Then, it was time to start the power study. During the day, I would watch videos of relationships, students, gestures, and facial expressions, and Adam and Samuel suspected that I would learn them without even thinking about them.
They would usually sink into my subconscious, just like our little exercise in the hospital, so I had subconsciously taken a lot of body language and my role from what I had seen of the junkies.
So, during the day, I would watch a lot of footage of anything useful to me in this gig and in the future. Then there was this part where I was subconsciously studying at night.
As usual, Adam would put me downstairs to sleep, usually by 6:00, and I wouldn't wake up until the afternoon. So I did all the usual stuff while Adam and Samuel fixed the room. They soundproofed it entirely and made it dark and unscented, so that my body and my senses would focus only on the recording and the information.
I wasn't scared or worried about it; I knew I wouldn't know anything about it, and when I woke up, I would always be in my room downstairs. So I wouldn't know or remember anything. But Adam and Samuel still told me this; they could have left it alone, but they wanted me to know everything about it.
It was just after 6 o'clock when Adam came to me and said, "Well, missy, let's go to bed, and I can tell you that for the next week, you won't be studying anatomy, but you'll be studying other things, the time you're awake. You'll be fed while you study, so you don't have to stress about eating; we'll take care of your body while you study."
I nodded and sighed. I returned the surgery book to the table and walked with Adam to my bedroom. I changed into my nightgown in the bathroom and then came into Adam's arms to sleep. It just worked. Even though I wasn't tired, the incredible feeling of safety and closeness I had relaxed me completely, and I fell fast and sound asleep. I was safe and protected, and then I could sleep; I didn't even notice the injection.
As Mimi fell asleep under the effects of the drug, Adam noticed as Mimi's hands loosened their grip on him. He gently released his hold and lifted her, limply, into his arms and carried her into the study room where Samuel was already standing by.
Adam lowered Mimi onto a special bed, a waterbed again to minimize sensations, and Samuel cannulated Mimi's central line, dripped nutrition, and prescribed anesthetics. Adam took the headphones and put them on Mimi's head. He turned on the recording, and then he and Samuel would retire from the chamber, make dinner, watch TV, and maybe then go to sleep.
The drug would keep Mimi asleep for 16 hours, and then they would move Mimi to her own room to wake up. Then, when Mimi would wake up, she would get to watch the recordings that Samuel and Adam had saved on one of the laptops, and then it would be back to sleep time until the week was up.
They would see how much of the lesson had been learned, and Mimi would learn a lot more than she knew, but it would be time for her to realize how much she had learned.
The gig hadn't basically called for this kind of intensive teaching, but this was a good way to give Mimi these more essential lessons along the way and let her think that botany was the only thing she would learn.
I woke up in my own bed, still quite medicated, and it took me a while to get myself moving and shower. My hair was still blood red and long, and I would have to think about my makeup a bit differently then. I washed my hair, and although I had a lot, it was a lot of work.
I knew it would make for a better hairstyle, so when I got out of the shower, I didn't dry my hair as I was looking for clothes, and Adam walked in. He sat me down at the mirror table, dried and brushed my hair, and put some conditioner in it. And then he put it in a French braid and took me out to dinner, though.
Bran will be back the day after tomorrow. He'd phoned and said he was very interested in the fact that I was a pretender. He'd studied the phenomena and pretenders in general and now saw me in a whole new light, as a benefit rather than a threat.
Samuel said to me after I had eaten and was on my way to go and see the recordings, "Bran might want to use you for his own purposes; me and Adam won't let him do that. Don't worry about it; everything will be fine and you'll be safe. My father has a bad habit of seeing everyone as tools to be used, and he doesn't always think about the consequences in the way he should."
I nodded and said, "I'll watch my back and try to ensure I'm not too much alone with him."
Samuel explained, " Good thing my dad is what he is; even though I'm not much younger, I didn't get his rage. That story about my dad living in a cave and mauling and killing everyone who came near him was true. It took him years, and when we met, he was Bran, no longer my father and the man who entered that cave." he kept pause before continuing.
"I don't know what happened to him, but for some reason, my father has always influenced me negatively. Still, he has never affected negatively on Charles negatively, and I suspect the reason is that Charles' mother was a witch and a werewolf, the strongest of her tribe. Still, unlike the story, she died of disease, not pregnancy."
his voice was little sad as he told his story, or part of it.
"And it broke my father once again, but I wasn't there all the time. He then had to raise Charles, but the tribe helped when my father went to find a mate and returned with Leah. And she was a bitch of a bitch, much worse than in the book, and my father never had any feelings for her, and Leah had sex with as many other men as she could."
I nodded and said, "Family can be a weird thing sometimes. But yeah, I'll watch out and try to ensure one of you is always around."
Samuel nodded, and then he went off to do something. I entered the living room and started studying the material I'd been given. The first one I learned was actually a film, Gone with the Wind, but it taught me some excellent lessons.
Then there were videos of some manners instructor, dance videos some more, and oh my god, what a bunch of romantic movies, where a woman falls for a powerful man and then surrenders to him. Well, I got some wonderful role models, but I'm not really like those women.
Then I went out to dinner and studied some more before Adam took me to bed again, and the same thing happened again. During the day, I learned about films and documentaries, and there were some lectures on botany and recordings of college parties, fancy parties, and dances.
