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Outsider
The Flawed Series Book Two
The second book in the Flawed Series focuses on Josh Schuyler, an average guy surrounded by so many people with extraordinary abilities. Book Two also introduces a new villain with a gift of his own.
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or keep reading for a peek at Chapter One.
Josh Schuyler grabbed the knob with a soapy hand and cracked open his front door. Water drops ran down his bare chest as he peered left and right, counting his blessings that the coast was clear. Gripping the towel around his waist, he darted out of the apartment, four doors down the breezeway, trying not to dwell on what his new neighbors might think if they saw a dripping wet, half-naked man running around the complex. Would that be grounds for calling the cops? He hoped not. It wasn’t his fault that his water had been inexplicably turned off in the middle of the day. This wasn’t exactly the way he wanted to spend his first day after moving out of his parents’ house to his new place in Denver.
He nearly lost his footing sliding to a halt in front of Chloe’s door but caught himself at the last instant. Shivering, he glanced left and right to make sure no one had seen his near fall. He was still good. Praying that his sister was home—and that her water wasn’t affected by whatever had stopped his—he grabbed the doorknob.
It turned easily.
Relief flooded him as he shoved the door open and darted inside. It took him a moment to register the occupant, and when he did, he froze. Lingering water droplets trickled past the goose bumps on his chest, arms, and legs.
In the middle of the living room, a young woman dressed in spandex shorts and a tank top was holding an odd pose: feet spread wide, rear to the ceiling, hands planted on the floor. Messy brown curls cascaded from her head, brushing the carpet. Josh might have tried to figure out what in the world she was doing if he weren’t so bewildered by the realization that the woman was most definitely not his sister. At his entrance, the woman’s head craned to meet him, a curious expression creasing her brows. She stared at him, her face upside down between toned runner’s legs.
Panic shot through Josh’s chest. He hadn’t double-checked the door number before barging in, and towel-clad and shampoo-headed, he must’ve entered the wrong apartment. Mortification heated his face as he gawked, at a complete loss for words. Shock planted his feet like lead weights, and he wished he could disappear—or spontaneously transport, or reverse time. It wasn’t the first instance he’d wished for an abnormal ability, though it was probably the weirdest.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked, arching an eyebrow. She glanced at the floor beneath him, and Josh followed her gaze, suddenly realizing he was dripping soapy water in a puddle on the carpet.
“I…uh…” His voice cracked. He backed a step toward the door, his hand grasping at empty air behind him, reaching for the elusive doorknob. He forced his eyes onto her face and off the parts of the spandexed form that kept trying to draw his attention. He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry… I think I’ve got the wrong—”
The young woman straightened and turned to face him. Her hair fell around her heart-shaped, freckled face, and her green eyes narrowed at him. “Josh?”
He frowned, his mortification dwindling as something else nagged at his mind. Now, right-side up, the face that stared back at him was suddenly familiar.
The side of her mouth curved upward. “You didn’t recognize me, did you? I’m Alex…from Ocean Beach—remember?”
Then it hit him. “Alex. From California. Right.” Why hadn’t he remembered that Chloe had a new roommate? She’d mentioned Alexandria Hailey several times since their family reunion trip last summer, but he’d only been half-listening. Somehow he’d missed the part about Alex moving to Denver and rooming with his sister. Now he felt even more like an idiot, if that were possible.
“Is Chloe here?” he asked.
“Nope. She’s at class.” Alex bit back a grin, putting her hands on her hips and cocking her head. “So. Is there a reason you’re…uh…” Her eyes lingered on his lanky form.
His face burned. “I was taking a shower, and my water got turned off. I was wondering if I could use Chloe’s…your…bathroom.”
She shrugged. “Sure. Help yourself.”
He shuffled to the bathroom and closed the door behind him. Real smooth.
As the hot water pounded over him, he heaved a sigh. He thought about the young woman in the other room. He had met her in California, but she’d mostly hung out with Chloe, and he and his brother, Cam, had been too busy surfing to do much socializing. Cam had still been hung up on Jade then, so he hadn’t been his normal flirting, charming, woman-magnet self, and the two of them had pretty much stuck together.
Finally de-soaped, Josh was beginning to relax when a realization made him tense up again. He hadn’t brought any clothes. That meant he would either have to trek back to his apartment in the same half-naked manner he’d come or steal something from Chloe’s closet. And there was no way he was parading past Alex in one of his sister’s skimpy silk robes.
Seriously, a memory-erasing power would be pretty sweet right about now so he could get out without Alex ever knowing he’d been here. Why was he the only Schuyler child without some sort of supernatural talent?
He’d often wished for Chloe’s lack of pain when he’d stubbed a toe, and he could’ve probably come up with something useful to do with Cam’s déjà vu if he’d been blessed with it. And what about all the other weird gifts that had been creeping into their lives lately? A young woman who was an empath, a guy with super strength, and some psycho who could see in the dark? It was uncanny how all these traits had circled around him recently. What he would give to not be normal.
He stepped out of the shower, nabbing one of his sister’s fresh towels. It was fuzzy and yellow, but it was dry. At least it wasn’t pink. Wrapping it around his waist, he looked in the mirror, thinking about how to slip past Alex. Suddenly every flaw in his physique turned glaringly obvious. He wished he had Cam’s pecs right now. Not that he had a gut or anything, but he was a lot scrawnier than his uber-muscled brother.
