Chapter 19

Chicken Fight

      

       I heard a noise and saw West had settled into one of the chairs on the pool deck.  The sun was reflecting erratically onto his face, alternating bright lights highlighting the sharp contours of his handsome face.  I plunged my hand in the water and steered my way towards the side he was sitting by.  I had taken to the pool by myself for the afternoon, all of the guys avoiding me most of the day.  I had a guess that West didn't like my new closeness with Mave, but I couldn't be sure.

       "Hey," I said, trying to gracefully dismount my float without looking like an idiot.  I managed fairly well, standing now in the water with my arms folded on the concrete side.

       "Hey," he said back.  Leaning back as he closed his eyes against the sunlight that was flickering around him.

       "Rough night?" I asked smiling at him.  He peeked out of one eye, a small smirk tipping one side of his mouth.

       "How are you so unaffected, while I feel like my brain is trying to melt out of my eyes?" he asked pinching the space at the top of his nose. 

       "Come here," I said motioning him towards where I was in the pool.  He eyed me again, but I kept waving him forward.  He peeled himself slowly off the lounger, making slow progress towards where I was.  "Are those trunks?" I asked him, gesturing towards his shorts.  He shook his head as I turned mine, and I snapped my fingers to replace his shorts with the swim trunks I saw drying in the bathroom when I woke up. 

       "Little warning next time Brienne," he said, looking a little green around the gills and panicked at the change.  He slowly pulled off his shirt, and it took a good deal of restraint to peel my eyes off his body to look at his face.  He sat down, letting his feet dangle from the side for a few seconds before he slipped the rest of the way down and under the water.  He came up a few feet away from where I had backed up to.  We looked at each other for a moment, a few still beats of our hearts trying to synchronize in the distance.

       "I won't bite," I said holding out my hand to him palm facing him. 

       "You want a high five?" he asked, giving me a look like I was certifiable. 

       "Stop being such a smart a*s West, place your palm against mine and try not to freak out.  I'm just helping you fix yourself, nothing nefarious or anything will require an anti-spell.  I promise," I said in a teasing tone.  He looked more reticent with every inch of the gap closing between us, but he must have really wanted his headache gone because he placed his palms again my own.  "Close your eyes and listen to the song, concentrate on the words, and when you feel a tickle try not to move.  I haven't healed anyone in a very long time," I explained.  I could tell he wanted to ask a question, but he managed to tamper it down and closed his eyes once again.

       I started singing the same song my father used to, it was all in French but it was one of the few soothing songs I could sing with some success.  I knew the language would confuse him enough that he could concentrate on what I was saying versus what I was doing.  I let my healing spells flow out of me, a little trickle that I sent down my hands and into his own.  I shouldn't have, but I couldn't stop putting just the tiniest bit of my own essence into him as well.  It was more instinct than any ulterior motive, and he hardly seemed to notice at the time.  I guided the path to split into two strings, one going up into his head, and one going to his overworked liver.  I circled the blue energy to wrap around his stomach and then up to join the rest of the work I was doing on his headache.  When the song ended I pulled my palms away, feeling more energetic than drained.  Interesting, that had never happened before.

       "I'm done West," I said reaching out and touching his shoulder when I didn't see him move.

       "Your voice is wonderful," he said, dropping his hands down in the water but not moving from my personal space.

       "It sounds better in French," I added trying to hide a smile at his compliment. I wasn't used to receiving praise.

       "You didn't let me finish, your voice is great but what you just did to me was like heaven.  My headache is gone, just like that," he said.

       "I could feel your pain from here, it's been a while since I healed anyone like that so you may need another dose.  Let me know," I said, noticing he took another step towards me, pulling me close to him and embracing me in his arms.  I placed my hands on his shoulders pushing back a little, looking over my shoulder towards the house.

       "Most of them went into town to stock up for tonight," he explained when he noticed my hesitation.  I should be mad he was spending time with me when she wasn't here, but I couldn't muster up the strength to walk out on him.  I found my own way to him, just as he would have to do with me.  Something in my magic told me to wait him out, to let him get there on his own without forcing him there, if he ever did.  If this was the only time I could spend with my mate, and I was taking it.

