Collide (Anomaly Book 3)

by Jessica Gilliland

  Chapter Three

  The sunlight splashed warmly across my face. I yawned and stretched, feeling Cash’s arms still around me.

  Always the gentleman, he never held me too close once we’d fallen asleep. I sensed he felt like he would be taking advantage of me, but he didn’t exactly want to let me go, either. As I glanced up at him, I could tell he was awake. He looked asleep. His eyes were closed and his breathing was steady, but he was faking it. He was often awake by the time I came to, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I could tell the difference between consciousness and sleep.

  “Hey,” I murmured awkwardly. It wasn’t waking up with him that made me feel that way. It didn’t even matter that my pajamas consisted of only a camisole and a pair of shorts. It didn’t matter that I could feel every inch of his body or that we were lying together with such familiarity. I felt protected under the cover of the night. In the dark, I felt free to share with him my most intimate feelings, but once dawn broke and the day rushed in, things were different. I felt foolish and self-conscious. Exposed.

  Cash cracked an eye and offered me a warm, slow smile. For a second it was like the sunlight was inside of me too, radiating in my abdomen. A blush rose in my cheeks and I was quick to nuzzle my head down to cover it up.

  “Hey,” he answered. He never asked me if I’d slept well or if I felt better. I guess on some level he sensed the privacy of the things that happened when I ran to him in the night.

  “Breakfast?” he offered.

  “Mmm, definitely."

  “I’ll flip the flapjacks if you’ll crack the eggs.”

  “Only because you can’t,” I teased.

  “Give a guy a break. The mechanics of cracking an egg are complicated. You have to hold the shell and hit it just right and make sure none of the little pieces get in. Come on, these hands just aren’t meant for delicate operations like that.”

  He held up his hands and wiggled his fingers.

  “But you play the guitar like a god,” I noted.

  “That’s different. I’m not cracking guitars. Not usually, anyway. Sometimes I get really rowdy.”

  We dissolved into giggles and I caught his eyes. The laughter died and for a second we just sat there in silence, looking at each other. I felt warmth rise up in him; a powerful rushing emotion that made me my breath catch.

  "I'm going to grab a shower first," he said, breaking the tension.

  "Me too."

  Cash carefully untangled his arms from around me and slid out of bed, grabbed some clothes from his dresser, and left me to my own devices. I stayed in bed for a few minutes, feeling his body heat fading from the sheets; staring at the ceiling as the sun slid across it.

  After our respective showers, Cash and I met up and headed for the suite. Headset and Bebe were already done eating and were playing outside. I could see them running around the pool with a couple of water guns.

  “Hello, you two,” Charlie purred, a huge smile spread across her face.

  “Good morning, Bubbles,” Cash mused back with a wide grin to match hers, and then made his way to the fridge.

  “Morning,” I said quietly, smiling at her as the heat flushed into my cheeks.

  Waking up together was never as awkward as walking into the suite together. I'd told Charlie about the panic attacks and how Cash would sing them away. She knew that nothing romantic had happened between us, but that didn't stop her from staring wide-eyed and hopeful whenever she saw us together.

  Cash played it way cooler than I did. He went to work mixing pancake batter and heating up the griddle. I grabbed the eggs, as per our deal. Cash poured two glasses of orange juice and set one in front of me.

  "So, Cash, we were thinking about the prospect of moving inland now that we've pretty much gone through the west coast."

  "You're open to that?" Cash asked. "I thought you wanted to stay by the water."

  “Liv, look!” Bebe ran up, tugging at my sleeve. She pointed out the sliding glass door, drawing the Nomad’s attention to the roof of the restaurant.

  “Headset!” Charlie suddenly gasped, leaping up from her chair so fast that it toppled backward.

  When I saw him, my heart leapt into my throat. Headset was wobbling dangerously on the edge of the rooftop to the poolside bar. We abandoned breakfast and funneled outside, crossing the grounds to the pool. Headset's toes were fully over the edge and his arms were out like he were about to take off and fly. One strong wind, and he’d be airborne.

  Dozer was already climbing up the bar to get him.

