Milo shook his head. “No, Sky. No.” He spoke to me out loud, no doubt hoping to be heard over the noisy loop that was playing in my head. “No, that’s not what I meant. Shit, I’m so sorry—”
Milo had said shit. It shocked me into a mental silence of sorts, which he filled with waves of apology.
Dana cleared her throat impatiently, and Milo looked up for a moment. It was long enough for him to relax his hold on my shoulders—and long enough for me to slip free from his grasp.
I didn’t want him to touch me. Yes, I got that he was sorry, but I still wasn’t sure quite what for. Because he’d said shit? Because he’d kissed Rochelle? Because he’d liked the dangerous game he’d been playing with her and was willing, under the guise of the mission, to take it even farther…?
“All right. Push the pause button on the lovers’ quarrel. We have stuff to discuss here. Milo.” Dana turned to face him. “The date-with-D-addict idea? That was a good call.”
I laughed, and I confess that I sounded a tad insane.
Milo turned toward me. “Skylar, I’d appreciate it enormously if you’d trust me,” he said.
Calvin was wide-eyed and I know he was trying to help when he chimed in with, “I think it’s Rochelle she doesn’t trust. You should check out this recording. The way she looks at you is…” He made a face as he shook his head.
Dana pushed the conversation forward. “You’re not going back there now,” she informed Milo. “That’s a no-brainer. It’ll be dangerous enough for you to meet her at some restaurant—and you are going to meet her, none of this picking her up. And while I wish that we didn’t have to wait twenty-four hours, it is what it is, and it’s better than nothing. In the meantime, it makes sense to continue the stakeout. Rochelle said she had plans tonight, so if she leaves, we’re right here—to go in and see if Jilly really is inside that closet.”
“She’s in there.” Even as Milo said the words, he gazed at me, his brow furrowed. I couldn’t tell if the look he was giving me was a result of his concern for Jilly or simply a reaction to my incredibly uncool crazy-girlfriend outburst.
Trust me. I wanted to trust him. He loved me—I could smell it. At least I thought I still could… But why did he want so desperately to go back inside that house? And I knew he wanted to go, and desperately was putting it mildly.
As much as I wanted to look away, Milo’s dark eyes drew me in and kept me there. Even though I couldn’t communicate with him unless we were touching, I still felt a tiny charge shoot through the air—like radio static in a distant room.
Dana broke the spell. “Miles,” she said in a carefully even tone. Milo looked away from me, and the dubious connection between us was gone. “I acknowledge your conviction. And part of me believes you might be right. Jilly could be in there. But…” She sighed. “I’ve been thinking. If you were a D-addict like Rochelle, and you discovered that your daughter or your niece or your whatever the eff this girl is was a Greater-Than…? What would you do?”
She looked from Milo to me to Garrett to Cal, who glanced up from the tablet to say, “Uh-oh.”
“Oh no,” I breathed as light dawned.
Milo just clenched his teeth.
“Yup.” Dana nodded grimly.
“What?” Garrett asked, looking at us, then back at Dana. Because he was still new at this Destiny business, he was clueless.
“An adolescent G-T like Jilly,” Cal told him. “That’s not blood running through her veins; it’s gold.”
“Jilly’s got blood that Destiny dealers need. It’s an essential ingredient for their product.” Dana broke it down for him. “Also? The dealers have the product that Rochelle needs to survive. Do the math. It wouldn’t surprise me if Rochelle traded Jilly to her dealer.”
“Traded?” Garrett still didn’t understand. “Her own daughter?”
I made it as simple as possible. “Sold. You know. Like a prostitute or a slave.”
“Slave?” His eyes widened. “Whoa! Really?”
“It’s possible, yeah,” Milo said, but then he shook his head at Dana. “It doesn’t make sense. If Rochelle already received a supply of Destiny from her dealer in exchange for Jilly, then why is she paying off Man-in-Black in that parking lot—with money she got from pawned jewelry?”
Dana frowned. “Yeah,” she muttered, almost as if to herself. “If he’s her dealer? That part makes no effing sense.”