       I made a move to hug him back and then went for a dunk instead.  He laughed, easily plucking me from his back and pushing my own head under.  While I was down there, I swept his legs out in a slow but technically solid leg sweep combined with a few light punches to the gut.

       "Where'd you learn that?" he asked when I came back up.

       "Oh I have some martial arts training, as well as hand to hand combat.  I wouldn't mess with me if I were you," I warned teasingly, jumping on his back again.  Instead of plucking me off, he grabbed my legs tightly, and some reflex I didn't know I contained caused me to wrap my arms around his shoulders.  I could barely meet them in the middle because his shoulders were so wide.  We waded around the pool like that for some time, sharing stories or recounting our favorite movies and songs.  I knew little to no movies, never having lived with a TV or with the luxury of going to the movies much.  But I crushed him when it came to music trivia.  That was the one constant source of media we could get in the trailer.  The radio and then my iPod became two of my best friends.

       "You have to have a record player in that monument of the house somewhere," I said as we were lounging on the pool steps later on and talking about old jazz records.

       "I'm sure my mom does, but who knows where.  I'll have to ask Dante, it sounds like something he would try to use on a girl," he said chuckling to himself.

       "Oh don't tell him it's for me, then he'll burn it," I mumbled to myself.  West raised an eyebrow.

       "He doesn't hate you, he's just intense and very protective of his family.  Whatever you fought about it will blow over, I promise," he said pulling me in front of him and resting me between his legs.  I lounged back onto his chest, and enjoyed the feel of him behind me.

       "Well, if you do find it, I can drag you to a good record store to stock up.  There is nothing like listening to the sound created on those, its pure raw music, not the stuff that plays now that's been tweaked within an inch of its life.  This is one cut stuff, a continuous story that hasn't been soiled by commercial interests.  If I can find the symphonic recordings, ah it's just pure energy.  I think it's good for our magic to connect to music like that."  I could feel him playing with my hair, threading a piece between his fingers.  I hid the shiver that slid up my spine.

       "I can feel Mave and Logan's power signatures coming up the drive," I informed him, not wanting to end out time out here, but wanting a warning if things needed to stop.  I could feel him let out a deep breath behind me, but made no move to exit out current hold.  When I sat up he pulled me back down to him, picking up the wayward strand he was playing with before.  I let him lead, wondering what he was going to do when Raquel got here.  I closed my eyes as I rested again against him, coming close to dozing off again when I heard Logan.

       "Cottage!" he called out across the backyard. 

       "I'm going to give you a nickname so vile the girls will vomit every time I say it to you," I said back as they approached where we were sitting.  A warning squeeze from West told me not to try and move again, and a blush swept my face despite my efforts.

       "If they're that close to me there's no way they will listen to a single thing you say," he said confidently back to me, jutting out his chin in protest.  I think I made a small growling noise back to him, which Mave called cute.  I sent a wave of energy their way picking them up and depositing them in the pool at the other end.  I could feel West laughing behind me, his shaking was making it hard to stay still myself.  I sat up and turned to face him, and he pulled me onto his lap.

       "Thanks for hanging out with me here today," I said.

       "It is nice here, with you," he said, something was warring its way behind his eyes, thoughts suppressed and unspoken.  It pissed me off.

        "I have to say it West.  In the future, if you want to spend time with me, then you need to stop touching me.  It's doing things to my self-control that isn't going to end well for either of us.  You make it so easy to forget you are choosing someone else, that you are marrying someone else.  I should remember that, and you should know better."  His own face flushed, and I put some distance between the two of us.

       "I have a hard time thinking straight around you," he said, rubbing his head again like his headache was instantly returning.  Did he feel it too, the magic pulling itself towards what it wants?

