The Legacy of Kilkenny (10 page)

My mom keeps hounding me that it isn’t healthy to hang out with only one girl, I should date around.
 
I assure her for the zillionth time that we are
just
friends.
 
I tell her about Oakley teaching us martial arts, so I have him come over and meet my family.
 
He is pretty cool to hang out with, but I see how Pru looks at him.
 
Her eyes follow him when he enters and exits a room; he is oblivious to her attention the attention I’d love to get from her.

Pru keeps telling me that as soon as the snow melts we are going to do a special assignment.
 
It doesn’t snow in Oklahoma that often, it can snow one day a few inches and the second day it will be a balmy seventy five degrees.
 
This winter it is different, it snowed and melted and froze and snowed again. For a couple of weeks we have dealt with the worst weather Oklahoma has seen in years.
 
The ice storms have devastated the small towns, causing power outages and lost wages.
 
Pru’s family shovels driveways and take fresh baked bread and canned vegetables to the families that don’t have generators.

I learn that her family has the place set up so that if they are under attack
or
situations like bad weather, they will be able to survive for a long time.
 
There is a tech room set up with monitors and several of the Pack members have gone to college to obtain computer-engineering degrees just to help the family.
 
There are storm shelters, and bunkers full of canned foods and water.
 
It would make Gary England (the weatherman) envious.
 
His weather forecasts are the gospel around my house.
 
You’d think my mom and him were best friends the way she will say “Abel, Gary said it is going to storm tomorrow.
 
Gary did this, Gary did that.”
 
I think she secretly harbors a childhood crush on him.

I have my mom drop me off at Pru’s house in Piedsville.
 
Lately we have been doing a five mile run in the afternoons with Oakley.
  
I notice that all of the curtains and blinds are closed.
 
Pru answers the
 
door all mysterious like.
 

I smile at her as I enter the dark house. “Hey, are you planning on seducing me?
 
Where is your mom?”
 
I set my backpack down in the foyer.

“Yeah, you foiled my evil plan of seducing you on the kitchen table.
 
Don’t be a dork, just go with it okay.
 
I have to get you ready for your first shift,” she says as she closes the door and exaggerates her movement as she turns the lock. “
Muah
ah ha
ha
ha
ha
,” she
 
does some freakish attempt to sound like a vampire from the old movies.

“And who is the dork?”
 
I ask.

“Before you ask, no I didn’t have a vision.
 
I’ve told you about a dozen times, I
won’t
tell you when it is going to happen.
 
If I interfere with the natural order it can screw it up.
 
You don’t want to turn in to a half mutant do you?” She grinned and rolled her eyes

 
“Really?
 
That can happen?”
 
I haven’t actually thought about that, well crap.

She rolls her eyes.
 
“Abel, stop
OCD’ing
on me.”

She is always calling me OCD.

She reaches in her purse and pulls out a handkerchief.
 
“I know you are going to find this crazy but I want to blindfold you.”

When a hot girl says they want to blindfold you, what else can you say but
okay.
 
“If that’s what turns you on, by all means do,” I say and suppress a grin at the look on her face.

“Really, that’s how you want to go,” she says and playfully slaps my arm.

I’m not going to lie; it is pretty intoxicating, I think this is a pretty cool game we are going to play.
 
She ties the handkerchief around my head and squeezes the hell out my nose.

“Are you trying to cut off circulation to my brain?” I try swatting her, but her advantage of sight gave her the opportunity to avoid it.

“Oh, you have brain circulation?
 
Let me tighten it up a little,” she giggles.
 
I love her giggle.
 
“I am going to guide you into the dining room and sit you down.
 
I don’t want you to reach out; I promise I won’t let you fall.”

“Huh?
 
Are you going to put me in the dark and make out with me?”
 
I tease but it won’t bother me if she wants to.

“You might want to take this a little seriously Mr.
Knowitall
.
 
We have to work on your senses.
 
You have to be able to rely on your ability to navigate even if you are blinded.
 
You have to know how to search for your enemy, your friends, your food.
 
Okay?”

“I’m the one blind folded sitting at a dining room table; I hope I don’t have to hunt for food.”
 
I sit down with my hands on the table trying to get my bearings.

“ABEL!
 
You have to be serious for a little while okay?”
 
She demands.

“Okay, I’m sorry,” I finally cede.
 
She’s so bossy,
I think to myself.

I feel her breath on my shoulder, and the heat of her body behind me.
 
I hear what sounds like a shirt or something with buttons make a little thud as she sets it on the table.
 
“Pick up the item I put in front of you and take a deep whiff.”

I hold the material to my nose and smell.
 
“What am I smelling for?
 
All I smell is fabric softener.”

“Smell it.
 
Take a deep whiff and don’t exhale until it fills all of your senses.
 
