Quickly, I pull away and look up. I’m met with familiar green eyes as Adam smirks back at me.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
“No worries,” his smile is lazy and lopsided.
My eyes go to his mouth and I take note of his adorable dimple. His smile gets larger when he notices me staring.
I jump back, needing to break the contact between our two bodies. He lets go of my arms. So that I don’t have to look at him again, I drop down and start stuffing things back into my bags. Soon, I see two tan arms in front me helping as he leans over me and picks up the things that I’d dropped.
“You don’t have to…” I stop when I see that he’s picked up my new hoodie.
He holds it up. It looks minuscule next to his large frame.
“Cute,” he shoots me a cocky grin as he folds it neatly and hands it to me.
“Dude, come the hell on! Quit flirting and let’s go!” we’re interrupted by a small group of guys across the street.
Older guys I’m assuming, since none of them look familiar to me. One of them flicks a cigarette into the street and Sire runs over and sniffs at it.
“See ya’ around,” he whispers.
I say nothing. I don’t even thank him for helping me pick up my mess. I just nod at him before he turns and runs off to meet up with the group.
I make one more stop, before backtracking towards my house. The fact that my arms are now straining to carry everything lets me know that I bought too much junk. It’s all stuff that’s needed, but I usually go to one store at a time to avoid having to carry too much home.
The sun is starting to go down, which means I’m running really late. So instead of sticking to the main road then cutting down the wooded path that goes straight to my house, I decide to just to cut through the woods for a more direct path. I know when I make it to the water tower that I’m headed in the right direction.
Fallen leaves surround me in the wind and I laugh as Sire chases them down in an attempt to catch one in his mouth. I’m laughing so hard, that I almost don’t hear the loud arguing above me.
“Don’t be an asshole!”
“Yo! Screw you man!”
“Dude, forget about his punk-ass!”
Those remarks are followed by a lot of cussing and yelling. One of the voices is Adam’s. I walk further away from the tower until I can see the top of it. Sure enough, Adam is up there with three other boys and they seem to be fighting.
I can’t hear what they’re saying anymore, but I watch from afar as Adam and one of the boys start to fight. The other two stand by and watch as it happens. They’re too high to be fighting each other. It wouldn’t take much for one of them to get knocked over the side and fall to his death.
Adam’s fist connects with the boy’s cheek. I watch as he staggers to the side and the fighting stops. The unknown boy uses the back of his hand to wipe blood from the corner of his mouth. They start talking and relief courses through me when I think the fight is over.
Out of nowhere, they begin to brawl again. Adam punches the boy in the stomach causing him to fall to his knees in pain. I hear his loud growl as he rushes head first towards Adam—towards the side of the tower. Adam fights back, putting an elbow into the boy’s back as the boy shoves his shoulder straight into Adam’s stomach.
Everything turns to slow motion as I watch Adam get pushed over the side of the tall water tower. The world stops spinning and I pray that gravity will cease to exist.
Panic shoots up my spine. The hairs on my arms sting as they stand on end. The blood in my veins feels like it’s moving at the speed of light and my whole body feels cold and stiff.
I drop everything and reach out my right hand as if to catch him. My legs feel stiff when I start to run towards the spot I think will be his landing point. There’s no possible way in the world that I’ll actually make it to him in enough time to catch him. Not to mention, he would flatten me like a pancake if I did.
My heartbeat is racing in my ears; I can hear my own panting breaths over Adams screams. It’s then that I begin to feel a burning sensation in my right shoulder. At first, it isn’t all that bad, but then the sensation starts to grow, spreading deeper into my entire shoulder. It feels as if someone’s lit me on fire; the hottest fire imaginable.
This is what it must feel like to burn alive. The pure agony of the pulsating, searing heat in my shoulder is enough to make me go insane. I want to scream out in pain, but I can’t. All that’s important to me right now is that I make it to Adam and try something—anything—to help him.
I keep running, trying to ignore the burn that’s beginning to consume my every thought. Gradually, the horrific blaze works its way down my arm then past my elbow and wrist. I give in to the flame and a scream leaves my throat. The invisible inferno is too much for me as it seeps into the palm of my hand. I can’t take it anymore, the pain is unbearable.
I stop running, but I keep my hand held out to him even though I know it’s too late. The pain takes my breath away and finally I close my eyes and give in completely. The growling noise that I make when the smoldering fire in my palm begins to spread out into my fingers sounds inhuman.
My fingertips start to burn; they’re literally on fire. The flames dance on the ends of my fingers; hot and blue, spilling out of my fingertips. I roar out in agony.
“Adam!” I scream as I watch his flailing body almost crash into the jagged white gravel below the tower.
With one final flicker on my fingertips, the blue flame shoots out of my hand and straight towards Adam’s falling body. I instantly have second thoughts. What if instead of helping him I burn him alive? I picture Adam’s body turning to black ash and flittering away in the wind.
Either way, I have to do what instinctively feels right to me. He’s crashing into the ground anyway—I’ll take my chances on this new development with the blue fire.
I gasp with relief as the fire leaves me. Keeping my hand up, I hope that something will happen. I hold my breath and pray that finally this craziness inside of me will bring some form of good, and then…it does.
