I furrowed my brow. “You haven’t been out of the city much, have you?”
“Why I let your brother convince me to come on this mad little adventure of yours is really beyond me.” She flopped back on the bed.
“Well,” said Paige. “That’s what I’ve been doing for the past hour. You?”
I shrugged. “Not much. Uh, just wanted to, you know, check on you.”
“Here I am,” she said.
“Uh, good,” I said. “You look good.”
She surveyed herself. “Do I?”
“Well, with everything that’s happened, I imagine that you’re not feeling…”
“Oh.” Her face fell. “It’s odd, really. Sometimes I forget about what happened to my parents, and I feel normal. And then I remember again, and it’s like it’s happening all over again.”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
Kenya vaulted up off the bed. “You know what I’m going to do?”
“What?” I said.
“I’m going to go talk to your brother. He got me into this mess, he can get me out of it. Or else maybe I’ll stab him.” She flounced past us and out of the room.
I turned to watch her go.
When she was out of sight, Paige let out a sigh. “Oh, thank god. I thought she was never going to shut up. She just complains and complains, and I swear, I’m going to stab her.”
“She’s just… out of her element, I guess.” I scratched the back of my neck. “Honestly, I don’t know why Chance wanted her to come. I mean, beyond the fact we saw them kissing.”
“Right, but that doesn’t make any sense either, because all they do is snip at each other,” said Paige.
“Totally,” I said. “I don’t even think they like each other.”
“I kind of wish there was a bus,” said Paige. “I wouldn’t mind getting rid of her.”
“Besides which, it’s not like my brother to kiss girls like that. He’s not down with forming any attachments, because our lives are so dangerous. You saw how he flipped out when you came to my house, and we weren’t even doing anything.”
She moved further into the room. “Well, we haven’t done anything. Not really. It’s only because of these dreams that we even think that there’s anything going on.”
I followed her. “There isn’t anything going on.”
“Right.” She turned to look at me.
I stopped short, about a foot away from her. I gazed into her eyes. “Right.”
She looked away, her gaze flitting about the room. “If it weren’t for dreaming about doing things, then we wouldn’t even think that there was anything, you know, between us.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Honestly, there really isn’t. We barely know each other.”
She turned back to me, shrugging. “Yeah. I don’t even know anything about you. What kind of music do you like? What kind of movies? What’s your political party? Do you believe in God?”
“Uh… do you really want me to answer those questions?”
“Well, no, I don’t, because then we would be, you know, starting something, making something happen between us, and we already decided that would be a bad idea.”
“Yeah,” I said. “A totally bad idea.”
She nodded, a big smile pasted on her face.
“Well,” I said. “I guess if you’re okay, I should probably go.”
“That would be best.”
“Okay.” I bobbed my head and left the room. I paused at the doorway. “Uh, I’ll see you later.”
“Okay.” She waved.
I went back to my bedroom and used the key to open the door, even though I was pretty sure I’d propped the door open when I left a few minutes ago.
I started into the room, and then I heard… panting.
And then I saw—
Oh. Jesus. Seriously, Chance?
I backed out and closed the door after myself.
What the hell was wrong with my brother? And how the hell had that happened? Two minutes ago, Kenya had been ready to stab him.
I hesitated in the hallway for a few minutes, unsure of what to do.
Then I went back to Paige’s room.
“Hey,” she said. “You’re back already?”
“Uh… Chance and Kenya are kind of… occupying the room.”
She looked confused for a minute, and then her eyes widened. “For real?”
“I didn’t know where else to go.”
She opened the door wider. “Come on in.”
* * *
Paige laughed. “No, I swear to god, that is exactly what happened. Everybody in the class was staring at me, and it was completely humiliating.”
“I can’t believe your parents wore masks,” I said. She and I were sitting on her bed in the hotel room, munching on room service that we’d had sent up. Well, Paige was still munching anyway. I’d finished my food a while ago.
“They were way paranoid about people recognizing them.”
“Well, it sounds mortifying.”
“So, what’s the worst way you found out you were moving?”
I considered. “Oh, man, none of them are funny like that.”
She wrinkled her nose. “They aren’t?”
“Mostly, what would happen is that a bunch of men would show up and start shooting everyone, and then we had to go.”
“Oh.” She reached over for my hand. “That’s awful.”
I shrugged. “That’s my life.”
She squeezed my fingers. “It shouldn’t be.”
“It’s okay.” I gave her a lopsided grin. “I survived. My family did. So far, everything’s turned out okay.”
“But all that danger and death. Ever since you were a little kid.”
I looked down at our hands, her fingers clasped around mine. “It wasn’t all bad. Besides, you haven’t had the easiest life either, have you?”
“No, I guess not. I still wish things could have been different for you.” She looked up at me.