Bran came then but didn't really get a chance to talk to me because Samuel and Adam were watching me constantly. I felt somehow that I knew things and a lot, but I still didn't catch up with what I actually knew. It was like it took some kind of trigger to open the knowledge in my head, and I believed that, at some point, I would get access to all this knowledge.
I actually started to enjoy studying human behavior, and after a couple of days, I woke up curious to learn the day's videos. I guess Adam and Samuel saw this change and noticed it, too. But that's not all.
I noticed nothing odd about my condition. Still, three days later, Samuel casually asked his father about a plant, and I started explaining the entire history of the plant, its most common uses, and even its side effects.
This question had been the trigger, and I began to find the botany in my head, to combine the information with the now conscious mind.
Samuel said, " That process will continue even during your sleep, and you will notice how the lessons and knowledge will begin to be available to you."
So it worked. But Adam and Samuel were looking at me kind of smugly, like they had a terribly juicy secret, and I had no idea what it was even about.
After a week, it was clear that I now knew quite a lot about botany, and in fact, it didn't bother me at all because I've always liked plants and flowers. I was actually pleased with everything I had learned.
And Samuel said, " Now you don't have to study anymore. You can do other things."
And he smiled smugly. I then went to eat, and I ate a lot again. Bran was still in the house eating at the same time. He was amazed at how much I had to eat, and Samuel gave him a long, stern lecture about my body, how it works, how to maintain it, my nutrition, and how unique a creature I am.
I'm not a typical werewolf, so he told his father not to interfere with my feeding or my rest; in fact, he told Bran to leave me alone altogether. I finished my meal, and Adam came to me.
He just said, "Come here, and we'll look at a couple of things next."
Fine, I followed and got quite a surprise.
But I had been taught other things that I wasn't prepared for. Adam took me to a room upstairs with two days to go before the party. There was a table in the room and a gun on the table.
Adam sat me down at the table and said: "Take that gun apart, clean it, and reassemble it. Then tell me what you know about the gun."
Fine, I was quiet for a moment, picked up the gun, and started to work. And I did. I didn't understand what I was doing at first, but gradually, the knowledge of disassembling and reassembling the gun came to the surface like it did in botany.
This was another trigger, and once I had the gun disassembled, cleaned, and reassembled, I said, " The Beretta M9 is a short-recoil, semi-automatic, single-action / double-action pistol that uses a 15-round staggered magazine with a reversible magazine release button that can be positioned for either right or left handed shooters. The M9 has several internal safety features, including a firing pin lock that prevents the firing pin from moving without the trigger and a firing pin striker that rotates when the safety lever is engaged to prevent the firing pin from hitting even if the hammer is dropped. The M9 also has an external safety lever on both sides, allowing both left- and right-handed users to switch the safety mechanism on or off. "
I wasn't even thinking when I replied. I knew dozens of guns and how to disassemble, assemble, and service them. Adam handed me the next weapon, the same thing. It had to be dismantled, serviced, loaded, and told the essentials. Once I had that done, I asked the most obvious question.
" Why, what am I doing with this skill? Not that it isn't pretty damn cool to be walking Wikipedia on guns and know how to use them, but where do I need this information?"
Adam smiled and said, " It's a skill you can't afford to be without, believe me. I will teach you how to shoot when this job is over. You won't be such easy prey anymore, and just think if you get to shoot Krycheck dead one day. This skill is vital for no reason other than that you might be wanted, and even if Spike and Drusilla do it again or someone else does it, being armed and knowing how to shoot will save your skin. Trust me."
And that's not all. Next, we went to the gym, and Adam showed me how self-defense moves were programmed into me and the ability to expect, act, and strike. I was pretty damn tired and but that tiredness came partly from all the subconscious information being unloaded as my conscious mind and mind processed it.
Adam said, "Now you can rest, read your anatomy, go take a bath, I'll come and put you to bed. "
I nodded and went to think about it.
A couple of days went well, and to my surprise, I missed Damon. I so wanted to share all this information with him and even wondered at one point what it would have been like to be with him at a party. In these undercover lovers, he would have been the boss, and I would have been the submissive good girl manipulated by the big boss into being the perfect woman for him.
But then again, taking the spark between us, would it have been more role-play or reality once we'd done the gig? The fact was, I wanted to be near him, to smell him, to feel the security he brought me. Even though he wasn't around that much after all, I just felt like something was missing.
According to Bran and Samuel, it was because we were each other's biological halves and had an innate need to be close.
Bran said, " Damon is your mate, even though you don't realize it yet and you don't have a mating bond, but he is yours, and you are his; but Damon is also a man of honor and gives you time. And he has a lot of friends and vampires that need his help, so he just can't always be with you. It's a bummer and frankly not good for the relationship, but facts are facts, and you have to live by them. You miss him. It's obvious, and you won't be able to help it. That longing also makes you want to be closer to him when he's around."
So I endured my longing and let all the new information settle in my head, so I didn't touch the guns. I walked outside, did some baking, made some food, and missed Damon. But he just wasn't here, and I had no way of keeping in touch with him. And it could be that the spark between us would die down at some point. But next, I would have my first gig. And in fact, I was looking forward to it.