Page 68 of Inception

“I can’t,” I cried out after a series of failed attempts. I was already winded and I hadn’t even made a blot on his map.

He let go and spun me back around to face him.

“Well,” he said, raking a hand through his dark hair. “I’m not going to lie. That was really bad.”

“Gee, thanks,” I replied sourly.

“Take a breath and try it again,” he ordered and began another slow stalk around me, calculating his next move—my next move. There was something incredibly primal about it.

Distracted, I tripped over my foot and stumbled back a step. He shook his head and buried the smile.

In the span of time it took for me to look back up, he had already reached out and pulled my arm, spinning me to him and landing me with my back against his chest. His arms wrapped firmly around my torso once again locking my limbs to my body. There was something about the way he pounced with such speed and agility that seemed to leave me in a stationary stupor.

“Break out,” he said into my ear when I didn’t move.

I snapped out of my daze and began to squirm and buck again, digging deep for any semblance of strength I could find, but once again, all of my efforts came up short. No matter how hard I pushed, he remained immovable. It was like trying to lift a solid block of concrete off of me with a plastic kiddy shovel.

“Why are you doingthat?”

“Doing what?”

“Wiggling,” he said repugnantly. “Do you honestly think you can escape a Revenant by wiggling your way out?”

I stopped moving. “Well what do you suggest I do?”

“Use your strength to push out.” He said it as though it were the simplest, most obvious thing to do. “You’re a Slayer. You already have it inside of you.”

“Then where isit?” I snapped back, annoyed. “Why isn’t this working?”

He dropped his arms and took a step back. “My guess is it’s probably the spell,” he said, focusing in on me with a deeper intensity. “You need to understand the mechanics at play here, Jemma. Slayers are biologically built to kill Revenants. It’s in your blood—right there in your DNA,” he said, gently pushing his fingers into my clavicle.

I looked down distractedly and crossed my arms.

“Normally, you only need to be in the general vicinity of one to feel it,” he went on. “Thatfeelingis physiological, like a sensor or a switch that turns on the Warrior part of you—the part of you that isn’t human, and that part takes over so you can do what you were created to do. That’s where all your power and strength lies, but if that switch was never accessed before, then everything else that follows it remains dormant.”

“So what you’re saying is, my Slayer powers are sleeping?”

“For lack of a better term, yes. You have an entire part of you that’s never been touched before.” He started to circle me again.

“What’s the point then?” I asked, my arms still crossed tightly across my chest. “As long as I’m stillCloaked, I have no chance of fighting you off, or any other Revenants for that matter. Not if my powers are dormant as you say.”

“That may be true,” he said, rounding out from behind.

“So what are we going to do?”

He tweaked his eyebrows. “We’re going towakethem up.”

20. FRIGHT NIGHT

After soaking in a hot bath for nearly an hour, I changed into my favorite camisole and fleece cutoffs and all-but crawled into my bed. My first training session with Gabriel was brutal and had me using muscles I didn’t even know existed. Muscles that I knew I’d be paying dearly for tomorrow morning. Thankfully, I didn’t have to worry about it for too long. Exhaustion took over and pushed everything else onto the back-burner as I effortlessly drifted to sleep.

However short-lived it was.

I wrenched upright in my bed sometime after midnight. I had been dreaming abouthimagain—the blond hair and curls—though I didn’t have a chance to experience the particular brand of terror those dreams usually caused. Something else had woken me. I remembered a knock and turned to stare at my bedroom door, still struggling to snap out of my slumber. Then, another knock, and I realized it was coming from the outside terrace.

I stumbled out of bed and walked to the door, cautiously pulling back the curtain to see who was out there. I was almost expecting it to be Dominic Huntington arriving straight out of my nightmares to torment me, and was equal parts surprised and relieved to find Trace standing there instead.

My eyes never left his as I pushed open the door. The cold air immediately rushed inside, twirling around my damp hair as it took up residency in my room, but I barely felt its chill. My skin was already warming from the inside out.

---