Nephilim: Children of Angels

23: Mondays

She walks behind me, bending over so her face is unsettlingly close to mine. "Even your death belongs to me." She claims, running her finger across my throat. "You won't die until I deem it. You'll suffer each agonizing day with nothing to keep you going." She threatens a sickly whisper in my ear.

I shudder visibly.

She straightens, going to sit behind her desk again. "Alternately I have the ability to give you a life worth living. All you have to do is what you're told." She gives me that strained smile of hers while straightening a pile of papers on her desk. "We'll have to file an incident report. You assaulted an employee after all." She hands me the stack of papers and a pen. "Fill out the form, write that you stabbed Janine, and then sign at the bottom." She levels me with a challenging look. She's ensuring she got her message across and that I'll do as I'm told.

I do exactly as she instructed, then hand the form and pen back to her.

"Good. Now get back to training. You want to get strong, so your dad doesn't have to worry about you, right?" She sneers.

Is she mocking me? Did she read my letter? When she walks me to the door, she sticks out her hand for me to shake. Her touch burns but I don't pull away. I inexplicably meet her gaze, holding her hand as she burns me, refusing to pull away in an act of defiance, I know I'll regret.

She glares, pulling her hand away as if I'm the one who burned her.

I'm greeted with a weird scene back at the field. Thomas has his nose to the grass in the field, like some kind of blood hound. Sasuke is up in a tree, looking down, swiveling his head around frantically like a bird searching for prey. Meanwhile, Ambien is playing with a small bird in a cage.

"One sense left for you." Janine informs from her place on the bench. She has a bandage wrapped around her upper arm and is wearing a brace. I feel bad for hurting her, although she would never return the sentiment.

"Find the fake blade of grass before Sasuke and Thomas, using touch." She instructs. "This ability is intent based. Focus your energy into textile sensation and feel the grass until you find the blade that feels different. The other senses are available to you but for this particular exercise you'll find that using more than one sense will put you at a disadvantage."

I get down on my knees and start rubbing the grass.

"First one done, I have promised not to shoot for the rest of the day." she adds.

I continue rubbing along the grass until I get to Ambien. "What's with the birdie?" I ask, absently groping the grass.

"Janine buried it." She points to a hole in the field I hadn't noticed. "She said find the bird before it dies." Ambien explains, wiggling her finger through the bars of the cage like a worm. When the bird comes over, she quickly pulls it out before the bird can peck it.

Thomas is going up and down the field in rows, looking a lot like the goat man from Hercules. Sasuke is still perched on the tree. They seem very determined. I'm not very motivated. I continue groping. Mostly out of curiosity. I attempt what Janine suggested, focusing on the feel of the grass. I can feel each blade as it tickles the palm of my hand. Although I could always feel that, this is different. I can feel each tickling prick of each blade. I can even feel each prong of the irregular shape of the tip of each blade from the mower.

I freeze when a new sensation registers in the palm of my hand. It's prong-less and comes to a perfect blunt point. This must be the blade. I open my eyes I closed without thinking. I finger the blade again, feeling its artificial surface. I look around at the others. Thomas is still doing his goat impersonation and Sasuke his predatory bird one. They really want this blade, and I could care less.