Chronicles of Jonathan Tibbs 1: The Never Hero (33 page)

Words translated into movements without being so much thought but as if they were sensed. Every attack was efficient, no wasted step, no imperfect strike requiring him to overreach. His hands landed on the staff precisely where he meant them to; his feet precisely the distance from his imaginary opponent as would deliver the most powerful blow and give up the least of his defense. The weapon danced around him like an extension of himself.

Three Hundred and sixty degree spin, reverse, maintain momentum, two handed figure eight, step and strike, smooth, strong, powerful
.

Three weeks had passed since Jonathan had asked Lincoln to put him in touch with his martial arts contacts. He’d experimented with a few alternate weapons, but the staff had felt right from the first time he’d picked it up.

It wasn’t as difficult to learn a weapon on a theoretical level as Jonathan had expected. He’d drilled every night with the staff. His forearms had become dense with the muscle from perpetual use, his hands callused. He practiced until the movements became such an embedded part of his muscle memory that he could facilitate the motion required as quickly as they occurred to him. He was far more critical of himself than his instructor had been. He absorbed his training with the focus of a starving man hunting prey.

Watch the collar bone, don’t over extend your elbow, don’t lean forward, strong stance, trust the staff.

Sometimes, he imagined it was the voice of his father, the ghost standing behind him, pointing out the flaws in his technique, coaching him to try it again, to be better. Other times, when he wanted to quit, he’d see Douglas sitting on the steps leading into the house, encouraging him to stay.

He’d been a mess of bruises after his first two weeks of training, but the fruits of all the pain and perseverance were becoming apparent. The dexterity he’d initially found so elusive now flowed from his fingertips as though he’d known how to yield the weapon since birth. The nerves of his body, his shins and forearms were deadening to the pain of constant assault. He was more familiar with his muscles than he’d ever been.

Still, the problem remained.

There was no real way to train for this fight. There weren’t any sparring partners who could prepare him to engage a Ferox, and no Ferox was going to fight him like a man.

Jonathan steadied himself, finding the balance in his stance. He closed his eyes again. From within the self-imposed darkness, undistracted by the perception of sight, he set the stage. The beast came at him. He whipped the staff around him, dodging to the right as its phantom claw reached for him. As he spun, the staff spun with him, sweeping the monster’s leg out from under it. Without pause, Jonathan spun again and lowered his frame to strike downward as he came around, the staff following him, catching the beast in the skull just as it completed its fall to the floor.

Amply executed in his imagination, the only tool he had to train against. Back in reality, the staff struck the padding on the garage floor with an unsatisfying thwack.

He opened his eyes.

His technique hadn’t been flawless. He’d felt the slight imperfections in his movement. The combination of moves were fresh to him, so he drilled, alternating between his left and right side to make sure he was capable of it on an ambidextrous level.

As was happening more frequently, he felt the deadly grace rising through the movements, felt himself being watched by something within, something growing stronger.

When exhaustion surfaced, he dropped the staff and peeled off his shirt. It was heavy with perspiration. He took a deep breath, sat on the edge of the weight bench, and faced himself in the mirror. In the reflection, he noticed something he hadn’t before. There were marks under his arms, between his chest and around his biceps. They looked like scars.

Stretch marks
. Lincoln had warned him this was likely.

“Anyone who goes from never lifting weights to training like an Olympic athlete stretches his skin as the muscle grows faster than the skin can adapt,” he’d said.

Jonathan didn’t like it. The skin looked webbed and shiny. It was ugly, the product of hours of cruelty to himself. The longer he looked, the more the differences surfaced. He hadn’t cut his hair in a month; he needed to shave. He was surprised Mr. Fletcher hadn’t said anything. He was getting worse and worse about it as he’d had less and less time; things like grooming became more irrelevant. What he didn’t like more than any of it were his eyes. They looked tired, shadowed, and something else, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

The side door to the garage abruptly opened and snapped Jonathan out of his self-examination. Paige and Leah walked in together, surprising him. Paige seldom came in through the garage, and he’d only seen the two together that one day in the garden.

It occurred to him then, that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken to Paige for more than a few moments, not since he’d told her how betrayed he would feel if his mother found out about his attack. The last few weeks had been a blur. He’d set aside everything human and focused on the task of survival. He’d been a machine.

“Jonathan? Jeez, you look like hell,” Paige said when she took in his face.

Her eyes started to travel down his exposed torso, shining from all the sweat. She blushed, realizing she’d been careless with her eyes. The awkwardness of it affected both of them, and he became uncomfortable, looking around desperately for the t-shirt only to remember he’d thrown it into the hamper soaking.

“Just for the record, I don’t agree, but you might think about shaving,” said Leah.

She was the only one not blushing; still, she had succeeded in making him feel nervous again, somehow even more aware that he was half dressed.

Paige, recovering from her momentary lapse, walked over to him taking his face in her hand and looking at the shadows under his eyes.

“When is this foray into macho bullshit going to run its course?” she asked. “From the look of you, you aren’t sleeping any better.”

Jonathan tensed, sneaking a glance at Leah. He couldn’t help Paige knowing, but he didn’t want their neighbor aware of his problems.

Paige was only half right anyway. Exhaustion was getting him closer to five or six hours of sleep most nights. He spent so much time training when awake that it seeped into his dreams; his actions in the waking world helping to cloud the terror and guilt he held at bay at night. Still, his mornings were haunted with the face of Sickens the Fever, syringes and chains, blood and drowning, fresh in his mind upon waking, and those were the softer nightmares. He was grateful every night that the girl in the pink coat let him be, nights without jolts of self-loathing so intense his body was forced to wake him just to save him from the tormentor within.

