At First Touch (6 page)

“Really, it’s no trouble. Don’t go out of your way, man.” Preston took a step closer and I felt my gorge rise at his overbearing behavior. He barely knew me!

“Look, I just want to get home. My head is killing me. I’ll see you tomorrow, Preston.” Without thinking, I grabbed Carey’s hand and tugged him along behind me. He came willingly, flashing a smirk Preston’s way.

“Ok, yeah. Tomorrow. I’ll meet you at your locker.” Man, the nerve of this guy.

“Really, Preston, it’s cool. I know where I’m going now. I mean, this place isn’t exactly Grand Central Station.” With a final dismissive wave, I pushed open the door and strode out into the sunlight, breathing in the crisp October air with pleasure. My head cleared and I was able to feel a little amusement at Preston’s overly macho performance. Honestly, you’d think I was some shiny new toy that he didn’t want to share with the other kids.

With a start, I realized I was still holding Carey’s hand. He was giving me a shy smile as we walked along and I dropped his hand like it was made of electricity. His smile faltered and he cleared his throat, staring straight ahead.

“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t mean to make you take me home if you didn’t want to, but I really don’t like…pushy people.” His smile returned and he shook his head.

“Preston was just jealous. Every guy in school has been talking about you all day; he wanted to stake a claim.” I stumbled over my own feet at his words. Everyone was talking about me? Just because I was new? Or something else?

“What do you mean, they’re talking about me?” My voice shook a little and Carey laughed, giving me a knowing smile.

“Are you kidding? A gorgeous girl like you comes to Shank High and you think you’re not going to be a topic of conversation?” He nudged me with his shoulder and I relaxed. It was just because I was new. That was ok.

I realized that Carey just called me gorgeous. ‘Oh,” I said, blushing furiously. Carey chuckled.

“Here’s my car. Hang on, let me open your door. It sticks sometimes.”

We had come to a stop in front of a huge burgundy Buick that had to be a remnant of the 1980s. He twisted his key in the lock and then yanked on the handle; the door swung open with a tiny squeak and revealed a plush interior with what looked like wine-colored crushed velvet upholstery. I choked back a giggle and slid into the passenger seat, finding it surprisingly comfortable. Carey gave me a sheepish grin and closed the door, dashed to the driver’s side and dumped his bag in the back. As he clambered into his seat I caught a glimpse of Preston climbing into a shiny black truck a few spaces away with a grim expression on his face.

“Um, sorry about this. It was my father’s car, then my brother’s, and now…” He shrugged. “Dad says that as long as it runs there’s no point in getting a new one.” I smiled to myself at his discomfited expression.

“I like it. It’s got character. Anyway, at least you have a car.”

He watched me for a moment to make sure I wasn’t laughing at him then gave me another of his dazzling smiles, sending a shiver right down to my toes. He put it into drive and then crawled out of the parking lot, closely followed by Preston. Carey glanced up at his rearview mirror and smirked.

“How much do you want to bet he follows us to your house?”

I grimaced and turned around. Sure enough, I could see Preston was watching us intently, as though if he stared hard enough he could hear what we were saying.

“What is with him?” I mumbled, irritated at the surveillance. Carey shot me a look full of mischief.

“You know what would really get his goat?” Get his goat? Weird. “I could take you to the diner for a shake.” I eyed him warily, trying to judge his motive. Intrigued, I flipped the switch in my mind that would make his thoughts open to me.

“Say yes, say yes, say yes, say yes…”

I laughed outright, excited and nervous, knowing from his thoughts that he was making a clumsy attempt to ask me out on a date.

I’d been asked out my fair share in the past, but usually by guys who weren’t really interested in me, just wanted to be the first to ‘get the new girl.’ But I knew Carey wasn’t like them. While I wouldn’t exactly have called his thoughts pure, his intentions were, and for the first time, I really, really wanted to say yes. Every instinct I had cultivated over the years screamed at me to say no, take me home, and then get Dad and get out of town. But I was sixteen, damn it, he was gorgeous and charming, and I wasn’t made of stone.

