Things That Go Bump At Night Part 22

"They're fine. Some patches and good rest, and they're nearly as good as new." Jake smiled.

"Remi." Mr. Wagner said, drawing my attention again. "How did you happen?"

I shook my head. "I don't know for sure." I said. "It was an emotion, I think. I saw..." Jake. "...everyone possibly dying and I didn't want that." I looked pointedly at Jake, he squeezed my hand. "And it just kind of came out."

"We've never seen, or heard of, anything like it." Mr. Wagner's voice was still filled with amazement at the memory. "I mean, you probably took out every demon within a mile radius."

"Awesome." I said. Jake chuckled. It truly was awesome.

"Well, I guess we can safely say without a doubt now; you are the one."

"Awesome." I said again, but this time it truly wasn't awesome. Jake chuckled again. He smoothed back the hair at my forehead and watched me with affection that I could literally feel.

"Alright. We can talk about this some other time." Mr. Wagner said. I could have hugged him. I was getting pretty tired. "Get some sleep. Jake, let her."

"I know dad."

Mr. Wagner touched his sons shoulder before leaving the room.

"Can I crawl up there with you?" Jake asked.

"I'd be heartbroken if you didn't." I said. But I couldn't scoot over, not only because my body still felt like it had a fair amount of lead in it, but because large movements hurt my shoulder. So Jake moved me, gently, and slid in next to me.

"We'll move you to our room tomorrow." He said as I let my eyes drift closed.

"I don't care where I am, as long as you're there too." I said on a breath. If he replied, I didn't hear him.

Blackness greeted me again.

I woke up the next morning feeling surprisingly better. Not good, but better. Jake was sitting back in the chair next to my bed, reading a book. He smiled when I came to and set the book aside.

"Hey beautiful." He leaned forward and touched his lips gently to mine. I'm sure I had t.u.r.d breath, but he didn't seem to mind. I wouldn't care if he did, I missed his lips. I told him so and he in turn told me that he'd been kissing me for the past three days. I laughed. Then he handed me my phone.

"That's been going nuts, you should answer it."

There was message after message from Kendra, once again ranging from worry to anger back to worry again after I'd gone too long without replying. Finally there was one from this morning about my mono. I guess word was finally out.

MONO? Lol, serves u both right, suckin face 24/7. Speaking of sucking...skool sux WO u. Hit me back asap or I'm comin out there.

I text her back immediately, though I knew she'd be in first period already.

Sorry I haven't texted. Feel like s.h.i.t...sleeping a lot.

I don't think it would have mattered what cla.s.s she was in, she replied immediately, and continued to do so all day. But what surprised me was the other texts I received. I had exchanged numbers with several girls at the homecoming dance, but hadn't really expected to hear from them, but I did. They indeed forwarded pictures and wished me a speedy recovery. Informed me that if there were any good reason to get sick, then the infamous kissing disease was the best one. I had to smile. I shot them off a few pics I had on my phone of them, and just that simple amount of activity left me feeling exhausted.

"I'm going to run out for just a while, I need a shower." Jake told me when my eyes started to drift again. Oh, a shower. I would give anything for one of those right now. Apparently I'd been getting sponge baths, but I felt disgusting and I just knew my hair was a bird's nest. How dare Jake rub it in my face that he could just jump up and take a shower whenever he wanted. He smiled, he must have seen my disgust.

"Stop it, you're gorgeous, even with slightly greasy hair." He laughed and easily dodged me as I swung out at him. "Besides, we're setting you up in our room this afternoon, I'll help you with a bath later."

"Lucky me." I whispered and drifted off.

The week pa.s.sed slowly. Kendra kept in hourly touch, and Jake hung out with me as much as possible but his dad insisted he get back into working out and training- we did homework, listened to music. He helped me bathe that was always an exercise of self-control- and finally by Friday morning I was allowed out into the shed. I was even allowed onto the treadmill. I got to shoot, but only with my right arm, the kick of the gun made my left arm feel as if it were being ripped apart. I was pretty sure that a muscle had to have been completely shredded when I'd been stabbed because it seemed to be taking the healing progress an extremely long amount of time. But it was healing, I was feeling stronger and partic.i.p.ating in more activities every day.

The team had changed towards me as well. I'd found out that both Quinn and Ana were just seconds away from dying, their spirits nearly ripped out of them just before my light had hit. Quinn treated me as if I were the second coming, I think he'd probably throw himself in front of a bus for me at this point. Ryan had given me an awkward hug when I entered the shed again for the first time, telling me; "You'll do." I had to smile at that.

Then there was Ana.

