by Kelly Oram
Ryan gave me a squeeze, and having his arm around me reminded me of the mood I’d been in all week. A flash of him wrapped up in Becky’s arms instantly made my heart drop into my stomach. “I don’t feel like practicing anymore today,” I said.
Ryan heard the disappointment in my tone. “All right. It’s lunch time anyway, and I’ve officially worked up an appetite.”
I could tell by his careful tone, that Ryan was resisting the urge to ask me what was wrong, but he’s good at that for only so long. I didn’t want to explain it to him, so I decided to try to distract him. “You like New York–style pizza?”
Ryan instantly perked up. Mission accomplished. “I’m a guy. I love all forms of pizza.”
“Well, I happen to know where to find the best pizza in the country, so why don’t you point me in the direction of a bathroom, and once I’m cleaned up I’ll run get us lunch.”
“Aw, come on, Baker. I’m digging that post-workout look.”
“More like post-workout stink. Don’t forget I have a heightened sense of smell.”
I laughed when Ryan wrinkled his nose. Obviously he hadn’t thought of it like that. “Gross.”
“I know, so make sure you shower up while I’m out getting the pizza.”
“Yes ma’am.” Ryan saluted and marched me inside to the bathroom.
Forty-five minutes later I returned to the cabin with a hot pie from Ricci’s. I plopped it down on the patio table, where Ryan had barely sat down to wait for me, and his eyes grew really big when I lifted the lid.
“I’m telling you, best pizza in the country.” I said.
“This looks amazing! Where did you get this from?”
“This little town in Illinois.”
“You mean that state clear on the East Coast?” Ryan asked incredulously.
“Well, technically it’s the Midwest. Did you sleep through geography too?”
“Whatever. I just meant that it’s not exactly around the corner.” Ryan stared at the slice of pizza in his hands for a moment as if it were magical, but when the smell reached his nose, he snapped out of it. Once he was on his third or fourth piece, he finally slowed down enough to carry on a conversation politely. “I can’t believe you just went all the way to Illinois.”
“It is kind of surreal sometimes when I think about what I can do,” I admitted.
“I wish I had powers too. How much fun would it be if I could just go tromping around the country on a whim and still be back in time for dinner? I’d be at Miami Beach all the time. Or New York.”
I knew what he meant, but I couldn’t stop his comment from ripping at my stomach. I would never wish for something so awful to be placed on anyone, especially not Ryan. But then, my powers hadn’t seemed like nearly as much of a burden since I’d told Ryan about them, and part of me agreed that it would be amazing to be able to drag Ryan off to my favorite spot with me.
“The Grand Canyon,” I whispered.
“What?”
I blushed as I remembered the first dream of mine Ryan ever starred in. “If I could take you anywhere with me, I’d take you to the Grand Canyon, not New York. Best sunsets on the planet.”
Ryan considered this for a minute and then smiled. “We’ll plan a trip sometime. You’ll just have to go by plane like us mere mortals.”
“Like you mortals?” I groaned. “Oh please! Shut up and eat that last piece.”
Ryan laughed but did as he was told, and was quiet as he polished off the last of the pizza. When he was finished he finally broke the silence. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure.”
“But you have to promise not to freak out.”
That made me a little nervous, but my curiosity got the better of me. “Okay,” I agreed slowly.
“I was just wondering…”
“Yeah?”
“Well, I was just thinking about how you got your powers.”
I felt butterflies in my stomach as I remembered the accident. “And?”
Ryan gulped nervously, but he looked determined to spit out whatever was on his mind. “I was just wondering why…Derek”—he stumbled over the name—“didn’t end up like you.”
