Broken

[Nox]

Nox smiled. "Keep her inside. No fancy parties, no movers, no shakers, no strangers in the house. Everyone is vetted. Dorian's old colleagues aren't to be trusted. I don't know about the cop friends he has. I suspect that things are okay on that front - but I don't know Dorian. My primary goal is to stay alive."


"Ana won't like this." Christian said as he followed Nox around the perimeter of the estate.

"Until we know the lay of the land, your job is to keep the little miss busy. When Dorian gets home, he can tell me to get the fuck out if he wants to, but he asked me here for one reason and one reason alone. I know the Atharim. I am Atharim. He can't be here, so he sends the next best thing - someone who can teach his son and protect his family all at the same time."


"What can you possibly teach Cruz? He's a straight A student and when he's graduated with his Masters degree he'll graduate first in his class. As Dorian should have done."

Christian sounded almost as proud of Cruz as a father, that made Nox smile. "I didn't come here to tutor Cruz. I came to keep him from blowing himself up."
Nox reached for the power and pulled it close, it came at his will it fought back, but Nox controlled it. He remembered the struggles in the beginning - he remembered where Cruz was now except it was worse he'd had to learn on his own with no one to guide him. Nox held his hand out in front of him and a small flame flickered on the palm of his hand.

The world was much clearer now. He could see things with a new clarity. The problem with the alarms is they only worked when someone got to the house. Nox remembered the trip lines his dad use to lay down when they were out in the woods. They were meant to alert them to anyone out there in the night be they human, critter or monster. It wasn't something to get eaten while you slept. Bad form he'd use to say. Nox smiled at the memory but pushed it away. Last thing he needed was to break down into another pile of weepy tears. Fucking girl!

Nox wove a thin line of air across the ground about ankle night and attached one of his sound weaves to it. Tripping over the wire would break the tie that held the weave together and the sound would release. Hopefully it would work. Nox smiled at Christian with a mischievous grin. "Mind walking over here."


Nox drew an invisible line with his finger in the path that he wanted Christian to take - right over the trip wire.