A Touch Of Lightning (COMPLETED!)

Chapter 17 The Cabin and Carmen

       

Chapter 17 The Cabin and Carmen            

Callin turned to face Carmen, freezing in place when their eyes met. Hers were full of smoky depths as they roved up and down his bare chest. Callin felt like his tongue had just glued to the roof of his mouth, and he nearly hysterically wondered if he were going to open his mouth and emit just a stream of garbled grunts.

"Oh man! I've really did it now!" He thought, feeling his already fragile control fading fast at the look in Carmen's eyes. It hadn't occurred to him what would happen if he took off his shirt in front of her.

"I see you two are already getting to know each other better." Ahleena said drily from the cabin doorway.

Carmen's face flushed bright red and she opened her mouth, then quickly shut it as she reconsidered what she was going to say and turned an even brighter shade of red. Callin felt his own cheeks burning, and glared at Ahleena as he quickly shrugged his shirt back on.

"Don't you have somebody that you need to go kick in the face or something?" He said crossly. "And what happened that my shirt is full of holes and my blood and I can't remember anything for the last few days?"

"Yeah. Now that we're at your mysterious, little cabin, tell us what's going on already." Carmen demanded, recovering from her embarrassment.

Ahleena motioned them inside and they all sat at the little table in the kitchen. The cabin was old and rustic, rough sawn wood everywhere, with dusty, gray scents swirling lazily about. Callin immediately appreciated its small size and stout simplicity. It looked like it had been built at least eighty years ago and never updated since, although it was still well kept and clean.

"I can see you trying to figure out what to tell us. So make it simple, tell us the truth. The full truth, for once." Carmen said, her jaw clenched and her hands in fists in her lap.

Callin could scent a dark anger just below the surface in her. It was a coiling, cold, and very hard scent, as if this anger were something that was interwoven directly into her. It was unlike anything he had ever scented in another, and it made the hair on his arms stand up.

"I won't lie to you." Ahleena said.

"Yeah, you'll just tell us whatever bits of a truth you feel like sharing. Which is worse than sharing nothing at all." Carmen said angrily.

Callin expected a furious reaction to that, but was surprised when Ahleena simply nodded seriously at Carmen. How had things between these two changed so much in one day? He felt like he was sitting at a table with two strangers. A closer look inside, for just a quick moment, told him he himself had changed, also. It was disconcerting, and he pushed it aside, not wanting to face it at the moment. He needed to hear what had happened from Ahleena, first.

"You ran away. Down to Oceanside, where I found you about to kill a couple of clueless teens. I stopped you, sent the teens away, and you lost control of your power. Your bone grew a type of armor right up out of your muscles and skin. I believe if I hadn't been there, you would have killed yourself."

Callin scoured his recent memories. They were starting to come back, but were as of yet still shrouded in the mist of confusion. He did remember being on a dock, and getting ready to fight some teenagers. Kill them? He didn't remember being ready to kill, at least not then. But then, as he thought about a killing rage, he remembered Ahleena Commanding the teens. He remembered the feel of her telepathic power as she tried to Command him, to force her will on his.

The memory was enough to instantly set the beast inside into a wild frenzy, and he gritted his teeth and held it back as he leaned forward towards Ahleena.