I couldn’t hide my shock, and Ryan’s face paled when he realized he might have upset me. “I don’t mean to pry,” he said shyly. “It’s just that, well, if it was the waste from the truck combined with the electricity that gave you your powers, then shouldn’t Derek have gotten them too, instead of…you know…”
I felt like I was going to be sick. It was a logical enough question. Obvious even, if you really thought about it, but I still never expected Ryan to make that connection. It was part of a secret I’d sworn to take with me to the grave. But I had to answer him somehow. I watched Ryan’s face carefully as I spoke, unsure of what I was searching for exactly but terrified all the same. “Derek wasn’t in the car when the truck hit me. He wasn’t sprayed with the chemicals, just electrocuted.”
Ryan was quiet for a minute, and I wondered if he could see me trembling. “What was he doing if he wasn’t in the car with you? Where was he?”
“We were coming back from this place we liked to go to sometimes. An old bridge over a big irrigation canal hidden in the middle of a cornfield. It’s a nice quiet place for stargazing. I beat him back to the car, and right after I got in, that’s when the truck appeared.”
This answer seemed to suffice for the time being, and when he hesitated I became desperate to change the subject. There were still questions he could ask. Questions that I knew he would ask if he had time to think about them. Questions that I knew I wasn’t prepared to give answers to. Not even to Ryan.
“Can I ask you a question?” I asked quickly when he started to open his mouth, another question dripping from his lips.
He choked on his words, surprised by my request, and then nodded. “Sure, anything.”
“What’s the story with you and Becky? Why haven’t you guys ever gone out?”
That one floored him. And rightfully so. It was way more out of the blue than the one he’d asked me. I hadn’t been planning to pry into this subject, but I was curious, and my question accomplished its purpose. Ryan forgot all about my accident and my dead boyfriend.
“Um…” he stuttered, still a little startled. “Well, actually we did for a while. Kind of. If sixth grade counts.” The smile that subconsciously spread across his face was tragically beautiful. “She was my first kiss.”
“Oh.”
“You’re not worried about Becky, are you?” Ryan asked, looking up at me with an anxious expression. I guess my disappointment was poorly disguised. Of course I had no reason to be jealous, no right to be, but I was. “There’s nothing like that going on between us anymore. There hasn’t been for years and years. I promise you, Jamie, you have nothing to worry about.”
Ryan’s promise tore my heart into pieces. Why was he declaring his faithfulness to me when we weren’t even in a relationship? When we could never be in a relationship? Ryan deserved so much more than to waste himself on an impossible crush, and I couldn’t take advantage of him like that.
I’d asked the question casually, but this conversation seemed anything but casual all of a sudden. “That’s exactly what has me worried though, Ryan—the fact that there’s nothing going on. Becky is so pretty, and aside from how she feels about me, she seems really nice. You obviously care a great deal for her. She could be the perfect girlfriend for you. That’s something that I could never be. You deserve the things she could give you, all the things I can’t.”
I was horrified when my eyes betrayed me and filled with tears. I batted them away quickly, but the damage had been done. Ryan was already on his feet and scooping me out of my chair, into his arms. “But she can’t be you,” he insisted. “Don’t you understand that you’re the one I want? You. Not Becky or Paige or any other girl that may or may not be able to make out with me. Just you.”
Ryan was doing his very best to win me over, and I was so close
to giving in. Too close. I couldn’t remember why I was supposed to resist him anymore. I just knew that I should. I began to chant No! No! No! over and over in my head until I gained some of my strength back. “No,” I finally managed to say out loud, only it came out as a faint whisper. “You shouldn’t want me, Ryan.”
I pulled myself out of Ryan’s grip and started to run. I don’t know why I didn’t take off at superspeed. Still feeling the fuzzy effects of his “just me” speech, maybe. I only got as far as the front steps. Ryan grabbed me by the wrist, whirled me around, and pulled me down onto the porch swing we’d been sitting on earlier. “Oh no you don’t. You are not running away from me this time.”
“Ryan, please!”
“No!” He clamped his arms around me and held me down beside him on the swing. Not in a scary aggressive way, just so that I couldn’t get away without going super-Jamie on him. “If you don’t want to be with me because you’re not ready for another relationship or you don’t like me that way, then that’s fine. I can respect that. I could even deal with the excuse that you’re just too scared. That’s a lame excuse, but it’s one I could live with. What I can’t live with is you playing the martyr because you don’t think you’re good enough for me, understand?”
