"Freddie!" I yelled again when he didn't immediately show up in front me. I heard footsteps pounding up the stairs and Nate appeared in the doorway.
"What is it?" he asked, looking concerned and ready to fight anyone harming me.
Yelling like I had may have been a bad idea after just coming from a fight that had Nate worked up. I didn't feel like wasting time passing messages telepathically. Gutting Rick was something that had to be done in person.
"Where is he?" I asked, still raising my voice. "I want Freddie standing in front of me right now."
"He's outside," Nate told me. "What has he done now? He didn't put a snake in the bed, did he? I told him that was a bad idea."
"It's between me and Rick, although I'm pretty sure you already know," I said, getting up and running down the stairs. Fifteen minutes of sleep was more than enough time for me, because I felt like someone had poured a pot of coffee down my throat.
I got to the front door and found Rick standing with the berserkers and Joseph. They had looks that made it clear they'd heard me yelling, and they were curious what all the ruckus was about. I walked over to Rick and punched him right in the gut. It made me feel a little better.
"What was that for?" he asked as he doubled over. I'd put as much force as I could behind the punch.
"That, dear brother, is for failing to let me know you are in fact my brother, and hitting on me like a creep," I said, while I pondered whether I should hit him again.
"Oh, you remember that now, do you?" he said straightening back up. The questioning look had melted away to an evil grin.
"Seriously dude? You're her brother?" Kyle asked. "I didn't see that one coming. I mean I guess I can kind of see the resemblance, but it's a little bit of a shock."
"Told you, Joseph. He's not interested in me romantically; he's just a weird pervert."
"If what you say is correct about the sibling bond, I'd agree on the pervert comment. The feelings of love I was picking up evidently, or should I say hopefully, were not in a romantic nature," he replied. "I don't think I've seen a love that strong in a brother and sister relationship. You must really have something special."
"I'll go on the record saying that I don't have any kind of romantic feelings towards my sister. It was just fun to mess with her while she didn't remember," Rick said.
I looked over and saw Nate laughing up a storm in the doorway to the house. I thought he might need punched in the stomach too.
"And just what do you think is so funny?" I asked him.
"I warned him. I told him he's an idiot for trying to hit on you, because when you remembered who he was, you were going to be pissed," he said, trying to catch his breath from laughing so much.
"Not only are you my brother, but you are my twin brother. That is really weird when I've heard you more than once ask me 'when are you going to wise up and leave Nate?' Creepy much?" I said, glaring at him. I wished I could burn holes in him.
"As you can imagine, I was joking when I said those things. I've spent my entire life, even before we debuted out of the womb, protecting you. I haven't had a chance to really venture out and find a girl of my own, so I used your memory loss to hone my flirting skills. You have to admit, I'm getting pretty good at it," he said.
"Was your end goal to get punched in the gut? If so, I think you did a bang up job. You really should've found someone who's susceptible to flirting. Since I'm immune, I think you wasted all your creepy thoughts," I responded.
"How many times are you going to call me creepy?" he asked.
"Until it stops feeling so creepy in my mind. You may be hearing it for a while, creep."
By then, Frannie, Gary, Vinnie and Elizabeth had joined us outside. Looking over at them, I checked out their expressions and didn't find any hint of surprise, like I saw on the local faces. I was aware Elizabeth knew, she'd even called him uncle in front of me, but I figured that was because he'd hung around us so much throughout the years.
"You all knew?" I asked my group.
"Well, we kind of had to tell Vinnie about it. He was plotting ways to kill Rick that put all your ideas for killing me to shame. I mean if you ever need a gruesome death, just ask him. He's done a lot of research on the Internet for the most painful deaths possible," Nate informed me.
"That makes sense," I said. It was sad that it did, but Vinnie had seemed a little aggressive as far as Rick was concerned. He didn't like Nate a whole lot, but there was a time when I thought he stood over Rick with a knife as he slept.
"We also felt we needed to let any uniques you spent time with know, just so they didn't think there would ever be a throwdown between Rick and me. They knew we were soulmates and usually you don't allow another person to show interest in your mate. My allowing him to flirt would've been seen as a sign of weakness and that's something we didn't need with a hidden threat out there," he finished the explanation.
"Dang it. Why can't you guys ever do anything for illogical reasons, so I can stay mad?" I asked. "It still doesn't excuse him from being a creep, though. There is nothing you can say that makes that okay."
"You'll forgive me eventually," Rick said confidently. "You've never let something I did bother you for more than a year or two. Remember that time back around 500 B.C. when I locked you in the tomb as a practical joke."
"With the memories I now possess, I know you speak the truth about me forgiving you, but that doesn't mean things can't change. And just imagine, not only is the memory you mentioned fresh in my mind, but so are all the other little pranks you pulled on me over the years. All the agony you've caused me is right here, waiting to be avenged," I said, pointing to my head.