“Ok. I don’t see why not,” I replied with a thrill. His answering smile nearly knocked me unconscious. I was breaking all the rules now. 

The five-minute drive to the restaurant was pleasant and we spent it joking about Preston’s reaction to our destination. It was blatantly obvious that Carey and Preston had a very antagonistic history and I found myself wondering what had happened between them. As though I had typed in a request in a Google search bar, the answer presented itself in my mind.

Two years ago, they had been friends, attending a party that had gotten a little wild at a deserted barn outside of town.  Carey had gone to look for Preston, wanting to leave before things got too crazy, and found him up in the loft taking an unconscious girl’s clothes off.  Carey had pulled him off the girl and read him the riot act for nearly committing rape on an incapacitated partner. Preston didn’t see things the same way and they had never gotten over the ensuing argument.

Since then, Carey kept a close eye on Preston’s behavior, and Preston did his level best to provoke Carey at every turn. I felt a rising disgust for Preston. In my mind there is nothing worse than taking advantage of someone who can’t defend herself.

Carey, on the other hand, was an interesting challenge. I knew everything about him thanks to our little download session, and yet I wasn’t sure what he was going to do next. I couldn’t help feeling flattered that someone like him was interested in me, even though I knew it was partially because I was the new girl in a small town.

We pulled into the parking lot of a dinky strip mall nestled at the base of a hill. There were four stores in it, a hair salon, and a restaurant called “Mickey’s.” Based on the number of teenagers I spied lounging on cars and sitting in the back of pick-up trucks, the diner was a popular after-school hang-out for Shank High students.

Carey parked and told me to wait. He got out, dug his wallet out of his bag and paced swiftly over to the passenger side to let me out. After another strategic yank on the handle, the door swung open and I climbed out, shooting him a smile. I couldn’t believe the turn of events I had experienced today. I had made two friends already, a first for me. Despite all the warning bells going off in my brain, for the first time in years I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe this time would be different. Maybe this time I could fit in, have friends, live like a normal teenager.

Carey laughed suddenly and I followed his gaze. Preston had pulled in on the other side of the parking lot, down by the hardware store. He jumped out of his truck and glared in our direction for a moment. Carey gave a nonchalant wave and winked at me. I grinned and waved. Preston nodded his head and stomped into the store.

We laughed together a moment and I ignored another twinge of anxiety at the growing intimacy between us. He pulled the door open and led me to an empty booth, waving greetings at a few people. I noticed a number of jealous looks sent my way from the girls at the next table over. I was willing to bet that Carey’s ridiculous good looks, genial manner, and reputation as a local hero made him quite a catch.

“Are you hungry?” Carey asked and I turned my attention to the laminated menu he was holding out. It sported the usual greasy spoon options and a long list of milkshake flavors.

“No, not really. Are the milkshakes any good?”

“Yeah, the best. The ice cream is made locally, and they blend them by hand.” I raised my eyebrows in interest and examined the choices. By the time the waiter attended to us I had selected a vanilla mango shake. Carey ordered chocolate-banana.

“So do you usually take new girls out for milkshakes on their first day?”

Carey gave me a teasing smile. “Only the ones that get knocked out. How are you feeling, by the way? It looks like the swelling has gone down.”

I touched my hand to my temple, surprised to notice that I had forgotten about the blow to my head. It barely hurt, though the skin was still tender.
            “Actually, it feels ok. I think I was just dazed more than anything.”

A sudden thought struck me and I fished around in my bag for my cell phone. “I gotta call my dad, tell him where I am. I’ll be right back.” Carey nodded and I slid out of the booth and went outside, ignoring the looks thrown my way. Small towns.

It was crowded and loud outside the diner so I went around the side of the building, out of sight. I speed-dialed Dad’s cell and got his voicemail; he was still at work, so I left him a message saying I was out getting a drink with someone from school and would be home in an hour, not to worry. I hung up and stared at the phone. I’d never left him a message like that before; I wondered what he would make of it.