Everyone paused and considered this for a moment. It was like a question mark just dangled there in the air.
“Unless she’s paying down her debt for past purchases?” I suggested. “In weekly installments?”
“Maybe,” Dana said, but she didn’t sound convinced. “Hard to believe Rochelle wouldn’t include that kind of settlement when she brokered Jilly’s trade.”
“Maybe the man in black has nothing to do with Destiny,” I tried, but then Calvin cut me off.
“Yo! Guys! Check it out!” His eyes were wide as he smiled and held the tablet up and waved it around excitedly.
“What is it? Cal, we can’t see what you’re holding up if you move like that.” Dana sounded like a teacher lecturing a student.
But Cal couldn’t stop wiggling around in his seat and waving the tablet around victoriously. If he’d been physically capable of getting out of his chair and bouncing up and down, he seriously would have done it.
Garrett actually attempted to focus on the tablet screen as Calvin waved it through the air. His quick head movements reminded me of a cat trying to pounce on a laser light.
“Morgan! It’s an email! Morgan-the-super-G-T actually emailed me back! She wants to meet us tonight!” Cal whooped and waved the tablet around once more. This time, in his excitement, he almost dropped the thing on the ground.
Dana used her own G-T powers to impatiently swipe the tablet away from Cal. It flew through the air and landed neatly in her own hands.
“Whoa,” Garrett said. “Heh-heh.”
Dana scanned the screen quickly and rolled her eyes. “Wow. And she only charges two hundred and fifty bucks for this meeting, huh? What a bargain.” Her tone was the opposite of enthusiastic.
Milo came around the front of the car and leaned against the driver’s side door next to Dana, so he could read the tablet over her shoulder. I turned, wanting to look as well. But the last thing I needed to be doing right now was following Milo around some more.
“What’s it say?” Garrett asked.
“She wants to meet up in Palm River,” Milo read. He glanced up at Dana and Cal. “That’s not too far, right?”
“Only half an hour!” Cal answered. “Twenty-five minutes if we hoof it…” He frowned. I knew it was sinking in, and he was thinking about the two hundred and fifty dollars that he most definitely didn’t have. Two fifty—simply to meet this girl. It would cost more, guaranteed, if she agreed to help us help Sasha. “Should I tell her no?”
Dana locked eyes with Cal. And then she sighed mightily and reached into the pocket of her leather jacket with her free hand before pulling out a wad of cash and tossing it onto Cal’s lap. “Tell her yes.”
Cal beamed at Dana—who looked away, mainly because Calvin’s grin was severely contagious, and I knew that Dana was in no mood for smiles because I wasn’t either.
“You!” She pointed at Garrett. “Stay with me and help me keep an eye on the Rochelle-cams. Cal? Sky? Milo? The three of you can go to Palm River and get yourselves disappointed and scammed, for all I care.”
But she did care—we all knew that. If Morgan was for real, and if she had the ability to get inside little Sasha’s head, and if Sasha really had seen Lacey at some point during her abduction… There were a lot of ifs there, but after months of hitting dead ends, this could be the path to finding Dana’s long-missing sister.
Cal’s smile faded as he reached out to touch Dana’s sleeve. “But maybe you
should come with me, or…I could stay here at the stakeout with you, and let Sky and Milo go—”
“No,” Dana interrupted. “You’re the one with the connection to Morgan. You need to go. G and I will be fine here.”
Garrett smirked. “Yeah, dude. We’ll be extra-fine.”
Cal shot Garrett the evil eye. I didn’t realize my best friend had it in him. But he wasn’t messing around.
Garrett knew it too. “Man, I’m joking,” he added. “I’d never shoplift your lady.”
Milo was gazing at me, and I looked up to lock eyes with him again. I didn’t need telepathy to read his expression. He was dreading the drive to Palm River. I didn’t blame him. A half hour there and a half hour back? The tension in the car would be thick enough to cut with a knife.
