by Jena Leigh
She was going to be late.
— 2 —
Alex gripped the steering wheel of her beloved Jeep Wrangler tightly as she whipped it through an intersection and a hard left turn. To her right, Alex’s best friend Cassandra Harper stomped an imaginary brake on the passenger-side floorboard and reached up to take hold of the roll bar.
A whimper came from the backseat. “Brakes are your friend. Brakes are your friend! God. I’m having flashbacks to DC. You’d be a perfect match for either of my older brothers, Alex. None of you know how to drive. All three of you seem to have your right foot superglued to the gas pedal.”
“Sorry, Kenzie,” said Alex, letting up on the accelerator.
The jeep slowed and Kenzie let out a long breath. “No worries.” Her voice carried the auditory equivalent of a shrug. “It’s going to take a lot more than that to throw me this morning. You guys have no idea how insanely excited I am right now. Just don’t kill us on the way to class, and I’m good.”
Alex stole another quick glance at the clock on the dash—and then slammed on the brakes to keep from running a red light. Everyone in the Wrangler lurched forward.
Late.
They were going to be late.
Which was fine by Alex, of course. She’d be quite happy to miss the entire day at this point—up to and including her training session with Nathaniel that afternoon.
Her passengers, however, were having none of that. Kenzie was unnaturally excited for her first day at Bay View, and Cassie…
Well, she had more than made her position clear the minute she’d launched herself into the passenger side of the jeep, grumbling about alarm clocks and tardies and her perfect attendance record.
If they missed homeroom, Cassie would make Alex regret it.
Anyone who didn’t know Cassie well might find it hard to take such threats seriously. The feisty blonde was all soft curves and kind eyes and perpetually quick with a smile. Alex, however, knew better than to mistake that softness for weakness.
Cassie was the biggest sweetheart in the world—provided you weren’t being an idiot.
A sweetheart, who currently seemed bemused. “What is wrong with you?”
“What?” Alex shot her a sidelong glance as she maneuvered the jeep around a big boat Lincoln that was slowing them down by doing twenty under the speed limit. “Wrong? Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
Cassie raised an eyebrow. “We’ll get to you in a minute, speedy,” she said. “I had been talking to Kenzie. I was going to ask her why she’s suddenly acting like a pod person.”
“What? Me?” said Kenzie. “What’d I do?”
“Did aliens suck your brains out in your sleep last night?” asked Cassie.
“Not that I recall,” Kenzie replied. “Although I did have time for an extra cup of coffee this morning, since you two were running late.”
Alex cut her eyes up at the rear view mirror, glancing warily into the backseat. The last thing Kenzie O’Connell needed first thing in the morning was an extra dose of caffeine in her system.
Bay View High wasn’t going to know what hit it.
“Who,” asked Cassie, twisting around to peer into the seat behind her, “in their right mind gets excited about their first day starting at a new school?”
“Are you kidding?” Kenzie’s grin lit up the rearview mirror. “It’s a public school! A public. School. As in, a school that is open to the public! No uniforms. No psycho headmaster whose only joy in life is reprimanding innocent redheads with a weakness for caffeinated beverages. I’ve been waiting for this day my entire life! I heard there’s almost three-hundred kids in our junior class alone. Is that right? I can’t even… I mean, do you know how tired you get of seeing the same sixty faces day after day, year after year?”
“You went to a private school?” asked Alex.
“Sixty kids?” Cassie grimaced. “That’s it? That was your entire junior class?”
“Hey!” said Kenzie, as though something important had suddenly occurred to her. “Do we have lockers? I’ve always wanted a locker.”
Cassie and Alex exchanged a look.
The light changed.
A few hundred feet later they stopped again. Oh, the many joys of rush hour traffic and the start of tourist season.
Alex chewed distractedly on her thumbnail. Four minutes and counting until they pulled in at the school. Three, if they caught the next two lights on green.
Then the fun would really begin.
“Are we actually at the intersection of Highway 9 and something named Tater Peeler Road?” asked Kenzie, squinting out the scratched plastic window of the Wrangler’s cloth top.
Cassie was busy scrutinizing Alex. “You’re still spazzing about the skin thing, aren’t you.”
Not a question.
“’Mmnot,” Alex mumbled.
“Right.” She smiled. “Stop gnawing at your fingers, then.”
“Who the heck names a road Tater Peeler? I mean… this is the beach. If you’re going to go full-on weird, why not something like Barnacle Bob Boulevard or Don’t Park Here Tourists Or We’ll Tow You Drive.”
“Don’t Park Here Tourists Or We’ll Tow You Drive?” echoed Cassie.
“You locals are weird about parking on private streets near the beach. It’s a thing I’ve noticed.”
“Mmhmm,” said Alex distractedly, still staring up at the red light.
“So excited!” Kenzie was mumbling. “Hey, look! A Bayside Brews! It’s a chain? I thought that cafe on the Boardwalk was just a one-off. And this one’s only five minutes from my new house! Love it. Think we have time to hit the drive-through? I could use an iced coffee.”
