Sand-covered beach.
Poignant moon full in the dark sky.
Bonfire blazing sensuously.
Lips grazing lips.
Cassie is woken by the sudden rush of light, blinding her eyes behind her eyelids. Her first instinct is to dive under the covers, but when she reaches out, feeling for the rough sheets, all she meets is her own smooth skin. She's reaching for any cover, but then an unmistakable clearing of a throat makes her groan.
"Nick," she grumbles in hello.
"Good morning to you too," he teases, his voice entirely too chipper for her liking.
She's groaning again, slipping out a few growls along the way and some choice words. He's chuckling at her though as she pulls her pillow on top her face, holding it down with her arms. He attempts to pull it off her, but she's whining when he does, so he just Moves it away.
"Fuck," she says. The light is more than blinding, it's nauseating. Jet lag and bare minimal sleep for the past two weeks don't exactly make for good company.
"Up-and-at-'em!" he's sing-songing, and she wishes she could Move him back out the door of their shared hotel room. But she knows he's only trying to lighten the mood that still hangs over them from the night before.
They'd flown to Kingston, Jamaica two days earlier, in hopes of finding another Watcher. When they'd arrived at the home of Alexander Seaga, a young nineteen-year-old, and explained how they were all connected, and that he wasn't alone, he'd immediately invited them in. Alexander was ecstatic to hear there were others like him; he took a particular shining to Cassie, only a few months younger than him. The day had been flirtatious, even though Alexander's English was less than perfect.
The boy's broad features and athletic shape pulled her in; and his surprisingly green eyes twinkled and captured her attention immediately.
All this went on under the watchful eyes of Nick, who seemed less than pleased when she'd begged to go to a local club with Alexander. He'd told her about his favorite place to drink and dance, and it sounded like it was her scene. No ID check; no worries.
But she'd begged and threatened Nick with all she had, and he eventually gave in to her demands. He'd ordered her to come and get him if anything happened, and to not stay out too late, since they had places to go, people to see.
She'd laughed, waving at him as Alexander helped her onto the back of his motorcycle.
His smooth caramel-colored skin glistened and he smelled like coffee and freedom.
It was an hour after they'd already been drinking steadily and dancing dirtily when the first wave of visions shook her.
Three Jamaican gangsters, tearing through the crowd. Spotting the only white girl in the place (her) and then who they were searching for (him). Hands grabbing and pulling; Alexander's defense of her. Then blood; blood and screams.
She stops dancing immediately and Alexander notices the change in her demeanor. She's furtively glancing around, trying to decipher which door's their entrance, but the alcohol is making her fuzzier than normal. Rum had always been her Kryptonite… or one of her Kryptonites.
Before she knows what's happening, the three ebony-skinned men are making their ways towards her. She's ready to fight or run, but Alexander recognizes these men; his face is surprised to see them, but almost… resigned?
"Let's go," she grinds through her teeth, already planning their escape through the back entrance through the kitchen.
Cassie is pulling on his shirt at the shoulder, but his feet are planted like stones where he stands, his eyes unreadable.
"No," he whispers. "No," he says again, stronger this time, his accent not affecting the word.
"What the hell, Alexander? These aren't good guys! We need to get out of here, NOW!"
She's now attempting to push him backwards, while the three men draw ever-closer, now pushing dancing couples out of the way. The dance floor is packed tighter than sardines in a can, but the big, mean-looking men only shove harder against the crowd.
The three men are less than two hundred feet away; she and Alexander have seconds to move from their spot and get to the kitchen. But she's trying to thrust a now-immovable wall named Alexander through a pulsating membrane of hard bodies locked together. She's huffing at the situation, at Alexander, at Nick who will no doubt be mad about this close call.
But then Alexander takes his glare off the ever-approaching men, and his green eyes turn to sad orbs of light that she can't take her eyes off of.
"Go, Cassie. Get out of here. These men killed my family; and they are meant to kill me." His voice is soft, drawing her in, lassoing the pieces of her heart's unclaimed territory (the ones that don't belong to him). She thinks in the back of her mind that she will never forget this boy, forget the few stolen kisses he'd taken that night, forget his eyes.
Or forget the way he knew he was going to die.
Then it's Alexander's turn to push her into the crowd, and he has the advantage with her distraction of the moment.
"I've always known this. If I don't die today, I will surely die tomorrow or the next. I am tired of living without my family; I would like to see them again…" he trails off at the sight of the tears in her eyes.
"No!" she declares rebelliously. "You don't have to die here! You don't have to be alone! I'll be your family; Nick and I will be your family! I've cheated death, and so can you!" Her voice has taken on hysteria, and her hands are shaking with anger and fear and lust, and anger at this boy who is ready to die.
"No, Cassie. I didn't See you before; but now that you're here, you can tell my story. I thought I would die fighting, without anyone knowing who I was. What I lived for. Go to my house and take the picture from my dresser; keep it with you." His voice is wavering and his eyes are hard and she wants to cry.