"Yeah, so...uh, thanks. I guess." The corner of my mouth had kicked up in a smile and I guess it must have struck a nerve because she followed up her gracious thanks with; "But those demons wouldn't have been there like that in the first place if it weren't for you."

Jake had hollered so viciously and loudly at her from across the shed that the rafters practically shook. Ana had hung her head sheepishly. "Sorry." She said. "Old habits die hard." I had laughed at that, I took no offense. And that was that. I knew she and I would never be girlfriends because I'd always have something that she'd always want, but at least now it was amicable.

I spotted yeah right- Jake as he lifted weights. His sweat had my mouth watering. Funny, sweat should never be s.e.xy, but when you had an insanely hot man bench pressing three hundred pounds right in front of you, yeah, sweat was d.a.m.n s.e.xy!

Mr. Wagner had called a meeting and informed us that my "abilities" would remain a secret for the time being. We still had no idea if I could control it, or even reproduce it again and he didn't want the Home Office which was, according to Jake who claimed to know little about them, a large group of people who kept order in our line of business- to know about me yet. The Home Office knew what each and every team was doing at all times. They placed teams in their areas, they also provided air cover for any trouble we may encounter in our daily lives due to our nightly work. In other words, they were the principle to our school, that's how I decided to look at them. Mr. Wagner had a concern that they -or even possibly other team leaders- would want to claim my services; use my abilities. Which he was certain would be the outcome if anyone found out about me. I secretly suspected that he didn't want to lose Jake yet, because if other teams starting calling on me, Jake would follow. And I certainly didn't want to be fought over by other teams, "claiming" me like I was a simple tool. My team was here, and I was more than happy to stay and keep my secret. I also secretly suspected that Ana would have been more than happy to leak this information, but like Mr. Wagner, she was not willing to lose Jake. He might not be hers, but she was content to at least see his face every day.

The team went out on their scheduled hunts I was left behind- but the demon activity had died down again. It hadn't disappeared entirely though, the team still came home with minor cuts and bruises on a night or two. The demons certainly weren't gone, scouting had proved that, though the nests were no longer centralized in our woods. At least not yet. Mr. Wagner was pretty sure this wasn't a one-time thing. The demons would not give up until they had me. Now that we had established that they communicated with each other, and could plan and work together they'd become a whole new threat. A more frightening one. Protections were reinforced doubly and nighttime patrols were set up around the farm.

It was Sat.u.r.day afternoon and I'd actually had a fairly good workout this morning, I was on my way up the stairs for a shower when Mr. Wagner called me back down into the library. I went and sat in a chair across from him. He tossed a yellow envelope across the desk to me, then sat back in his seat, without a single word. Curiously I picked the envelope up and looked inside. My eyes popped and I stood with a gasp, dropping the envelope back on the desk as if it were on fire. There'd been twenty one hundred dollar bills inside.

"I can't take that!" I cried.

"It's your pay." He returned, calmly.

"My...what?"

Mr. Wagner chuckled. I'm sure he presented it to me this way just to see what my reaction would be, apparently it amused him.

"You get paid for doing this Remi." He said sitting forward and pushing the envelope back to me. "Since this becomes our life, it becomes our job. To start, you make five hundred a week plus room and board. You get paid once a month."

I swallowed and stared down at the envelope. I couldn't bring myself to touch it.

"Take it Remi, you've earned it. Just like everyone else."

"Is this...is this how you pay everyone?"

Mr. Wagner chuckled.

"In cash you mean? Yes. Can hardly claim taxes on demon hunting now, can we?"

I rubbed my palms on my thighs, then reached out and took the envelope. It felt completely unnatural to be holding this much money in my hand. I looked across the desk at him. He smiled.

"That's all."

That's all? Seriously? Two thousand dollars handed over and he says that's all? Well, maybe to this man two thousand dollars was no big deal. Jake had explained to me that his father came from very old money and with wise and clever investments the family fortune had ballooned over the years. Apparently Mr. Wagner had enough money to fund every hunting team in America for the next hundred years. Twice.

I'd had trouble wrapping my brain around that, so I just hadn't. But now...my brain was working again. I was getting paid to do this. I was getting paid more than any seventeen year old I knew, to do this. I got to kill some b.u.t.t ugly demons h.e.l.l bent on killing the people I've come to love, and I got money for doing it.

h.e.l.l, I would have done it forever for free.

Go figure.

