The Ashes of My Soul Read online

  The Ashes Of My Soul

  Christopher Nelson

  Digital Edition

  ©2019 Christopher Nelson

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  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is strictly coincidental.

  Chapter One

  The year had begun and I was home. Home, room B215, Carson Hall, Ripley University. It was supposed to be warm inside, but I felt anything but comfortable. Only a couple of weeks into the trimester and my roommates seemed to have come to an agreement to give me more shit than usual.

  “The wanderer returns!” I winced as I opened the door and found Max waiting on the other side. “Damn, man. I feel like I haven’t seen you at all this year. I’ve missed you, you know that?”

  “I’m not sure how sarcastic you’re being, and that bothers me,” I replied.

  Max grinned. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “You know me so well. I’m surprised you’re here in the afternoon. I thought the only time you were spending here was when you slept, dreaming of me.”

  I pointed out the window. “You know, there are a lot of snowbanks out there. I could stuff you into one and they wouldn’t find you for months.”

  Any rejoinder on his part was cut off as our other roommate walked out of the bathroom. “Holy shit, dude! Kev, you’re here! Is it a special occasion?”

  I sat on my bed and sighed. “You two are absolutely hilarious today.” I’d been gone almost every day of the trimester so far and I couldn’t tell them why. During the day, if I wasn’t in class, I was working with Absynthe. My mentor was making up for lost time training. In the evenings, I was working closely with my personal security force. Very closely.

  “I’m hilarious every day,” Max said. “Just ask Jess. I make her laugh all the time.”

  “With you, or at you?” Drew asked. “But speaking of her, she’s been asking about you, Kev. I think you’re making her nervous.”

  I shook my head as the grin dropped off Max’s face. He couldn’t keep eye contact with me. I knew where this conversation was going and it wasn’t one I wanted to have again. “Look, guys. I’m busy with classes during the day, and I’m busy tutoring and training in the evenings. I told you the same thing last week.”

  “Jess still thinks it’s suspicious.” Max still couldn’t meet my eyes. He wasn’t speaking for her alone.

  “I was trying to be nice about it, but yeah.” Drew raised his eyebrows at me.

  “What do you tell her?” I asked.

  Max finally looked up. “I tell her what you tell us. I give her all the details, of which there aren’t any, because you don’t give us any. It’s pissing her off. I don’t like it.”

  “All right. I’ll tell you again.” I had given them details before. My temper was threatening to come out and play. “First, I’m training with Absynthe. Right?” They both nodded. “Second, I’m tutoring a girl I know from high school. I told you she came up here for school this year.”

  Drew held a hand up. “Here’s the problem, Kev. Since when have you been smart enough to tutor?”

  “Don’t steal my spot,” Max said. “I’m the one who’s supposed to deliver those burns. Get out.”

  I couldn’t really argue Drew’s point. I hadn’t taken my classes seriously in months. The cover story was flimsy as hell and I tried not to get into it. “Guys, it’s low level math. She sucks at it and I’m not that dumb. Only reason I’m doing it is because she recognized me in passing. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Is this Stacy girl hot?” Drew asked.

  I tried not to let my surprise show. This felt like a glimmer of the old Drew coming back and I didn’t want to put it out. “I mean, she’s pretty, I guess?”

  “Single?”

  “Nope. She has a boyfriend back home.”

  “Well, at least she won’t be going straight after you.”

  Max snorted. “Not like long distance relationships work out. She’ll be flirting with him before spring. How much you want to bet?”

  I rolled my eyes and put a hand up. “Can I point out my long distance relationship is doing fine?”

  Drew ignored me. “Five bucks against. He’s not as ugly as you, man, but he’s working on it.”

  “Again with the burns. Stop it.”

  “You in or what?”

  Max nodded. “Five says she goes after the twig boy.”

  I snorted. “You of all people are calling me a twig? I could break you in half without breaking a sweat.”

  “Yeah, well, you cheat.”

  The temperature in the room dropped. Max bit his lip and looked like he wanted nothing more than to take his words back. Drew sighed and mimed smacking Max upside the head from across the room. “You’re both twigs as far as I’m concerned. But look, give it to me straight.” He looked me right in the eyes. “You’re not doing anything questionable with her. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then I’m good.” He nodded and turned his gaze on Max. “We went over this last year. He says he’s not doing anything with this chick. I give him the benefit of the doubt. How about you?”

  Max held his hands up. “I do too! Seriously. Cross my heart. My problem is Jess. If you weren’t with her sister, I don’t think she’d be so suspicious, but she’s being protective. Can you blame her?”

  I shook my head. I really couldn’t. I had cheated on my ex with Jess’s sister, Sarah. Star. Our relationship was weird, to put it mildly. “No, I can’t.”

  Drew turned his gaze back to me. Our roommate’s personality had shifted after the car accident months ago. Losing Lisa had fucked up our entire group, some more than others. He was so much more serious now, banter aside. “Straight up, Kev. You need to chill with this girl. I get it’s innocent, but you know how it looks, right? It’d go a long way toward getting Jess off our backs.”