The fire surrounds Adam’s body. Blue combustion engulfs him completely. The blaze pops and cracks, filling the area with a cerulean hue. He stops in mid-air less than two-feet from the gravel. With a final crackle, the blaze dissolves.
I hold my arm there in amazement. My eyes are wide with shock. I can feel the weight of him in my hand, pushing my hand down, even though I’m at least ten feet away.
Oh. My.God! No way did that just happen!
My breath catches in my throat when I realize what I’ve just accomplished. I’ve somehow stopped Adam from hitting the ground—I just saved his life.
I keep him suspended in the air. I can’t drop my hand, I’m paralyzed by shock. His weight pushes harder against my palm and I start to feel weak. The weakness wins and I feel the gravel rocks connect with my knees. I let out the breath that I’ve been holding, before slowly allowing my hand to fall.
Adam floats to the ground like a feather, his eyes never leaving mine.
I watch as the three boys hurry down the water tower. When they get to the bottom they see Adam lying on the ground, but they don’t see me. Luckily, this means they didn’t see what I’d done either.
“Oh shit, dude! I think he’s dead. Run!” one of the boys says to the others.
The three run off into the woods like a bunch of cowards. What kind of people would just leave someone to die?
Adam’s still staring at me. I break eye contact and look at the ground—I can’t look at him, the consternation on his face. Pushing myself up from my knees, I shake my head a little to get rid of the dizziness, and then cautiously I walk towards him.
The blood is still rushing through my veins making a whooshing noise in my ears.
I don’t know what the hell just happened or how I did it. I’ve done some crazy things in my life, but this one takes cake. No, this one takes the cake, eats the cake, and then goes straight into a d
iabetic coma.
It was an uncontrolled madness, but yet I’d controlled it. I wanted Adam to stop falling and I’d stopped him. This is different—this is huge. A lot of small things have been happening lately, but this is not small.
I stand beside Adam looking down at his flushed face.
“Are you okay?” I hear myself ask.
My voice sounds like I’ve eaten the gravel.
“I—uh—yeah—I think so. What just—I could’ve—you just,” he stutters still in shock.
He’s still breathing in rapid pants and his entire body’s shaking. I drop to my knees next to him and take a deep breath. There’s no getting out of this one. I have no idea how much Adam saw, but he has to know that I’m the one that stopped him from crashing into the ground. He has to know that for about twenty seconds he levitated two feet above the gravel rocks. My guess is he also knows that I’m the reason for his sudden ability to fly.
“How did you do that?” he whispers.
“I don’t know.”
What else could I say? I don’t know—it’s the truth.
Reaching down, I help hoist him up into a sitting position.
“I suppose you’re going to tell people?” I ask. “I’m going to have to quit school if they believe you. Of course they may just think you’re crazy. Let’s hope for that scenario,” I attempt to smile.
A brave front strikes me and I decide to look up to see his facial expression. There isn’t one—he just sits there staring back at me, expressionless, like he’s in a stupor. I can’t blame him really. If I wasn’t so used to the peculiar things happening around me I’d probably be in disbelief too.
The environment around us becomes quiet and I sit there uncomfortably. The wet warmth of Sire’s tongue against the side of my face knocks me from my haze. I put my hand down on the ground for leverage as I try to get up and walk away. There’s no reason to sit here while he stares at me like I’m from another planet. He seems to be okay—nothing broken, bruised or incinerated.
I start to rise when Adam places his hand on my shoulder and keeps me in place. Falling back into my seated position, I wait impatiently for the beginning of my end. I might as well hear him out so I can prepare myself for the consequences. He opens his mouth to say something, but abruptly stops. I imagine a thinking cloud above his head full of exclamation points.
Oh great! He’s afraid of me, too!
“Thank y-you,” he stutters, as his mouth lifts into a nervous smile. “I—ah—I’ve always known you were different, but I don’t think I realized the extent of how different.”
Big freaky, scary Mage does it again!
“Yeah, I’m well aware of the fact that I’m a complete freak, you don’t have to remind me!” I snap.
“That’s not what I’m saying,” he says as he blows out a frustrated breath. He pushes his dark hair from his sweaty forehead in aggravation. “Are you always this self-conscious? Look—I’m not saying you’re a freak. I’d never say that. Plus, you just saved my ass! If anything I…I kind of think you’re amazing.”
He must be making fun of me. He can’t be serious! No one has every called me amazing. I know I’m far from being an amazing girl. Amazingly freakish, maybe? Besides the fact that I do bizarre things, I’m just a regular ole boring girl—definitely not amazing.
He rolls his eyes and sucks his teeth. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t say things like that to you,” he runs his hands down his face. “I’m going to kick Phillip’s ass the next time I see him,” he shakes his head causing his dark hair to cover his intense eyes.
With everything that’s going on, I’d forgotten about the fight or the fact that one of the guys had practically attempted to kill Adam.
“Who were those guys?” I ask.
“Just some assholes I work with after school.”
“What were you fighting about?”
“They’re druggies, I’m not. We don’t mix well, apparently,” he lets out a loud sigh. “Holy shit, I could’ve seriously died just now. You saved my life,” a sweet smile reaches his eyes.
