In The Dead of the Night

03 | first midnight

I tapped my fingers together in my lap. Thumb to pointer finger, thumb to middle finger, thumb to ring finger, thumb to pinky. 

Watching him work made me nervous. Made me feel like at any moment he could jump up and test my skills in combat. I wasn't ready for that, I just prayed that he knew. 

He was leaning over the desk, his shoulders slumped, and writing what I could only make out to be a lesson plan. The list of items on it was excessively long. The air felt ice cold and suffocating around me. 

He turned abruptly. "Today we're gonna sit down and discuss what you've already done and what I'm planning for you to do. Then we're going to start."  

Shawn snatched the piece of paper from the table and walked outside. I was wearing the thick sweatshirt I bought at the store today, so I wasn't afraid to go outside. Yet when I stepped out the door with him, the cold burst of air hit my face and made me shiver down the bone, freezing the blood in my veins, making my arms grip to my body at a desperate attempt to keep the warmth as close to me as I could. 

"I'm sorry for the cold. I would change the temperature if I could." His voice sounded more empathetic than I would expect it to, so I guessed he was cold too, although he did a much better job than me at hiding it. 

"Good luck with that," I said quietly. 

Shawn's fingers curled into a fist against his leg. "Don't say that. That 'good luck' phrase." His voice was rough, bitter like poison, cold as his disgusted stare. "Luck is cruel. If you learn anything from me today, it's to believe in karma, and to keep that sentence out of your mouth when you're around me."

I took a step back, my fingers trembling as hard as his were clenching. Whether it was from "I-I'm sorry. I won't say it again."

"And you won't believe it again."

"I'm sorry," I repeated.

Golden eyes met mine for a brief moment, but in that moment that my breath hitched and my throat tightened- I could feel his gaze staring through my being like I was made of broken glass, criticizing every inch and crack I let show to the world. After a second's worth of flicking up and down my tentative expression, Shawn let out a deep, long breath, a cloud of fog forming in front of his mouth. 

"Come over here." He let his fingers unravel from their tight ball and walked to the boathouse. When I reached him he sat down on the edge of the dock and took off his shoes and socks before touching them to the water. 

"The water here is unusually warm, even at nighttime. I think it's the size that makes it hard for it to lose warmth, but I'm not sure." 

I remembered the water being lukewarm at best earlier in the day, but that would've been because of the sun. If logic still applied in this area code, the water would be cold like ice. "You're not tricking me, right?" 

He caught my humorous smile and responded quickly, "There's only one way to find out." 

I took off my shoes and socks and dipped my toe into the water. His sentence wasn't a lie, not at all. If anything, it was an understatement. The water felt like warm bath water, and I nearly wanted to take off the layers I had on and sink my body into the lake. 

"It feels straight from a faucet," I remarked. 

"It's an interesting place your father chose. Speaking of your father," he began, pulling out the piece of paper. "Did he ever send you to any classes when you were younger? I mean, I bet he did, with his..." His eyes snapped to mine. "Business." 

His eyes made me nervous. 

I nodded, careful with my words. "It was mostly experience. Classes were sparse. The few I took were unofficial, just my father and I when no one else was around. I was always expected to know, even when no one had taught me."