Of course we could both man up and have a grown-up conversation right here and right now. But the look on Milo’s face was clear. He didn’t want to talk.
And I wasn’t going to force him.
“Milo should stay here, with you,” I blurted, my heart breaking a little as I turned to Dana. “You’ll need his help if Rochelle leaves. In case Jilly really is inside that closet.” I swallowed hard and nodded, as if I needed actual reassurance from myself that I was making the right call. “Just…” I glanced at Milo again, and my voice grew softer. “Just stay here. Please?”
“Good call.” Dana nodded approvingly. “Good with you, Miles?”
Milo looked miserable. He glanced from me to Dana, and then back to me again. “Yes,” he said finally.
“Good.”
Calvin let out a whoop, trying desperately to change the grim mood. “Lessssss goooo, beeeetches!” he exclaimed and clasped the wad of cash in his hands excitedly before doing a little happy dance in his wheelchair.
“Jesus.” Dana shook her head, but her grin was impossible to hide.
Milo took a step toward me as I headed for Cal’s car. “Sky.” His voice was quiet. It made me want to run into his arms, grab him, and hold on tight.
Instead, I kept walking. “Not now,” I replied without glancing up.
He wanted space. So I was going to give him plenty.
Chapter Ten
“Fag.”
The beefy-looking jock spewing the hate word was standing by the door in the Palm River CoffeeBoy, but his voice carried like a bell. And the message was clearly directed at the boy standing right behind me in the long line.
On my left, Cal dropped his jaw and shot the offender an Oh no you didn’t look.
But Jock-Boy most definitely had.
The kid standing behind us didn’t even turn around. He did nothing except lift his head a bit higher and take a long, deep, cleansing breath.
But Jock-Boy wasn’t finished with his abuse. “You are such. A faggot. God! What the fuck are you even wearing?”
As a matter of fact, the kid behind us was wearing an extremely cool rainbow-colored tank. He was stylish enough to pull off the look. He also had huge sunglasses and a designer bag that had probably required a serious down payment. And yes. Even without the Technicolor garb, he was also definitely setting off my gay-dar.
I turned to face him. His freckled face had darkened into a furious flush, and I caught a whiff of his anger. “Hi, I’m Skylar,” I said as pleasantly as possible, holding out a hand in greeting. “I love your shirt.” Translation: Let’s all ignore the a-hole and maybe he’ll go away.
The boy managed a smile as he took my hand. “Thanks,” he said in a quiet, even tone. “I’m Ray.”
The a-hole, sadly, did the opposite of go away. “I’m Ray,” he mocked, as he came toward us. “Like a little ray of homo sunshine. I’m so cute.”
The muscle in Ray’s jaw clenched, and I pointedly turned my back on the approaching idiot and continued our far more civilized conversation. “Nice to meet you,” I told Ray. “This is my friend Calvin.”
“Ray.” Calvin reached up a hand, and the two boys shook as well. “Cool bag, bro.”
“Thanks,” Ray said again. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Just passin’ though,” Cal said in his best High Plains Drifter imitation.
Ever since Cal had sent the elusive Morgan-the-Wonder-G-T an email confirming that we’d meet her tonight in Palm River, we’d been getting instructions more suited to delivering ransom for a hostage than having a casual meeting. But with our two hundred and fifty dollars in our pockets, we’d followed all of her cryptic rules and instructions.
Get off the highway at the second Palm River exit, pull off the road at the ancient car-pool lot, and send her another email with an embedded photo of the view facing west. (Which happened to include three palm trees that, silhouetted against the night sky, rather strongly resembled male genitalia. Calvin pointed that out with appreciation. I was not as amused.)
In response to our email-with-photo, we got a text from an “unknown” number telling us simply to wait—which we did for twenty very long minutes. (Calvin asked me approximately twenty-four Would You Rather questions. I answered maybe half with “Ew!”)
At that point, we got yet another text, telling us to drive to this local CoffeeBoy, go inside, and wait for further instructions. How? Who knew. Cal was hoping the message would come creatively—say, written in crayon on the side of our paper coffee cup. However, I was hoping Morgan herself would be there to greet us and end this farce of a scavenger hunt.
