Immaculate Spirit c1-242 Page 4

  "No, he says that's a medical anomaly. One in a million, he claims. He kept begging me to let him study him. Like that would ever happen." He sneered.

  "What if he talks?" Ask Diane, worrying.

  "We have an NDA with him and his entire team. If I hear a whiff of rumor, I will take everything from them. And that is if I'm kind enough to involve a tribunal." He said in a chilling tone.

  "Good." Said Diane in a satisfied voice.

  She was a kind lady but after more than two month with Nathaniel, she was growing incredibly fond of her grandson. Anyone who wanted to make things difficult for him would incur her wrath, things that even her husband would not have the nerve to do.

  "What is he doing with his day beside physical exercise and that?" He asks, pointing to Nathaniel.

  "Mostly reading books on my library or school related stuff on the internet."

  "What kind of book?"

  "Every kind. Politics, Astronomy, Psychology, History. He just read everything that caught his eyes. He is smart." She said with pride. "I saw him work through the pain, you would have been proud. Our grandson is a fighter. The moment the doctor and his team were leaving, he would go back and keep exercising until he would be too weak to even talk. I stopped counting the number of times Amal had to carry him to his bed."

  "Good." Robert nodded, satisfied.

  "There is one thing I don't understand though." Diane said while frowning.

  "What is it?" Robert stopped looking at the young man outside and focused on his wife.

  "You know how the doctors told us to take particular attention to Nathaniel's mental state?"

  "Of course, they told us that because of the time he passed in coma, he will be a twelve years old stuck into the body of a sixteen years old. We should anticipate him to behave like a child and not a teenager and that slow mental ability and poor intellectual thinking should be expected. Trust me, I wasn't at all thrilled to hear that as you were, I'm sure." He answered.

  "Naturally, who would want that? So for that purpose, I started testing him. We often get to talk in the evening when he's done with his physical exercises and even debate on some subject. Since Mary told us that Nathaniel always liked to read before the accident, I started with easy topics and nothing."

  "Nothing!?" Robert shouted.

  "Yes, no slow mental ability, no poor intellectual thinking, nothing. He's nothing that the specialist told us he should be. He's quick witted and knows how to express his ideas and how to defend them. His general culture would be incredible for a twelve years old and still impressive coming from a sixteen years old. If he should be considered slow, I believe some of my old students would be considered brain dead. Congratulations, the heir you were stressing about turned out to be a genius."

  Robert looked at his wife in surprise before he turned into a delighted smile. Before the company took off and his wife took on an executive role, Diane was teaching business at Cornell University, one of the ten best universities in the country. Nathaniel was maybe her grandson, but he knew that his wife was a fair teacher and would never have said something like that if it wasn't true.

  "How is that possible? We both know that he went to a public catholic school. Who taught him?" Robert questioned.

  "Based on what he told me, he fell in love with music because of Mary but Karine was the one who gave him his will to learn. He said that she showed him the keys and then let him decide which doors to open."

  "Is that so?" Robert asked, deep in thought.

  "Yes. I know we always had issues with Karine and blamed her for a lot of things back then but she was an amazing mother to Nathaniel and if we want to be involved in his life, we will have to make things good with her. He may like us but if we were to do anything that disrespected her, he would leave without a second of hesitation."

  "Yeah right. They would return to their crappy life struggling to meet end needs? I don't think so." He sneered.

  "Yes, he would in a heartbeat. You need to understand Robert who your grandson actually is. He doesn't care about wealth or privilege. He was there for only one week and he already knew the name of everyone working here. He's gentle, kind and polite to everyone he talked to whether it's me or the maids. He has that magnetism that puts everyone around him at ease. He's also calm, too calm for someone of his age. Even when we debate, I shouted some time and used bad faith arguments to try to make him mad and he never did."

  "Hummm, interesting. Let's go see him, I want to ask him some questions." Robert said, putting his cup of coffee back on the table.

  Chapter 9: :

  Nathaniel was immersed in his mind, trying to organise his memories. It was now two weeks since Nathaniel could walk again and since then he had finally let free Marc memories from where he had blocked them. Which based on the number of headaches he was suffering before that, wasn't a moment too soon. As time goes bye, the headaches were growing even stronger and it was starting to worry him.

  The reason for these headaches were evident enough, on one side there were the memories of a twelve years old innocent boy and on the other side a forty years old trained killer. He knew that if he continued to try to dissociate the two, he could end up with a split personality warring for the control of his body. The headache was a warning he took very seriously. Hence the meditation, that was the best way to merge his two identities into one.

  What was even harder was the memory he was getting, some of them were disturbing, others gruesome and some were against his own morality which made them even more difficult to process and own. Because it was that, he had to own Marc life as his own if he wanted to use his memories or even function as a human being. His family had already suffered enough because of him, he couldn't afford to get locked down in a mental institute because he would develop a mental health issue.

  Unbeknown to him, his personality was gradually changing, evolving. He became hard working, impassive and most of all collected. With Marc experience and his own, he became a fifty years old man in the body of a sixteen years old.

