Untouched (2 page)

Dez’s eyes widened, but Kiernan just stared. For a moment, I was sure I’d simply made things worse. Eyes never leaving mine, Kiernan stepped around the table, took a deep breath—and disappeared.

Dez jumped to her feet. “What the—”

There was a faint outline—you couldn’t see it unless you were truly looking for it—and every time she moved, it kind of shimmered. Kiernan laughed. It was a nervous sound, missing all the bravado. “So yeah…I am like you, I guess.”

Dez snorted. “And you thought my trick was cool? This is awesome!
OhmyGod
. Think of the possibilities…”

Kiernan reappeared. “It has its moments,” she said, repeating Dez’s earlier comment.

“Turning invisible is the coolest ability I’ve seen—and trust me, I’ve seen a lot.”

“She doesn’t become invisible,” I said, turning to the girl. “It’s more of a camouflage effect, right? You weren’t completely undetectable. I saw—something.”

Kiernan flicked a finger at me, grinning. A flash of purple. Even her nails matched the SUV in the driveway. “Give the boy a cookie!”

Now really wasn’t the time to think about food. And where was she keeping them? In her pockets? They’d be all crumbled. “I don’t want one. Thank you.”

Eyebrows raised, she wrinkled her nose—I must have insulted her by not accepting her offer—and turned back to Dez. “I become kind of transparent. The faster I move, the easier I am to see. When I was a kid, I couldn’t do it unless I was standing still. Then, as I got older, I just kind of got more control over it.”

Dez nodded. “Mine is like that, too. Until recently, mimicking—that’s what I call it—made me wicked sick.”

Silence.

“So…” Kiernan plunged her hands into her pockets. Her right foot tapped against the ground several times. “You want me to go with you. Where?”

“There’s a place in Parkview—about two hours upstate—that’s safe. A…
sanctuary
for people like us. It’s a group of Sixes committed to seeing Denazen fall.”

Dez had the girl’s attention now. “A
group
of Sixes? Like, how many are out there?”

“A lot more than you think.”

Suspicion crept back into Kiernan’s voice. “Well, if these other people—Denazen—want to use me, then what about you? What do
you
want?”

Dez took a step forward. “We just want to help.”

“Why do I find that hard to believe? You want to help? That’s it? And you don’t want anything in return? Seems unlikely…”

“Look, no pressure, okay? Come back with us now, and if you don’t like it, we can help you find someplace else that’s safe. At least let us try and help your family.”

The girl hesitated, then sighed. “No fam. My parents died last year in a crash, and I’m an only child.” She spread her arms wide. “Everything you see belongs to me.”

Dez and I had spoken about this—the proper responses when people talked about their lives. Show interest and compassion, without being creepy. Listen when people spoke about themselves and shy away from asking strangers personal questions. That last bit of advice came after I’d questioned a woman at an eating establishment on the outskirts of Parkview why her voice was so deep. It wasn’t until later that Dez informed me the woman was a
transvestite
—apparently not a woman at all. After finding out what that meant, I decided it was true. Some things were better left to mystery.

“That’s unfortunate,” I said, proud of myself. According to Dez, I came across as cold and detached sometimes. I was determined to show her I could be something more. Normal. “I’m sorry they’re dead.”

The girl just stared.

“How about a compromise?” Dez jumped in with a smile. “Kale and I were on our way to an amusement park in town. What if you came with, hung out for a while, and got to know us. We could answer any questions you have, and you could see we’re not the big bad.”

The girl’s face lit up. “Jeeper’s Land of Happy?”

“That’s the one.”

I wanted to protest—she was cutting into Kale time—but I wanted to
leave
more.

The girl thought about it for a moment. When she didn’t respond right away, I was positive the answer would be no.

“No promises, but fine. A few hours won’t hurt, I guess.”

The inside of Kiernan’s purple truck matched the outside. She proudly informed us that she’d had it custom-made. I liked purple—of all the colors it was my favorite—but this was proving to be a bit much.