Cassie straightened out the folds in her gray linen skirt. “Alex, remind me to slip our new classmate a Xanax at lunch.”
The light changed. Alex hit the gas just a little too hard.
Cassie grabbed for the roll bar again. “Maybe I should slip you one, too.”
“Sorry.”
Kenzie was still smiling in the backseat. “I’m not going to apologize for being in a good mood. If Declan can’t ruin my morning, I’m pretty sure nothing can.”
Alex perked up slightly at the mention of Kenzie’s older brother, then forced herself to ignore the sudden increase in her heart rate.
The guy was a derisive, condescending jerk, Alex reminded herself.
A derisive, condescending jerk that could be kind of sweet when he wanted to be.
“What’d he do this time?” asked Alex.
“He bogarted my bathroom!” she grumbled. “I had, like, ten minutes in there this morning. Total.”
Cassie smirked. Alex thought of Cassie sharing one bathroom with four brothers of her own and figured she understood Kenzie’s frustrations all too well.
“He’s supposed to be sharing one with Brian. Instead he hijacked my en suite. And it took him ages this morning,” she continued. “He can take five-minute showers whenever it suits him, but god forbid I want to look cute for something. Then it takes him half a freaking hour.”
Declan.
Shower.
Alex flashed back to her first morning at the cabin—of Declan striding casually down the stairs with his hair tousled and still wet from the shower, smelling of cinnamon and woodsmoke and something uniquely Declan…
A warm blush crept into her cheeks as she attempted to bury that thought beneath a few tons of imaginary cement and lines from a play she’d memorized the previous semester for her English class.
When she realized that the lines were actually dialogue between Benedick and Beatrice in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, she abruptly stopped her recitation and bit down on her lower lip.
Not helping.
“Preaching to the choir, Kenzie,” said Cassie. “Brothers. Who needs ’em?”
Kenzie nodded her agreement.
“But speaking of the O’Connell boys…” said Cassie. “How’s Aiden?”
“My cousin is doing
just fine, thanks for asking,” said Kenzie. “Although he won’t shut-up about this certain blonde I know.”
Cassie appeared to be fighting back a smile.
“No, seriously.” Kenzie leaned forward to peek into the front seat. “Call the poor boy and put him out of his misery. My entire household will thank you.”
Last red light. They were now one left turn and a two-hundred yard drive away from the junior class parking lot.
Alex drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and tried not to think about crowded hallways and closely placed desks.
She eyed the three-quarter sleeves of her peasant blouse and suddenly wished she’d remembered her jacket. Eighty degree weather or no, it would have been nice to be a little more covered.
During the long weekend she’d spent hidden away in her room, the newfound confidence she’d acquired over the break had slowly withered away, replaced instead by the growing fear that she might never be able to fully control her abilities.
In the wake of learning the truth, Alex had been able to stand up to beings and organizations of indescribable power—but she’d only done so in an attempt to protect the people she cared about most in this world.
Now that they were home again—safe again—Alex had been forced to accept another, far more horrible truth: the biggest threat to the well-being of those she cared about, now, wasn’t the Agency and it wasn’t Samuel Masterson.
It was Alex herself.
The revelation left her terrified of who might be made to pay the price the next time Alex lost control.
And in a place like Bay View High, losing control wouldn’t be a question if, but when.
The light changed. Traffic in the left turn lane inched slowly forward as the first car in line caught a break in the traffic. Just as Alex tapped the gas, a sleek-lined, black Honda sportbike cut in front of her.
She scrambled to hit the brakes.
“Hey!” Cassie grumbled, her hands splayed on the dash. She glared at the biker. “Nice driving, jerk.”
Kenzie stared out the windshield and snorted in amusement. “You should have hit him, Alex.”
Two feet in front of the jeep’s front end, the guy on the bike shot them a glance over his shoulder.
He flipped up the shaded visor on his helmet.
A familiar pair of hazel eyes stared back at her, crinkled slightly at the corners. He was grinning.
Declan.
The traffic pulled forward.
Alex let out a breath as she followed Declan onto the road leading up to Bay View High School’s parking lots.
The junior lot was located on the far side of campus and was composed of three short rows of second-rate parking, followed by a vast expanse of hard-packed gravel, where the overflow ended up.
As Alex maneuvered the jeep up and into the overflow area, Declan parked his bike at the very front of the lot.
Naturally.
“And with four minutes to spare!” said Kenzie. Alex pulled the driver’s seat forward to let her out of the backseat. “Give the girl a medal!”
“Thank you, Ms. O’Neill,” said Alex as she righted the seat and slammed the driver’s side door closed.
“Who?” Kenzie blinked in confusion as she shouldered her backpack. “Oh, right! Kenzie O’Neill. I’m with ya.”
“Forget already, Kenzie?” said Cassie. “I thought you were excited about the whole ‘incognito’ thing.”
It was easy to forget that the real reason Declan and Kenzie were starting classes at Alex’s high school wasn’t just because the Grayson family had relocated to Bay View. It was also to appease the Agency.