  “Buddy, don’t move!” Cash called up to him. “Step back from the ledge and wait a minute! Dozer’s coming up to get you!”

  There was no doubt that Headset heard Cash, but ignored him. He put a foot out into the air and drew a horrified sound from Charlie who ran to the spot below him in case she needed to catch him.

  Cash and I caught each other’s gazes.

  “You got him?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “He’s alright.” I looked to Charlie, who was wringing her hands. Glitch was rubbing her back. “I’ve got him, Charlie. Dozer’s almost there, but I’ve got him.”

  She nodded gratefully, but didn’t take her eyes off her little brother. I felt my power flickering inside me, nerves rattling it. All of a sudden, I wasn't so sure I did have him. I tried to focus and prayed Dozer would hurry and grab him before I had to.

  “You don't need to catch him, Livi,” Bebe chirped. Strangely, she wasn't worried about Headset in the slightest. “He won’t fall.”

  “I know you can heal him, Bebe, and I can catch him, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay for him to pull stunts like this. You shouldn’t have let him do that,” I told her.

  She stamped her foot. Her strawberry curls bounced. “That’s not what I mean.”

  Cash took her hand in his. “Kiddo, let Liv concentrate, okay? Just in case.”

  Bebe huffed in annoyance, but didn’t say anything more.

  I readied myself to catch Headset with my telekinesis as Dozer reached the roof. He ran to Headset and plucked him off the ledge. The tension left Charlie in a rush of breath and a rarely-used curse, and the rest of us relaxed. Dozer waved to us to let us know everything was okay. He cradled Headset to him, and carefully made his way back down to the ground.

  Charlie immediately took Headset from Dozer and gave him a once-over. When she saw that he wasn’t hurt, she hugged him tighter to her.

  Headset glanced at Bebe and rolled his eyes dramatically. Bebe giggled.

  “What were you thinking? How did you get up there?” Charlie asked him once she’d let him go.

  He shrugged. “I walked.”

  We all fell silent and glanced between each other, eyebrows raised.

  “Like this!” Headset wiggled out of Charlie’s arms and ran back to the bar.

  Though Charlie protested, Dozer held out his hand to calm her. “Let’s see where he’s going with this.”

  Headset placed a foot and a hand on the wall. Then, to our astonishment, he placed another hand on the wall and began climbing vertically up the side of the building. It was like he had suction cups in his palms.

  “He’s Spiderman!” Glitch laughed, jumping up and down, arms flailing. “He’s freakin’ Spiderman! Are you seeing this?”

  “Oh, for the love of—” Charlie deflated and marched over to the building, standing at the base of it with her hands on her hips. “That’s enough, mister,” she said. “Come on down before someone sees you.”

  “But Charlie...” he started to whine.

  The look she gave him shut him down. He sighed and climbed back down reluctantly.

  The rest of us surveyed the hotel grounds carefully. It was too early for anyone to be out by the pool, but we were still wary. All it would take would be one set of eyes to see something like that, and ACT would be on top of us. Satisfied not to have any onlookers, we all piled back into the kitchen to finish our breakfast like nothing had happened.

  I kn
ow we should have been shocked by his Spiderman act, but the truth was, Headset’s powers had been getting stronger and stronger the last few months and he’d developed a couple more new ones. His super sight and smell wasn’t just coming in and out anymore. It was constant. He still wore his sound proof headphones, but he was getting much better at controlling it. He also did this thing where he could manipulate light. I don’t even know what kind of power that is but he makes these little bursts of light in his palms like fireflies. He usually does it when he and Bebe are playing hide and seek. He lights up all the corners and under the bed to look for her.

  The worst one came about a month ago, in the last small city we settled in, Charlie and I decided to take the kids into town with us. Dozer, Glitch and Cash were working on the Beast. The poor old thing was getting a little run down, but Dozer insisted she still had some life in her.

  We decided to poke around the shops on the main street. Bebe had seen a sparkly jewelry box with a mermaid on it and begged to go into the glass shop to take a look. Against her better judgment, Charlie obliged, but warned Headset to keep his hands in his pockets. He was doing really well until he saw the collection of movie replica swords on the back wall. His eyes widened and he yelled for Charlie to take a look.

