I Am Titanium (Pax Black Book 1) (9 page)

One last time, Pax tried to fight the urge taking over his body. He managed to stroke Scarlett’s cheek, a cheek that fluttered into ash at even his gentle touch. But the energy took complete control of him, and Pax grabbed her chin, hard, and he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t hold it back any longer.

He thrust one knee between Scarlett’s legs, then another, and spread her legs apart. He grabbed her thigh and pulled it even farther out of his way.

He thrusted himself into her.

It felt like he was plugging himself into a live outlet. The energy that had been flooding into him was
nothing
compared to what he was feeling now.

He had to get rid of it.
Now
.

Pax’s hands squeezed her breasts so hard she would have been screaming if she’d still been human. Scarlett made a mental note to tell him later: you gotta be gentle with boobs. Her skin peeled off and stuck to his hand.
Gross.
He pulled his hand away and shook the layer of black ash into the burning dirt.

Great. This is a total comedy of errors. He is never going to touch me again.

She’d wanted to make love to Pax for, oh God, forever. It was finally happening, and she couldn’t help making a total fool of herself. He pushed his legs between hers and jerked her thigh out of the way. His touch was cold. Metal cold. Robot cold.

Shit.
Something was wrong. This was not gentle, sweet Pax, the boy she’d loved forever and a day. Confused, she searched his face for answers even as he continued to ravish her.

His face was all twisted up and flashing between fear—no, terror—and anger, too, as if touching her was hurting him. Waves of hurt and rage and pain were pouring off him.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching out to wrap him in her arms. “I’m so sorry.”

She’d wanted this so much. But she hadn’t really thought it was possible—and she hadn’t really thought about what would happen if he didn’t want it, too. And it was obvious he didn’t. Something was forcing him.

She’d had sex with him a thousand times in her head. And it was always good. And he was always so grateful, in her imagination.

But this?

It was breaking her heart.

He didn’t want her. It was just the energy, making him have sex with her.

He snarled in her ear, thrusting his hard-on between her thighs. It broke through the layer of ash there—and into the white heat of her crotch. Did she even
have
a vagina anymore?

Shit. Of all the things you ought to know before you have sex for the first time…

Was it going to hurt?

“Slow down,” she tried to say. “Gentle, Pax, listen to me. I want this, too. I do! But take it easy, make it—”

Pax bit down on her earlobe and ripped at it until the outer layer of ash came off in his mouth. Scarlett shuddered and stretched her neck toward the boy or the energy or whatever it was that was taking her. All rational thought left her as feelings coursed through her body, and she thrust her crotch toward his. She had no idea what was really going on, but
fuck,
it felt good. His body felt like ice against hers. Ice. Water. Coolness. The heat inside her melted it as soon as it touched her, but he just kept pumping more into her. She arched her back and purred.

It wasn’t the way it was supposed to be, was it? Weren’t there supposed to be candles and soft music, a bed or at least a couch or a sweet field of flowers? Pax looked more tortured than blissful. When he stroked her cheek, his hand vibrated as if all he really wanted was to finally touch her. His eyes were wide with lust but also with confusion as his hand grabbed her chin and he continued to pound her, hard.

She had to stop this.

But she couldn’t.

Pax collapsed on her, shuddering. Had he just come? His cooling energy was still pouring into her. She needed it. If she was going to get hold of herself enough to not
destroy the fucking city
, then she needed this.

“Scarlett,” Pax whispered. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Along with the cool energy she would sell her soul to keep getting, smaller waves of darker energy were pulsing out of him. They were being absorbed into her skin as fast as he could make them. Was he sorry about
that
? That was nothing. She could soak up
that
shit all day.

“It’s okay,” she said. “It’s just not the way I… what I expected—”

“It’s not okay. It was wrong.”

She blinked. A hicuppy kind of sob came out of her mouth. Tears starting pouring out of her eyes. “No, no, no,” she said. Then realized what that would sound like. Look like. “I mean, yes, yes, yes—yes to everything. I’m saying yes! I asked you to, remember? Please believe me—” She searched for something to break through to him. “Pax,” she whispered. “I’m on fire. You’re putting me out.”

Great. World’s cheesiest line ever. Straight out of the box of romance novels that crouched under her grandma’s bed.

He was grabbing her again. And she was grabbing him back. Tongues in each other’s mouths. He put his hands in her flaming hair, and it wound up his arms. She could
feel
through her hair. She stroked his skin with it. She threw him over and rubbed her body against him, dragging her breasts across his metallic skin, grinding her hips against him.

Just because it was cheesy didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

She was fire. And he was the only one who could put her out.

Chapter 7

I
t had taken an hour, and Terry’s help, for Pax and Scarlett to learn to change their appearances. Once Scarlett’s flames were under control, Terry guided her and Pax through the aether back to the hospital. Pax slipped into the room where his mother lay, unconscious and recovering. He took the apartment keys from her pocket and got the address from her driver’s license. Terry opened the aether for them once again and took them there.