The next week my st.i.tches dissolved, Maria was pleased with my recovery. Apparently my blue light special which was what we were calling my exploding light trick, sorry Kmart, I'm sure the guys don't mean to infringe- had no ill effects on me whatsoever; it only damaged demons. My stab wounds were healing nicely, I was left with two pink scars, and the muscle under it was still tight and I still felt twinges if I worked out too hard, but I still pushed myself as far and as hard as Maria and Jake would allow me to. I was even allowed to join one of the hunts over the next weekend, of course with the caveat that if I had to do more than shoot, we would pull out of the fight. There was no more than shooting. We'd spied maybe ten of them total. And by Monday Jake and I were back in school. Everything was the way we left it, we got a little good natured teasing from Jake's friends I would always consider them his friends, even though they had decided that I was worthy of them now. Gag- even a few teachers gave us a little bit of razzing.

By lunch life seemed to flow right back into its routine. I had excused myself from our table to use the restroom, on my way back my old buddy Ben stopped me in the hall. He'd grabbed my hand like a friend and pulled me around the corner, pushed me against a wall and planted his hands on each side of my head to trap me there or at least he thought I was trapped. Poor silly little boy.

"Hi." He said, taking a deep breath of me. I hoped I smelled like Jake today. I raised my eyebrows at him, but said nothing. "So, I was just wondering what it is about you that's got Wagner all wrapped up nice and neat around that finger of yours."

I still said nothing. Ben grabbed my face in his hand; his fingers pinching one side of my chin, his thumb the other, and tried to kiss me. I shoved him away. He was surprised, momentarily, at my strength, then he chuckled like this was a game and came at me again. I popped him in the nose. Just one quick jab. Perfectly placed. And he went down like a sack of rocks, blood spurted from his nose. He sat on the floor and held his hand to it, swore at me a few times. I knelt down next to him and got right in his face.

"You want to know what's so special about me?" I smiled kindly when he only glared. "I guess that's a question you'd have to ask Jake." Then I matched his glare. "Touch me again, and next time I won't waste my time, I'll send Jake after you." I stood to leave, but then turned back to him, c.o.c.ked my head. "Just out of curiosity; how did you think this was going to end? Did you think I'd enjoy your kiss so much that I'd leave Jake for you? Did you think I wouldn't tell Jake and he wouldn't come after you with the full fury of h.e.l.l? Or did you think I would tell Jake, but that he wouldn't believe me because you play football with him?"

Ben didn't answer me, but I didn't really need him to. I just wanted to make it clear to him who the stupid one in this situation really was. I think he got the message, so I left him there and returned to my table. Of course I'd tell Jake about it, but not until later. Funny though, he brought up the very subject on our drive home after practices that day. Apparently Ben had to sit out of football practice today because of a broken nose, which Jake found curious because Ben hadn't come to school with a broken nose, and Jake had not heard of a fight during the day.

I bit my lip for a bit before finally speaking.

"You didn't hear about the fight because there were only two people involved." I said. Jake glanced at me curiously before he turned his attention back to the road.

"Then how do you know about it?" He asked.

"Because..." I cleared my throat. "I was the second person."

Jake slammed on the brakes, luckily the car behind us was just far enough back to be able to swerve without hitting us. The man behind the wheel honked and flipped Jake off, but Jake didn't notice, he was too busy looking at me.

"What? What are you talking about?"

I told him the story as we sat idling in the middle of the street- and afterwards Jake sat silently for a moment, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"Why didn't you come to me?" He asked through his teeth.

"Well, what was I supposed to do, run away screaming for you?"

"Yes."

I laughed softly at that. Seriously?

"Jake, thanks to you I was perfectly capable of handling the situation on my own."

"I don't want you to handle these situations on your own." He spat. My eyes narrowed, anger suddenly built inside me. When was he going to realize that I was not some helpless little twit that he needed to take care of? His next words had my anger fading fast though. "I want to be able to do these things for you." I realized then that he didn't think I couldn't handle myself, he simply wanted to be the one I came to when I had a problem. He wanted to take care of me, it wasn't that he thought he had to. I smiled and reached out to cup his cheek.

"Jake, I love that you want to be my superhero. I do. And I want you to be. And I will come to you whenever I can't solve a problem, and even sometimes when I can but I just want you, but, there are times that I just really need to do things for myself too. And situations like this; it reminds me of my...Bob, and I like that I can defend myself."

He sighed, turned his face to kiss my palm. Ego mollified.

"Alright. But I'm still going to pummel the douche bag extra hard at practice tomorrow."

"Goody!" I laughed, the heavy mood dissipated and Jake pushed the gas again. "I get to be there to see it!"

As we sparred that afternoon before dinner, Jake seemed to be taking it extra easy on me. Jabbing or kicking out at me without ever making contact, side swiping my own jabs without making contact, and I wasn't sure if it was my reminder about my abusive father that had him backing off, or if he still wasn't convinced I was entirely healed. Either way, it was irritating me.