  The moment he opened his mouth to call to her, it was like a jet blasted through the place. A mini sonic boom erupted from Headset's mouth, and every piece of glass in the store exploded. I threw myself instinctively over Bebe, and Charlie wrapped herself around Headset. I had only a fraction of a second to throw up a telekinetic shield around us to protect us from the worst of it.

  When the glass and dust had settled, we checked the kids over. They were fine despite Bebe's sadness over the broken jewelry box. People on the sidewalk were beginning to gather outside the store; peering through the shattered windows, murmuring amongst themselves. I saw a man pulling out his cellphone and realized there were two women already chatting away on theirs. Someone had probably already called the police.

  Without a word, Charlie grabbed Headset’s hand and rushed out of the store. Bebe and I were close on her heels, slipping past the store clerk as she stammered and gaped at the damage. She was completely oblivious to what had just happened. Needless to say, we were happy that the Beast had been fixed by the time we got back, because we drove five hours straight that day and ended up where we are now. Charlie was still a little worried about any security cameras that might’ve caught Headset’s display, but Cash reassured her that small towns usually didn’t have things like that, and even if they did, Headset’s blast had probably scrambled the circuits and destroyed the evidence.

  “This isn’t right!” Glitch declared, once we were all seated at the table again. He pouted down at the eggs on his plate. “The kid gets all the good powers.”

  “There, there, Glitch.” Cash patted his shoulder. “Maybe when you’re all grown up, you’ll get some nifty new powers, too.”

  Glitch sniffled and nodded, then went back to his food.

  Headset had only been sitting for a few minutes, but was already restless. “Can we go play? If I don’t climb anything again?”

  Charlie gave him a stern look. “You swear? Cross your heart?”

  “Yup,” he replied solemnly. He swiped his finger over his chest.

  With the deal sealed, she shooed them away. “Alright, go on.”

  The kids jumped down from their seats and ran off again, giggling.

  “So, there's that,” I said, finishing what was left on my plate. Dozer got up and brought a pitcher of orange juice to the table. He poured Charlie a glass.

  “Another power? Seriously?” Charlie looked at me wide-eyed. "When will this end?"

  I couldn’t give her an answer. I had two powers and Jason absorbed my empathetic ability when he was thirteen. He hadn’t developed any more since then, but thirteen was a long way off for Headset. Who knew what would happen between now and then?

  Charlie sighed and shook off the worry, like she always did, and came out of it with a smile. She picked up the conversation right where she left it.

  “I worry about the kids, Cash. I worry about constantly moving and not having a stable life for them. Especially now.”

  Cash kept chewing, intently listening without any inkling of the nervousness that jittered within Charlie. After the night Hawthorn crumbled into the sea, Charlie became a different person. She was no less kind, but it was easy to see with or without my empathic ability that she had become more cautious.

  “Headset needs to start real school this year and Bebe has already outgrown those second grader work books and videos we downloaded for her.”

  “Okay. We’ll get her more, the next step up. Whatever she needs. Headset, too.”

  “So, we were thinking about a more permanent place for us,” Dozer said.

  Dozer, Charlie and Glitch looked between themselves uneasily. The table had grown strangely quiet. I was picking up the weird vibe, but Cash was still oblivious. Glitch realized that Cash wasn't catching on. He cleared his throat and said, “Now, don’t freak out, man.”

  Cash hadn’t been freaking out. That was, until Glitch said not to. Suspicion stabbed at him, and he narrowed his eyes at Glitch. “Why would I freak out?” he asked, his voice a little sharper.

  “We were just thinking that we need a place where we can protect ourselves,” Charlie stated softly. "Where we could hide."

  “And where the kids could play safely and start going to a real school,” Dozer added.

  Cash just looked down at his plate. Internally, the tiniest bit of hesitation bloomed in him and I could tell he already knew what they were getting at, even though I didn’t have a clue.

  He regrettably opened up to their suggestion. “Sounds like you already know where you want to go.”