  “Please,” Max added. It wasn’t a word I heard from him often. “She’s not taking it out on me, but her mood’s shitty and I don’t like it. I mean, normally when she smacks me, it’s because I’m being a dumbass and it’s affectionate. Still hurts. I don’t want to imagine how it’d feel if she meant it.”

  “You let her smack you around?” Drew asked. “Do we need to talk about this?”

  “It’s playful! Seriously!” Max cleared his throat. “Besides, if she ever did it in anger, I’d unplug her computer.”

  “Do we need to talk about you being suicidal now?”

  I opened my laptop as the two of them bickered. I wanted to go on PSInet and do some research on some things Absynthe had talked about, but I couldn’t go through the security check while the two of them were around. While I contemplated what to do, my phone buzzed. Jess’s name popped up and I sighed. “You guys weren’t kidding about her being suspicious. She keeps asking me these loaded questions.”

  “Just tell her you love her sister,” Max said. “That’ll keep her happy.”

  “Does it keep her happy when you say it to her?”

  Max cleared his throat and mumbled something. I put a hand to my ear and raised my eyebrows. “I said, I haven’t said it lat
ely.”

  “Lately?”

  “Ever since that night.”

  I exchanged glances with Drew. “You’re not having second thoughts now, are you?”

  “Of course not!”

  Drew grunted as he climbed up into his loft. “But you’re terrified, right?”

  Max lifted his chin dramatically. “I’m a man. I show no fear.”

  “Right. Dude, love is scary. Fucking terrifying. Afraid of losing the person who’s so important to you, afraid of anyone and anything getting between you two. But it’s more than fear. It’s hope for the future, it’s the will to fight against all odds, the strength to stand on the edge of the abyss of anguish. One wrong step and you’re falling. One right step?” He trailed off.

  “Holy shit, Drew. That was poetic. Depressing, but poetic.” Max leaned back in his chair. “I’m impressed you were able to put so many words in a row.”

  “It was pretty accurate,” I said.

  “Well, you do have a lot more reasons to be afraid,” Max pointed out. “And as far as I’m concerned, being with Nikki made you consider offing yourself a time or two.”

  I tried not to react to his jab. He wasn’t too far off. “No wonder you’re not saying it. You’d be admitting you’re a real boy.”

  Drew spoke from above. “Max is too chickenshit to tell her how he really feels. He’s afraid she won’t believe him. Dude, it’s not like she’s going to laugh at you. She might laugh when you take off your pants, but not about that.”

  “Drew, I will stuff you in a snowbank. Somehow.”

  “Now you’re stealing lines,” I said. “Besides, I can predict how you’ll say it to her. It’ll be in the worst possible location, at the worst possible time, and you’ll say it so sarcastically her only response is going to be punching you in the nose.”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “She would and you know it.”

  Drew’s bed creaked. “And then her sister would probably do it too. How’s she doing, Kev?”

  I shrugged. “Fine, I guess. Busy with her work. I’ve got a phone date with her tomorrow.”

  “And you need us to disappear, right? Or are you going to take it in the bathroom?”

  “Shut up, Max.”

  A chuckle came from above. “Bet you wish it was a real date.”

  I sighed and nodded. “God, yes. It’s been too long since I’ve seen her.” It wasn’t even a lie.

  “You know what would be hilarious? Imagine if she moved here for some reason and ran into you at random in Troy. Or came here to surprise you. Dude, the look on your face would be classic.”

  I paused before responding. “That would be one hell of a surprise.”

  “Wow, Kev, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say you look guilty as hell. You’re not keeping secrets from us again, are you?” Max leaned in with a grin. “Come on, tell us what’s up.”

  “I was surprised,” I said, giving Max my best attempt at a glare. “And then I was thinking about how awesome it would be. Can’t happen, though. She’d get caught if she came anywhere near campus.”

  “Too bad,” Max said. “We could double date.”

  “That’s the lamest thing I’ve heard you say this year.” I sighed and stood back up, closing my laptop and slipping it into my backpack. I’d finished classes for the day and had planned to come back to the room for only a few minutes to change and get the tutoring materials. Now I was running late and missing the bus was a significant possibility. “I hate to do this, considering what we just talked about, but I have a tutoring session tonight. I’ll talk to her about cutting it back, all right?”

  Drew chuckled. “Good man. We’ll try to keep Jess from blowing up.”

  I thanked him and slipped out the door before Max could snipe at me. There was no way I’d make the bus without running all the way down to campus, and even then, it’d be close. However, like Max said earlier, I cheated. Before I walked out of the dorm, I tapped into the psionic power coiled in my mind. A single thread of power stitched its way through all of my muscles. Blue-green light lit up the door and I knew if I looked in the mirror, my eyes would be glowing. Once I’d finished reinforcing my physical abilities, I cut the thread of power and rushed out into the evening.