"Come on Wagner," Ryan called from where he watched at the side of the mats. "Man up. This is truly pathetic."

"Yeah, Wagner." I taunted. "If I wanted to hang out with a girl I'd call Kendra."

He raised his eyebrows at me and didn't immediately come at me, so I went for him, his defense was weak as if he didn't really think I could get to him. My fist landed a quick jab on his chin, his head jerked and he popped his jaw, rotated it a couple times as Ryan howled from the sidelines.

"I'm telling everyone how you're getting your a.s.s handed to you by a girl." Ryan hooted.

Jake shot him a sneer slash amused look and finally came at me properly, he threw quick jabs that I was barely able to deflect, while trying to keep an eye out for his feet that came at my ankles to knock me off balance. I was able to throw a couple of my own jabs which he easily deflected- but he continued to rain down on me until he had brought himself close enough to me where he could reach out, hook his arm around my neck and drop me on my back to the mat. The breath came out of me in a whoosh and for a moment he looked horrified at himself for what he'd just done. It gave me the smallest window of opportunity to throw my legs up around his own neck and flip him over onto his back. I straddled him, my knees on either side of his chest and I grabbed his wrists and pinned his arms to the mat on either side of his head.

Ryan gave a shout of laughter; but when Jake easily sat up I was stronger than I'd ever been, but I wasn't delusional enough to think that'd I'd actually had him trapped or pinned in any way- and glanced down at my chest as it heaved in front of him, a sly smiled creeping across his face, Ryan groaned and walked away, muttering something about sparring being serious, not effin foreplay. I'd slid down from his chest as he sat up and was now straddling his lap. Jake grabbed my hips and ground me down over him, I saw that jaw of his working and I smiled, cupped his face in my hands and leaned in.

"How many d.a.m.n times do I have to tell you two, not in here?" Quinn yelled at us. Jake laughed and fell back on the mat. I stood and held my hand out to him, a gesture meant to offer him help up.

"Race you to the shower?" I said. He smiled and reached for my hand, I slapped his and yelled "Psych!" and ran for the door. I heard him shout out a laugh and then a moment later his feet were pounding after me.

I woke up during the night, Jake was snoring softly next to me. I smiled sleepily and grabbed his t-shirt from the footboard and pulled it down over my head. It would cover anything necessary if anyone should be up while I made my way down to the kitchen for water. I plodded along, my eyes barely open and was halfway down the hall to the kitchen when I heard the noise. A slight rustle in the living room. My heart leapt into my throat. Oh no, were they in the house again? I grabbed a vase off a wall side table next to me and crept back down the way I'd come. I took a deep silent calming breath through my mouth then reached out and snapped on the living room light, the vase poised above my head, ready for attack.

I let out a shriek and turned away quickly.

"Oh my G.o.d! I'm so sorry!" I cried. Ana and Ryan were scrambling to grab their clothes around the couch. Ryan swore several times.

"Remi!" Jake yelled taking the stairs down two at a time. I looked up at him with wide eyes, he was still pulling on a pair of boxers. I laughed and held my hands out to him.

"It's okay. Don't come down here."

"What's going on?" He asked, coming down anyway, looking dangerous but so deliciously sleep disheveled as well.

"Nothing. It's fine. Let's just go back up." I tried to grab his arm to lead him away, but I'd have better luck moving this house. He pushed around me and his eyes widened when he saw Ryan desperately still trying to cover up, Ana had taken his boxers and was holding the only throw from the back of the couch over her chest.

"Oh, s.h.i.t!" Jake's dangerous face melted to one of laughter. "Dude!" He turned away, shaking with his laughter. "Not on the d.a.m.n couch! I watch TV in there!"

"Oh go to h.e.l.l Wagner! You think I didn't see you and Rem on one of the bench presses a couple days ago? I didn't alert the d.a.m.n neighborhood."

Oh come on! I covered my face with my hands and Jake only laughed harder.

"Carry on then." Jake grabbed my shoulders and steered me back towards the stairs. I set the vase on the landing and let him guide me. We tried to laugh quietly as we crawled back into bed.

"Wait." I whispered. "I didn't get my water."

That sent Jake into another round of laughs.

I was dying for more information on Ana and Ryan, but it wasn't until the next afternoon that I got any, and that was by happenstance. I was about to swing through the door to the kitchen when I heard Jake's voice on the other side. Normally I went to his voice, but it's what he said that stopped me.

"So, you and Ana, huh?"

Obviously he was talking to Ryan.

"No man. There's no me and Ana, we just hook up from time to time."