Still, the fact that we were able to go from Kiernan’s house to the park in something other than the car we’d borrowed from Ginger—with its strange, foul-smelling seats—gave me multiple reasons to overlook the color.

“My mom worked here when I was a kid,” Kiernan proclaimed as we started across the large parking lot. “They used to let the kids mess around on the rides for free after closing most nights. The Tower of Screams was awesome in a cheesy kind of way.”

“There are an awful lot of people here,” I said, looking around.

Kiernan snorted, pulling a twenty from her back pocket and handing it to the woman inside the booth. “Don’t tell me you’re an agoraphobic…”

“A what?” I had no idea what that was—but it didn’t sound good.

“It’s his ability,” Dez said, caution creeping into her voice. She took my hand and squeezed. “His skin is deadly.”

Kiernan stopped walking, eyes wide. “What do you mean, deadly?”

“If you were to touch my skin, you would die,” I said. There was no reason to sugarcoat it. I was who I was—and it didn’t bother me anymore. Not really. I used to sit and dream about what it would be like to touch someone—to feel someone’s skin beneath my fingers—but then I found out. I found Dez. The inability to touch others simply didn’t faze me anymore. As long as I had her, nothing else mattered.

Kiernan looked uncomfortable. “Um, is it safe for you to be, I dunno, out in public?”

I was about to mirror her statement—Dez hadn’t told me the park would be full of so many people—but she interrupted. “It’s safe. Kale knows how to avoid contact. He’s been doing it his whole life. He’s wearing gloves and a long-sleeved shirt. He’ll be fine unless someone tries to kiss him.” She winked at me. “And if that happens, I’d kill ’em before they ever got the chance.”

And just like that, my worries faded away. I wondered if one day it would be possible for me to make Dez feel the way she made me feel. Perfect. Infallible. When she looked at me, I was the most important person alive.

We made our way farther into the park, keeping out of the main line of traffic and off to the side. Dez was right. It wasn’t bad. People tended to give each other space—which was something I’d never understand. If you had the ability to touch someone, why wouldn’t you? The sensation was amazing.

Down the main path, we came to a large statue of a man with a too-pale face and strange blue and yellow markings on his skin. His clothing was bright, ill fitting, and reminded me of something Sue—my surrogate mother and, ironically, Dez’s biological one—had shown me in a book once when I was a child. A rainbow. I couldn’t remember her saying anything about people wearing them, though, and would never understand the fascination the world seemed to have with bright colors. Did it not occur to the normal mind that glaring colors painted a target on your body that could prove fatal? No one here even
tried
to blend in.

The Statue Man’s wild hair matched his clothing, and he had a circular red object in place of his nose. There was something about him that stirred an uneasy feeling in my belly. Like at any moment he might jump forth and try to snatch me away. I extended a finger and poked his chin. Still solid. “Are you sure people come here for fun?”

Dez chuckled and tapped a finger against the Statue Man’s head. With a grin that sent little shivers up and down my spine, she leaned into me and whispered, “What do we have here? Is my super-hot assassin boyfriend freaked out by clowns?”

I glanced back at the statue. It was still standing motionless, but its beady brown eyes seemed to follow us. “I fail to see the draw of this place.”

Kiernan snickered. “That’s Jeepers the clown. Like, the mascot of the place. Come on, everyone likes clowns!”

I looked from her to the Statue Man. If
everyone
liked clowns, then this was just another example of how I would never fit in with normal people.

Colorful structures in various shapes and sizes lined either side of the narrow road that went through the park. Several looked as though they might be vehicles of some sort, having multiple seats and complicated-looking controls. Others appeared to be shelters, housing hundreds of identical toys in various sizes. There were small pink bears and larger blue ones, as well as dolls in the image of the strange, shifty-looking Statue Man.

One shelter had a large table at its center full of glass cups. Each cup had a small orange fish floating inside. That must be where they stored the food.