  Finally opening his eyes, he stood up, smiling in satisfaction. Removing the dust and grass on his short and his tracksuit jacket. He remembers the moment when his grandma learned that he did not have clothes at his size anymore. She insisted on buying him new clothes which he opposed vigorously. He explained to her that he was going to get taller and gain weight in the following week, the clothes that she bought today will not be his size anymore in a few weeks. He knew that she wanted to show him in front of her friends to show off. He convinced her to wait a few months and then she could show him off as much as she wanted.

  He then chooses comfortable sportswears knowing that he will not go out for the foreseeable future. Seeing his grandparents coming his way, he started walking toward them, hugging them both in the process.

  "Nathaniel stop hugging me!" Said his grandfather in a stern voice triggering a laugh from his wife and grandson.

  Nathaniel learned quite a bit from his grandfather when talking with his grandma. He was a hard working, no-nonsense, cold man. Except with his family despite him trying not to show it. He bitchs about Nathaniel hugging him yet he never stops him from doing so.

  "No can't do grandpa, you have sixteen years of due hugging and I know how much you like taking dues" Said Nathaniel with amusement triggering a bigger laugh from his grandma. He could swear that he saw the corner of his grandpa's mouth twitching too.

  "Smart ass grandchildren is even worst than a smart ass daughter" He grumbles in an almost inaudible voice which triggers another bout of laughter that he joins this time.

  "Dearest, why do you meditate that much?" Ask with curiosity Diane.

  "That helps me think grandma. I can organise my thoughts much better that way and the calm helps me plan for the future."

  "What do you want to do in the future, kid?" Ask his grandfather interested.

  "For the immediate future, intellectually I need to keep learning and reading to catch up with my studies
. Physically, well I was going to ask you if I could borrow Jean and Amal from you." Ask Nathaniel which startled Robert.

  His grandfather was someone important, he had people protecting him and especially two personal bodyguards. Amal was a former highly trained Mossad agent, who his grandfather recruited five years ago. Jean was a former french Legionary which was surprising. They tend to be extremely loyal to their country, becoming bodyguards of senators and even the French President at the end of their service. Marc did many joint operations with french legionnaires in afghanistan when he was a SEAL. These guys were absolute beasts and he was glad that they were allies to the US. Despite the SEAL training ingrained in his mind, he knew that he was going to train way faster if he was challenged.

  "Why do you want them?"

  "I need to do muscle reinforcement and nothing is better than autodefense training to do that. Jean and Amal are uniquely qualified to do that. Moreover knowing your fame, our family wealth and mom work as a prosecutor, I need to know how to protect myself. I can't and I won't rely on someone else to protect me." He said with a firm voice.

  Robert appeared thoughtful, hearing that while Diane frowned.

  "Dearest, they are brute, if you want to protect yourself we could hire someone else. Besides, your grandfather needs Jean and Amal for his own protection." Said Diane, she always had a bad impression of them even if she begrudgingly admitted that they were very competent.

  "That's not really a problem. We have an entire company of security agents, I could hire remplacement. For how long do you need them?"

  "A month, maybe a little longer not knowing what exactly they can teach me and how much I can learn." Answered Nathaniel, happy that his grandfather appeared satisfied by the idea.

  "I will allow it kid but first you need to convince your moms. Good luck with that." He said with a smirk as the smile of his grandson turned into a wince.

  After that, they start talking about something else and it was only late at night that Robert realized he had forgotten about asking his grandson his questions.

  Chapter 10: :

  NY International Airport JFK. 15/05/2012. 10:20.

  Robert Lyndon was tired, two weeks of an exhausting trip in the EU and Asia was starting to take a toll on him. Next october, he will be sixty years old and was thinking about retirement now that his daughter was on the board of the label. That wasn't nepotism who pushed him to put his daughter in a director position. He trained her to become his successor all her life so he knew how uniquely qualified she was and the past four years was proof enough of her professionalism.

  He was maybe the CEO but he liked to know what was going on in the Lyndon Tower like he was called and what they were thinking about. Amal was uniquely qualified to listen without being noticed. He knew that people were talking when he nominated his daughter while she was previously only a small musician that nobody knew.

  Eight month later nobody was talking shit about her credentials anymore. One year later, everybody was worshipping her which made him proud. She became a source of inspiration for all his female employee, especially after she start firing man who engage in sexual harassment. She was taking shit from nobody and he made him laugh how sweet she was on a personal level and how a beast she became in a workplace.

  Finishing with the security screening of the airport, he got welcomed by the impressive body of his two personal bodyguards Amal and Jean. For them to come here, his grandson seems to be done with them. He hoped that he could learn a thing or two of them, that would be good considering his frail body. For the last month, he did not have the time to come back home with business trips everywhere in the state and abroad. His wife was unusually cryptic about the condition of Nathaniel these past few weeks, he knew that she was doing that to keep him on his toes which made him smile inwardly. In all his life, his biggest pride was not his company but his wife.

  Upon arriving in front of his personal bodyguard, he noticed immediately that something was wrong. Amal had a black eye, split lips and seems to have a slight limp where Jean had a red almost bluish mark on the temple and a split lips too. Both of them seem to be in a sorry state which immediately makes him unsettle.