I took that as a rhetorical question, but I stopped straining against his grip. He felt me relax and narrowed his eyes at me as he let me go. I slumped back in my seat and didn’t fight him when he slid his arm around me and tucked me securely into his side. He let out what sounded like a sigh of relief and then rested his head on top of mine.
I wondered what he was thinking about as we sat there, but I didn’t ask. I had a feeling I was better off not knowing this time, because he buried his nose in my hair and inhaled really deeply before planting a kiss on the side of my head. Then the arm he had around my shoulder dropped down my back and slid around my waist in order to pull me even tighter to him.
For a split second his fingers slid across the bit of my skin that was exposed between the bottom of my T-shirt and the top of my low-rise jeans. I wasn’t sure if he’d noticed the contact, but I sure did, and the brief touch sent a shock wave through me.
Ryan did notice. His fingers quickly found their way back to my skin, and then he slid his free hand firmly across my stomach, making sure to catch as much of my bare skin as he could before lacing his fingers together, locking me in his arms. The action raised goose bumps on my skin. “Ryan.” I sighed reluctantly. It was meant as a warning.
He cut me off with gentle authority. “Shh. We’re just going to sit here for a minute.”
He didn’t say anything more because he knew he’d won the argument. Not that I’d put up much of a fight this time.
Ryan was beginning to learn where my weaknesses were and was artfully figuring out how far he could push me before I hit the panic button on him. He waited a few minutes until I was completely relaxed again, and then he unlocked his hands and began grazing my skin with his fingertips. His touch caused a burning sensation that left a trail everywhere his fingers roamed. My whole body shuddered. As I gasped, trying to find enough breath to tell him to stop, he cut me off with a whisper. “Jamie?”
I could barely think straight anymore. “Hmm?” I breathed in a voice so small I wasn’t sure if he’d heard me.
“Kiss me.”
I shuddered again at his request. “No.”
I answered his question but didn’t have the strength to tell him to stop the torture his fingers were inflicting. I shuddered again, forcefully enough that Ryan stopped what he was doing and locked his hands back together. “You’re ready,” he insisted. “If you can handle this, then you can handle just one kiss.”
Suddenly I felt his nose brush against my jaw. His lips fluttered across my ear as he whispered a faint, “Please?”
My pulse was racing and I felt almost faint, but I concentrated on my breathing, willing myself to stay calm. I wasn’t strong enough to resist him, so I had to try my hardest not to hurt him. And then his hand was under my chin tilting my head up to his. Our lips met before I even realized what was happening, and that was the end of it. Every logical thought I had slipped right from my mind.
Just like the first time we kissed, my body pulled me to him like a magnet to iron, and my arms wrapped themselves around his neck. I felt the flow of energy pass through us, and Ryan responded by pulling me closer to deepen his kiss. I felt the hairs begin to rise on the back of his neck and started to pull away. “No,” Ryan gasped, refusing to let me go. “No, it’s okay.”
Ryan’s a persuasive guy, and an even better kisser, so when his lips crashed down on mine again, I kissed him back with full force. When I lost complete control of myself, the flowing power became more intense than ever, and I realized I was not giving off energy, but rather pulling it to me.
I could feel my body sucking power right out of the atmosphere around me. The electricity from the house, and the power lines that fed it, came rushing at me in all directions. Everything felt so warm, and a whirlwind of energy began to circle around us whipping my hair about in a wild frenzy.
When Ryan’s entire body finally began trembling against me, my passion was quickly replaced with panic. I meant to simply push him back enough to separate us, but all of the energy I’d channeled had made me much stronger than normal. When my hands pressed against his chest, I accidentally knocked him back a good twenty yards. He went flying off the swing and over the porch railing, where he landed on the dirt driveway.
