The vision tonight was different. How much was a dream and what was curse was difficult to tell. This time she didn't shy away from it. Driven by a need to understand she allowed, no, she leaped into the mind-mirage. It immersed and surrounded her, drowning out all other senses.
Loud trance music reverberated off the walls of a darkened nightclub. A sea of bodies writhed and twisted to the pounding sounds. Each beat carried them forward on a wave of abandonment. Couples locked in an embrace ground against each other, small circles of men or women sway like charmed snakes and the occasional lone dancer moved to their own beat.
A blonde woman in black leather pants, a tank top, and push up bra is standing to the side of the dance floor talking to Hond. Her make up was impeccable, and some men dancing nearby keep glancing towards her. I frown. Why, of all people, is she talking to Hond.
"What do you desire to know, my friend?" Hond asked with a sly smile.
"Is he seeing anyone?" she asked. "Does Dusk have a girlfriend?"
A tension built in and around her mouth and Shilpy realized she was grinding her teeth. She tried to ignore the burning sensation in her stomach as a turmoil of emotions raged against this slut in black.
Hond smiled to himself, and a calculated look glided over his face. Even from here she could see one wicked thought after another chase each other through his head. Each delighting him more than the last.
"Yes, he is seeing someone," Hond answered. "I wouldn't call it serious. In fact, they've been having some trouble."
What the hell was this? Had Dusk told that backstabbing son of a bitch about their fight?
"He planned to move to Melbourne, but she won't follow him. In fact, he told me he was more interested in someone else."
Shilpy was ninety percent sure he was lying, but it didn't stop something inside her dying at his words. Could Dusk be interested in someone else? It's impossible. Wasn't it?
The blonde slut leaned forward with interest and inadvertently provided Hond a better view of her cleavage.
"Really who?"
Hond laughed a playful mocking sound. "Don't tell me you haven't seen the way he stares at you."
"Me?" To her credit, the blonde appeared shocked, but she quickly recovered. A small smile built on her lips. "I hadn't, no."
Her head turned toward a small booth in the corner of the club. Dusk is deep in conversation with the men from the boxing gym. She pursed her lips and excused herself from Hond.
She quickly checked her appearance in a hand mirror. With languid and sensual movements she glided across the dancefloor towards the booth. Shilpy wanted to elbow her from behind and send her sprawling in those stupid high heel shoes into the dancers.
Shilpy stepped forward, but a moment later everything shifted and she was sitting across from Dusk and the woman. The men had disappeared, but it was the same nightclub. Whether it was the same night, she couldn't tell.
The smug bitch was seated a little bit too close to Shilpy's boyfriend. Two green cocktails in martini glasses rested half drunk on the table between them. The blonde woman uttered a soft musical laugh to something Dusk must have just said. The tramp had her chest thrust out and was playing idly with a medallion, which rested just above her cleavage. Her body undulates slowly with unabashed sexuality.
Dusk smiled a patient knowing smile, which she took as an invitation. Blondie rubbed herself up against him and leaned forward. Her hand advanced to his leg. He placed his hand on the back of hers, which was moving up his thigh. Then he returned it to her lap. Dusk's eyes turn hard.
"I'm spoken for," he said in a quiet, serious voice. Shilpy's heart nearly leaped from her chest. Blondie stared at him in confusion and retreated to her seat.
"Oh, I didn't realize. I thought-"
"I'm sorry if I led you on,"
"You're sure," she said. Her eyebrows raised, and her body language became seductive again. She teased the martini glass, rubbing the stem back and forth with long fingers. "People talk about you, you know."
Dusk's eyes narrowed. "Really?"
"They say you're special, extraordinary. I think so, too."
"That's kind of you," he said with an edge to his voice.
"You know what they say. What happens on out of town business trips..." She gave him a sideways look.
Dusk stood without a word. His eyes locked onto hers, and then without warning, he strode away, and then everything shifted again-
#
Dusk stood in the middle of a street. At the other end stands Wolf, a sword held in both hands. Wolf swings it back and forth experimentally and then looks back up at Dusk.
"Where did you find it?"
"That isn't important," Dusk replied. Each word is measured, and where before Dusk expressed warmth towards the boxer, now tension and hostility have erased any goodwill.
"You lied to me," Dusk said in a cold and dangerous voice.
"Yes," Wolf replied after a significant pause. He appeared outwardly calm, but there may have been a small note of fear in his voice. "Where is Richards?"
"I don't know."
"Why don't I believe you?"
"Believe what you want, my friend. What are you going to do with that?" Dusk asked.
"That is the question isn't it-"
#
Shilpy was so confused.
On the one hand, Dusk proved himself, and his fidelity last night, or he would, depending on whether the vision from the night before revealed current or future events.
On the other hand, he was helping the Erisians. Assisting them in the war against Keres Ter Nyx. He may have fought Aaliyah. Had he injured her, or worse.
The last vision of Dusk standing across the street from Wolf gave her a bittersweet sense of hope. They were going to betray him. Keres Ter Nyx had tied it's members up with all sorts of lies. The Mothers would say anything to make it more difficult for people to escape.
Dusk obviously wanted out. What lies was he being told to keep him in? Extending the contract, Wolf's guilt trip, Hond's allusion to Dusk being something more, something special, the sluts clumsy attempt to seduce him. Was it all one giant manipulation?
