comment. Time to work: 2, 6, 9 11, 3, 7, 3, 5, 1, 4.”
“Jeez, Sarah. Give me a second to think, would ya?”
“Carlos, you have to be able to do this no matter how fast and no matter what kinds of distractions there are. You have to react no matter what. Which means…” I began, and suddenly the playful, flirty nature that had been a part of me since I was a teenager took over– I knew that I should stop it because, for Carlos, well, for both of us, it meant more, but I was powerless to stop it. I silently moved up behind him, until my body was just inches from his and my breath was on the back of his neck. I smiled when he shivered. “Which means that even if someone is this close to you trying to distract you and throw you off of your game, you still have to be able to concentrate and react. Can you concentrate, Carlos? Are you ready?”
“Jesus, Sarah,” he whispered.
“5, 9, 8, 10, 3, 7, 6, 12, 11.” He surprised me by reacting perfectly, not skipping a beat, even managing to miss my head when I said 11 which was directly behind me, but his arm stopped over my shoulder. He grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me tight, his chin pressing onto my forehead, gasping for air. He started crying.
“How, Sarah? How did this fucking happen? And how the hell do we stop it?”
At first I didn"t answer. I really didn"t have the answers he needed. I just held him until he was done. “I"m so sorry, Carlos, I don"t know how it happened. And we stop it by not acting on it. We stop it by controlling ourselves. We stop it, well, we just stop it because we have to,” I said when he finally quieted down.
He took a step backward and said, “Don"t be sorry, Sarah. You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for, Sarah. And you"re right. Sorry for the break down. Please keep me working, it keeps my mind off of it. Now, let"s go again, okay?”
I nodded, and called out more numbers. He worked so hard and by the time we left, he was perfect.
We flew home that night still struggling with our feelings, but too exhausted to even think about them at all… exactly the way we needed to be.
Matt was waiting for me with love in his heart, a smile on his face and his arms open wide. And he spent the rest of the night helping me get my head straight… until I left the next day, that is.
The next day they were all waiting for me in the courtyard at ten a.m. and we headed to the church and quickly got to work. They grumbled and had issues with the blindfolds for the first hour, but then quickly showed improvement. We worked tirelessly until dusk, and then, once again, they headed home while Carlos and I stayed behind to work a little more. We knew it was dangerous but we just couldn"t help it. “As long as our clothes stay on then I guess it"s okay,” I said and he smiled. “But Carlos, you"re perfect at this. What did you want to work on tonight?”
He walked over and stroked his fingers down my cheek, then took my hand in his.
“Carlos,” I whispered.
He nodded then pulled on his blindfold. “Yeah, I know. Silence. I want to work on silence.”
“Silence? What do you mean?”
“Get in my head. You might have to be giving me orders in my head while you"re shouting out to others. I need to make sure that I react the same way.”
I nodded. “Good point. Okay, here goes.”
‘7, 12, 9, 4, 5, 2, 11, 1, 8,’
I thought, then I ducked out of the way as his hand whizzed past my ear. “Whew! That was too close,” I said and he laughed.
“Maybe not close enough,” he said.
“Oh really? Is that how it"s going to be now? Gloves off? No holds barred?” I said, then I jumped on his back and pinned my arm around his neck. “Oooh, you"re getting too slow old man.”
“Old man? Watch what you say to your superiors, young one,” he said then he quickly reached back and flipped me over his head and onto the floor. But he didn"t pin me, instead he reached up and pulled off his blindfold. I took that opportunity to jump back to my feet. I spun around behind him and swept my leg around, knocking his feet out from under him. He fell flat on his back but reached out and grabbed my ankle, yanking me sideways. But I managed to keep my balance and free my ankle by doing a back flip away from him. “Nice move, Sarah. But you"re still toast,” he grinned as he jumped up. I watched him as he prepared to make his next move. I was positive, from the look in his eyes and the way his body was positioned, that he was going to fly left. So I quickly jumped right. My eyes went wide and I gasped as he did this insanely fast, ninja move: he spun around to the right and there was a loud crack as I crashed right into him. He pinned me in his arms and we fell to the floor with me on my back and him on top of me. I felt the air go out of my lungs as I hit the floor. We both started laughing hysterically.
“Wow. That was impressive, Carlos. Maybe you aren"tquite as old as I thought you were,” I grinned.
“And you"ve got some pretty good moves for a rookie,” he said.
Suddenly you could feel the mood in the room change as we both realized the position we were lying in. I could feel every inch of him pressinginto me… and I liked it. The look on his face changed. His mouth started moving down toward mine and I felt panic because I couldn"t turn my face away, I just couldn"t, my head refused to move. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to brace for this kiss, but it didn"t happen. This time he was the strong one. At the last second, he moved to the side and brought his lips to my cheek. He kissed my cheek and then whispered, “Time to go home?”
I nodded sadly and he pushed up off of me. He held his hand out to help me up. As soon as I stood up I wrapped him in my arms and whispered, “I"m so sorry, Carlos.”
His hand came under my chin and he tilted my head up. “Seriously, Sarah. You have got to stop saying that. You have nothing to be sorry for. If anything I should be apologizing to you. The only one who has anything to be sorry for is me… for not finding you first. But I didn"t, he did. He did and, of course he fell in love with you. How could he not? How can anyone not fall in love with you? He found you first and now you belong to him. I know that and I"ll learn to cope with that. I"ll be okay. You and I will be okay.”
“I know. But you"re making it so frickin" tough, Carlos,” I said.
He looked shocked and hurt. “Me? How, Sarah?”
“By being so sweet and so fucking desirable.”
He smiled and kissed my forehead. “Oh, that. Well, sorry baby. Can"t help that. That"s the old Carlos magic. I can"t turn it off. It draws the ladies like flies to honey,” he grinned.
I rolled my eyes. “Oh please. Forget I said it. I didn"t mean it. I was just trying to be nice.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Nope. You can"t fool me, Sarah. You wonder what it would be like. We both do. We both wonder if it would be as fucking awesome as we"re pretty sure it would be. But we"ll never find out because we can"t. And we"ll just have to deal with that.”
“You"re right, Carlos. And I hate to build up your massive ego even more, but not sleeping with you is by far the hardest thing I"ve ever had to do… or not do,” I said.