       "I think it's the other way around," I mumbled under my breath, thinking it was Raquel he had a hard time thinking straight around.  At that exact moment my body went sailing in the air and landing in a ball a few feet from where I was standing.   I could hear Logan gasping for breath in between laughs, but it was suddenly cut off when something floated towards him.  I gasped and snapped my fingers, placing my bikini top back where it was supposed to be.  I glared at Logan, but couldn't contain the laughter that was bubbling up.

       "Oh is that how you get all the girls Logan?" I asked demurely, batting my eye lashes and feigning embarrassment.  He splashed some water in my face as we all played around the pool for a while.  The pool had one of those in water basketball setups, and we were taking turns using magic only to get it into the hoop.  After a while, we started fighting dirty, and it turned into an all-out water war.

         I was dangling Logan upside down, alternately dunking his head in and trying to fend off Mave when West did the same takedown I did on him before.

       "That was a good one," I said, giving him a thumbs up.  "But you didn't distract me enough to drop Mave," I informed him, smiling proudly and pointing to him flailing miserably above the water.  "My father said I should be able to field multiple distractions while still holding my objective, you don't want to know how I learned that one," I said shuddering a little as the memory forced its way to the surface.  They all looked too interested not to share, and West was pinning me with a particularly pointed face. 

       "He would attack while I held knives suspended over me," I said wishing I didn't tell them that, and wishing I still didn't feel proud I beat his game.  "At the end of one week, I didn't get so much as a scratch on me," I said, knowing I sounded more proud than angry, which was a normal emotion for my situation.  Or so my shrink used to tell me.

       "That's horrible, but can you let me down you crazy a*s piece of goat?" Logan said, thankfully breaking the tension.  I released him, dropping his body into the water as some of the girls from earlier came strolling into the backyard.  I had felt them enter the house a little while ago, and I was just trying to squeeze every bit of happiness I could out of this visit.  I could almost feel Raquel alone come and stand near where the four of us were still shaking off the laughter, and it was as if the water temperature cooled ten degrees as she looked down on us.

       "West, your mother is on the phone for you.  She's been trying to reach you all day," she said, tapping her foot on the pool top and sending me a look reserved for the vilest of criminals.  West rolled his eyes, rising out of the water and searching for a towel.  I sent him a towel magically, a specifically blinding pink towel that I had packed for the disastrous island trip.  He looked at it to me, shaking his head and winking in my direction as he walked towards the house.   

       I knew it was coming, she had seen the whole encounter, and from the look on her face I was betting she witnessed a whole lot more than that.  Raquel leaned down to me in the water, a sneer marring her perfectly manicured face. 

       "It won't work," she stated to me, cutting through any subterfuge and getting right down to it.  I felt someone brush my back, and I knew the boys would stand behind me.  I should have told them it was the only time anyone had every had my back, but I was focused on Raquel.

       "Then you have nothing to worry about," I said simply, crossing my arms and meeting her stare as I rose out of the water to stand in front of her.  She wasn't going to be looking down on me in this situation.

       "Jackie told me what you said to her last night," she said, lowering her voice to a hiss.  It would have been a whisper but she was so mad she was almost spitting the words out to me.  "You need to watch your mouth you prissy spawn of Satan.  My family can bury what little life you have managed to carve out for yourself here.  Stay away from West, and out of my business Moreau,” she said, leaning back and looking smug.

       "Did you lie?  Or just cheat on him?" I asked outright, remembering my father's words on taking a kill shot when I saw one.  Her face paled, she covered up her reaction as best I could but it was all the proof I ever needed.

       "You know nothing you worthless piece of trash," she said, swinging her long hair over her shoulder and walking towards the house.  I felt the boys at my back, jumping to stand where I was and looking at Raquel's retreating form.

       "What did you say to her?  That's the most emotion she has ever showed, I didn't think it was possible to rattle her."  Logan said it flatly, not taking his eyes off me as he spoke them.

       "I used the only weapon I can against her."  I waited the usual amount of time for dramatic effect.  "I told her the truth."