Then he shoves her through a momentarily-open gap, and then his back turns on her.
She's staring at him; this can't be happening, she thinks. But it is, and she won't let it, so she takes a random man's beer bottle from his hand.
Cassie ignores his shout of 'Hey!' and breaks it over an unoccupied stool. She is gripping the larger half, now protruding dangerously sharp edges. She uses her small size to her advantage, pulls herself up onto the stool, then the top of the table. A few catcalls of appreciation ring out, but she's not there to dance.
Then the three men finally reach Alexander and are taunting him in another language she couldn't begin to understand, even if the music and voices weren't so loud and pumping.
Before she can talk herself out of it, she launches herself over the foot of crowd, her legs tucked in like a pole-vaulter's. She cuts the big one on the neck before any of them can blink. She's quiet, so only a few people notice the blood at the first.
Alexander is shouting at her in his native tongue, probably something along the lines of, 'I told you to get out of here, how the hell did you do that, etc, etc'.
The big one is down on the ground, grasping his neck, shouting in pain and orders to his henchmen. The one on the left with the long dreadlocks makes a grab for her, but she cuts his forearm and he has to move back.
By now the crowds have noticed the fight; a small, white girl, fighting three large, black men. A space has been made for them, somehow, the on-lookers clinging to the outer walls.
Alexander is no longer trying to yell at her, but now joining in the fight, punching and wrestling with the other one. The large man on the floor is still writhing, but she missed his jugular obviously, because he's attempting to get up, blood still dripping down profusely.
The one she cut on the arm is grabbing her hair now, pulling her towards him, and she's wielding her broken bottle like a knife. Her strength is no match for his, however, and when he pulls her hair particularly hard, and wrenches her arm behind her, she cries out in pain. He steals the bottle away from her, cutting her in the process.
She's gritting her teeth, kicking and trying to writhe away, but the man's arms are locked around her in an iron grasp.
"Watch- we kill your boyfriend," he whispers in her ear, in broken English, and she growls at him, scratching whatever she can reach, still struggling at her restraints.
The other man has gained the advantage over Alexander, and suddenly Alexander is on the floor, the man with evil eyes kicking at him. She's screaming for them to stop, screaming for help, but the people in this seedy part of town have learned to keep their mouths shut.
Then suddenly the man stops kicking Alexander, and instead he's hauling him up to place him only feet from her, directly in front of the man whose neck she's butchered. The man turns to glare at her and grin maliciously.
Then his attention is back on Alexander. His face is bloodied and swelling, and she wants to be sorry for him, but she is glad to see the other guy's face isn't much better.
The big man says in his accented English, "You know the debts your family had to pay." Then he pulls out a large revolver, and without blinking shoots Alexander in the stomach.
"NO!" Cassie screams, her every muscle trying to break free from the man who holds her. Then she remembers the gash on his arm; so she digs her fingers into it, scratching and tearing further. His hiss of pain and momentary loss of strength gives her the advantage. So she pushes out of his hold, and rushes towards her friend.
But not before the big Jamaican man lands another shot in Alexander's heart. She hears his body fall seconds after the shot, and she's sliding to his side.
No, no, no, no, no.
Then the man who held Alexander hostage is pulling her up, and the man she injured is sidling beside his boss, who is now regarding her with curiosity.
"Now what do we have here?"
His grin is sardonic and her danger bells are going off in her head. She didn't See this before; she'd always Seen her deaths, but not this way. Probably because I was never meant to be here at this moment anyway. I was supposed to walk away; maybe if I hadn't angered them, Alexander would still be…
But she can't ponder these dark thoughts because the big Jamaican backhands her hard. She can feel the blood on her lip instantly, and her chin is throbbing.
"Who are you?" he demands of her.
She spits the blood and saliva at his chest. "None of your damn business."
The next slap doesn't sting as bad, but it makes her see stars. And then like a flash, she Watches Nick run to her, Move the men. And the big one dies by his own gun; the one that killed Alexander.
This time it's Cassie's turn to grin maliciously. The men are laughing at her, taunting her, and the big one says, "Why are you happy, American?"
"Because you're going to die today," she spits out.
Then the men are laughing uproariously, and the one she cut is fingering his wound while he shakes in laughter.
She feels him before she sees him. Nick is in the club now, she can tell.
Then like a wind, the man holding onto her rather loosely now is swept backwards into the concrete wall with a thud. He's gasping for air and slumped on the ground, but she easily tears her eyes from him when Nick Pulls her to his side, while simultaneously parting the crowd of people.
She's not sure if she should say something, but his look of concentration silences any words.
He's holding out his hand like he's chocking an invisible man; but the man slouched at the wall is grasping at his own neck, his face turning greener and his eyes bugged.
