Chương 17: Second pair of eyes

Ordinary days. Winter deepened, and the garden turned white after a particularly strong snowstorm. Ever since the Onset, snow had become more common even at these Mediterranean latitudes. Whatever had changed Terra's climate eight years ago (which also happened to be when the Onset happened, curious, right?), well, it had done more than erase the old warming, and each winter seemed stranger than the last.

"Do you think it will stick around this time?" Nadia asked. It was not the first time it had snowed, but the last few had been brief things, followed by rain that melted most of the white carpet away.

"Five bucks says it does." She grinned at me, challenging me to take her up on the bet. Not that it mattered, of course. The money came from the shared house fund, which right now included the totality of both our money. Nadia had never had a bank account, so I'd given her access to mine, and the cash was stored in a safe whose combination she knew. Still, a bet was a bet.

"I was about to agree with you, but now I can't help but wager it does not stick, if only to spite you. Five bucks, though? How about if it doesn't melt in under a week, I'm on grocery runs until it does?" Nadia's eyes narrowed.

"Dunno, my prince. Your truck handles the snow just fine, it's the driver I worry about. You do know they don't clear the roads outside Halford anymore, don't you?"

"How about I cook every time you do a snowy grocery run?" I offered. She purred, sneaking a hand up my chest and under my shirt. The house was still mostly cold, but the fireplace running all day meant that most of our living spaces were comfortably toasty.

"Let's hope it snows some more, then," she said huskily.

"I love being spoiled by you."

"I'll spoil you rotten," I told her, running my fingers through her hair as her hand wandered.

"Oh yeah? Tell me how. Tell me all about it."

"Well, for starters, I'm gonna give you your power back. Improved and fixed."

"Mm, tell me, Adrian. What you're going to do with my superpower? The aura of death. What are you going to do with it?" I told her, even as her hand drifted lower. I would cut the death out of it, repair what had never worked, grow the life underneath into something she could control, and give it back if and when she asked me to. Her hand kept exploring, gripping my cock and beginning to stroke its hardening length. She liked being told. She asked more questions.

"What then, my prince?" and as I spoke, she increased the pace, to the point I was gasping and she was giggling in my ear, nibbling at my lobe.

"And then?" she asked again, her hands quicker and quicker, making me grunt and my whole explanation devolved into moans and ragged breaths, until she knelt down just in time to catch the edge of my orgasm, pulling down my pants, angling my cock into her mouth, and letting it all shoot inside. She showed me her tongue, coated with white stickiness, and then swallowed. Later, we returned to the topic without the horny hunger, which was much more productive.

I had ideas, and her eyes were wide and soft, full of awe and adoration, when I told her about them. What I would do with her power and with her in general—although that latter part awakened the hunger in her again, as if she liked the idea of being mine, and we ended up fooling around some more. The following days, the serious demeanor I had seen in the lab and during the hunt reasserted itself. She started asking different questions, planning changes with me, suggesting improvements and tweaks and fixes.

It was Nadia's way of processing the decision, taking it into her own hands while still keeping me close to it. When she had asked for time to think about what she wanted done with her power, I had assumed she might not want to talk about it at all. Time did not mean space, though. She was more than happy to talk with me about it. In fact, it made her happy to. She would bring me one question over breakfast or while we sat by the fire, turn my answer around in her head, and then let the subject rest.

She never gave me a final choice, and I never asked for one.

"Your ability requires touch, yeah?" she asked one evening. Then, watching my face, she added, "Have you ever tried using it from a distance?" I hadn't. Touch was part of how the thing felt, but I could not say whether that made it a rule or just the only way I knew. After that, her questions broadened, and our conversations became planning and strategy sessions I both dreaded and looked forward to. Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

"Are there public records linking this house to your grandfather? What about the attorney who handled the will?" And finally, the big question.

"Say, Adrian. How do we know people aren't watching us already?" It was a chilling realization, but she was right. Nadia watched my face for a few seconds.

"I don't know," she said.

"That's the honest answer." I looked toward the nearest window. From the sofa, all I could see was white garden and the grey sky above it.

"And sitting here won't make us know," she continued.

"How about we survey the property? Scan the perimeter."

"Now?" I asked.

"Yeah. A walk in the snow, almost a date." She grinned, then turned serious again.

