Untitled chapter
2
Mia must have nodded off. When she opened her eyes, the built-in grandfather clock in the center of the dashboard showed a quarter past two a.m. The car’s leather seat was shaped like an eggshell and the back thickly padded, comfortably supporting her body. Alex had created custom seats. She knew him to apply his meticulous handiwork to unexpected details no one envisioned. He hand-crafted a cradle for their future child as a surprise. It was painted in her favorite dusty blue, with stenciled yellow ducklings on both sides. The cradle was beautiful, but it escalated the argument about starting a family. Mia shuddered. Driving in Alex’s car awakened his presence as if he was an invisible passenger in the back seat.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep.” Mia stretched her arms above her head and let out a sigh. “Where are we?”
“On the 405 freeway, heading south.” Gabriel said. “I enjoy watching you sleep. You look like a young girl when sleep eases your features.” His voice caught in his throat. “I had a fleeting image in my mind that I watched you sleep before.”
“You did,” Mia said. “But I wasn’t a young girl.”
A charged look passed between them. The silence sang of withheld attraction that tugged on its leash, of their limbs wrapped around each other between sheets that tangled until they were kicked off, of a need to seek unity and erase the intolerable sadness of physical separation.
Gabriel’s knuckles turned white on the steering wheel. “What did you do to the officer?” His voice was husky. “I don’t think I could knock someone off their feet with the sheer force of my will. That’s how you did it, wasn’t it? You projected your willpower.”
She wanted to think the preparation for the last sprint of his daredevil act was the cause of his tightening neck and bulging forearm muscles, but she knew him. Illegal missions were his bread and butter. Small details such as tying up a corrupt journalist to abduct him in the trunk of a car used to cheer him up when he still worked for his unit. A stint in jail gave him less discomfort than eating genetically-modified wheat. Struggling with his feelings for her had sent him into the desert for seven years of fasting and meditating in his previous body. New body, same issues. The man hadn’t changed as much as she thought.
“It was micro-psychokinesis.” Mia caught herself chewing the soft skin around her fingernails. She balled her hands into fists, glad to change the subject.
“Where did you learn to use it?”
“From the Feminist Alliance. I joined the group after Alex broke into my house. Psychokinesis is a frightfully effective weapon, isn’t it? I needed it to defend myself,” Mia said. “I haven’t resolved the argument with Danielle when she found the three of you at my house. It caught me off guard. When I joined the group, I didn’t think we conflicted with the bodhisattva. Danielle taught ethical use of our skills. I had doubts at times. I asked myself if I joined a force that sabotages the bodhisattva. I still don’t know what to think. I’m not surprised she recognized the three of you as bodhisattva or that she knew of the failure of the unit, since she is clairvoyant. Danielle might simply be mad that I dated a man and blew off the meeting. I have a sense that she doesn’t like men. She might resent bodhisattva because they’re male, not because we are seriously in conflict with them.” Her tone grew urgent as she inched closer to Gabriel. “What if Peter’s accusation of Lucien is correct, and Lucien is the force that sabotages the bodhisattva? If the bodhisattva are defunct, he can freely abuse his skills to feed his age-old hunger for stardom. Lucien might use psychokinesis to influence your will, so you steal a car and get arrested. If you are in jail, you’re isolated from your unit, and no one can help you retrieve your identity until your time runs out. Then the unit won’t reunite and he’s in the clear.”
Gabriel exited the freeway in Newport Beach and stopped sharply at a red light. “It’s possible that my will was manipulated. My mind has been a stranger.”
“If you are unsure, shouldn’t we turn around?” Mia tapped nervously on the dashboard. “Lucien recognized psychokinesis when I used it against him. He’s no stranger to it, nor is he ethical.”
Gabriel rubbed his chin. There was a hint of dark blond stubble, camouflaging his sunburned white skin. “No,” he said. “I’m too close to quit.”
The traffic lights were green for a mile and a half. Gabriel made a right turn into a residential neighborhood where fenced-in hedges wore fashionably bobbed haircuts, award-winning rose bushes bloomed as if fertilized with a radioactive substance, and the white curb was so bright as if it was painted weekly.
“I think I know where we are going.” Mia’s hands clamped around the rounded bottom of the seat.
“Would you care to fill me in?” Gabriel said.
“If I’m correct, you are going to stop at the fourth house down. It has six-foot-high cast-iron gates with swirls and welded leaves that look like ivory. It’s a two-story house with faux-finish Corinthian columns in front, painted to look antique. The owner has a Wheaten terrier named Magnolia.”
“I’m impressed,” Gabriel said. “You know more than I do. I wish you could tell me why I’m going there.” A few seconds later, he pulled up outside the cast-iron ivory gates.
“That’s the house. The owner has a gun.”
“Figures,” Gabriel said. “We’re in the United States of America. The souls who incarnate on this plot of land defend their right to bear arms.”
“When we met, you said my life was in danger. What if we’re both going into a trap?” The last words slipped out barely audible as her voice shook.
Gabriel idled the car at the curb. He met her eyes, his big and round like hazelnuts with a glow she once described to Cathryn as rabid but calm. She was a teenager then, barely thirteen. He reached for her hand, his gentle fingers brushing hers. “I need you to be with me. But if you think the risk is too great, I will drop you off at a fast-food restaurant or any place that’s still open. I will stay with you until we find someone who can pick you up.”
“I can get a cab,” Mia said.
“Would you like to?”
Alex may have been right, and she was thoroughly impractical, naive as a four-year-old and utterly irresponsible by the law. But honoring one’s heart was rarely an easy road and only practical when luck met opportunity. The heart’s wisdom could appear dreadfully naïve. Pursuing happiness was unquestionably a gamble. Security was more easily obtained than the freedom of the spirited heart, but security could turn out to be an illusion. Nothing was ultimately safe. Life was a constant cycle of breaking and healing, of building and decay, of non-negotiable change, and it came with an unyielding expiration date. Yes, she was irresponsible, but she would follow the pull of her heartstrings because she knew the deadening drain that followed ignoring it.
“I’m staying with you,” Mia heard herself say.
The squeeze of his hand tightened, then he let go.