It’s not the cocky amused smile that I’m used to seeing on his face. It’s an actual Adam smile—nothing more. I jump as he reaches up and tucks a dark strand of hair behind my ear.
“You’re so pretty, Mage. I thought so earlier today when you bumped into me. I’m starting to think you’re following me.”
The sound of my name on his lips makes me feel all weird inside. It’s a touchy-feely emotion I’ve never experienced before. Not to mention, no one’s ever called me pretty. It makes me feel all funny.
I now have a new feeling inside of me for Adam, one that I can add to the rest that won’t go away. There are so many feelings these days and they seem to be getting stronger. This means I need to stay the hell away from him.
It’s nice to know that he thinks I’m pretty, or at least he says he thinks so. More than likely it’s the affects of almost dying. But more than ever I have to keep my distance. This is the second time he’s seen me do something and this time it was something huge.
Again he tucks a wild strand of midnight hair behind my ear, but this time he runs a finger down my cheek. “How do you do these things?”
I jerk away as if I’d been burned and avoid his question.
“It doesn’t matter to me how you do it. Thank you, seriously,” he shakes his head in disbelief.
“No problem. Don’t mention it. Seriously, Adam, please don’t mention it. You helped me today so we’ll call it even, okay?”
“I’m not going to tell anyone! If I wanted to tell I would’ve done it in the second grade! Your secret’s safe with me! Damn!”
“I better go,” I say as I stand.
He follows me up and wobbles a little.
“Are you sure you’re okay? I can get someone if you’re not.”
“I’m fine!” he says in aggravation, as he brushes the white rock dust from his dark blue jeans.
I call for Sire to follow me, as if I need to tell him that. Sire’s becoming my shadow.
I give Adam another quick smile and then turn to go collect my things for the second time today. Adam comes over and helps.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“You just saved my life, it’s the least I can do,” he shrugs, as he continues to stuff things in my plastic bags, which are now falling apart.
“Thanks.”
“Like I said, it’s the least I can do,” his dimple shows with his smile. “I’m giving you a ride home.”
“No thanks,” I say, as I start to drag my things home with straining arms.
He sighs and shakes his head.
“Fine, then I’m helping you carry this stuff,” he takes most of my bags even with me protesting.
I say absolutely nothing as we walk side-by-side towards my house.
Today, I see a whole other side of Adam. Maybe it’s because we actually had some kind of conversation. I don’t know.
Either way it doesn’t matter. I can’t allow myself to start seriously falling for this dude just because he called me pretty. Especially when I’m sure he was just being nice. And even if he was serious…even if he thinks I’m pretty…the last thing I need is to accept someone in my life who’s almost guaranteed to either walk away in the end or get hurt because of me.
Chapter 6
TheNightmare
The silence is thick as Adam walks me to my front door. Neither of us knows what to say to the other. By the time we make it to my door, the plastic bags that we’re carrying are starting to bust and pop. This makes me appreciate his help carrying them even more.
I can’t come to terms with everything that’s happened in the last thirty minutes. First of all, I’ve just done something that I’ve never done before. My hand was actually on fire!
That’s right! I’m hot—for real!
Now, as I look down at that hand there’s nothing to show from that fire. There’s no redness or burn marks and I feel fine, not even a singed hair on
my arm. It’s the strangest thing; I don’t feel like a person who was a human Easy Bake Oven just a half hour earlier.
It’s time that I start figuring some things out. The small things that I’ve always been able to do growing up are becoming larger. A random hamburger flying across the room out of anger has become levitation of an actual person out of panic. The fact that I controlled it is amazing—at least that’s what Adam calls it.
Instead of being small uncontrollable things that happen because of my mood, I’m slowly becoming able to control these large things and making them happen on cue. I’m almost scared to know what will happen next—excited…but definitely scared. What kind of crazy things will I be able to do in the future?
It’s my new mission to find out.
Even more miraculous than the wild things I’m able to do, is the fact that Adam talked me after eight years without any contact and then he called me amazing. The boy that I’ve been infatuated with for most of my life called me amazing! In a matter of a few months, I went from lonely and bizarre to friendly and amazing.
Tonight, while I lounge in bed, I let the thoughts of Adam take over. I reach down and pat Sire’s side.
“Goodnight, Sire.”
He now sleeps in the house. He wasn’t too happy on the front porch so now every night he sleeps right next to my bed. It took some time to get used to the ferocious snores that he produces every night, but I feel so safe with him beside me.
It doesn’t take much for me to fall asleep and before long I’m in a strange place.
I’m standing facing the ocean with the wind blowing towards me. It cuts through my long, black hair making it fly all around my face. I feel warmth in my hand and I look over to find Adam standing next to me holding that hand. He smiles sweetly then pulls me towards him and hugs me tightly. I lean into him and rest my head against his chest. It feels so right to be in his arms and I never want him to let me go. He leans back, tucks my hair behind my ears, and then captures my face in his hands. Using his thumbs to stroke my cheeks, he stares into my eyes—my knees feel weak.
Wicked Fate (The Wicked Trilogy) Page 5