Jay's pov
"No." I said flatly, arms crossed.
"Please?" Alexia begged.
"No." I repeated.
"Please!" She said louder.
"Do you know how hard it was for me to just get one of these? It took years of training, and lots of deception." I told her, flipping my stake in the air and catching it.
"I just want to hold it." She whined.
"It's your first day of training." I told her.
"So I can't even hold it? And what kind of deception?" She asked.
"No you cannot. I bet some guardian that I could beat him in a fight, and he didn't believe me so I told him if I won he had to get me a stake." I explained.
"And you won."
"Obviously since I have one." I said rolling my eyes. "Now let's get to work. Start running." I told her.
"But you're here this time! You can teach me things I can use." She protested.
"Do I really need to go over the mall thing again?" I asked raising an eyebrow.
"Fine." She said. "Your more fun when you're not a teacher." She said.
"Fun doesn't get you trained." I stated.
She muttered something under her breath, but started running on the indoor track. Actually she was jogging.
"I said run. Is this what you did yesterday?" I called. I knew I sounded mean, but if she really wanted to be able to fight or protect herself I was going to have to be tough on her. As much as I didn't like it.
She glared at me, but started to really run. "Better." I told her.
When she finished twelve laps she sat down and started chugging water. "You're a demon." She groaned out before going back to water.
"If it helps you run like hell I'm good with that." I told her with a slight grin.
"Oh so we take a break and suddenly your Mr. Funny again." She said sarcastically.
"Nope. The pun was lame." I informed her.
"Your right it was, but at least you're joking around now." She said, lying on the floor.
I made a face. "That is so gross." I told her.
"What?" She asked, not bothering to lift her head to look at me.
"This is a gym. Do you know how much sweat and blood there has been on that spot? Or where all the shoes that have run on it have been for that matter?" I gave an amused smile when she leaped up off the ground looking disgusted.
"Okay what next?" She asked.
I raised an eyebrow. "Next? Your tired enough that you just about fell asleep on the floor." I reminded her, though I admired that she wanted to learn.
"So? You were to yesterday. You still trained." She complained.
"Yes, and I did horrible at my training. If we start out teaching you while your this tired you'll learn the wrong things, and they will become habits. So we can train latter if you want, but for now go shower and then we will go to class." I explained to her.
She pouted at me for a moment, but sighed and nodded. She walked off to the girls changing room and I went to the guys.
I had just slipped on my pants when I heard screams. My body went rigged, and I froze for a moment.
"Alexia?" I called uncertainly. I could feel my nails digging into my skin so hard that blood was forming on my palms. The screaming sound faded.
"Yes Jay?" She called back.
I breathed out a sigh of relief. It hadn't been real.
"Nothing." I sighed. The locker rooms where close enough that people could talk to them through the walls.
No One's pov
"It happened again didn't it." Brody asked Jay, when they met up before school.
"Yeah. I heard screaming and thought it was Alexia." He responded, frowning.
"What did you do?" Brody asked, glancing at the other boy.
Jay merely showed him the small marks on his hand.
"You have got to find a better way than hurting yourself to figure out if it's real." Brody said disapprovingly.
"That's great. When you have spirit induced delusions and find a way that doesn't involve pain to determine if it's really happening or not let me know. I would love a new method." Jay told him.
"I'm just glad you even thought of the possibility that the screaming wasn't real. You could have run in there while she didn't have a shirt on, and she would have killed you." Brody said, trying to lighten the mood.
The delusions didn't happen often, but when they did the only way to shake them off was with pain.
"Please. She wouldn't kill me. She would castrate me and leave me there." Jay told him.
Brody shuddered. "Yeah. That's way worse." He agreed. Brody was the only one that knew about Jay's problem. He hadn't told anyone. He probably should have at least told Lissa or Adrian. They might know something about it.
Brody only knew because he had been there during Jay's first delusion, back when they were still seven. He had thought a strigoi had gotten into Brody's room. Brody had been forced to hit Jay to get the boy to snap out of it.
It hadn't been hard for the two of them to figure out what had happened. Jay made Brody promise not to tell anyone. He had kept it to himself. Brody was almost always able to tell when he had a delusion though. Something about the look on his face he supposed.
Still it didn't happen often so he didn't see a reason to do anything about it.