Chapter Five
Coral’s nap lasted a long time. She had no idea how tired she was. All the excitement from the night before wore her out. When she woke up, the game was long over. All of the other Bear Clan members had gone home. Only Kalin remained behind, waiting for her to get up. Coral woke up with a yawn. One of the cards stuck to her cheek when she raised her head. The card drifted down onto the floor, and she picked it up. Absently, she stared at the card. The image on the card was of a queen who held a sword. The queen wore an imperious expression. Her eyes looked like she could pierce through any problem.
Kalin raised a tired eyebrow. He had tried to stay up all evening. With a brutal game and a street fight under his belt, he was beaten. The sound of Coral awakening had brought him back to consciousness. He wasn’t the type to fall asleep ‘on the job’. Whether he liked it or not, she had become his ‘job’. All he had to do was get her home safely and he could get some real sleep. Bears need to hibernate and Kalin was no exception.
“Mhff…” he grunted.
Kalin’s muscles were stiff. He got up and did some stretches to warm up his body. Coral watched him from over the edge of the card in her hand.
“Gonna be a diviner?” he asked her.
His body lunged into the ground. She watched as his thighs and calves bulged. He descended from a lunge into a plank position. She wanted to get on top of his back. Coral knew it was an immature notion, but it looked like so much fun.
“Diviner?” she asked.
Coral blushed. She knew she had been gawking at him. She placed the card down on the table and shook her head.
“No,” I don’t believe in that kind of stuff.
“What kind of stuff?” Kalin asked.
He did push-ups with even breath. Each rise he would inhale. Each fall he would exhale. She was amazed at his stamina. He seemed to go on forever without getting tired.
“You know,” she replied. “Magic stuff.”
For a moment, he was silent. He continued his work out until he had done enough push-ups to wear out his chest. Coral watched as he sat down on the floor and began to do sit ups. Kalin was facing the wall. His boots were posted up on the wall as an anchor for his exercise.
Coral thought about her statement.
“Magic,” she thought to herself.
She looked down at the card again. Her attention drifted. She couldn’t help but let her thoughts wander.
“I guess before yesterday I never really thought about Shifters either,” she confessed.
“You think there’s some link between magic and Shifters?” he asked.
“Well, I can’t turn into a bear,” she replied. “So, yeah, it sure seems magical.”
Kalin continued in his exercise routine.
“Fortunately,” he began, “your cognitive dissonance is common.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“It’s really simple,” he replied. “When people don’t understand how something works, it is classified as magic. When people have a working theory about how something works, they call it science.”
He paused for a moment. Each breath was a grunt and his pace for each crunch slowed.
“Nobody knows how the cards work,” he concluded. “However, plenty of people have theories about genetic mutation and Shifters.”
When he was finished with his workout, Kalin sat up. Tiny beads of sweat were on his forehead. Color was in his face and he looked healthy. The scratches and bruises on his body were less evident.
“How do you heal so fast?” she asked.
“Magic,” he replied. “Are you ready to go?”
He stood up and stretched his arms to the ceiling. His presence in the room was enough to set Coral’s heart on fire. He hadn’t been too kind to her. He hadn’t even made any attempts to flirt. Actually, he was kind of an asshole. But when his arms flexed like that, when he was so casual and so attractive, she had a hard time keeping her eyes away.
“You’re kind of a dick,” she offered.
She stood up to go and raised her eyebrows a bit. She wanted to see if she had got him. If she had struck a chord. He brushed her comment off and threw on the jacket he stole the night before.
“That’s no way to treat a knight in shining armor,” he replied.
His tone was flat. She got the impression he was making fun of himself more than her. Her spirits fell a bit. Coral decided that maybe it would be best if she were more grateful. She decided to change the topic.
“Good game last night,” she commented.
“I lost,” he said.
“At least you tried,” she replied. “It’s not every guy who can go into an intensive match like that and stick it out for as long as you did — especially against a thing like that.”
He didn’t turn around when he spoke to her. The two of them walked through the empty warehouse toward the exit. The empty warehouse looked strange to Coral. Last night everything seemed so exotic and vivid. Today, the colors on the walls looked dull. The whole place was quiet and abandoned. Strange creaks in the walls replaced the roars from the night before. The absence of people was surreal. The doorman remained.
He was relaxed, this time, leaning up against a wall. He had a cup of coffee in his hand. His outfit had changed, Coral felt. She imagined that last night, he had been wearing a tight white tank top. Today, he had on a leather jacket and some cutoff jeans. He looked just as ugly, but he was more polite.
“How was the game, doll?” he asked.
“Never seen anything like it,” she replied. “It was more of a fight than a hockey game.”
“What do you expect when you have Shifters involved?” he laughed and then sniffed.
“I suppose you’re one of those girls who says she’s tough, but really just wants to be handled right,” he said. “Have fun with that.”
He winked at Kalin.
“Sorry to hear about your game last night, Kalin.”
The man sniffed again.
“And that little encounter of yours on the street,” he continued. “If you need anything, you know where to go.”
“Straight to hell,” Kalin replied.
The man laughed uncontrollably. He spilled his coffee on his lap and then cursed to himself.
“Later Maurice,” Kalin offered, dismissively.
The two of them left the warehouse while the doorman tended to the stains on his pants.