I lean across the center console of the Tahoe. “Whitney Brooks, you are mine. You seem to have forgotten that, but you’re not my boss. I’m yours. I own you. You will share a room with me, and what’s more, you’ll share a bed with me again.” My face is inches away from her, and I feel strange. Hot and angry and frothy. “I liked sharing a bed with you.”
“I will not share anything with you. You can just kill me first.”
My eyes drop from her flashing eyes to her large, full lips, and I feel a strange desire to press my mouth to hers. When I think about doing it, my whole body heats up even more. I lick my lips, and her eyes dart down to mine.
I like it, the feeling of her eyes on my mouth.
I shift closer, wondering whether she would slap me if I did press my mouth against hers. I like the idea of her slapping me, with her eyes flashing, and her cheeks bright pink. I want her breath to heave, and her hands to shake. I want her to stare at me, or glare at me, as long as she’s looking at me, thinking about me. Because she is mine. She belongs to me. Eventually she’ll stop struggling.
Her mouth opens just a bit, her full lips shifting as she inhales.
But before I can decide whether to act on my bizarre and illogical desires, I hear a loud crashing sound outside of the vehicle. Then a familiar voice yells, “Where in the world are you, brother?”
I close my eyes.
“Brother?” Whitney’s mouth dangles open. “Is someone you know here?”
Then there’s another crash. “Where is this? Are we on the top of a mountain?” A sequence of expletives in Egyptian follow. “You have the worst timing, Ta’xet, I swear. Always.”
My brothers are here.
And I find that I deeply regret calling for them in the first place.
13
Whitney
It’s called the Bannister effect.
Scientists believed it was impossible for a human to run a mile in under four minutes.
When the British runner Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile in 1954, he had done the impossible. Forty-six days later, the record was broken again by an Australian. More than two thousand other runners have gone on to run a mile in under four minutes, as many as sixty to eighty new runners each year in the recent past.
But Bannister had to show them the impossible was possible first.
Xolotl said he couldn’t be changed, and he insisted he was death itself, and I didn’t believe it, at least, not until the missiles disappeared inside of him, only to reappear later. Not until I saw him snap his fingers, and just like that, an entire line of protected, strong, healthy soldiers dropped like dominoes tumbling to the ground.
I was stupid to think this was like running a four-minute mile.
I can’t will death to change. I can’t do anything about Xolotl and his plans. I’m just an anchor he’s dragging along, and not even a very good one. I doubt I’ve even slowed him down in any real way.
And a part of me doesn’t even want to try anymore.
Something about watching him defeat all those jets, all those drones, and all those soldiers without even breaking a sweat was beautiful in a way I can’t even articulate. Why was it so gorgeous? I’m not sure. I’ve always found it breathtaking to watch something or someone doing something extremely well. Is it as simple as that?
An eagle in flight.
Mustangs galloping across the plains.
Gymnasts executing difficult movements with ease and strength.
They always inspire and excite me. I should’ve expected that when I saw death doing his worst, when I saw him doing the very things he was created to do, that I would find it beautiful. I’m definitely at least a little broken inside.
But my hope that I could pull a Bannister and somehow change the future is gone. I’m not Bannister. If anything, I’m more of a Madam Curie. I might help discover something, but I’m going to die doing it. In fact, that’s my final hope, and it’s not a very strong one.
Surely, when he bonded someone who turned out to be as obnoxious as I’ve been, it had to have occurred to Xolotl that he could’ve just done what he does and killed me. There’s a reason he didn’t, and once I find out what it is, maybe I can use my own pathetic life to somehow stymie him in some additional way.
Or maybe it’ll be yet another fail in a long string of failures in my life.