“When did you two start hanging out?” Jonathan asked, changing the subject.

“Couple weeks ago,” Leah said, “Paige’s boyfriend needed some welding done.”

Jonathan may have been tired, but nothing he had just heard made any sense to him. He looked to Paige.

“You have a boyfriend, who needed welding done? Which involves Leah?”

“Grant needed, what was it, a catalytic converter?” Paige said looking to Leah, who nodded. “Replaced on his car.”

“I’ll take your word for it, I’ve no clue what that even is. How’d that involve our neighbor though?” he said, raising an eye brow toward Leah.

“Jonathan, lately it’s like you’ve been living in a cave,” Paige said with a sigh. “She’s a metal artist. She’s been out in her garage building metal sculptures for weeks. You should look, they’re amazing.”

“Oh,” Jonathan said. That he was impressed was clear on his face. “So the photography is just a side hobby then? You weld and do mechanic work just to keep things interesting?”

Leah smiled, enjoying that he was impressed.

“Hey, why not get your sweaty roommate here to take a shower and come out with us tonight,” Leah said to Paige, without taking her eyes from him.

“He can’t,” she said. She shook her head then as she realized it had come out more rudely than she’d meant. “Sorry. I meant you won’t, right, Tibbs?”

Apparently there had been a meeting, and now everyone he knew had agreed to call him ‘Tibbs’ when they wanted to push his buttons. He saw Leah mouthing the word, silently trying it out, and smiling as she held his gaze.

Unfortunately, Paige was right. Jonathan had a demanding schedule to maintain and going out with his roommates and their admittedly impressive neighbor would not help his longevity.

“No, I can’t. Sorry,” he said. “I’d have liked to though.”

Paige looked down at the floor and noticed the staff lying there. She’d never seen him training with the weapon before. Her eyes lingered on it before she looked at him again. Her worry was mounting, and Jonathan could see it in her expression. She held in the urge to ask about the weapon, or maybe just decided she didn’t want to know.

“Next time okay, Jonathan? Seriously I can’t remember the last time I saw you have any fun.” She tried to say it casually, her worry lead him to think there was something else there.

Jonathan nodded, just as casually.

“So you promise?” Paige asked.

He hadn’t expected a mere nod to put him on the spot and it showed on his surprised expression.

“You said you’d like to, so what is the problem?’ she asked.

“I’m trying to stay focused,” he said.

“Take a break, Jonathan, stop being a hermit. It will be good for you,” she said.

“Please,” Jonathan leaned in and whispered into her ear, so Leah couldn’t hear. “Remember what happened last time.”

It had come to him so quickly. He hadn’t stopped to think of the ethics. He’d made the decision to manipulate her, and the only thing stronger than Paige’s worry would be her guilt.

She flushed at understanding what he’d meant. It wasn’t as though he was connecting a night out with his roommates as a way to end up bloody on the kitchen floor. She’d forced him to tell her he was afraid to be put in a situation where he’d feel vulnerable.

Jonathan cringed inside with the magnitude of his own bullshit. He couldn’t believe it had even come from him. He wanted to take the lie back. Paige didn’t deserve to feel like a bad friend just because she was trying so hard to be a good one.

After a moment she nodded, looking sorry. She turned to walk towards the steps up into the house and stopped before leaving the garage.

“I’ll just grab some clothes and be back in a sec,” she said to Leah before she left, leaving Jonathan and her alone.

For a moment the anxiety he was feeling showed on his face; another lie, another manipulation, another omission. It wasn’t hard to see where it ended. How long would he even be able to have friends? He was jerked out of this when he remembered Leah was watching him.

Half naked and alone with her, a nervous excitement pushed out his concerns. He always felt it with her, even in their briefest interactions, yet she never appeared uneasy herself.

At that moment, she just looked curious, obviously wondering what Jonathan could have said to Paige to side step her request so abruptly. She walked up to Jonathan and tilted her head at him, like a puppy that just heard a noise and didn’t recognize it.

“So what is it you aren’t saying?” she asked.

Jonathan felt the untimely need to swallow, and tried not to do so.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Come on, you’re a terrible liar, Tibbs.” She smiled at already having already found an opportunity to call him by his last name.

He frowned at her.

“Terrible liars don’t do it for trivial reasons. You hardly know me. There isn’t anyone I’m going to tell. I can keep your secret,” she said.

The smile gave way to a more compassionate expression, “That, and I can tell you want to tell someone; you don’t like lying.”

Her perceptiveness was both relieving and concerning, attractive and at the same time dangerous. It didn’t matter how right she was, of course; she’d never be able to understand. He indulged the fantasy of dropping his weight onto her willing ears; the thought that at least someone would know, that someone would see the necessity of his lies and all his actions. She could tell him he didn’t have a choice, that he was doing what he had to.

That fantasy was just a lie in itself, though, a sad desire to not be alone, and it was for nothing. The relief would be fleeting, if existent at all, and inevitably lead to more problems not solutions: worried looks, fear for his sanity, advice to get help, perhaps a padded room. It wouldn’t end with him no longer alone in his nightmare. It would leave him more alone than ever.

Jonathan started to lie, to tell her she was mistaken, yet when he tried, he hesitated and the words didn’t come out. He wanted that fantasy so badly. Trying to weigh it in the moment was impossible. Could he trust her? Could she be so damn pretty he’d ignore reality and let himself make such a bad decision?

When he didn’t speak, when she could see his concentration turning the tides against opening up to her, she looked disappointed and backed away. He didn’t like it, didn’t like that she was backing off instead of coming closer.

He reached out to stop her, gently taking her forearm. The action surprised him as much as, if not more than, it did her. He’d never touched her before. Her eyes widened, and she tilted her head again.