      

       ***

    

       West came into the downstairs lounge where we were seated.  Mave, Logan, and I were playing some kind of card drinking game, after losing to me handily in poker they refused to every play with me again.  I had a card plastered to my forehead, and I was vaguely trying to remember whatever rule I was supposed to remember.  I hadn't seen West for the rest of the day, he and Raquel had been holed up in his room for most of the day and I was handily trying to drown the possibilities of what they were doing with the alcohol.  After I had heard a thump the boys took one look at my face and demanded we start the party early.  This whole friend thing was pretty handy.

       "West!" Mave said, moving a pretty blonde from his hip to make room for his friend.  She pouted, eventually getting the hint I was wasn't moving either and sauntered off somewhere else.  I wasn't in a place to judge her, I was panting after someone who was engaged.  I felt his presence next to me, as palpable as a live wire attached to the parts of my skin that were connected to his. 

       "We have to be out early tomorrow, my mom wants to have lunch as a family."  He said it without much inflection, but something told me there was more going on.

       "I thought she left for the compound?  Never mind, I won't remember what you tell me tomorrow, just remind me later buddy.  Wait, are we invited?  Madlen makes the best lunches, always the good meat," Mave slurred out, a wink that lingered too long on his cheek made him seem worse off than he was.

       "She said just us," he said, throwing a glance my direction that wasn't unfriendly but certainly not filled with his normal warmth.  We were constantly stuck in this pattern, making progress and then reverting back, it was enough to make my poor heart plummet. 

       "Does that include you, cheddar?" Logan asked, a far more sober eye than Mave was examining his friend.

       "Yes," West said at the same time that I said I wasn't sure.  It jerked back, disconnecting our bodies a little to think more clearly.  There was activity all around us, people had started to pick up the pace of the party and the noise level had amped up.

       "Oh," I said, anxiety at West's behavior and the unknown of what his mother had discussed with him, was leaking into my blood faster than any alcohol could.  Was this the point where they ask me to leave?  Just as I was about to speak I heard the girl, who was with Mave earlier, and her friend come back up to the area we were sitting at.  Each deposited themselves in the guys laps, greedily placing their arms around them to snuggle closer.  I couldn't helping staring, was this what normal girls my age did? 

       "Got a problem Moreau?" The girl in Mave's lap asked with bite.  She had caught me staring, and the disapproving look on my face must have not sat too well with her.

       "Leave her be Geana, she's off limits for you," he said, not moving her but giving her a good enough serious tone for her to back off.

       "She's always hanging around you guys, and I heard she slept with the two of you last night."  Geana said it with an audible whine, which made her words grate on me even more.  Great, as if my reputation could take any more hits.

       "I caught her and Mave sleeping earlier, all curled up like cats on the day bed upstairs," her friend chimed in, a sneer on her face as well.  If we weren't so close I wouldn't be able to tell, but West's body tightened to such a degree that it seemed ready to burst.

       "I do have a spot open tonight, these two just didn't do much for me last night.  Just a warning," I said in an exaggerated whisper, cupping my mouth like a secret.  "If you know of anyone open for tonight, just let me know," I said, elbowing West in a form of jest.  One look at his face told me he didn't like my joke, and when I looked up and saw Raquel I knew my timing couldn't have been worse.  I should never have come, all I seem to do is unravel things.  Dante called me a tornado, and I wondered if my destructiveness was going to be my downfall.

       "You are just so pathetic," she said, and I rolled my eyes.  What did I do in a previous life to have this hard of a time just making it through the day.  "Always trying to get into the guys pants, how many times do they have to tell you?  They don't want you, Marion had to ask these three to include you, get to know you.  West threw a fit about for a week before you started."  I didn't expect that, or the sting I felt when I realized they hadn't come to me on their own.  I forced myself to examine if it mattered, and decided it didn't, they didn't have to stay my friends.  They were mine.

       "Well, she is a Moreau, who is going to be friends with her if not forced to by the headmistress," he sister Jackie said from behind her, eyes alight with the prospect of knocking me down a few pegs.