Their new last name was simply a precaution. According to Grayson, the name “O’Connell” had a certain weight attached to it in Variant circles. The last thing Alex—or the others—needed right now, was to draw unnecessary attention to themselves.
As part of their agreement, Alex would only be allowed to remain free so long as she kept a low profile.
And so long as she was being watched. She was meant to be kept under control.
The real watchdog in this situation wasn’t Kenzie—it was her 18-year-old brother Declan.
He was the one who had officially taken on the assignment.
“What can I say?” Kenzie led them across the parking lot and toward the glass doors leading into the humanities wing. “I’m too excited about that square hunk of metallic real estate someone’s about to assign me. I can’t focus on playing secret agent this morning. Wonder if it will have that new locker smell?”
Alex smiled in spite of herself.
“You’d best hope it doesn’t,” said Cassie, holding the door open. “Generally speaking, the only smells you find inside a locker are the permanent reminders of the tuna fish sandwiches its last owner brought for lunch every day.”
Alex froze just inside the doorway.
The hallway that stretched out before her was packed with bodies, filled to capacity with students milling beside lockers and meandering toward their classes.
She took a breath and held it.
Kenzie and Cassie quickly disappeared into the crowd, leaving her behind.
Why hadn’t she walked the long way around the building? Her homeroom was three hallways and a commons area away, and the entire path would be packed until the second bell.
The sounds of conversation and laughter grew louder, surpassed in volume only by the sudden thudding of her heart as it pounded frantically against her ribcage.
So many people… all it would take is one touch from the wrong one, she thought. One touch, and I could lose control.
Move. She needed to move.
Someone brushed past her, jostling Alex’s shoulder as they entered through the double doors behind her.
Alex swallowed a whimper, searching frantically for an empty space in the chaos.
Hugging her arms tightly around her middle, Alex found an opening in the crowd and made her way to a narrow wall between two classroom doors, pressing her back against it and aching for an escape.
Closing her eyes, Alex fought to steady her breathing, then sucked in another ragged breath after being startled by the sound of the first bell blasting from a loudspeaker mounted to the wall above her head.
“Never pegged you as the agoraphobic type.”
Alex opened her eyes.
A smiling face stared down at her, a few short inches from her own.
Her first instinct was to jerk away, but a warm hand on her shoulder had pinned her firmly in place.
“Hold still, Alex,” Declan ordered. With his left hand placed protectively on one shoulder and his right hand pressed against the wall on her other side, Alex was effectively boxed in.
“Declan, you can’t—” she began, shrugging her shoulder where he held it in place.
Declan inched his fingers farther away from her exposed collarbone and down her sleeve, but still didn’t pull away. “You’re fine,” he said. “Just breathe.”
Students filed past on both sides. Alex eyed them nervously.
“Look at me,” Declan said quietly. “Not at them.”
Alex did as she was told. Declan just shook his head, smiling.
“You know, it’s probably a good thing you can’t jump right now,” he said in an undertone. “I would not have wanted to explain to Grayson why you teleported in the middle of a crowded hallway with dozens of witnesses.”
Ashes.
Cinnamon.
Declan.
Alex’s head swam with the sensory overload. Having Declan standing so close was only making it more difficult to pull herself together. She’d forgotten just how easily his nearness could knock her for a loop.
He was still smiling down at her as though they were just another normal couple stealing a quiet moment alone, instead of two Variants standing in the midst of a sea of humanity, while one of them tried to keep the other from falling apart entirely.
The passing students sent them a few curious glances as they walked into
their classrooms, but otherwise gave them plenty of space.
Another few minutes and the crowds began to thin.
Declan removed his hand from her shoulder and took a step backward. “You okay to move?”
“I… Yes,” she said, her face flushed with embarrassment. “I am.”
Slipping past him, Alex marched off down the empty hallway. Declan’s long legs matched her stride easily.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked as they entered the open expanse of the commons area.
“Not particularly.”
“You sure?”
“I’m fine.”
“Right.”
The second bell rang.
Alex was officially late.
— 3 —
Once again, Declan O’Connell had found himself working as a glorified babysitter on account of one Alexandra Parker.
Bodyguard, he corrected himself. We’re gonna go with “bodyguard” this time.
So far today, Declan and Alex had arrived late to three of their first four classes.
Each time the bell rang, the same thing happened. Alex would hang around a classroom until the halls had started to empty and, upon their late arrival at the next class, Declan would claim ignorance of the school’s layout and insist that Alex was only late because she’d been helping him find his way.
He wondered how long she’d be able to keep that up. It certainly wouldn’t work on each teacher more than once. After today, she was either going to have to suck it up and brave the crowds of students during passing period, or start collecting tardies.
Declan stared tiredly at the back of Alex’s head while an aging calculus teacher droned on about finding the answer to some convoluted equation. Alex’s dark brown locks had started the day in a ponytail, but had since been taken down in an effort to cover the slip of skin exposed at her collarbone and neck.
Even now, safely confined to her individual desk, Alex sat with her left arm clutching her midsection and only raised her right arm above the level of the desk when it came time to take notes or work out a problem.
It’s not that he didn’t understand her sudden aversion to touching people.