She stretched in another attempt to make me uncomfortable, but she failed. Her loud sigh echoed around the brightly decorated room before she grabbed a soft green blanket and snuggled against a pillow. After a few minutes of silence, I heard mumbling from the couch. Pure curiosity made me move silently over her floor to see if she’d fallen asleep. Hazel had the gift of falling asleep in seconds anywhere. We’d been homeless as kids together. We’d slept on the ground, under bridges, and abandoned houses until we got placed in a home. I’d often envied her easy embrace of blissful sleep.
One glance at the woman with a blanket wrapped around her naked body confirmed my suspicions.
“Sugar snaps.” Her sleepy mumble made me smile, and all the tension melted. I used to give her so much shit about sleep-talking, but in reality, I could listen to her talk anytime, even in her sleep.
“Mmm . . . peonies and peanut butter.” She smiled briefly before her lips parted and the words stopped flowing unfiltered past her lips.
I bit back a chuckle that threatened to end the moment. She needed the rest, and I could use a break to see what my informant found on the elusive Collector. I wouldn’t be so up her ass in the days to come, but for now I enjoyed watching her squirm in my presence. Or maybe I’d wait it out until her little schemes to rid me were over. I walked to my temporary room and sat on the bed. The little green light indicated I had an email, so I wasted no time opening it up.
“Fuck.” I whispered my curse in an attempt to not wake Hazel.
A body was found brutally wounded, about twenty miles from here. A famous Olympic archer, who from my research I’d learned had powers from Artemis, the goddess for the hunt. She could shoot an arrow with perfect precision. She swore someone told her to cut the words, “Tornado, She’s Mine,” into her abdomen, then shoot four arrows into the sky so they would embed their points deep in her flesh when they descended. Her arms, shoulders, and legs had arrows sticking out like spikes. I watched the news media’s video of her tears pour down her dirt-covered face as she wailed about someone not wanting her because she was not rare enough for the mantle.
Wind stirred the curtains in different directions, as the book’s pages in the shelf across from the bed rattled. I took a deep breath, fighting the impulse of my power to be unleashed. My unit called me Tornado, mostly because they knew what I could do, but also because when I was called to fight, I fucked everything up like a damn tornado in a trailer park. I was the force to be feared like the damn storm itself. This Collector picked the wrong man to start a war with.
Chapter Seven
Hazel
I woke up the next morning refreshed with my plans of sabotage. Maddox would tire of me so quickly, he’d be gone before dinner. With a huge grin on my face, I rolled out of bed and walked into the kitchen in my sweats and baggy T-shirt. Maddox sat at the table with coffee and his tablet in front of him.
“Do you remember the time when we lived with the Jolleny family?” I sat at the table and propped my feet up in his direct view, trying to be as obnoxious as possible. His eyebrow raised and I continued walking down memory lane.
“I was just thinking about the time we went swimming at the community pool. The time where the neighbor kid dared you to jump off the high diving board, then pulled your swim trunks down right before you jumped. Good times.” We had so many memories, some bad, some great, and some embarrassing.
“I kicked his ass behind the concessions after that.”
“And you were grounded for a month because of it,” I said, and thought of other embarrassing things to talk about. “Remember the time you saw our foster dad shave and thought you were supposed to shave, too? You cut your face with the razor and shaved half of your right eyebrow,” he countered and my cheeks reddened. I was a curious little bugger back then, and for reasons unknown, I did indeed think I needed to shave my face like boys did.
“Yeah. Good thing I did that. Now I have to shave my womanly beard all the time.” My lame comeback made him chuckle. I was not meant to be this awkward of a person.
“Sure.”
I scoffed and tried to regain my footing. So far, my plan was not making him irritated enough to leave. I changed tactics.
“Man, I am so not looking forward to my next period. I can feel the bloat coming already.” I pushed my tummy out an inch and patted it lightly. Maddie ignored me and I kept talking away.
“It must be nice to be a man. You walk around with your junk hanging there, no PMS, and no bleeding for days. I mean, the amount of blood I get on day one. It’s intense. Like totally bleed through your pants bad.” Part of me felt ashamed for bringing in the period talk, but I needed something to unnerve this guy. In my opinion, if you are OK fucking a vagina, then you are OK with a period. Same with ass play. Can’t be upset that women poop if you’re willing to stick your dick in it.
I watched as the left corner of his lips tilted upward as he continued reading his tablet. He looked completely unaffected and that annoyed me more than anything.
“I get mad diarrhea on my period, too. I think with everything cramping in there, it stimulates my bowels. Some days, I don’t even wanna leave the bathroom, just hot baths and the toilet keep my company. Like I said, you guys are so lucky.” I laid my exaggerations on super-thick and waited for a wince or him to excuse himself. Neither happened. Frustrated, I got up and poured a cup of juice from the fridge.
“Don’t you wish you could turn back time to change stuff?” I sat back down and waited.
“No.” He took a relaxed sip of coffee but his eyes watched me cautiously. I knew my question would lead us to dangerous territory but I wasn’t taking it there. Not that I was his girlfriend, but a big no-no for girlfriends is talking about your exes. Which is exactly what I’d do.
“Sometimes I do. I dated this guy when I was seventeen, and yeah, he had a car but I swear he never did laundry. He talked about his video games for hours and then would order takeout for us. Probably the reason my ass got so big was from all the fast food we ate. But he was really funny and made me laugh. He used to tell really funny jokes.” I snorted thinking about the truly corny jokes Marshall used to tell when I got sad.
“Like this one. Why did the man get hit by a bike every day?” I paused for dramatic effect and Maddox simply stared at me.
“Because he was in a vicious cycle! Get it?” I laughed at the sheer stupidity of the joke. Marshall would damn near piss himself when he told these simple jokes. Maddie didn’t laugh or roll his eyes, he simply returned to looking at his tablet.
“There was the other guy that was pretty good in bed. I mean, we are talking about a nine-inch dick. He loved to have sex all the time and I almost had to knock his ass out just to get some shut-eye. I could probably go back and change that one. He was sort of an ass, but maybe I wouldn’t. I still dream about days when he’d just come over after working at the bar and just bang me against the wall. I’m no small girl so the fact that he could lift me up so easily. Yeah, I wouldn’t change that. Just his sleeping around with other girl habits.” The more I thought about my exes the more I realized they were all wrong for me. It took years of therapy to even open up to that form of sexual confidence. This particular ex was awesome in bed despite us not meshing well together, but the version I was talking up was dramatized to piss Maddox off.
“I’m gonna go take a bath,” I announced and swiftly walked away from the kitchen. I’d set out to push him away and my obnoxious chatter did nothing to him and made me feel shitty.
After my long soak, my mind was cleared and I jumped back into my plan again. I chatted about my vegetable garden and whether or not I should get my hair braided or leave it natural for a while. While he picked at the veggie and tofu dish I had made us for dinner, I talked about the benefits of getting rid of meat. Was I going a little overboard? Maybe. However, nothing phased him. He ate the meal after deciphering the natural ingredient. He listened to everything I said, and at the end of the day, he said goodnight. The next morning, a steaming cup of black tea with orange zest sat on the table with a bowl of cut-up fruit beside it.