I was turning to head back in when I heard a scrape and a shuffle behind me. I swung around just in time to see the hand that covered my mouth and muffled my screams.

I was momentarily stunned by the download, but recovered quickly. All the different martial arts and self-defense techniques I had stolen from the minds of experts came to my aid as I stomped on the man’s foot, elbowed him in the stomach and then twisted around to give him a blow to the Adam’s apple with the side of my hand. Clutching his throat, he went down like a bag of sand and I roundhouse kicked the side of his head, knocking him unconscious.

I stood over him panting with the effort of my defense and looked around to see if anyone had noticed the attack. Thankfully we were in the shadows at the back of the building and there was no one around.

“Hell for breakfast,” I mumbled, quoting my mother’s favorite curse. The familiar words eased my panic a little and I was able to think clearly. The man who had attacked me was named Eddie Fitz and he was a mercenary hired to find and capture me.

My hands started to shake uncontrollably. They knew. They knew where I was, or they at least suspected.

With a rising sense of panic, I shifted through the contents of Fitz’s brain, ignoring the irrelevant memories of his childhood, his career in the marines, all the other effluvia that makes up a person’s life. What concerned me was who hired him.

Dad and I had started running almost three years ago.  There were a variety of reasons to leave, but the most pertinent was the persistence of Dr. Freich and his colleague, a psychiatrist name Dr. Samuelson. Samuelson had shown up on our doorstep in New York one evening, claiming that he wanted to meet Dr. Freich’s little miracle. He asked a lot of questions, some about the trauma I’d endured, how I felt about losing my mother, but mostly he focused on my “intuition” as he called it. He administered several tests and seemed both surprised and pleased by the results. Finally he told us the real reason for his visit. He belonged to an organization called the Coalition, whose sole purpose was scientific advancement for the betterment of the human race. He wanted me to go with him, to undergo more tests, determine what I was really capable of.

Skeptical, my father told him we weren’t interested in joining his organization or going through any more tests. Samuelson took the news with good humor, but promised to return the next day to try to convince us to change our minds. It wasn’t until he was gone that I realized he had been very careful not to touch me.

We started running that night.

Over the years I had run into agents of the Coalition. That was one of the reasons that we moved every few months; staying in one place too long meant that they would somehow track me down.

About a year ago they did. I was leaving school one day when a van pulled up and a masked man grabbed me and hauled me in. I was knocked out almost immediately and woke up strapped to a metal table with electrodes attached to my skin and an IV in my hand. There followed the worst week of my life. I tried never to think about it, and I would do anything to prevent being taken by the Coalition again.

My stomach sank as I looked down at Fitz, the mercenary who very nearly got me this time. I felt sick. We’d only been here for a week. How had he found me so fast?

Sifting through his most recent thoughts provided me with the answer. He hadn’t tracked me to Pound, he was just passing through on his way to Ohio, where Dad and I had just moved from. Fitz was doing some business on the side for a local chapter of a biker gang, supervising a drug run and then ‘taking care’ of the supplier. Fitz had been in the diner getting lunch when he spotted me, compared me to the picture in his file, and snuck outside to grab me. It was sheer chance that he saw me at all.

Just my luck.

With a desperate sense of hope, I examined his thoughts more closely and felt the knots in my stomach unwind. He hadn’t called anyone about seeing me, assuming he would have no trouble nabbing a sixteen year old girl. Thankfully, my reflexes and extensive knowledge of self-defense had kicked in.

I could have wept with the relief that swept over me. The Coalition didn’t know I was in Pound. I was safe here, for the time being, if I could get rid of Fitz. Now, however, I had to decide what to do with him. I couldn’t let him go, since he would just keep looking for me or lead the Coalition straight to me, but if he simply disappeared someone else would probably be sent to investigate. Besides, it’s not like I could kill him; though from what I had learned about him, he would certainly be no loss to the world.