  "What happened to both of you? How are my wife and grandson?" He ask hurriedly

  He was surprised to see Amal's eyes narrowing like he did when observing micro-expression as if he was watching him for any sign of deception. Jean just frowned.

  "You really don't know Rob?" Ask Jean with a heavy french accent.

  Jean was one the only people who could call him Rob and get away with it. The truth was that Jean was one of his best friends and confident for the last fifteen years.

  "What the f*ck are you talking about?" Robert asked in a harsh voice.

  "Sorry we thought that you knew and you were gloating in front of our face. Yes, your family is all right Rob."

  "Ok." Robert said his mind relaxed. "So, what the hell happened to you? You are looking like you get beat up by loan sharks."

  "Your grandson did this." Said Jean while Amal nodded when Robert looked at him for confirmation.

  "Are you two fuck*** with me!? You expect me to believe that a sixteen years old, 5"5 ,100 pound beat two forty years old ex special force?" Yell Robert.

  "Well he got his growth spurt, he gained weight and height, I think he's six feet tall now maybe a little taller. And seriously this is unbelievable for us too. We never met someone who could learn, adapt and fight that fast. At one point, we thought we were fighting against a black ops or something. He could predict what we were doing and where we were going to hit him since day one. Are you sure he never had autodefense class before?" Jean asked.

  "Nobody could teach him that well in the private sector. He was military trained, there is no doubt in my mind. I think I recognized moves from the SEAL and Delta force when I was fighting him. That's not something you can get from a dojo beside a coffee shop." Said Amal in a neutral voice.

  Taken aback by that, Robert starts thinking, Amal rarely talks but when he does you should take it seriously. After the rift between them and his daughter happened, they never could meet their grandson. That's why he engaged a PI to keep tabs on them to know what was happening in their life. Nathaniel was described as a shy, smart kid passionate about books. He did not go out much and didn't have close friends. He was a kind reclusive kid who did not go out beside school and with his moms. Nothing that could justify that level of skill or could imply secret training by some organisation. Robert Lyndon was an influential, rich man and had many 'friends' in the government, he would start digging around and would find if someone had an agenda on his family.

  "I would look into it. It's good news overall if he can defend himself well enough. That would lessen the worry of his grandmother and myself." He said nodding when he was interrupted by his two personal bodyguards who guffawed at him.

  "Well enough!? He did that to us when we teamed up against him!" Said Jean with a bitter smile.

  "Excuse me? You two against him? What were you thinking? I instruct you to train him, not kill him! You know that if you hurt him my wife is going to skin you alive! Wait what! He won?" Said astonished Robert.

  "He did not just win, he got out of that fight without a scratch. That was three day ago, since then he told us to go back to you. We were hardly in a position to argue." Said Amal.

  "I need to come back home and see this grandson of mine." Finally respond Robert after a minute of silence.

  Chapter 11: :

  Hampton. 16/05/2012. 17:55.

  Nathaniel stopped running upon arriving on the back door of his grandparent mansion. If the nurse who was there when he awoke, she could not recognize him. He had grown from 5"5 to 6"1 in four month which left his moms and grandma stupefied. He had gained weight and more importantly muscle. Not that he cared but he got now an impressive 6 pack which would make anyone drool on. Nathaniel didn't care about the aesthetic of it, he just wanted to have an athletic body he could use to defend
himself and his loved one. He had today surpass the body of Marc in his prime which was good enough for him. He didn't plan to become a soldier nor a model nor an actor.

  A soldier was out of the question. Marc fights his whole life for his country and gets betrayed by it in a heartbeat. Moreover, Nathaniel didn't have the envy or the interest to work for the government in any capacity. As for a model, he wasn't that shallow. He prefers to be known for the content of his head and not the aesthetic of it. He wasn't that categoric for becoming an actor but that implied to know people that he didn't and know how to act, which wasn't in his priorities at the moment nor one of his envy.

  "Nathaniel, is that you?" Said the voice of his grandmother upon entering the house.

  "Yes grandma it's me! Do you need anything?" He answered back.

  "No, no dearest. I just want to remind you that tomorrow I'm taking you to buy clothes. Everything that you wear currently is tighter than it should be, not mentioning very ugly." Said his grandma happily. She never hid the fact that she hated to see him in sportswear.

  Since the end of last week, she has been ecstatic. Since his height and weight started stabilizing and his body was in shape, she could now go on a shopping spree to dote on her grandson to her heart's content. His moms working, she had a free pass to buy him anything that she wanted without reservation which made her happy to no end.

  Even better, she could now show off her comely grandson in front of her friends and their childrens. Even better, a good number of her friends had good-looking female grandchildren who she could present as a marriage prospect. If Nathaniel knew what was planning his grandmother, he would be scared out of his mind.

  Diane had the idea to organise a party named 'Welcome back from coma' and everyone needed to come with a gift for Nathaniel. Knowing that her friends were the wife of very wealthy men or mothers from important families, the presents were going to be impressive. The party was going to take place on saturday. Every person invited was impatient to come and a number of people not invited ask to come. Nobody ever met Nathaniel and they were curious to see the future heir of the Lyndon label.