Pax didn’t know what to expect. The last apartment he’d lived in with his mom was a walk-up in the Bronx that smelled like cabbage. It had been small and cozy, Pax thought, though he wasn’t sure. It had been so long since he’d lived anywhere but the hospital.

The new place wasn’t small. It was big. And dark. Pax’s metal hands hit the wall with a THUD and fumbled for the light switch. It was an old-fashioned toggle, unlike the push switches at the hospital. It made him feel like he was in a foreign country. He flicked it up, and the lights came on.

When in doubt, go with beige
seemed to be his mom’s philosophy.

Dining area: beige tile, cheap Ikea table stacked with bills and junk mail. One of the chairs featured a pile of identical tan trench coats. Living room: beige carpet topped with a brown area rug under most of the furniture. Tan couch, big flat-screen TV, glass-topped coffee table stacked with more junk mail. Tiny beige-and-steel kitchen to the right, tiny beige hallway to the left. Three doors: tiny beige bathroom stocked with beige makeup, tiny closet filled with cardboard boxes, tiny bedroom with a small bed covered in a tan patchwork quilt. And that was it. Everything smelled off. Then he realized he was missing the smell of the hospital’s pine cleaner. Fuck, man. He
hated
that pine cleaner.

The only decoration was a picture on a table in the corner between the couch and the chair. The three of them. Mom, Dad, him. The ocean was behind them, and their hair was all messed up from the wind. They wore matching blue windbreakers and their cheeks were red. The sky behind them was dark from an incoming storm. The sun was on their faces.

Dad was smiling so big most of his teeth were showing. He had on sunglasses which were just a little bit askew. Mom was laughing. Pax was a toddler. He was grabbing for the camera. His cheeks were fat.

He didn’t remember it.

Can you both hear me?

“Yes,” said Pax. Scarlett just nodded.

You need to take human form,
said Terry
. Both of you. Listen.

It wasn’t words he poured into their heads. Instead, it was images, ideas, and concepts, all thrown in so fast and so furious that no single one could be separated from the others. And all of it was instruction on how, from the atomic level, astral flesh could take human shape.

At the end of it, Terry’s voice came again.
I must go. I must find Akllana’chikni’pai
.

And with that, he left them alone.

The silence that followed was awkward, not the least because they were both seventeen and naked.

Pax stared at Scarlett, taking in her hunched shoulders, small breasts and rounded stomach, and the hair beneath it. He felt himself growing and immediately started blushing. Scarlett giggled and looked away, blushing herself.

“I can’t believe this,” said Pax. “I mean, we’ve been naked for hours. Why is it funny now?”

“It was different,” said Scarlett. “I was made of fire, and you were all hard.” She glanced down and giggled again. “Guess part of you still is.”

“Very, funny,” said Pax, “Now what do we do? I mean, we’re supposed to help Terry and Lana judge this world. They’re going to decide if humans should be allowed to evolve to the astral plane, and now he’s gone and he can’t find Lana and we’re stuck here all alone! What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know!” the words practically burst out of Scarlett. “I wasn’t going to be astral! You were going to be astral! You were going to be astral, and I was going to go home and eat my mother’s crappy meatloaf for dinner! Then you were going to be healthy and better and we were going to actually go to school together and I was going to be a writer and you were going to do…. whatever the fuck it is you were going to do!” Scarlett’s hand went up to her head and pounded against her temple. “And now I’m dead and my body’s made of astral stuff and I’m standing here naked with a boy with a hard on!” She looked at his penis. “Can’t you do anything about that?”

“I don’t know!” Pax looked down at his erection. “I’ve never had one before.”

“What?” Scarlett’s eyes went wide.

“The damage to my heart. It made everything… weaker. I couldn’t even—”

“Wow,” said Scarlett. “That’s… wow.”

“So today was the first time and—” He turned away, blushing furiously. “And it wasn’t how I wanted it to be. At all. It was… stupid.”

“It didn’t feel stupid,” said Scarlett. “I mean, it was a bit rough and you’ve really got to learn how to handle a girl’s boobs better, but it wasn’t stupid. In fact, it was the best orgasm I’ve ever had.”

Pax’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Scarlett blushed again and then muttered, “Maybe because it’s the first one I had with someone else.”

Now it was Pax’s turn to be shocked. “Really?”

“Look at me,” said Scarlett. “I’m not even pretty, No one ever wanted to fuck me except you, and you were putting out my fire so that hardly counts.”

“That… wasn’t why—”

“Then what was?”

“I don’t know! I just… I wanted you. I don’t know why I wanted you. It wasn’t like I was trying to be a fire hose or something!”

Scarlett giggled suddenly. “This is stupid, Pax. Why are we arguing? You’re alive for fuck’s sake! You did it!”

“Yeah.” Pax looked around his mother’s apartment. “I did, didn’t I?”

“We’re both alive,” said Scarlett. “And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let it go to waste. We’re going to go out for pizza and we’re going to go to a movie and we’re going to have some fun, got it?”

Pax found himself smiling back. “All right.”

“Good. Now shut up and get over here,” said Scarlett.

