The First Lock - 20. Chapter 20

- XX -

The next morning she felt much better. She was still thirsty as hell, but the headache was gone, and most of the cuts healed by now. The Locks, however, were harder to break than she thought. Jett was wrong – Jonas DeLuca used two of them, and not just one. When they figured that out, Jett’s eyes became very thoughtful while he stared at her without blinking.

“Yes,” she nodded with frustration, those invisible cuffs on her wrists driving her absolutely mad. “I am awesome and insanely powerful. Now, if we are clear on that, help me, goddammit!”

He finally blinked.

“How am I supposed to help you?” he frowned. “I have never had a single Lock on me, thank God for that, and I have no idea how to break one!”

“Ugh!” She let out a very pissed off growl when she tried her hardest to concentrate on her left wrist, and nothing happened. “Damn it all to hell... I can’t do it, Jett! The bloody thing won’t even crack!”

“Okay,” he took a deep breath. “Don’t resist me, okay?”

She looked at him and realized that he was about to project something on her. She nodded without saying anything. Not resisting him turned out to be a hell of a lot more difficult than she thought. Her defensive barrier flew up on its own, her mind immediately struggling off the intrusion.

“Dammit, Kat,” he muttered. “Stop resisting...”

“I am trying,” she said through her clenched teeth, trying to make her defenses to go down. Finally, she took a very deep breath and closed her eyes, letting her entire self to relax to the point of meditation. She visualized those barriers; she saw them as high metal walls around her inner core. She imagined those walls slowly folding down, letting this particular intrusion to be welcomed. It worked; not right away, but it worked.

She felt an enormous wave of confidence and desire to be free finally; she felt stronger than ever. All that combined with her own ideas and feelings, made her grit her teeth in an impossible effort, and suddenly, her left wrist glowed bright-blue for several seconds, and then it was free. She was about to take a deep breath and burst into relieved laughter when another wave hit her full speed. “Do not relax,” she thought, and she wasn’t sure if it was her own thought or not. “Finish it!”

The remaining Lock wasn’t nearly as difficult as the first one. It was gone in less than five minutes, and the second her wrist glowed blue once again, she felt Jett’s mind leaving hers. She reached for the Air and started to laugh when a sudden blow of the wind made Jett sway on his feet.

“Should’ve just kept you Locked,” he grumbled, and she laughed again and killed off the wind. “I would be the awesome one,” he said and pulled her closer.

“You are the awesome one,” she said seriously when he started kissing her face.

****

She woke up because of very familiar waves of unfulfilled desire running through her. At first, she sleepily thought, “Jett...!!” But then she realized that her unfulfilled desires were changing a diaper and warming up a bottle. “Dammit,” she muttered and climbed out of the bed. Paul mumbled something in his sleep and she stroked his cheek with her fingers. He sighed and fell silent.

She glanced at the clock. It was 6:30 in the morning. She found Paul’s shirt in the pile of clothes on the floor and slid it on over her head, rolling up the sleeves that were too long for her. She quietly left the bedroom and closed the door. The monkey was wiggling in his nest of the blankets, and he was making impatient, angry grunts, as if saying, “Hurry up already! I am about to lose all my patience now!”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered and went for the diaper first, since that desire seemed to be the strongest one right now. “How were you able to project on me and not Paul?” she mused quietly. “How did you know exactly which person in the room you wanted? How in the bloody hell that mind thing works, anyway? With your father it was clear,” she tossed the used diaper aside, wiping monkey’s butt with a soft baby wipe. “I mean, he knew exactly what he was doing... But you...?” She swiftly wrapped a clean diaper around the kid’s bottom. “You are not even two months old! How the hell can you do it?”

Another grunt was the only reply she got. She sighed and rolled up the used diaper into a tight knot, thinking that maybe those diaper genies weren’t as ridiculous as she thought at first. She headed towards the kitchen, trying to remember if she left the warmer on last night or not. “I hope I did,” she thought, and suddenly, she was hit by an overwhelming desire to take the monkey with her.

“I’ll be right back,” she muttered, and got another frustrated grunt and even stronger wave in response. “Dammit,” she sighed and went back to the couch.

The kid let out a small, satisfied sigh when she picked him up, and his grabby pink fingers immediately wrapped around the strand of her hair.

“Pull on it and you’ll be sorry,” she promised in a low voice.

She had no idea if the monkey actually understood her (wouldn’t surprise her too much; nothing he did would surprise her too much) or if he simply didn’t feel like straining himself with all the hair-pulling, but his fingers just held onto her hair without as much as tugging.

The warmer was on, she realized to her greatest relief, when she saw a dim red light pulsing on the machine. The bottle should be ready in less than five minutes.

“Stop it,” she muttered when she felt an urgent need to hurry up. “It’ll be ready soon, knock it off... By the way,” she said seriously after she shoved the bottle into the warmer. “If you think even for a minute that I am going to let you push me like this when you get older, you are so wrong!”

She looked at him, and he looked back, his expression serious, eyes serene. Suddenly, she felt like throwing something into the wall. This time, it was her own desire. His eyes, she thought hazily. Son of a bitch... Those were Jett’s eyes. The same shade of winter-blue... She whispered something under her breath, and the kid blinked and blew a bubble at her.

“Oh, monkey...” she sighed and tickled his neck, causing a fit of cooing and something that sounded like giggles.

*************

End of part I