Untouched

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Acknowledgements

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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Jus Accardo. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

Entangled Publishing, LLC

2614 South Timberline Road

Suite 109

Fort Collins, CO 80525

Visit our website at www.entangledpublishing.com
.

Edited by Liz Pelletier

Cover design by Liz Pelletier

Manufactured in the United States of America

As always, for Kevin. My own personal miracle.

“This is the last one, right?” Reluctantly, I pulled my hand away and wiggled my fingers back into the glove. There. Now it was safe to proceed. The material ensured I didn’t accidentally
dust
someone, as Dez liked to put it.

She smiled and reclaimed my hand, fingers trailing to my wrist, then slipping beneath the cuff of the glove. Skin on skin. There was nothing like it. Dez was the first person—the
only
person—I’d ever been able to touch.

“Second to last. One more after this. Why? In a rush to go home?” she said, nudging my shoulder playfully. Her grin widened. It was hard resisting the urge to remove the glove and run the tips of my fingers along the edge of her bottom lip when she smiled at me like that.

Like I was the only other person in the world.

We were standing on the sidewalk in front of a small, blue two-level house. To the left was a driveway with a purple SUV sitting at the edge. Beyond the truck was a thick batch of trees trimmed with bushes that were dotted with small pink flowers. It would be easy dragging Dez into the shade. A few kisses. That’s all. I could tickle the spot behind her left ear, making her laugh—my favorite sound in the world—and watch her eyes light up as she told me about the things she had planned for us. After we spoke with the girl who lived here—Kiernan McGuire—we were going to an
amusement park
.

“You promised me my first coaster ride,” I said, leaning in to brush a quick kiss across her nose. She rose onto her toes and rubbed her nose against mine. There was a name for it—Dez had told me a few nights ago. Something about Eskimos, but I couldn’t remember, and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered when I was with Dez.

“The sooner we get in, the sooner we get out. I’m dying for adrenaline-pumping chaos and some serious Kale time.”

I laced my fingers among hers and tugged her toward the house. I loved her idea of
Kale time
and was eager to get started. “So what do we know about her? About Kiernan McGuire?”

We climbed the steps, and Dez pushed the small golden button next to the doorknob. Musical chimes sounded from the other side of the door.

“Um, pretty much her name.”

I frowned. “That’s all?” We’d spent the summer tracking down Sixes, kids with special abilities, on the list her cousin gave us. All targets of the Denazen Corporation, the Sixes were getting visits warning them of the danger one by one. Other than the obvious perks of getting to spend time with Dez, it felt good to be doing something helpful. Working to save lives instead of ending them. “That’s inconvenient.”

Dez laughed and bumped me with her hip, and I in turn bumped her back. I was learning. “You got spoiled with those last few.”

She was right. I knew none of these people meant us harm, but I still liked to know what we were walking into. The last few names on the list had been complete with information on the target. Age, ability—one even had a list of blood relatives and what state they resided in. But apparently not this one.

“Yeah?” A girl appeared in the doorway. She was tall and looked a bit older than Dez, with long purple hair that hung wildly in her face. She must be the owner of the truck in the driveway. It matched her hair, so it made sense to me. Dez didn’t own a car, but if she did, I was betting it would be white and black. Cars were supposed to match their owners. I was pretty sure that’s how it worked. Or maybe it was furniture.

Possibly pets...

I was still getting a handle on things. Nothing in the outside world was simple.

Dez smiled at the girl. “My name’s Dez, and this is Kale. We’re looking for Kiernan McGuire?”

“Who are Dez and Kale?” the girl asked, folding her arms.

I pointed to Dez and said, “She just told you. Dez.” Pointing to myself, I said, “Kale.”

The girl blinked several times, and for a few moments, she said nothing. When she finally did speak, her demeanor changed. “I’ve already seen the light. Praise the Lord, hallelujah, no meat on Fridays. All that happy horseshit.”

I glanced at Dez, confused. “No meat on Fridays? Is there some rule no one’s told me about?”

She started to close the door, but Dez was too fast. She rolled her eyes, wedged a shoe in front of the door, and shook her head. “We’re
not
missionaries or whatever—we’re here about your ability.”

The girl’s eyes narrowed. She was instantly suspicious. “Ability? You mean my super-exotic ability to tie a cherry stem into a neat little bow using me tongue?”

“We’re Sixes. Like you. We have abilities.” Maybe if I were completely honest, she would see she could trust us. “Until recently, I was a prisoner of the Denazen Corporation. Have you heard of them?”

Just saying the name made my muscles twitch. Until a few months ago when I’d met Dez, I’d lived at the Denazen facility. A prisoner. Used and manipulated by power-hungry men for their own personal agenda.