I’d thrown him so far that I was sure I’d hurt him, and I started to rush to his side. But as I bounded down the steps, I could feel that something was really, really off with me. Not wrong necessarily but definitely not good either. I felt scary powerful. All of the energy I’d sucked in was bouncing around inside me like atoms in a nuclear bomb.
I stopped, afraid that if I moved a muscle I would lose control of all the wild power inside me. Holding still didn’t seem to help. The energy flowed through my body causing my arms and legs to shake with fury. My hair began flowing away from my head as if the energy was trying to escape through each individual strand. Heat began to rise to the surface of my skin, and my palms felt like they were on fire.
I was momentarily distracted from my situation when I heard a groan. Ryan had regained consciousness and sat up holding a hand to his head. I was confused because as far as he’d flown there should have been some damage done, but he looked merely shaken up, not really hurt. He looked around in a daze for a moment until his eyes fell on me.
“Jamie!”
The way he screamed, as if he feared for my life, startled me from my trance, and the fire beneath my palms suddenly exploded from me like bolts of lightning. The blasts shot straight out from my hands, whizzing over Ryan’s head by only a couple of feet, and zapped a gigantic pine tree behind him. With a blinding light and a deafening crack of thunder, the base of the tree exploded out from under itself.
Ryan hollered my name again, but not as loudly as I screamed his, because the tree behind him was starting to fall. Unable to make myself move, all I could do was scream, “Look out!” and point at the three-foot-thick trunk falling directly toward him.
With no time to pick himself up and run, Ryan threw his hands above his head in an instinctive move to shield himself. My heart stopped beating as the tree crashed down, but to my astonishment, Ryan caught the massive trunk and held it steady above his head.
We stared at each other in disbelief for a moment. It should have been impossible. How had it happened? What had happened? I was worried, but I watched that infamous beautiful grin spread widely across Ryan’s face, and he threw the tree behind him in much the same manner as I’d tossed him just moments before.
“That was freaking awesome!” Ryan laughed as he rose to his feet, but I couldn’t follow his lead. Relief, shock, and fatigue all caught up with me in that moment, and I realized that the explosion had left me feeling completely weak. My muscles were like Jell-O, and my knees bu
ckled.
When Ryan came rushing to my aid, I screamed, “No! Wait!” But it was too late. Ryan grabbed me and electricity surged through his body. The jolt kicked him hard, knocking him on his back. His muscles contracted in wild spasms for a second, and then he fell lifelessly against the dirt.
* * * * *
CHAPTER 15
It could have been worse, I guess. Though at the time I couldn’t see how. But at the time I thought he was dead. He sure looked dead, which meant I’d killed yet another boyfriend. Not that Ryan was my boyfriend, you know, technically, but he was close enough.
I screamed at first—so loud that I’m surprised the neighbors didn’t come to investigate even if they did live nearly two miles away—but the screams morphed into sobs when I noticed him breathing.
A wave of relief washed over me, but it wasn’t nearly enough. He was still unconscious, his hair was standing on end, and his skin looked grossly pale. I had to do something. If I hadn’t been sure I’d fry him all over again, I’d have carried him to a hospital already, but as it was, I couldn’t touch him.
I hated feeling so helpless. I tried to calm myself down, but it was useless. The crazy emotions were rebuilding the energy I’d exerted with the blast of lightning. I was already starting to feel strong again, and that made me dangerous. All I could do was sit there with him and wait.
I cried, begging Ryan to wake up, until my ears caught the sound of the faint humming I’d heard just before lunch. I sucked in my sobs and turned my eyes to the forest, focusing all my attention on the sound. It was definitely electronic. A video camera maybe? And it was coming from way off in the distance, up the side of the mountain, deep in the trees.
The harder I listened, the more things came into focus. Wind pushing its way through the pine needles. Tiny feet scampering in the branches. A nondescript rustling in the bushes. Breathing. And a heartbeat. I wasn’t sure I was hearing a human—a deer would breathe and have a heartbeat too.