Maybe he didn’t need to worry about it. Maybe Alex had gone back to her room. Maybe he’d be able to sneak out without an awkward parting confrontation.
He opened the door as silently as possible, but when he walked into the next room, there she was, sitting on the couch with a textbook on her lap. She looked over at him and smiled.
Josh gave a tense nod, hoping to make a beeline past her and to the door as efficiently as possible. “Thanks for letting me use your shower.”
“Sure,” she said. “That was Downward-Facing Dog, by the way.”
He stared at her blankly.
“You know, yoga. That was the Downward-Facing Dog pose. I just thought maybe you were wondering what I was doing—you had a weird look on your face.”
“I did?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Well, I guess for a second I was wondering why your…er, why you were upside down.” His face was suddenly hot.
“I do yoga every day. It helps calm me.”
“Right.”
“You ever tried it?”
“No.” He wasn’t sure what to say. He moved to go, but she spoke again.
“So your brother’s coming to town next week, huh?”
“Yeah…”
“He’s staying with you?”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Chloe keeps talking about us all going to a movie together when Cam’s in town. Are you going to come, too?”
Every awkward bone in his body ached to flee, to escape to his apartment and lock the door behind him. He was standing here in a towel, and she wanted to chit chat?
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Cool.”
“Well, I gotta go,” he finally managed, grabbing the doork
nob.
“Okay. See you ’round.”
Just as he was pulling open the door, Chloe walked up and stopped just outside the threshold. She looked him up and down and raised an eyebrow. “What’s going on?”
“Long story,” he mumbled, pushing past her.
“Hey! Is that my towel?”
He ignored her, hurrying back to his apartment as quickly as possible.
~
Nicodemus Zachau walked into the Victorian-decorated foyer of the old folk’s home and strode past the front desk. Francine Marshall’s room was the third on the left down the hunter-green carpeted hallway. He entered the small amber-lit bedroom and found its occupant sitting in a wingback chair, staring at the perfectly manicured back lawn of the retirement center. A skein of yarn with a tail looped around a crochet hook sat nearby, forgotten.
“Hello, Mrs. Marshall.”
Startled at the sound, she jumped and turned around. The first look on her face was that of frustration…of being interrupted? Or because she knew who it was?
But he was already passing the center of the room and near her chair when she met his eyes.
“Why, Nicholas, what a surprise!” Beneath folds of wrinkles, her eyes crinkled at the edges, decades’ worth of crow’s feet piled on top of each other. He squatted at her feet, and one of her bony hands landed on his shoulder as softly as a drifting leaf.
“How are you?”
“As good as ever. If they’d let me go home, I’d be a lot more comfortable, though. How are you, Nicholas?”
Several months back when he’d first met her, he’d introduced himself as just Nic, and she, condescending as ever, had wrongly inferred his actual name—and infuriatingly called him by the substitution ever since.
He frowned. “Oh, not good. Not good at all. My sister’s condition is much worse. They want to start treatments next week, but we don’t have the money.” The back story was for the sake of the staff, in case anyone passed her door while he was here.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Nicholas. Is there anything I can do?”
Most likely her vision was poor, so just to be doubly sure, he leaned closer to her, only about a foot from her face. He gazed into her pale eyes with a piercing stare, locking on her pupils. First a curious expression and then a glazed look came over her face.
“I need you to write me another check. Fifteen thousand.”
She answered dully, the fog still thick in her eyes. “Fifteen thousand.”
Nic brought her purse from beneath the nightstand and handed it to her, and she dug out the checkbook. While writing the check, she had to drop her gaze, but Nic made sure it wasn’t for more than half a minute. When she looked up, her eyes were still slightly unfocused. He grabbed the check from her without smiling. The act of politeness was only necessary until he could made eye contact. After that, the magic worked on its own.
He stood, eyes still on her, and slowly backed out of the room. Movement through the open door alerted him to a nurse passing in the hall. When he spoke, it was slightly louder than normal. “Goodbye, Mrs. Marshall. Have a good evening.”
Reaching her doorway, he shoved the check into his pocket and headed out into the corridor, nodding at the nurse as he walked by. “What a sweet lady,” he said with a smile, gesturing at Mrs. Marshall’s door.
The nurse stopped and smiled at him. “Yes, she is.”
“Sad about her episodes, though. Alzheimer’s can be really tough.”
The nurse started to nod when a hoarse yelling came from within the room. “Help! Somebody help me! I’ve been robbed.”
Nic shook his head with a sad smile, and the nurse turned for the old woman’s room. When she disappeared, he hurried out of the building. The fresh dough was burning a hole in his pocket. Now to spend it.
Want to read more of Outsider?
Click here to get Outsider (book #2) for free.
Also by Becca J. Campbell
The Flawed Series
Empath
Outsider
Protector
Pulled (A Flawed Short Story)
Constricted (A Flawed Short Story)
The Father Hunt (A Flawed Story)
Foreign Identity
Gateway to Reality
Constricted: A Flawed Short Story Page 5