He shot me a disappointed frown and flopped onto the futon, kicking his heels onto a small, rickety table. “Not to worry, baby. What’d ya get caught doing this time?”
I forced a sly smile and shrugged. “Oh, you know, the usual.” I hitched my thumb back at Kale. “What Dad is thrilled to find a half-naked guy in his daughter’s bedroom?” I hoped that would explain the clothing Kale wore—clothing that obviously wasn’t his.
“Such a little hellcat.” He blew me an exaggerated kiss. A grin that told me he was picturing himself in Kale’s place slipped across his face. “Tell me again why we haven’t hooked up yet?”
I sank into the chair across from him. “I don’t like dealers?”
“Oh yeah, that’s right. How could I forget?” He nodded in Kale’s direction. “Who’s the mute?”
“Curd, Kale.” I waved in Kale’s direction. “Kale, Curd.”
“I touched you,” Kale interjected after a moment of silence.
Curd snickered. “If you were in her bed, I certainly hope you weren’t touching yourself.” He turned to me, right eyebrow cocked. “Is he special?”
I glared at him.
He shrugged. “You guys thirsty? I’ll go find some soda—or something a little harder?”
I sighed and said, “Soda’s fine.”
Kale watched Curd disappear up the narrow staircase leading to the first floor and took a step forward. He repeated his previous statement. “I touched you.”
“Yes,” was all I could manage. His blue eyes pinned me to the chair. A mishmash of emotion raged inside my head. I was torn between checking the exits for men in weird suits and checking out Kale. And then I remembered Dad and the gun…
“You’re still alive.”
“Should I not be?” There was that look again. Like he was standing in the presence of some mythical creature and had been granted a year’s supply of wishes. It made me uncomfortable. It’s not like I wasn’t used to being stared at, and to be fair, I’d done my fair share of staring tonight, but this was different. Intense in a way I’d never felt before.
He took another step forward, head tilted to the side. “That’s never happened. Ever.” He reached for me, hesitating for a moment before pulling his hand back. “Can…can I touch you again?”
I probably should have been weirded out by a question like that. Any other day, I would have been, but Kale’s eyes sparkled with wonder and curiosity. Gone was the cold expression he’d worn back at my house. His voice was soft, but there was a fierce longing in it that made my mouth go dry. I pushed my discomfort aside, nodded, and stood.
For a big guy, he moved surprisingly fast, darting around the coffee table to stand in front of me. Close. Breathing-the-same-air kind of close. I expected him to grab my wrist, or maybe my arm, but instead he brought his right hand up to cup the side of my face.
“You’re so warm,” he said in awe as his thumb traced whisper light under my eye—like wiping away tears. “So soft. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
Neither had I. His thumb, barely skating across my skin, left a trail of warm tingles in its wake that spread throughout my entire body. His breath, puffing out softly across my nose and forehead, was warm and sweet, almost dizzying.
A loud clanking rang from upstairs—Curd must have dropped something—snapping me out of it. I cleared my throat. “Um, thanks?”
“You helped me escape Cross,” he said, stepping back. “I tried to kill you, and you helped me escape. Why?”
I shrugged. “My dad’s a dick. Pissing him off is a hobby. ’Sides, you didn’t really try to kill me. You were scared.”
“I don’t get scared.”
“Everyone gets scared.”
Now wasn’t the time to argue. I needed answers. Things started churning in the back of my brain. Strange, late-night phone calls. Oddly timed trips to the office. All things that, had I been paying attention, might have popped up as red flags. “You said my dad was a killer. That’s some kind of euphemism, right?”
“I’m one of his weapons.”
“Weapons?”
“He uses me.”
The way he said it gave me chills. The creepy kind, this time. “To what? Like, spy on the other side’s clients?” Even though I knew it was likely crap now, my subconscious was desperate to hang onto the belief that Dad was a lawyer.
“No.”
I folded my arms, getting irritated. “Then give me a hint here. What is it you do for Dad?”
Taking two steps forward, blue eyes bright, he spoke softly. “I kill for him.”
I blinked and tried to visualize Dad as the big bad. Couldn’t do it. Or wouldn’t. Sure, he was a tool and we hadn’t really talked in years, but a killer? No way.