"No, but really. We probably should have done this from the beginning." So we dressed in our warmest clothes and went outside. The sky was overcast, but the snow made everything blindingly bright. There was enough of it to cover the ground and soften the angles and shapes, but not enough to hide anything. Nadia stopped us often. She pointed out possible approach routes, sightlines from pretty much every angle she could think of, road access, and blind spots.

"The good news," she said, pointing with a gloved hand, "is that we have a good view of the road coming up the hill. It disappears behind those trees, but then it loops back in front of the porch. Anyone driving up has to show themselves twice." I followed the line she indicated. I had lived here for months without ever thinking about the road that way.

"We have windows on every side," I said.

"Windows that don't help because we're never in those rooms. The ones covering that approach, especially, are in rooms we barely use." She started walking again.

"A closed-circuit camera would help. A few cameras would help more. Something we control from inside, not one of those cheap things that sends everything on the internet. God knows the mad scientists and AIs can steal our data anyway, but let's not make it easy." I had seen this side of her during the boar hunt. At the time, she had been planning how to kill a monster. Now every rapid-fire observation was about the house, the secret under it, and the life we had built. I did not need convincing.

I kept pace beside her, answered her questions, and followed her eye across the property. We moved around the garden and farther out into the wider property. At the lower edge, Nadia stopped beside a particularly large bramble bush and leaned to look past it down the slope.

"This needs to go," she said.

"It blocks the view from above and gives someone a place to stop without showing themselves." I was still looking at her, still admiring how competent she was and how lucky I was to have her, when the thought struck. What if something happened to her? Someone looking for Gus's technology could get to her first. They could kidnap her, kill her, interrogate her. A mind-shaper could get inside her head, or mine, and use one of us against the other.

"Hey, you there?" I blinked. Nadia had been silent for a few seconds already while I was lost in thought.

"Yeah," I said weakly.

"You are not. What are you thinking about?"

"You," I said, blushing. She blushed too, or it must have been the cold.

"Me?" she asked. She almost cracked a joke there, but didn't.

"You are worried," she said instead, reading me perfectly.

"I am," I admitted. She waited. I told her. Being close to me made her a way to reach me. Someone could take her, hurt her, pull the truth out of her, or change her enough that neither of us would know what they had done. I could not forgive myself if she ever got hurt because of me.

"Do you think pushing me away makes the danger disappear?" she asked.

"No. But it moves it away from you."

"Does it?" There was steel in her voice now.

"I choose what risks I take, Adrian. You don't get to decide that part for me."

"I know."

"Do you? Because you're doing it right now." She gestured back toward the house.

"If someone watches that road and you miss them, who tells you? If you disappear, who knows where to start looking? If someone gets inside your head and you start acting wrong, who notices?" I didn't know what to say.

"Being alone doesn't remove the risk," she said.

"It removes the second pair of eyes. The safety net. It would destroy what we have, too." I didn't need to hear the last part, of course.

"You're right," I said. Her eyes narrowed.

"About which part? Be specific. I want to enjoy this properly." I laughed, but I did not let the joke carry us away from it.

"I know where you learned all this. I know what it cost you. I'm not grateful it happened, and I'm not going to pretend it was worth it." I stepped closer.

"But you're good at this, Nadia. Better than me. I trusted you on the hunt. I should have trusted you with the danger that matters more." For once, she had nothing sharp ready. Her mouth opened, then closed. She looked away toward the road and blinked.

"You want me doing this with you," she said.

"Yes. Starting now. We make a list. Cameras and approaches and blind spots and tools. We check the records and find out if the attorney is a problem. If either of us sees anything strange, we tell the other. Anything that could expose this house or what I can do, we decide together." Her breath shook on the way out.

"If I disappear, you know where to start," I continued.

"If I start acting wrong, you don't let me wave you off. I don't make those decisions alone anymore." She stared at me, tears gathering in her eyes.

"You mean all of that," she said.

"Every word." Her smile came slowly. Then her gloved hands closed around the front of my coat and pulled me down until our noses almost bumped.

"I'm done pushing you away," I said softly.

"And I'm done deciding for both of us like an asshole just because I'm scared." Nadia made a tiny, broken sound.

"I love you, Adrian," she said. I knew my answer before she finished saying my name.

"I love you too, Nadia." The answer hit her all at once. She laughed, then the laugh broke into a sob, and she kissed me so hard my boots slid in the snow. I caught us both and held on while she cried against my mouth.