IV

The sun rose right on schedule, blinding me straight through the pale, opalescent shades. I sighed and kept perfectly still in my bed, the sheets soft and cool compared to the rays that now caressed my face. I knew that somewhere in this beautiful contentment there resided some mundane task waiting for me, some training assignment that Benji and I had yet to complete; but even the thought of the most difficult projects couldn't draw me from my tranquil slumber...

And suddenly--just as suddenly as I had the three days previously--I remembered where I was, and exactly what was waiting for me once I awoke.

I sighed again, but this time it held no sense of peace. Because for the past three days, I'd spent every waking moment in the company of Ashling O'Connor.

Brilliant young mind? She undoubtedly possessed one. Fiery sense of creativity? Yes, that too.

Strong instinct for self-preservation? Not so much.

I groaned and rolled over, checking the time on my clock radio. Seven in the morning. Later than I'd slept any other morning in this bed. No sound dared to disturb the silence in my room, and I revelled in the absolutely stillness--loving it, cherishing it. I covered my face with the blanket to block out the light...

"Wake up, slug. Ashling wants to go to the zoo, and I'm not letting you wheedle your way out of this one."

I flinched at the cold as Ben ripped the covers from my grip and pulled open the curtains. If I had thought the light blinding before, I'd been entirely underestimating the power of the sun. This new light, unadulterated and undeterred, stung at my vision with a vengeance.

Slamming the pillow over my face, I muttered a low oath at Ben; his overly sensitive hearing--as well as his touchy pride--caught every word. I'd abandoned him the day before when Ashling had wanted to take us to her favorite shoe store, and apparently he was as close to forgiving me as he was to allowing me to stay in bed any longer.

"Seriously. You'd better be ready in a half hour. I'm not going to stand and watch gorillas pick termites off of each other for six hours unless you're with me."

In spite of the harsh tone and the rough way he tore the pillow away, there was something sweet about his wish to have me by his side. Well, bittersweet, at the very least.

Twenty-seven minutes later, I found myself in the backseat of Stan's black car, squeezed into the middle seat between two very contradictory companions. Benji was taciturn and brooding, his foul mood from the day before still holding strong. Ashling, however, was nearly bouncing up and down with excitement.

"Ooh!" she squealed, her voice hitting decibels I thought the human race to be incapable of reaching. "The penguin exhibit opens today! Oh, gosh, wouldn't it be absolutely wonderful if we saw them swimming? Or perhaps the bears! I've always thought that bears..."

Ben elbowed me in the side, forcing my attention to his face. He rolled his eyes and smirked at me. I sighed, knowing that today would be one of the longest days I'd ever endured.

She wasn't ignorant, and she honestly wasn't that irritating. She was just so happy all of the time. So giddy, so buoyant, as if gravity simply weren't enough to hold her down.

What made her tough to tolerate was the fact that her own body--the vessel her beautiful soul was forced to occupy--was set on destroying itself. Her immune system quite literally did not exist, leaving her helpless and hopeless, as far as a Guardian was concerned. And then there was the small matter of her being the only daughter to a wealthy, affluent millionaire, one whose distracted oversight had permitted her to be kidnapped no less than four times to date. She was also an astounding magnet for traffic accidents, cooking burns, near-fatal trips and falls...

An uphill battle for me and Ben, one might say.

But my extra sense perceived nothing but exhilaration from her now. She'd confessed to me only the night before that Ben and I made her feel safer, just by following her around. To that I had replied that she should still be vigilant and cautious.

She'd giggled, of course, and hugged me tightly before bidding me goodnight.

Stan drove on, his eyes catching mine in the rearview mirror; it was not hard to see that he was fighting back laughter at the young Miss Ashling. I pretended to be vaguely interested in what she was saying, nodding in all the right places and such.

Benji's hand brushed against mine, our knees so close together in the tight car that his arm had been casually laying on my leg. I started, but he stayed exactly where he was, his fingertips gently resting on top of my hand. Almost as if the movement had been deliberate...

"Kaye, did you hear me? They've got HUGE snakes at the zoo! Kaye?"

Ashling's voice pulled me from my abstraction, startling me further and causing my hand to jump. Ben's long fingers shot away from mine quickly.

"That sounds great, Ashling. Tell me, which ones are your favorites?" I said all this without a single glance in her direction; my perplexed eyes sought only Ben's attention, an action unrequited on his part.

In this moment--despite our extraordinary senses and the closeness of the car--I felt further from my partner than I'd ever felt.

And for the first time since I'd died and become a Guardian, I wished wholeheartedly that I could once again be human.