It might explain why Hond was trying to break them up. Shilpy and Hond barely knew each other. The visions gave her a clue into what he wanted, but not the why. Whatever he was after, whatever he wanted Dusk to be or become, didn't involve Shilpy.
After work, she returned home and pulled the sheet Hond used on the couch from the dirty clothes basket. She hugged it to her body, inhaling the stale smell it inherited lying next to all the other clothes. The faintest scent of the thin African lingered, but when she reached out with her mind, nothing happens.
She sat on the couch for ten minutes adjusting and spinning the sheet, trying to feel or sense some trace of the man's past or future, but her curse failed her, just when she needed it most.
When the front door rattled with the sound of keys fumbling in the lock, Shilpy sat bolt upright. Dusk's eyes were bloodshot from the travel, and he was wearing the same clothes she saw him in at the bar.
"Hi baby," he said before crossing the room and placing a light kiss on Shilpy's lips. They needed to talk, but she found that her hand lingered on the back of his head. They broke from the kiss, but his face paused hovering only a few centimeters away. They kissed again, and a third time. Each drew her further into him and she felt light headed. He lifted her up, and she wrapped her legs around his waist.
He buried his face into the nape of her neck, and she moaned with pleasure. Somehow they found themselves in the bedroom, pulling at the other's clothes. In a short order they were naked, and then he was inside her.
In the aftermath of sex, they lay overwhelmed with the feeling of connection, safety, and warmth. Shilpy nestled into the sweat-drenched muscles between his shoulder and chest. Their heavy breathing was the only sound in the room. The moment stretched out one second at a time, with no concern for past or future.
Then slowly the world crashed back in, like the tide on a beach. All the noise and worries and concerns from life and the events of the past few days, and the days to come, piled on top of her.
Somehow they needed to return to this. Their safe, boring lives. It's what they both wanted. She chewed on her bottom lip juggling what to say next. Dusk's eyes were nearly closed, and he looked ready to fall asleep.
"About our chat." She said the words tumbling out.
Dusk sighed in exasperation and rolled over onto his side pulling her naked body into a tighter embrace.
"Go on."
"Who is Hond? Why did he come here?"
"Melbourne can be like the Deepwater Horizon spill, while I'm finishing once the project is over, Hond will stay on in some capacity and may need to clean up the mess," he said.
"You're not like him," she said.
"In some ways, I'm not, but in other ways, we are very alike," he answered, stifling a yawn. "The man is fearless and committed. He would lay down his life for me. People underestimate him, and usually, live to regret it. Although I will admit, he does make the Melbourne situation more complex."
"How did you meet?"
"Why the sudden interest?" he asked a little guarded.
Shilpy looked up into his eyes, feeling his breath on her face. She traced her fingers across his dark skin and over his lips. "You keep your worlds separate. I understand and have tried to respect that. It's difficult because there is so much about you, I don't know. I don't like Hond. I don't trust him. I don't think he has your best interest at heart."
Dusk sighed again and shifted so he was lying on his back. His dark eyes searched the ceiling. For a moment, she wasn't sure he was going to say anything.
"My mother died when I was nine years old. The military attacked our village. Men with rifles, machetes, and tanks slaughtered farmers, shopkeepers, and even my three-year-old sister."
Shilpy sat up in surprise. She'd expected him to talk about Melbourne, she'd had no idea about this.
"I was sent to an orphanage in a neighbouring town. The woman who ran the house would beat us regularly."
He paused, a small crack finding its way into his voice.
"I stayed until I was eleven and then they sent me away. There were too many of us. The number of people found homeless because of the civil war grew daily. The town couldn't cope with us, and certainly not a bunch of homeless kids. They sent us to Ranui."
"The city?" she asked. He nodded.
"We didn't make it."
Emotion built behind his eyes, like an angry storm cloud. In all the time they'd known each other, she'd never seen him look so vulnerable. If the memories caused him this much pain, then it was understandable that he hadn't told her about this before.
Dusk took a deep breath and continued.
"The back of the truck was sweltering. All the children, me included, were dehydrated. At some point, the truck stopped. We sat in the back, confused. There were people outside. Men started shouting and then a gun went off.
We cowered together. Girls started crying, which set others off until everyone was in tears.
"Soldiers opened the back of the truck and forced everyone onto the dirt road. They separated the girls from the boys. The captain wandered up and down the line, past each of us. They examined me like the farmers used to inspect livestock. They asked me who I followed, and I said no one.
'Then you will follow us,' they said. That day, I joined the ALA, the African Liberation Army. They taught me how to fight, how to kill, how to slaughter my enemies with no mercy. Hond and I served together."
Shilpy stared at Dusk in mute horror. How could she not know this about him? She'd known he had secrets, but nothing this big. If she'd been honest with him about her own past, would he have trusted her sooner? She thought they were good together, but it was becoming clear they feel didn't know each other at all.
A child soldier. What does something like that do to a person? She placed her hand on his chest, searching for something to say. Every empty platitude she could come up with seemed wholly inadequate.
"He and I were manipulated by the ALA. We thought we were part of something bigger and important. That we were chosen by the gods themselves. We did things, horrible, unspeakable things..." Dusk's voice trailed off. "I vowed no one would ever control me like that again. I would become strong enough to stop them."
"Do you think it's that simple to walk away from our pasts?"
"You can if you can make it right. Hond saved my life more times than I can count, and I his. He is my brother. I couldn't abandon him, any more than I could abandon you. I hope one day you can get along."