* * *
“Have a good day,” I told my student, Ha-ri, as I leaned back in my chair.
The sixteen-year-old dipped her head forward. “Have a good night,” she replied, sounding out the syllables as best as she could.
She had come such a long way over the last year we had been working together, and I was really proud of her. In three months, she was going to be traveling to England to study abroad, and her family wanted her to be as prepared as possible for the trip. I had worked with her sister a few years ago, and that’s why they had reached out to me for her.
I gave her a quick wave back and ended the chat session. She was my last student of the day. Luckily, the other night, I’d been able to reschedule my lesson with Jo Ji-Wook, and I’d squeezed him in at two in the morning. I was trying to be as quiet as possible not to bother the man in my kitchen, but I had to work, and unfortunately for him, almost all my lessons were in the evening, night, or basically the middle of the night for me.
Pushing away from the desk, I flipped my head forward and gingerly took my wig off and set it on the mannequin head on the corner of my desk. Just as carefully, I tugged off the nylon hose that kept my hair plastered to my head and set that beside the wig before raking a hand through the strands. I could never get used to wearing a wig, even after so long. It was one of those things that was probably totally unnecessary, but I wore it anyway.
With a yawn, I got up and picked up my computer, knowing exactly what the hell I was going to do for a little while. The same thing I’d been doing before my back-to-back students. I’d even left my bag of Cheetos on the couch so it would be ready for my next round of investigating.
It only took a second to creep down the hall and into the kitchen, eyeing The Defender still motionless in the chair, his chest rising and falling so slowly. Quietly, I opened the fridge and grabbed a can of soda before tiptoeing back out into the living room. I cracked open my Dr Pepper, unrolled my Cheetos, and opened my laptop.
I’d already spent an hour looking up more information on them—the Trinity. I’d thought about looking up just The Defender, but that was too risky, and I was too paranoid even using the browser page that didn’t save your history. You never knew who could hack into your shit. I logged out of all my accounts after every time I used them and deleted my cookies and browser history. I didn’t even have an app on my phone for my email or bank account.
I wasn’t going to be the one to give him away if someone was looking for him.
And selfishly, I wasn’t going to put myself into a shittier situation either. This was already thin ice territory. Like the thinnest of thin ice.
That’s why I was doing research, to hopefully learn something that might help me help him.
But the thing about the internet was that, while there was a lot of information about the Trinity on it, a ton of it made no sense. Some of it seemed like it could be legitimate, or at least that itcouldbe possible. But other theories?
People had some active imaginations.
That or they were really, really bored.
Some of it had merit though. There were two fields of thought about their background. Some people believed they were from another planet. Others thought they were a lab experiment.
Some believed they had been born to human mothers and then genetically modified. Others thought they had been “made” by someone, like the military or a pharmaceutical company. I could see, in a way, how that could make sense. But the conspiracy theorist in me thought if that had been the case, there would be a hell of a lot more of them by now than just the three. Unlike in movies, no other beings with powers that rivaled theirs, much less came close to them, had ever come forth. There weren’t battles or evil villains. For all anyone knew, they were the only ones who could do what they did.
I hummed and clicked back on my browser window. There was just so much information—rumors and theories, pictures and videos—to wade through. Fascinated, I kept getting sucked into the wild tales about them.
Someone claimed to have grown up on a ranch beside a family with triplets that she swore looked like younger versions of them. Someone else claimed that forty years ago, they’d seen a UFO crash nearby, and when they got to the site, there had been little kids climbing out of it. Stories like that were endless. People claimed to have seen something suspicious in a cornfield, out of their window while going through Death Valley, and while flying in an airplane.
Scrubbing my cheek, I picked up my can of Dr Pepper and took a sip before focusing on the search results on my screen. I’d left off on page four of… I didn’t even know how many.
The sound of creaking in the kitchen had me leaning over to the side to take a look.
Someone was awake.
The Defender was sitting there, hand in the air, head still propped against the pillow stuffed behind him. He spread his fingers wide before forming a fist. He was blinking slowly, the white-and-pink blanket that had been on him before pooled at his waist.
There’s no reason to be nervous. There’s no reason to be nervous.
But I was still fucking nervous.
I shut my computer and got up. “Are you okay?” I called out.
The superbeing didn’t look away. His attention was fixed on his fingers, turning them one way and then the other before sliding his gaze toward me, his expression groggy. And… grumpy?
I almost tripped.
Because I hadn’t imagined it the other night. His eyes weren’t just kind of purple; they were a pure, royal purple. Indigo maybe. In that moment, they weren’t violet like I’d thought. There was a dot of black for a pupil, but that was it. They weren’t glowing, but they were still incredible.
And the man with the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen, settled into the most handsome face I had also ever laid eyes on, looked in my direction, blearily.