The other two men are shocked for those few moments, but turn to face Nick and Cassie, the big one pulling out his gun again, and pointing it directly at her.
Nick's right hand continues to choke the other man; his left is now stealing the gun right out of the gangster's hand. The gun is pointed directly at the large man.
He blinks at his own gun, his gaze terrified at the lack of a hand controlling it.
Cassie starts to walk towards the gun when Nick shouts out 'Cassie!' but she's determined anyway. He's stopped chocking the other man by the wall; he's dead now. He reaches for her with his now free hand but she shoos him off.
"The other one," she murmurs, her gaze never leaving the floating gun.
He growls in annoyance but is resigned to let her do what she thinks she must.
She slides her hand around the butt of the gun, then puts her finger on the trigger, and she feels the Control by Nick dropping off it. She's now holding the gun on the big man. She thinks of the short time she knew a young man who should have lived longer.
"Told you," she says simply, and pulls the trigger.
The man's head knocks back, the hole obscene and grotesque on his forehead, but satisfying nonetheless.
His body rockets backwards to the ground, and she tucks the gun into the small of her back in the waist of her jeans. She looks to Nick who is finishing with the one she cut, and when the man's body crumples to the floor, she clears her throat.
She leans down beside the still body of Alexander. "See you soon," she whispers as promise.
Nick is beside her in a second, and he pulls her arm around his shoulders, half-dragging, half-supporting her weight as he carts her from the now nearly-deserted room.
They're six or seven blocks away before he lets her rest.
"What the hell happened?"
She's stuttering in an attempt not to cry, but he mistakes it for covering up the truth. "No bullshit, Cassie. You're not a child anymore, as you like to point out; so tell me what happened!"
"Stop!" she whisper-screams. When Nick understands her tone, he rationalizes what must have happened. He'd been so intent to protect her that he'd barely noticed the body of the boy they'd come here for.
"They killed his family, and then they came for him too. He tried to make me leave, but I wouldn't listen. I attacked the one with the dreads, and I tried… I tried to get him to leave too. I tried… I- I couldn't-" and she breaks there.
Tears are cascading down, and his surprise at seeing them (because she never cries) is overtaken with his pain for her.
So he grabs her up in his arms, only loosening when she winces in pain.
A quiet moment passes before he remembers that maybe he shouldn't hug her this way. Hold her like he loves her most in the world (which he does). So he starts to pull away, and she knows what he's doing. She lets him.
"Let's go away," she breathes. He can only nod. And then she takes his hand almost shyly, and she leads him from the alley.
They flew on the Red-Eye that night after they gathered their stuff from Alexander's, doing their best to leave no trace of their being there. Everything was in its place, err a small framed photo from on top the dresser.
They chose the Cayman Islands as a fast destination; and they immediately checked into a hotel, both collapsing in their separate twin beds in exhaustion. Cassie slept fitfully, and Nick woke with the sunrise as always.
She's freshly showered and dressed in a typical short skirt and long-sleeved, low-cut shirt. Her long wavy blonde hair has fresh black streaks in it; she always brought her own hair highlighting tools everywhere. Black for mourning, she whispered mentally.
He noticed the new addition to her hair, but didn't remark on it.
Picking up his coffee mug, he drank the bitter hotel coffee silently, watching the news passively. She sits on the small loveseat across from him, observing him with her ancient eyes, and he grows uncomfortable under her gaze.
"What?" he says, his voice playful.
She thinks of the same dream she'd been having off-and-on since she'd decided to stay with Nick, traveling everywhere. The one she'd had that night; the one she hoped was the future.
"Let's go to the beach tonight. There should be a full moon and a bonfire."
Her voice reveals nothing, but she's testing him. The last time they were in front of a bonfire, she'd been half-drunk and spilled part of the dream- lips grazing lips.
Nick looks at her in surprise, then a timid suspicion of her intentions. But somehow, he cannot say no to her again. He cannot deny her today, on this day of pain. He hopes he won't regret it; but more importantly, he hopes she knows what this means.
But her knowing smirk says all.
So he shrugs his shoulders like he doesn't know what he's agreeing to.
"Okay. The beach it is." He smiles at her cautiously, and she nods softly, telling him silently that this is meant to be. They always could communicate without words just as well as with them.
"How 'bout some pancakes?" he says to lighten the mood, and she can't help but giggle.
Same old Nick, same old Cassie. Her idea of heaven.
Well I've always loved this movie, and immediately became a fan of Nick/Cassie right after I first saw it. But this piece just kind of came to me when I was listening to some songs, and I just thought of the dynamic between these two. It's not really simple or easy, but I think that somehow they were made for each other :') But anyway, this is my first 'Push' piece, and I hope you liked it! -WhereIsYourHeart10
Inspired by: Iris (cover, Goo Goo Dolls) – Boyce Avenue , Love Lockdown (cover, Kanye West) – Boyce Avenue