We continued on until we came to a large sign with a crude picture. A map of the park. The sign had several pictures of the strange Statue Man—I refused to think of him as
Jeepers
—pointing to different locations.

Beyond the sign, just across the way, was a large, colorful wheel with what appeared to be buckets hanging in equal increments around its entire surface. The strange Statue Man’s face was on the front of the wheel in large form. He seemed to be everywhere and Kiernan had called him a
mascot
… This led me to believe he must be of particular importance to this place.

I wondered how it was still open.

“What is that?” I asked.

Dez looked away from the map and across the lot. “The Ferris wheel?”

“
Ferris
wheel?”

“It’s a ride. Like the coasters. You sit in the seats and it spins around. It’s fun!”

People had an odd definition of fun. What was amusing about sitting in something that spun in a circle? “I’m starting to wonder if the majority of the population is more severely damaged than I am. I’ll never get used to the way people think.”

“Good,” she said, rising up on her toes and kissing me briefly. “I like the way
you
think.” Large wheel forgotten, she turned back to the map. Tapping the largest picture of the Statue Man, she said, “This is us.”

I traced a line from where we were to Coaster Alley. It was a semicircle consisting of six points of interest. At the center was a large red star with the Statue Man’s face. He wore an ugly expression, baring a row of pointy teeth. “What’s this?”

“That,” Kiernan said, clasping her hands together, “is the Tower of Screams. Best ride in the place. First, though, we totally have to hit the Jipsey.” She pointed to a bright red structure with a pointed roof and a sign that read,
Jeeper’s Jipsey Hut
.

I looked from her to Dez, then at the building. “Dare I ask?”

“It’ll be a great way for me to get to know you guys,” she said with a mischievous smile. “I’ll even pay.”

“A fortune teller?” Dez groaned. “Really? What’s next, dancing bears?”

I looked at the building again, trying to figure out how the whole thing worked. Dez had said there were vehicles. They must be hidden inside. “Does it go fast and turn up-side-down?”

Kiernan blinked. “Does it what?”

Dez took my hand. “It’s not a ride. It’s some chick dressed in a costume who pretends to read your future.”

That seemed silly. “Pretends? What’s the point?”

Kiernan rolled her eyes and snorted. “No pretending. She’s the real deal. I promise.”

Dez and I both stayed put.

Kiernan stomped her foot and motioned us forward. “Come on. It’ll be fun.”

I still didn’t move. “Fun? How could that possibly be considered fun?”

She folded her arms and started toward the building, unwilling to wait any longer. Over her shoulder, she called, “I doubt you’d know fun if it smacked you on the ass and called you Sally.”

I turned to Dez, desperate. “Sally?”

She tugged me to follow Kiernan. “Remember how you told me it sounded like I was speaking a different language?”

I nodded. It was true. Sometimes I didn’t understand what Dez was trying to say.
Slang
, she called it. It was nearly as bad as all the expressions people used.

“Well, Kiernan has her own language, too.”

This didn’t make me particularly happy. I wasn’t in the mood to try and learn a new language. Especially since I still couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling someone was watching us.

The Jipsey wasn’t there. Dez didn’t seem particularly upset about this. She and Kiernan argued, then finally agreed that we would
hit
some rides and return in a bit.

“So tell me about these people you wanna take me to see,” Kiernan said, stuffing what looked like a handful of blue fluff into her mouth. Dez had one, too, but hers was pink. She’d tried to get me to taste it, but I refused. Forget that it looked like large tufts of cotton; it smelled bad.

“They’re all like us. Sixes.”

“And how can they keep me safe from these Denazen people?” She waved the blue fluff, frowning. “Your boy was right—I’ve heard of them, and the things I’ve heard are
nas-tee
with a capitol
T
.” She hesitated. “For all I know, this whole friendship thing could be an act. Maybe you’re with them. Trying to lure me out…”

I laughed. It was involuntary, and I couldn’t stop it. It was a nice sensation—though not as nice as having beer. “I’m not with them anymore.”