       "That's why Marion asked someone to look out for me.  It's a testament to their character, not mine, that they did so."  I ended without an insult back at them, hoping they would grow up some and leave me alone.

       "My father said you have no character, he remembers you from the hospital after they took you.  He told me you are bound to be just like him, just like your crazy father.  The psych that evaluated you said the same thing, its public record." 

       "That's enough Rocky," West said, his voice more tired than angry.  I knew there was a reason they interviewed the doctor during my hearing, so it could be documented all the mental problems I have.  To my surprise, West and Logan had kicked their women off their lap, and they were standing with an even larger pout than earlier behind them.  I could tell where this was going now, and I sent some magic through my blood, obliterating the alcohol within.  Sober as a bird now, great.

       "We should know who we are letting into our circle like this.  She is dangerous West, what if she snaps?  What if her father comes for her, we all know it's going to happen is just a matter of when?  She puts us all in harm’s way, and for what?  She's useless, just crawling after all of you in the hopes you will throw her some scraps.  I just hope my father gets the chance to lock you up this time," she sneered, and I knew what tomorrow was about.  I felt the urge to run, the overwhelming desire to ride away and carve out an existence as a gypsy like before.  I looked instinctively to West, my magic seeking solace in the one person it could.  He wouldn't look at me, West kept his eyes focused on the mountain of cards on the table instead.

       "He won't save you," Raquel said with her chin tipped in victory.  "Tell her West, tell her what we talked about," she said, shoving his shoulder lightly to wake him up. 

       "I said that's enough Rocky, don't push me today."  I could see his eyes flash, and the words were almost shouted at her.  My heart, making a slow descent into my throat had now plummeted down to my stomach.  Somehow I doubted whatever he said to me was going to end in West declaring his undying love.  I snapped my fingers and brought my bag to me, ignoring from the boys that they were throwing at the girls and West.  They looked as uncomfortable as I felt, but at least they weren't going along with them.

       "I'm going to take that as my cue to leave, I have no desire to be your designated punching bag.  As I'm sure you don't want to be mine.  Thanks guys for inviting me," I said sincerely to Mave and Logan, which only made their staring more intense at West.  Mave gave me a hug, followed by Logan.  I whispered in his ear, "Let him decide for himself, go easy on him, he needs his friends now."  I felt Logan nod, knowing he would understand what I was saying.

       "You have to talk to her West," Raquel said, taking up a place on West's lap.  He wouldn't look at me, or remove her, and I knew that I couldn't take much more than this.  It was pure agony, and all I wanted to do was call all of them out on the bullshit they were spewing.  I could ruin Raquel's life, but that in turn would ruin West's, and my magic was holding out hope he would come around.  Instead I turned and made my way through the silent house, ignoring the staring and the whispering as I made my way towards the front door.  Cannot attack the students, cannot attack the students, cannot attack the students.  I repeated it to myself as every cell in my body had me itching to met out some justice of my own on everyone that thought they knew what was going on.  I walked over to my bike, running my hand over the leather and steel, finding comfort in her.  It held some tough memories, but it also held some of my happiest. 

       I thought of JP, another person who I felt I had failed.  I knew it should be the other way around, I should feel like he failed me, but I knew differently.  I had pushed JP to the limit, always had even when we were friends back in the trailer park, and when I went too far he walked away.  Is that what West was doing now?  Had I forced him away too?

       "Brienne," I heard him say, and I spun around as he jogged down the steps towards where my bike was near the tree line.  I raised my eyebrow, silently waiting for him to continue.  He stared at me, and I at him, for several long seconds.  He looked incapable of words, like everything that he was about to say wouldn't come out.  I slipped on my helmet, cranking up my bike and climbed on.  I stood on one leg, waiting for him to say something to me, say anything at all. 

       'Hop on," I told him in his head, sneaking forward on the bike to allow for room.

       'I can't,' he told me, and even though I knew it was going to be his answer I still felt disappointed.

       'See you tomorrow West,' I said, putting the bike into gear and tearing down the dirt road, away from him.