Eight seems flawless. He's in a bit fancier clothes than usual. The last thing I notice is the bouquet of flowers. When he sees me, he smiles. I take a deep breath to steady myself before we talk. I don't want to sound as incredibly nervous as I am.
"Marina," Eight says to me, holding out the flowers. It's a mix of different kinds that I never bothered to learn the names of. What's the point of learning the names of a bunch of useless flowers when you have bigger things, like an alien war, to worry about? I take the flowers to get a closer look.
"Thank you. They're beautiful," I reply to him.
"Not as beautiful as you," he says, smiling. That's when I realize I didn't bring him anything. Was I supposed to? I've never been on a date before...
"I...I didn't really bring you anything," I say akwardly.
"Don't worry about it. Are you ready to go?" I nod and we go to one of Nine's cars. "I hate driving these things. I worry about crashing them the whole time. I mean, if they weren't the most expensive cars that exist on Earth, it wouldn't be so bad." This is the one of the first times that I've ever heard Eight say anything bad about one of our fellow garde members. "Oh. Sorry," he says, embarrassed, when he sees me looking at him.
"No, no. You're fine. I was just thinking." He smiles again. I love that about Eight. He's always so optimistic. "So where are we going?"
"Well, depends. You can breath underwater, right?" He talks suspiciously. What's he up to?
"Yes."
"I brought one of those stones out of my chest. Will you give me your underwater legacy through it?"
"I guess. Should I trust you with this?" We both laugh.
"You know, if I said no you may just back out on me. So I'm going to go with yes and hope it won't turn out to be a total lie." I decide to go with. Hopefully he's right and this doesn't end badly. Whatever this is.
After about a half hour of driving, I see a huge lake. I'm not sure what the name of it is. Lakes aren't labeled as something important to know in my mind. Eight pulls into a long drive that opens up at the end, but stops first at a small shelter. A man is sitting inside, taking the money to let people in.
"How long?" The man asks.
"What?" Eight asks, pulling out a wallet filled with money.
"How long do you want a ticket for?" He sounds bored, but mostly irritated. A lot of humans are like that. It ticks me off.
"Watch your mouth, you fat human. We're saving your fugging butt. Be grateful," I spit out, without thinking. If only I wasn't so sweet; I can't sound mean unless I'm really angry.
"Marina, be careful," Eight whispers to me. He doesn't sound worried, though, which I'm glad for. Being discovered doesn't matter to us nearly as much now as it did a few years ago, or even last year. The war is impending and unstoppable. Might as well just let the people figure it out. "We'll do three hours, please."
"We only do two, four, six, or all day." His irritation is gone now, replaced by confusion and maybe even a bit of fear.
"Okay, then, give me four." He hands over the money to the man, who takes it slowly, cautiously.
"No boat? Or fishing poles?" The man asks suspiciously, craning his neck to look into the back seat of the car.
"No, sir. No boat. Or fishing poles. We won't be hanging out on the water today," Eight tells him, smirking. It's always fun messing with the unknowing, gullible humans. The man continues to look at us, still in the dark, as we drive away.
Eight and I crack up laughing. "Did you see his face?" I ask him. "He was so confused!"
"He was scared! Out of all things to be, he was scared of us! Two teenagers!" Eight says, slightly astonished. We laugh again. I look at his face. His smile is amazing, handsome. He turns and looks at me. It's silent for a moment, with just us looking at each other, staring into each other's eyes.
HOOOONK! Eight looks forward and swerves the car, slamming his foot on the brake pedal. A woman getting out of a car parked in a spot is a few yards away from us, glaring. We must have almost hit her. "Shoot," I hear Eight mutter under his breath. "Sorry!" He calls to the woman out of his open window. It doesn't seem to calm her down. So much for that moment.
Eight finds a parking spot as far away as possible from the raging woman. "You ready to do the stone?" he asks me.
"I guess, ya." He looks at me kind of sadly.
"We don't have to if you don't want to."
"Well, I have no idea what we're doing for one. For two, I'm freaking excited! Let's do this. Of course I want to!" I smile at him excitedly and his expression lightens.
"Great. Great! Sorry. You just sounded kind of reluctant."
"Naw, you're good. So, how do I use it...?" I ask Eight as he gives me the stone. It's small, black, and just looks like a plain stone. If you didn't know what it was, you would just pass it by, thinking there were a million just like it in the world.
"I don't know. Just try...sending your legacy through it, I guess. I think?" he replies questioningly. I take the stone in both my hands and close eyes, willing my breathing legacy to reach out and go into the stone. A weird feeling begins to creep it's way into me; it's extremely similar to when I'm healing somebody, just not quite as pleasant. The full experience of the warmth isn't there as much.
The feeling slowly fades, then stops completely. I open my eyes and look at the stone. It looks the same as before. It feels the same. It's as if nothing changed, but I know that I didn't imagine that feeling. It had to have done something.
Eight is watching me. I blush and he laughs. I hand him the stone. "Did it work?" he asks impatiently.
"I'm not sure. I think so, but don't take my word for it. You'll have to try it yourself!" I reply.
"Okay, then. Let's do this." Eight tells me excitedly. We get out of the car and head toward the lake, ready to begin our night.