I looked into her eyes. They were deep blue and so pretty. Looking at her made me feel relaxed and happy. I really liked being near her.
She reached up and touched my cheek.
I put my hand over hers.
She shut her eyes. “Why is this so hard?”
“Why is what so hard?”
She pulled away from me. “I don’t know what it is about you, Hunter, but I feel so drawn to you. I keep waiting for you to do something that’s going to turn it all off and make me hate you, but it’s like, the more I find out about you, the more I like you. Everything about you seems so… perfect.”
Wow. I liked hearing her say stuff like that. I felt loose and pleased. “You’re kind of perfect too, you know?”
“But we’re not supposed to do this, remember?”
Right. There wasn’t supposed to be any liking each other or joining with each other or whatever it was we were meant to do.
We were going to fight that.
I inspected my fingernails.
“We’re doing it anyway, aren’t we?”
“Doing what?”
“Well, we’re following your dreams, Hunter. And this area… I’m pretty sure my mother grew up somewhere around here. She talked about it. A town called Bramford. It’s less than an hour away, I think.”
“Really?”
She turned to me and nodded, her eyes big.
“Well, what does that matter?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But this is all tied in to our parents, isn’t it? I think we’re playing completely into their hands.”
“Our parents’ hands?”
“No, the powers,” she said. “I think that’s what’s doing this. We’re pulled together like we’re the north and south poles of a magnet. It’s so hard to fight.”
I scooted close to her. “Are you sure we should fight it?”
She dragged her teeth over her bottom lip. “No, not sure. Not exactly. But I k
now I don’t want the powers my parents had. That either of our parents had. I’m afraid of that.”
“Maybe you already have powers,” I said.
“What?”
“Well, I have power. Why wouldn’t you? If we’re supposed to be joined together or whatever, then we both have to have something to bring to the table, don’t we?”
“But I’ve never had anything,” she said. “Nothing at all.”
“You must, though.”
“So what can your power do?”
I sighed. “Not much. My power is really like the absence of power. It absorbs any magic that’s around. If I’m close, no one can do magic.”
“Should my power be the opposite of yours?” she said. “Like maybe I strengthen magic or something?”
I shrugged. “I don’t really know. Marlena made it sound like my parents had the same sorts of powers. That they could control people’s minds.”
“That’s what my parents could do too.”
“Because they took the power from mine.” I considered. “Maybe we’re not like them at all.”
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t control people’s minds, right? So, maybe that’s not what we’d do if we joined our powers. Maybe it would be something different. Maybe it wouldn’t be anything bad.”
She leaned closer to me. “Do you really think so?”
I reached over to touch her face, to skim my fingers over her cheekbone. “Maybe.”
She parted her lips. Her eyes fluttered closed.
I moved my face nearer to hers.
Nearer. Nearer.
And then the window to the hotel room shattered with a loud crash.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Paige and I both leaped off the bed.
The window had been completely shattered, and there was someone crawling inside. A man in a hooded robe, his face obscured by the cowl. He brandished a wickedly sharp knife.
“Behind me,” I said to Paige.
She scrambled around me.
I had a gun tucked against the small of my back, and I whipped it out, flicking off the safety. I pointed it at the hooded man. “Hold it.”
The man stopped, but the point of his knife was still angled toward me.
And he wasn’t alone. More people were crawling through the window, also dressed in black robes, also carrying knives.
I swung my weapon in a wide circle. “All of you, stop moving.”
But they didn’t stop moving.
And the man who’d come in first started to advance as well.
I gritted my teeth. “You keep coming, I’ll shoot.”
They moved closer.
I pulled the trigger.
The first man stopped short, gurgling. His hand went to his throat, and he crumpled to the ground.
“You shot him!” said Paige.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Get out of here. Go get Chance.”
“You shot him.” She couldn’t seem to believe this.
But the others didn’t seem the slightest bit concerned with their dead companion. They were closing in on me.
One reached for me, knife high above his head like a slasher-movie tableau.
I twisted, squeezing the trigger.
It caught him in the stomach.
I backed up and collided with Paige. “Run,” I said to her.
She was frozen. She didn’t move at all.
The hooded figures were on top of us. They snatched at Paige.
I began shooting with abandon, bullets going into each and every one of them.
One by one, they fell.
But I couldn’t back out of the room, because they had Paige now.
They’d bent her back onto the bed.
I could hear one of them muttering, “The seed is tainted. The powers must never be joined.”
I shot him.
A knife sliced into my shoulder. The pain was bright. I cried out, swinging my gun around and pulling the trigger.
Click.
Shit.
I had more ammunition back in the room I was sharing with Chance, but that didn’t really help me now, did it?
A hooded figure had climbed on top of Paige. “Witness my sacrifice,” he cried out, throwing back his head. His hood fell off, and I could see he had dirty blond hair.
The knife was in me again.