"So you didn't just get a single memory?" Nate asked as he walked over to me. The news of what had happened had been overshadowed with my plans to punish Rick.
"Nope, I got the memories of Omar and the creeper over there in one combined download," I told him.
"Is that why your power feels stronger?" Liam asked. "I wasn't sure what was going to come out of the house as a tidal wave of strength flowed our way."
"Probably. Alex said something that indicated that may be the case. He said they were hoping to find me before I gained too many more memories, as if me getting more of them would make me harder to defeat."
I read the information as I better hurry and get the memories back before I had to meet the head honcho. I had a feeling that Alex was nothing compared to what he'd be. I didn't think I'd had a ton of problems with Alex, but I had a lot to learn before I went into battle with someone stronger.
"If you're this powerful now, I'm a little frightened to see you at full power. The energy radiating off you is pretty intoxicating," Liam said as he closed his eyes, evidently basking in my energy levels.
"The people over in the warlock camp seem to be in agreement with you. They were hoping that not having my full powers would make me easy pickings. I hope today showed them they have something else coming to them if they try to kill me."
"Yeah, my baby sis was even a lean mean fighting machine without any powers. They should've seen what you did to the guys who have kidnapped you before," Rick said.
"I'm pretty sure Nate was the one who really took care of those two, and one of them left me with a couple bullet holes, so I'm not sure that's a good example, Rick."
"But those wounds weren't all that life threatening. They even left one of the bullets in place," he replied.
"If I remember right, I was knocked out in a hospital recovering from them. Let's agree to disagree and move on to what we're going to do around here for the next couple days waiting for the big party to happen. Today is over half done, but I'd like to have an idea what we can do around here to fill our time," I said. I wanted to move on from any conversation focused on the war.
"Well, the rest of the day you're going to spend with me," Nate said. Not giving me anymore information, which earned him the glare that hadn't quite left my face.
"There isn't a whole lot we can do around here without
having to fly somewhere," Joseph said. "I've heard rumors that you don't enjoy flying, and I'm pretty sure we've mentioned to you how boring it can be here in the middle of nowhere."
"Flying anywhere would be out of the question. I'm already working up my nerves to make it back home, but I really thought you had to be joking about there being nothing to do. How have you lived here for more than a week?" I asked. "I can get lost in my computer, but I don't imagine the household chores you mentioned before take up that much time."
"You find hobbies quickly. I personally picked up wood carving and have a house full of all the different things I've made over the years," Joseph replied.
"You'll have to show me your collection sometime, because I'm having trouble picturing that. Are you planning on bringing it all with you?" I asked. Joseph wasn't huge, but when I pictured wood carvings they were usually delicate and I wasn't able to correlate that with the size of Joseph's hands.
"Haven't really thought about it. There are probably a couple hundred pieces, so it may be hard to transport."
"Since we're leaving in a few days, I think you'll need to figure that out sooner rather than later," I told him. "So, my afternoon is going to be spent with Nate and tonight we have a dinner to make, but what about tomorrow, any ideas?"
"We could take you over to Bristol Bay, so you can say you've seen the Bering Sea. It isn't too far, maybe twenty miles and if you're up for a forty mile trip, we could get into Wood-Tikchik State Park," Kyle suggested.
"And what would we find in the park?" I asked. There were plenty of trees everywhere that we'd been; it felt like I was constantly in a park.
"Mostly what you find everywhere up here. Wilderness," Liam answered.????
"Okay, and the next day you mentioned something about people competing to get a spot in the games. Is that some kind of spectator event?" I asked.
"Sure is. So see, you should have enough to keep you busy until it's time to fly back to New York," Joseph said.
Good. I was worried we'd all end up sitting around staring at each other. If it came to that, I was going to end up wrestling with Rick, and I was still mad enough at him that he'd end up hurt.
"That's too bad, when I get bored, I like to bake cookies," I taunted, mostly Liam, but I was sure the others would try to get me in the kitchen.
"You are an evil woman," Liam said. "Do you know how long it's been since I've had homemade cookies?"
I laughed at him and turned to Nate. "So what do you have planned for our afternoon?" I asked.
"It's a surprise," he said, taking my hand. "We're going to head over to the airport for a little while. I would prefer that we're not disturbed."
"We can ensure you'll have your privacy," Rick said. "Call me if you want any assistance."
"Thanks. I'm pretty sure I'll be okay, but it's good to know you have my back, as usual," Nate said. "I'm also extremely glad to know you aren't going to be flirting with my mate anymore. I was almost to the point where I was going to tell her about you just so it would stop."
They both started laughing as Nate led me over to the hanger. When we got inside the suspense was killing me, so I asked, "What are we doing in here?"
"It's time for your first phoenix lesson, and I figured since you may burn your clothes off, you'd like it to be in private," he responded.
I was so happy that I was going to attempt changing forms, that I glazed over the fact I might be naked in front of Nate. All cool things in life come with a price, right?
CHAPTER 23
It's a bird, wait it really is a bird