  Dozer cleared his throat. “We thought we could call Nyx and Lux.”

  Cash stabbed at his eggs over and over again with his fork and sighed. “I really didn’t want to have to do that. Like, ever.” I could sense him trying to flip through alternatives in his head, but his frustration told me he wasn’t finding any.

  “It’s the only place that we know of that’s truly safe,” Dozer said.

  “They aren’t so bad,” Charlie pleaded.

  “They’re pretty weird, but their house is sick.” Everyone at the table turned their eyes on Glitch. “What?” he said, eyes darting between us all. “It is.”

  Cash sighed. “They don’t want us hanging around.” He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “They never said that. And you’ll never know until you ask, right? I’m sure if you brag about Liv and Bebe’s powers, they’ll be intrigued,” Charlie suggested hopefully. “Oh, and Headset’s new powers too, I guess,” she said that last part with a bit of sourness.

  “Okay, who are these people?” I asked.

  Cash’s appetite seemed to have vanished. He pushed his plate away and sighed. “We met Nyx and Lux when they were on vacation and we thought we were alone. It was a pretty private strip of beach, but they saw Charlie go under and resurface about twenty minutes later. They’re Anomalies too. So, naturally, they were curious.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin.

  Charlie picked up where he’d left off. “They’re very interested in other people’s powers.”

  “What do they do?”

  “You’ll see. Maybe. If Cash gives us the okay.” She bit her lower lip and pleaded to Cash with bright blue eyes, hope bleeding out of her.

  Cash let out a frustrated sigh, seemingly on the brink of a decision, then caved. “Fine. I’ll call them.”

  “Thank you, Cash!” Charlie squealed. She jumped up to threw her arms around Cash’s neck. Although he was slightly irritated, he hugged her back. It was pretty hard to resist Charlie’s affection, no matter how frustrated you felt.

  When she untangled herself from him, Cash palmed his cell and walked outside to make the call. I was still a little confused, but this was my family. They were my lif
e now, and I went with it. Besides, I didn’t really care where we went. A place to sleep was a place to sleep.

  “You’ll love it, Liv,” Charlie said cheerily. “It’ll be good for you.” If I closed my eyes and focused on her, I could feel her happiness lighting up like a bulb; brightening until it became blinding. I could still feel it as she ran off to our room.

  “She’s going to start packing,” Glitch laughed.

  “She loves Tahoe,” Dozer said. He liked when she got excited about things. Though he didn’t show it, seeing her become so animated always lit something up inside him too.

  “Tahoe?” I asked. I’d never been there. “The lake, right?”

  "Yep. Their house is so sick." Glitch looked up at the sky, praising the magnificence that was their abode.

  A few moments later Cash returned. An air of regret hung around him like a cloud, so I suspected that Nyx and Lux had said no to the idea. Everyone at the table looked up at him expectantly, myself included. For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt a faint buzz of excitement. Of course we had moved before, but this was different.

  "Well?" Glitch asked. "What did they say?"

  Cash's lips pursed. "They said we could stay there."

  Another squeal erupted from Charlie's room and bounced across the open courtyard.

  “Does she have super hearing too?” Glitch whined.

  “No, she’s got mom hearing. It’s comparable.” Dozer laughed.

  Within a few hours of the good news Cash had us checked out and Charlie had us packed up. We’d gotten good at picking up and leaving at a moment's notice.

  We piled into the Beast for the ride to Lake Tahoe, Nevada. The ride through the city seemed endless. There was so much traffic, exhaust and noise that my head began to spin, but I was able to relax a little once we got on the open road.

  "Look! That sign has a deer on it! Are we going to see a deer?" Bebe asked, excitedly.

  "Maybe. Keep your eyes peeled." Cash let out a chuckle. The sound drew my gaze to him. His dark eyes were on the road but the corner of his mouth was curved upward in the kind of smile that made me feel warmer inside. He felt my gaze on him and cut me a look, but I quickly averted my eyes back to the roadside. I didn't want him to feel bad for the pull of his voice and hold back more than he had to.