You’re trying to figure out who it belongs too.”

I lean forward and take another whiff.
 
I feel a little light headed as everything comes together. I actually feel the material inside of me, I can smell the pheromones on it.
 
I can hear the person’s voice.
 
I smell her mom.

“Is this your mom’s shirt?”
 
I blurted out.

“Really? Is that all you got?”

“What else do you want me to get?
 
I can smell your mom; I can see her putting it on a hanger after it came out of the dryer.”
 
I am a little annoyed that she is pushing me, this is my first time to even try to do this and she is acting like I should be an expert.

“Hell, yeah!
 
I knew you could do it, I knew you were ready!”
 
I hear her voice going up and down, I’m pretty sure she is jumping up and down.
 
“Here, who’s is this?”

“
Alistar
?
 
It smells like, ah, no offense but it smells like a dog.
 
I don’t snuggle with him but I’m pretty sure he’s the owner of that smell.”
 

“
Fo
Sho
!
 
Who’s is this?”
 
She thrust something else in my hand.

“It smells like Julie?
 
How did you get something from her?
 
We haven’t been in class since before Christmas.”

“I swiped it on my first day of school.
 
Bad habit, taking something from my enemy, so I will remember their smell in case we ever have to battle.”

“You’re planning on battling Julie?
 
Okay,
kinda
creepy, yet exciting.
 
I love a cat fight, or is that wolf fight?”

“It’s just a girl thing.
 
I am so happy Abel.
 
Thank you for being you!” She wraps her arms around me.

“Sure.
 
I’m glad you’re you too.”
 
I really am.
 
Pru has become my best friend and I’d do anything for her.
 

We spent the rest of the evening playing ‘who’s smell is that’ until I finally can’t smell anything else.
 
It is like walking past that lotion place in the mall; so many scents start to stink after a while.

Our extended Christmas break is over and she wants me to practice scent identification every day.
 
I am getting pretty good at it, so good in fact, I can smell the person when they walk in the room.
 
When you’re in school with so many people all of the time, their scent
sorta
lingers in every room but each day a person’s scent can be altered.
 
If they stopped at the 7-11 on the way to school it might smell like hot dogs or gasoline, if their mom hugs them I can smell her.
 
I am getting a good idea about who is dating whom and who is cheating.
  
I have imprinted so many scents into my brain and I’m amazed how photographic my memory is over smells.
 
Oakley told me that it was unbelievable how well I am doing.
 
Some wolves spend years learning how to recognize scents.

Saturday morning the doorbell rings as I’m walking past the front door.

 
“Hey Oak, where’s Pru?”
 
I don’t know why, but I feel a little stressed.
 
I can feel Oakley is nervous and I can smell Pru on him.

“Get your tennis shoes on and tell your mom you’ll be back before dinner.”
 
I see he has his running shoes on and is dressed in jeans and a t-shirt.
 
He smells like he has been outside all night.
 

“Where’re we going?”
 
I ask.

“Don’t worry about it, just hurry up ok,” he says as he puts a toothpick in his mouth.

My mom came outside and I tell her I am going out with Oakley for a while.
 
I can see she appreciates his obvious good looks.
 
Kinda
creepy, but whatever.

“See
ya
later mom, I love you.
 
Before you ask, I
will
be home for dinner.”
 
I open up the passenger door and get a huge whiff of Pru.
 
Something is up.

“You
wanna
have dinner with us Oakley?”
 
Mom asks.
 
I see the disappointment when he tells her not tonight and thanks her for asking.

We drive in silence, no music or talking, just silence.
 
We’d been on I-40 for about 10 minutes and I can’t take it anymore.

“What’s going on Oak?
 
Where’s Pru?
 
I can smell her in here and I smell her on you.
 
Has something happened to her?”

“Man it takes you a long time to ask questions.
 
This is a task and that is about all I can say.
 
Sit back, relax, we’ll be there in about 20 minutes.
 
We can’t have music on, I need you to clear your head.
 
Try to focus on Pru, what she looks like, what she smells like, what she sounds like.
 
Try to eliminate everything else, and think of only her.”

“Um, okay.”

I sit there, thinking of her and her hair, I love her hair.
 
I think about her body, not sexually, how I like the way she is curvy and how she moves so gracefully.
 
When she walks, you can’t hear her feet touch the floor.
 
When she talks, her eyebrows move with so much expression.
 
When she is teaching, she is so focused, when she is happy, she smiles and giggles.
 
Pru isn’t perfect, but pretty close.
 
I hear her voice in my head, that deep sexy tone, the way she says my name, it sends chills down my spine.

“You know, I don’t understand why I have to obey just because you guys tell me to.”

“Don’t worry, soon you won’t have that to worry about.
 
Stay focused and
stop
talking.”