Separian - Book 1

Chapter 32

"If you don't focus you're going to lose." Marissa said.

She was right. I was incapable of completely focusing on our fight with all the new stories of people surrounding me and I would eventually lose if I didn't pull it together. Mike's story was enjoyable, but in the midst of his past, I'd not found one clue as to how to beat Marissa. Oddly enough, he had never sparred with her either. She and he only ever went one on one against Quinn. Mike due to their rivalry and Marissa because she knew that if she and Mike fought, he would lose and the rivalry would carry over to her. He didn't believe her assumption but he still respected her wishes and kept their relationship one of a certain professionalism.

She was completely focused on beating me in our fight. There was humor found in showing me pictures of myself lying on the ground with a broken nose and her standing over my unconscious body whenever she got close enough and knew I wouldn't mistake the thought for someone else's.

The last thing she'd said before telling me to focus was for me to flex my gut. As I listened, she followed with a fist that knocked the wind clean out of me. I was grateful for the warning. The pain in my midsection would be severely worse had she not given it.

We'd exchanged fist for fist for roughly five minutes since our interruption and already, more than fifty people had decided on a team and joined the fight. As far as I could tell, everyone had picked only one opponent to face off against. Mike and Quinn had kept with one another and Blake and Stephanie did the same. The rest of the matchings were all over the place. If I weren't physically here to witness all of it, I'd have written it off as fiction. But seeing it with my own eyes, so many people, no blood lust, but fighting, and enjoying themselves. While I was playing my own part in it all, it brought some level of peace to me, knowing that in the midst of this world I was trapped in, at least I wasn't the crazy one doing it for fun.

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The Separian who had bet on me held up their end a few moments after the fight finished. Several other bodies too, left the Estate and did not return for the rest of the day. Others didn't return at all. No one but me found this strange. So when those that returned suddenly went right back to what they did best, fighting with one another, I kept my comments to myself.

The more I fought with Marissa over the course of the afternoon, the more I wanted to know her story. And it wasn't just my mind's inability to halt the flow of information. It was a memory of hers I wanted to deliberately learn and then recall if ever I needed to.

Her parents, I knew, were no longer alive. After one of her side comments made during my first few seconds here, I assumed something had happened to them. I didn't know why she'd made the comment at all, but it went something along the lines of "don't make the mistake of thinking you're the only one with something to lose". Given the strange timing of the comment and the fact that she was already well into my memories, I was more than a bit interested to find out why.

As one mind, she could tell whenever I remembered something painful, especially if the memory originally belonged to her. Unfortunately, what I didn't know then was how they died. I wished I could take back the desire to find out. Now that I'd learned the truth, I wanted to forget it. Every few minutes, it would surface to the top of my mind and my heart would break, over and over. Whenever it did, I always seemed to find Mike at my side, trying to distract me.

Many of the Separian worked that way. Distracting one another from upsetting or angering memories. One memory could turn the entire house hostile if we weren't careful. My memories of Amy were always close on hand and often brought with it a mixture of "awe's" and sighing. Apparently being sixteen and in love was "just about the sweetest thing they'd ever heard".

While I was only able to learn so quickly about everyone else in the house, the same didn't exactly apply for any of them. Because of who I was, they felt compelled to learn all that they could about me as quickly as they possibly could. Some because they wanted to approach me and weren't sure how to go about it. Others because they weren't sure if approaching me was a smart idea. Though unconditioned, many of the Separian believed that I was far more dangerous than I actually was. The reason for that, was because of my memories of Amy. Should anything happen to her, they feared I would be damn-near uncontrollable and possibly hurt somebody else as a result. To be fair, that probably wasn't far from accurate. I was smart enough to know it was possible, but I was also only sixteen. I'd lost my grandfather when I was nine years old, but other than that, nobody close to me had ever died.

Then at once, I realized I'd made a grave mistake.

I pulled the phone John had given me before leaving to come here from my pocket and stopped myself before I entered a number. Nobody else bar myself and my two personal guards Blake and Mike were in the house right now. But everybody would still hear my phone call, regardless.

"Just call her," Mike said. He and Blake had begun a game of chess since I'd stopped watching them.

What was I supposed to say? It had been six hours already, she was probably furious with me for taking so long to tell her I was alive. I didn't want her not to know the truth, but I didn't want her to scold me for what I'd done to Samuel either.

Mike chimed in again, "The longer you wait to call, the angrier she's going to be."

Once again, his responses to my internal thoughts irritated me.

"Sorry. Habit," he said. At least the apologies were getting smaller in word count. I pushed a few buttons and held the small device to my ear. Mike and Blake made no effort to remove themselves from the room. When I looked over at Mike again and nodded to the door, he simply replied, "No personal life. Remember?"

In that short amount of time, I'd already forgotten. I wasn't going to get used to that, regardless of how much time I had.

"Hello, this is Amy?" she answered quickly.

"It's me." I said it so awkwardly. Why? Was I embarrassed for having waited so long to call? "How are-"

"Noah, I have been worried sick! Where have you been for half the day?"

"Wisconsin," I said as casually as I could. "I'm sorry it's taken so long. There was a bit of an initiation ceremony. I just wanted to call and let you know that I was alright."

"Well it's about time!" she shouted, then explained to her mother in the background that I was safe. "Why are you in Wisconsin?" she asked, parroting the question her mother had just asked.

"That's where they live," I said unsure of where the conversation would lead next. I didn't know which story I wanted to share and get in trouble for first. Samuel being able to separate from me and then proceeding to beat him to the brink of death? Or getting my own rear handed to me by a girl?