  Luckily, the sidewalks were mostly clear. I jogged down toward campus at a speed that would make distance runners jealous. I beat the bus to the stop by a good two minutes and caught my breath. Biokinesis wasn’t my forte. Not being able to maintain my power on the way meant I couldn’t refresh my muscles as they strained and the reinforcement faded. I was still wheezing as I got on the bus.

  The bus ride was twenty minutes. The biting cold of an upstate winter hit me in the face as I walked toward the apartment building and I wished I could tap into my power again. It wasn’t only the number of witnesses. Off-campus use would have been noted by the Establishment’s security forces and I didn’t want to bring their attention here.

  I made it up the stairs without dying and knocked on the door to her apartment. A blonde girl yanked the door open and raised her eyebrows at me. “You again?”

  “Nice to see you too, Grace.”

  She smirked at me. “Hey, Stacy, that guy is here again. Do you need me to go find somewhere else to be for a while?”

  The most beautiful redhead I knew pushed the blonde out of the way. “I told you he was coming tonight! Go! Get lost!”

  Grace smirked again, but she already had her coat on. “Fine, fine. You protect Mr. Important here, I’ll go protect the club. Again.”

  “Thank you for your sacrifice,” I said, but the other girl was already pulling me in. When Grace was gone, Star pulled me into a long embrace. By the time she let me go, I was out of breath all over again. “Did you miss me or something?”

  “It’s been two days,” she complained. “Too long.”

  I agreed with her. Any day without my girlfriend was a bad day by definition. If I had my way, I’d be moving in already. If it wasn’t for all the drama in my life, I could have.

  “I wish you could just stay here,” she said, as if she was reading my mind. Since her eyes weren’t glowing, I knew she wasn’t. “This is bullshit, I tell you. Bullshit. No one’s going to care. No one important.”

  “You know what he’d do if he found you here.” I didn’t say who I was talking about, but two men fit the bill. Alistair Ripley, president of the university and leader of the Establishment for Psionic Order, would not approve of a Resistance cell operating in the heart of his territory. He wouldn’t throw a fit. He’d send a team to remove Star and all of her people, violently and permanently. Fortunately, my mentor was in charge of security forces and had enough people loyal to her to make sure Star’s presence was largely overlooked.

  The other man was far, far more dangerous.

  “I know. It’s still bullshit.” She flicked her ponytail off her shoulder and pointed to the kitchen. “Cook.”

  I grinned and headed in. I’d cooked a lot of the time back home since my dad wasn’t big on the idea. Her kitchen was huge for an apartment and even had a dining nook. It only took us a few minutes to whip something up and we settled in to eat. By the time we finished, her normally cheerful personality had grown somber. “Something wrong?” I asked her.

  “I hate the reason I’m here,” she said, standing up and taking our dishes over to the sink. “Don’t get me wrong, I love being here and I love being so close to you. I hate being here because we think you need extra protection. As if we’d even be a speedbump if something happened.”

  I stood up and walked over to her, putting my arms around her from behind. She was stiff, but slowly leaned back into me. “Don’t underestimate yourself.”

  “I’m not. I might be overestimating them, which isn’t a bad thing, you know. Planning for the worst case is what we do. It’s the only reason I’m still around.”

  She sounded so miserable, I searched my mind for a change of topic. “
So, your sister.”

  “Uh oh.” She stiffened.

  I had been about to joke about how suspicious she was being, but switched to something lighter. “Does she cook?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “No reason. I just can’t see her doing it.”

  Star finally chuckled. “No, Jessy wasn’t into the domestic shit. I was the one who wanted to learn how to bake and cook. She was the athletic one, tomboy, smart. Made me look boring in comparison.”

  “Prettier, though.”

  “Naturally. She was the popular one. Ran track, played soccer, almost played basketball before our mom complained she was doing too much.”

  “And now she’s a nerd.”

  “Yeah.” Star’s tone darkened again. “I guess she changed afterwards.”

  “Were you two competitive?”

  She shook her head, her ponytail almost whipping me in the face. “Never. We had our own things and left each other to it. Complemented each other. It was hard, since our parents were going crazy with our older sisters. Marissa was in college and planning on med school. Cassie was a senior when we were freshmen, but we were all worried she wasn’t going to graduate. She was the bad girl out of the four of us. Now she’s finishing up a degree and about to get married, weird enough. Mom and Dad worked like hell to support all of us, but since me and Jessy weren’t problem children, they didn’t spend a lot of time with us.”

  “You? Not a problem child?”

  She shook as she laughed again. “I was the average one back then. No one worried about me. Why would they? Marissa was going to be a doctor. Cassie was brilliant when she wasn’t fucking off. Jessy was the athlete. I was the disappointment in comparison.”

  “I’d love to meet the rest of your family someday,” I said.

  She shook her head, smacking me around with her hair again. “I can’t endanger them.”

  “I know, but I made a promise.”

  “I’m not holding you to it.”

  “I’m holding me to it.”