When we arrived, the little place was hopping. I scanned the crowd at the tables, searching for someone who might be a G-T. We didn’t know if Morgan was my age or older—or possibly younger. She might’ve been twelve, for all we knew.
As a Greater-Than, I could often tell when another girl was a G-T. It wasn’t foolproof, but it worked much of the time.
But aside from a table of hipster guys who ironically checked me out, there was no one in the ’Boy who even looked up at me, let alone who set my G-T senses a-tingling. Two exhausted-looking young women sat at a table together, but both had babies in strollers. An elderly woman sat alone, scowling at her laptop computer. A heavily tatted old man in camo simultaneously checked his phone and added a mountain of sugar to his coffee. Another man—golden haired and much younger, I think—hard to tell because his head was down—was at the table in the back corner, reading an actual printed book.
As for the other people in line with us, everyone else looked like they’d stopped in for liquid energy before dragging their tired butts home from a long day at work. Cal, Ray, and I were the only ones in our under-twenty age group.
And A-hole, of course. Who sadly hadn’t become invisible simply from our desire to render him so. “Cool bag,” he mocked. “For a homo.”
When he uttered the ugly slur, he reached out and pushed Ray solidly in the chest.
Ray, half A-hole’s size, took a wobbly step backward and nearly fell into Calvin’s lap.
I could smell fear now—it was thick and fishlike and awful.
Enough was enough. “Hey!” I said, and very deliberately stepped in between the bully and Ray. “Get a life, will you? That’s not okay!”
A-hole’s varsity jacket had the name Eric sewn onto the front. He was a big dude. Big enough so that I had to crane my neck to lock eyes with him—which was saying something. My mom likes to describe me as statuesque. Which is code for freaky-tall.
Eric had surpassed statuesque a long time ago. He was gargantuan. Ginormous. Gozilla-esque. And he had muscles.
He also didn’t scare me. Oddly enough, the fear that I smelled? It was coming from him, not Ray.
“What are you gonna do about it, Sugar-Tits? You gonna call your mommy on me?” He held an imaginary phone to his ear and spoke in a mocking falsetto. “Hello, Mommy? It’s me, Sugar-Tits! Come save me!” Eric laughed uproariously at his own words, as if he were the funniest person in the world.
But I wasn’t
laughing.
Cal wasn’t either. In fact, he’d wheeled himself closer to the action as well. “Nope. She doesn’t need her mommy. In fact, if you mess with her, you’ll most likely end up going home crying to yours. And, stop me if I’m wrong—Eric—but I doubt that would help with your precious he-man reputation.”
By now, the people in the ’Boy were flat-out staring. The line was still fairly long, with about three more orders to be placed before Cal and I made it to the counter. A lady in front of us whispered uneasily into her cell phone. I scanned the crowd again, because just then, I could’ve sworn that I felt it… It was faint, but it was back there. I was not the only G-T in this room.
“It’s all right, guys.” Ray put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head. “I’m just gonna leave—”
“What?” I said, pulling my focus back to the situation at hand. “No! You can’t just let him bully you like that—”
“Or what?” Eric took another step toward me, and this time I was the one he pushed, his hand against my chest. It was not quite a boob-grab, but it was close. The thwap of his giant hand was enough to knock the wind out of me, and I almost fell on my butt.
Almost.
Instead, I dug in my heels and stayed right where I was. I crossed my arms and breathed, willing myself to keep my G-T powers securely under wraps.
I hadn’t honed my abilities enough yet to use them discreetly, as Dana would say—and I’d proven that to be true yesterday at the Sav’A’Buck.
Here and now we were already drawing too much attention. The last thing we needed was for cups of coffee and little packs of creamer to start flying around the room. Until I had a stronger grasp on my abilities, the only safe time to plug into them was when no one was watching—or when someone’s life was in imminent danger.
Eric was a bully and an a-hole, but he hadn’t gotten to that point. Yet.
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