“What?” said Pax. He walked over to her. “Why?”

Scarlett wrapped her hand around him and knelt down. “Because there are a whole lot of other things I haven’t done before, either.”

Inside Scarlett’s mind, in a small Pacha of her own creating, Akllana’chikni’pai whirled in place, her blades hacking again and again through the tentacles of negative energy that filled the girl’s body and soul. She didn’t know how long she had been fighting and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was keeping the tentacles at bay. Her form was moving itself now, her mind partially detached as it searched for a way to break free of the black, slimy tentacles that kept on attacking.

There are too many of them,
Akllana’chikni’pai thought as she whirled through her
pacha
again. It was an observation, not an admission of surrender.
There are too many of them to just be coming from the girl. So where are they coming from?
Her swords swept the
pacha
again, slashing through the black forest in a tornado of blades. Another dozen tentacles appeared to replace the ones she’d cut.

And more importantly, how do I break free of them?

Three hours later, Pax realized he had absolutely nothing to wear.

They’d had sex a dozen times, in about 20 different positions and in six different bodies, which was both cool and really odd.

Scarlett had figured it out first. She’d been lying down, gasping with effort and pleasure after their second time. Smiling at him, she’d said, “It’s a good thing you’re not any bigger, or I wouldn’t be able to close my legs.” Pax had laughed, pleased, and lain back on the bed. Scarlett was silent for a bit and then said, “Hey, Pax?”

“Yeah?”

“Why couldn’t you be bigger?” She sat up, looking down at her breasts. “Or me. Why can’t I have bigger tits? Or a tighter ass? Or a different face for that matter?”

Pax rolled over to look at her. “What do you mean? That’s the face you were…” He stopped as the realization dawned on him. They weren’t human anymore. They were astral. In theory, their bodies could be whatever they wanted them to be. He looked down at his penis, temporarily limp and thought about it. He closed his eyes, willing it to be larger.

“You’re hard again,” said Scarlett.

“I’m just getting started,” said Pax. He kept his eyes closed, willing his body to grow and change, to fill in all the pieces as Terry had taught. He felt his body shifting.

“Holy cow!” said Scarlett. “Stop there!”

Pax stopped, opened his eyes, and looked down. It was a fair bit larger and still hard. Scarlett’s eyes were wide. Pax grinned at her. “Yes?”

Scarlett licked her lips, swallowed, and said, “Yes. Definitely yes. Oh, yes.”

When they finished that time, Scarlett tried it next, making her breasts and ass curvier. Pax changed to look like a bodybuilder. Scarlett made herself look like a couple of her favorite movie stars, big-eyed, plump-lipped, and pouting. From then on, it had been a free-for-all, with both of them changing shapes two or three times each session until, finally, their energy wore down and they retreated to what they thought of as their own bodies.

“Ow,” said Scarlett. “That last time. Definitely ow.”

“In a good way?” asked Pax.

“In a very, very good way,” said Scarlett. She stretched languorously, imagining days of sex with Pax, nights of going out with the face of a supermodel. “How are you?”

“I think I’m spent,” said Pax. “All the shape changes really drained my energy. Especially that last one.”

“Me, too,” said Scarlett. “How do women walk with breasts that big?” She smiled. “Hey, want to go out for pizza?”

“I do,” said Pax. He sat up, looked around, and realized it. “Fuck. I have no clothes. At all.”

“Shit, neither do I,” said Scarlett. “What do we do? I can’t go home like this.” A sudden thought struck her. “Should I go home? At all, I mean? After what happened?”

“I think so,” said Pax. “As far as everyone knows, you’re all right, and I’ve had a miraculous recovery. Terry made it that way. So you should go home so no one worries about anything.”

“But I have no clothes either.” She fell back on the bed. “Of all the stupid things…”

“You can wear my mom’s clothes,” said Pax. “And you can go out and get me some. From a secondhand store or something.”

“With what?” asked Scarlett. “We don’t have any money.”

“Shit,” Pax kicked himself mentally for not taking his mother’s wallet when they left the hospital. “Maybe there’s some in here.”

They didn’t have to look hard. Pax’s mother kept her spare cash in a box in the top drawer. There was nearly $200 there in various slightly crumpled bills. Scarlett went through the closets next and found a denim skirt that wasn’t too long and a T-shirt that would fit. She put them both on and went out, leaving Pax alone, sex-stained and naked in his mother’s bedroom.

The thought was slightly creepy. To get over it, Pax got up and took a shower.

It was his first shower by himself, without having his mother or a nurse or anyone else watching him, in a long, long time. It was wonderful. He stayed in there for nearly half an hour, just for the joy of standing under near-scalding water and not feeling tired or in pain.

He wondered what he was going to do next.

He didn’t need to go to high school, not really. When he’d realized he was dying, he’d gotten his diploma from his hospital bed. He’d finished the entire degree in the space of a year. He’d audited online university courses and was about a quarter of the way through a bachelor’s degree. It would come in handy, he supposed. Since he had to work for a living…