Turning his palms upward, Kale raised both hands and flexed his fingers. “They bring death to anything I touch.”
I remembered the ground he walked across at the stream had looked wrong. Discolored.
I passed it off on the beer at the time, but…
He jerked away each time I got close enough to touch him…
He wouldn’t take my shoes off…
The air caught in my lungs and the room began to shrink. “Your skin…?”
I would’ve called bullshit, but I of all people knew first hand crazy shit was possible. Plus, there’d been rumors floating through the raver scene for years now, ever since a local boy was arrested during Sumrun seven years ago. Rumor had it, the guy shorted out the electricity with a single touch of his fingers after being chased to the party by police. After they took him away, no one ever saw him again.
“Is deadly to anything living. Except you. How am I able to touch you? Everyone else would have died a horrible death.”
I took a step back. It was hard to concentrate with him staring like that. “Let’s focus here for a sec. You’re trying to tell me that my dad uses you as a weapon? A weapon against what exactly?”
His face fell. “Not what, who.”
“Who?” I really didn’t want to hear his answer. Either my mysterious hottie was crazy or Dad was… Well, either way his answer was bound to throw another bird at my building.
“People. He uses me to punish people.”
“My dad has you touch people? To kill them?”
“That is correct.” The shame in his voice was like a vacuum, stealing all the air from the room. Eyes rising to meet mine, he reached out and ran his finger along the line of my chin and to my cheek, letting his touch linger for a few moments. I found myself wanting to take it all away. The heavy, sad look in his eyes. The pain in his voice. I could do it, maybe. Tell him something about myself that might make him feel less alone. Less isolated. A secret I’ve never spoken aloud before.
I opened my mouth, but when the words came out they weren’t what I’d expected. “You’re wrong. My dad’s a lawyer.” The walls that had been in place for as far back as I could remember stood strong.
“A lawyer kills people?”
“Are you serious?” This so wasn’t happening. Dad wasn’t part of some super-secret conspiracy theory. He was a stick-up-the-ass control freak workaholic. With weird hours. And, for some reason, a gun. Not a killer.
Kale’s face remained blank.
“Of course they don’t kill people! They put the bad guys away, get rid of ’em so they can’t hurt anyone.” Not the most accurate description, but the simplest I could come up with.
“No, that’s definitely not what your father does. That’s what I do. The Denazen Corporation uses me to punish those who have done wrong. I’m a Six. Does that make me a lawyer?”
Ugh. So much for simple. “What the hell is a Six?”
“It’s what we’re called.”
O-kaay. “And punish those who’ve done wrong? Who says what’s right and wrong?”
“Denazen, of course.” He frowned and turned away. “And I belong to them.”
“Where the hell are your parents?”
Voice barely a whisper, he said, “I don’t have any parents
.”
“You’re a human being, not a weapon. You don’t belong to anyone,” I hissed. “And of course you have parents, even if you don’t know where they are.”
Fuming, I ripped the little leather cardholder from my back pocket and tugged out a picture. My mom. I’d found it years ago in Dad’s bottom desk drawer. I’d only known who she was because of her name written on the back in scrawling blue ink. Dad refused to talk about her—he told me her name, gave me a brief, watery description—and that was it. As I got older, I’d started looking more and more like the woman in the picture, which was probably why he hated me. I’d catch him watching me once in awhile. Like he might have been imagining it was her sitting there, and not me. Like he wished it was her instead of me. It made sense. It was my fault he’d lost her, after all. She’d died having me. Sometimes I hated myself, too.
“My mom is gone—that doesn’t mean I don’t have one.” I shook the photo at him.
Kale closed the gap between us and took the picture from my hands. He purposefully let his fingers brush my wrist, giving a quick smile. “This is your mother?”
I nodded.
“You don’t visit her?”
“I can’t visit her, she’s dead.”
“She’s not dead. She lives at the complex with me.” He wandered away, picture still in his hands, and picked up a pair of Curd’s worn boots. Leaning back against the wall, he kicked off my Vans and slipped on the boots. The sneakers fell to the floor with a heavy thud.
The world stopped. The air, the four walls, everything, it all fell away. “What?”
He held up the picture. “This is Sue.”
[End of Sample]
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Acknowledgments
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2
3
Chosen Ones (The Lost Souls, #1) Page 26