I choked. The pain incapacitated me.
The knife came out.
I let out a strangled yell and thrust the butt of the gun into my attacker’s face.
He howled, letting go of me.
I kicked, knocking the knife from his hand.
Then an uppercut to his chin, dazing him.
While he reeled, I grasped him in a headlock, squeezing his neck.
When he stopped struggling, I dropped him.
I leaped on the back of the dirty blond man, my arm going around his neck as well.
He elbowed me.
The force of the collision made me gasp, loosen my grip a little bit.
He tried to break free of me.
Instead I grabbed his knife and thrust it into his back. He screamed. Coughed. Fell.
Onto Paige.
She bleated.
“Paige, get up and get out of here!” I told her through clenched teeth.
I faced the others in hoods, crouched down, knife out, daring one of them to come at me.
They surrounded me, but they hesitated.
“The seed is tainted,” said one.
“The powers must not be joined,” said another.
I shot a look at Paige. She was struggling out from beneath the dirty blond man’s body.
“Look,” I said to the robes. “We’re not joining the powers, okay?”
“You will,” said one.
“You must be ripped from the world!” said another.
I reached out for Paige.
She grasped my hand.
Together, we began to back up.
The robes came after us, stepping over the bodies of those that had fallen.
I brandished my own knife. “I’ll kill you all. Don’t think I won’t.”
“It is you who must die,” said one of the robes.
“Must die,” chorused the others.
I shoved Paige at the door. “Go! Get Chance.”
This time she listened to me and sprinted out of the room, throwing the door open after her.
I continued to slowly back up. “My brother’s coming. He’s got a very big gun. He’s going to turn you all into Swiss cheese.”
Still, they didn’t stop coming.
So, I held the knife out, and I continued to move backward. They matched me every step.
Finally, I backed into the hallway.
I saw Chance coming out of our room. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, but he had a gun in each hand, and his eyes smoldered.
I turned back to the the room.
They were gone.
Chance barreled down the hallway, shoving me out of the way.
He dove into the room.
“They’re gone,” I said.
Chance leaped over the bodies and ran to the window. He peered outside. “What the hell?”
Paige ran to me. “Hunter?”
“You okay?” I said.
She touched my shirt. “You’re bleeding.”
I looked her over. “Did they get you?”
“No, you stopped—”
I grabbed her and tugged her against me. Fiercely, deliberately, I pressed my lips against hers, and I kissed her as hard as I could.
* * *
“Sit still.” Kenya glared at me as she applied bandages to the places where I’d been stabbed.
“We don’t have time for this.” I caught Chance’s eye. “We need to get moving now.”
Chance clenched his jaw. “Let her clean you up, for fuck’s sake. God damn it, Hunter, they stabbed you.”
Paige was perched on one of the beds in Chance’s and my hotel room. She looked worried. “
It’s bleeding a lot, Hunter.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “We need to move.”
“God, you sound like Mom,” said Chance. I noticed that he hadn’t called her Zaza. “Look, I went out that window and searched all over. No sign of them. Except for the bodies, you’d never even know they were there. And when we do get moving, we don’t even know where to go. We need to take a minute to breathe here.”
“Bramford,” I said.
“What?” said Chance.
“That’s where we need to go,” I said. “Paige said that her mother grew up there, and that it’s close. All of this has something to do with our parents. So, that’s where we go.”
“Where the fuck is Bramford?” said Chance.
“I saw a sign.” Kenya smoothed the bandage against my skin. “I think it’s further down Route 50.”
I looked at Paige. “That’s where we need to go, then. We need to figure out what these dreams are all about.”
Chance shrugged. “Okay by me, I guess.”
“I don’t know,” said Paige. “Do you think those people are the same ones who killed my parents?”
“Could be,” I said.
“People are trying to kill us to keep us from being together,” she said. “And those dreams that we’re having are all about us being together. Maybe going to Bramford is the worst idea ever.”
“I don’t think we have a choice,” I said.
“I think we should call your parents,” said Paige. “We practically got killed back there.”
“No,” I said. “They’ll just run from it. That’s what they always do. I spent my whole life running away. But now I think there’s something to run toward. We don’t need them.”
Chance rocked on his feet. “I don’t know, Hunter. Maybe she’s right. You got stabbed. If anything happened to you—”
“I’m fine.”
“Yeah, well, think of what our parents would do to me if you get killed on my watch.”
I rolled my eyes.
He scratched his jaw. “I’m only saying that things have gotten serious.”
I flexed, testing the bandage that Kenya had put on me. “It’s not that bad. Look, if people try to kill us again, then we can call Mom and Dad. Okay?”
Chance sighed.
* * *
~azazel~
“No, no,” I said, smiling the biggest smile I could pull off, “that can’t be right, can it?” I turned to look at Jason.
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