She turned her attention to Dez. “Is it time for his meds?”

Dez folded her arms and stared the girl down. Her
resolve
face. “You know damn well what we’re talking about, so cut the crap. We’ll be in and out and make this as painless as possible. I promise.”

The girl sighed, lips twisting into an unfriendly smile, but pushed the door open and gestured us forward. As I was about to step inside, a chill ran down my spine and I could have sworn I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. A white and black blur. I turned back to the street, scanning the area to the left and then to the right. There was nothing in sight except several parked cars and a man walking a very small dog—neither of which were black or white. As the door closed behind me, I tried to bury the uneasy feeling.

The feeling that we were being watched.

“I don’t have anything to offer you, so let’s get on with it.” The girl settled on the couch, watching us with cautious eyes. She knew what Denazen was. I could tell from the slight twitch in her eyebrow when I’d mentioned it on the steps. Body language could give you more answers than actual conversation if you just knew what to look for.

“We came here to warn you,” Dez said, sitting down on the chair across from the girl. I stood to her right. “You
are
Kiernan, right?”

“Maybe,” was her only response.

Careful not to get too close, I pointed to her wrist. A thin silver chain with a shiny plate in the middle had a single word etched into the finish. “Kiernan. Your name is right there.”

A grin split her lips as she raised her hand and gave the bracelet a jiggle. “Well, I guess the saying
isn’t
true. Not
all
the pretty ones are stupid, huh, pal?”

“Kale,”
I said, annoyed. “My name is Kale.” I’d been referred to as a number for most of my life. I had a name. I wanted it used.

“I’ll get right to it,” Dez said, leaning across to the table between them. She picked up a small tile, then scanned the area looking for something else. A moment later, she was out of the chair and across the room to pick up what looked like a small pad of paper. “We’re like you. Different. We can
do
things.”

She’d been practicing. Mimicking at least two items every day. It was getting easier and the pain was laughable now—or so she claimed—but there were always those few seconds of hesitation. I could see it in her eyes. Fear. The memory of years of pain that had come with using her ability. I envied her strength. I’d seen what mimicking had cost her in the beginning, and it took a strong person to push past that. She was determined to condition her body to deal with the effects. It seemed to be working so far. Yesterday she’d mimicked an order of something called jalapeño sticks into
cheese
sticks. That had been one of her best mimics ever…

As Kiernan and I watched, the edges of the paper twitched and rolled. A moment later, Dez was holding two identical blue tiles. She held them both out for Kiernan to see.

“Holy shit!” Kiernan exclaimed. She slowly rose from the couch and leaned forward, taking the paper-turned-tile from Dez. “That’s some wicked trick.”

Dez smiled. “It has its advantages… So what about you?”

Kiernan’s face turned stony. “What
about
me?”

This was wasting my Kale time. I decided it was best to just be blunt.

“You know what Denazen is,” I said. If need be, I could knock her out—without doing any serious damage, of course—and call someone from the hotel to come get her, but Dez might think that a little too extreme. She said I lacked subtlety sometimes. I didn’t lack it, though. I just saw no point. “They’re coming. Here. You don’t want to be around when they arrive.
They
use people like us.”

Her eyes narrowed, but I could see a spark of fear in them. “Use? For what? And what’s your bag?”

“My bag?” There was still a lot I didn’t know, but men didn’t carry bags from what I’d gathered. It seemed to me she should have known that. “I don’t have one.”

Dez stifled a giggle, and I realized my mistake. It was an expression. “She’s asking what your
thing
is. Your ability.”

Why not just say that? Was I the only one who found it disturbing that people rarely said what they meant? There was an expression for going to sleep and one for eating. There were sayings used if you wanted to leave a place or when you arrived.

Kiernan and Dez continued to talk, Dez arguing her case for Kiernan to leave with us and Kiernan denying she had any idea what we were talking about. I listened to them for a few moments but found my attention drawn to the window. That same uneasy feeling was creeping up my spine again. Suddenly I didn’t want to be there.

“I understand you probably don’t trust us,” I said, making my way back into the room. Dez wouldn’t be happy with my approach, but I wasn’t comfortable here anymore. I wanted to leave. “If anyone understands distrust, it’s me. But I know you know who Denazen is. They are not to be taken lightly. Think of the word
monster
, then multiply it by a thousand. They will take everything until there is nothing but a shell where your soul used to be. It’s what they do.”

Dez paled. “Kale—”

But I kept going. I wasn’t trying to scare the girl—just be honest. She needed to know exactly what she was in for if she stayed here. “They’ll starve you, beat you, and use everyone and everything on this earth that you care about to manipulate you into doing things that your imagination can’t even comprehend. You’re not safe here anymore. You need to get your family and leave this place.”