by Lan Chan
He was almost out the door but stopped and turned back to me. “Oh, and Willow, this Spectra thing, it has to stop. We can’t have a vigilante running amuck in the city. Not with the vacuum that’s been left with Claudia’s death. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.”
I made a face at him. “I’ll have you know I haven’t been Spectra in a really long time.”
As he left, I hoped he didn’t realise I hadn’t actually promised anything. I couldn’t. Spectra was a part of me I didn’t think I could suppress. Not with the Shadowman out for my blood.
43
At the two-week mark, I couldn’t stall Ryan any longer. After watching the footage of him stalking outside the compound gates for almost two hours, Rich ordered me to get rid of him one way or another. True to my word I’d kept quiet about the reason why I didn’t want to see him. This prompted a series of questions from Adam leading me along the lines of whether Ryan had done something to me that warranted payback.
I shuddered to think what Adam’s idea of payback would be. It was always the quiet ones you had to look out for.
“You sure about this?” Zeke asked as he walked me to the parking lot.
“Not even slightly. But what else am I going to do?”
Glum would have been too cheerful a description for the way Zeke had been carrying himself over the past few weeks. After the initial shock and worry about my condition, it slowly started to dawn on him what the implications of my situation meant. Mostly that he would be losing contact with his superstar idol.
“What are you going to say to him?”
I opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat. Ah. Before the crushing conversation I had with Ryan, I needed to have an awkward conversation with Zeke. Staring straight ahead out of the windscreen, I casually let my plan slip.
“I was thinking I might tell him we’re a thing.”
It was a real talent to be able to surprise someone who had access to your very thoughts. Zeke stared at me with his mouth open like an oxygen-starved fish.
“No.” He drew the word out so it was less a hard refusal and more a disbelieving statement. “You’re kidding, right?” When I didn’t respond, he reached out and shook my shoulder gently. “Seriously, Will?”
“I can’t think of anything else that he’ll believe!”
“You honestly think he’ll believe that? Come on! You and I have less romantic chemistry than a cat and mouse.”
“Are you upset that I’m going to have to lie or that I’m implicating you in this?”
“Both! It’s bad enough I can’t talk to him anymore. Now I’m the other guy!”
I banged my head on the steering wheel. “I know. I’m sorry. But he’s relentless. Unless I give him a reason why I’m not interested anymore, he’s going to steamroll me.”
Zeke’s lips flatlined. I couldn’t help imagining how much easier my life would be if I really was attracted to him. It wasn’t even that difficult to imagine. He had everything going for him. He was loyal and funny. And smart and pretty easy on the eyes.
Sadly, I knew exactly why we were drawn to each other. We scored almost identically in every Academy-sanctioned personality test. I could predict his reaction to pretty much anything and he could do the same for me. With or without the link. When we fought, it was on world-war proportions because neither of us could back down. In short, he was me, with a dick.
“This is so messed up,” he said. In his mind I felt the trepidation that this was going to take over our lives until I finally did something about Shadowman. I loved that he refused to allow himself to think of a more likely scenario which was that Shadowman would eventually get me. “Go before I change my mind and just tell him everything.”
I had agreed to meet Ryan at a neutral location. How the other guys had convinced him not to come charging into the compound was beyond me. He’d wanted to pick me up but then that would mean I’d be stuck in his car at his mercy. That could not happen.
When I parked across the road from the basketball court, the thousand thorns growing in my stomach graduated into knives. Usually this place would be crawling with other players but one look at the lone figure on the court told me why they’d disappeared. I tried not to drink in the lines of his broad shoulders or the way the muscles in his arms flexed as he bounced the ball. For a second, I thought he was going to take a three-point shot. At the last minute, he caught the ball on the upward bounce, curled his hand around it and launched it at the backboard. I heard the pop of the ball and the creak of the board bending even inside the car. Right. So, this was going to go well.
In preparation, I checked the shields I’d finally learned to keep intact in his presence. The last thing I needed was for him to slip past them. He spotted me crossing the street. The bill of his League cap cast shade over his eyes but his fists were balled. He didn’t try to meet me halfway.
I paused a few feet in front of him and resisted the urge to reach out and smooth the lines of the glower on his face. There was a two-o’clock shadow on his chin that did all kinds of bittersweet, pleasant things to my pulse. I really had to rein it in if I was going to pull this off.
“Hey.” Let’s admit it, I was never going to win any awards for eloquence. “Sorry I’ve been missing in action.”
“You okay?” His voice was thick with restraint. Dad’s voice used to get like that when I hurt myself. When his concern for me was barely keeping in check his anger that I’d deliberately put myself in danger.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just another run-of-the-mill attempt on my life. No big deal.”
This time he did take a step forward. I wanted to step back but it would have made me seem jumpy. How would someone who was into another guy react? I didn’t have the slightest clue. I should have gone into this better prepared but I couldn’t talk to Bianca about it because she’d know something was fishy. When Ryan reached out to lift my chin, I turned my head away.
I should have known better than to think that would deter him. It would have been better to let him touch me initially because now he was on the warpath. Short of actually physically hurting him—and I wasn’t sure I could, given how much stronger he was—I couldn’t stop him from closing the distance between us and wrapping his arm around my waist.
“Ryan—”
“What happened? One minute you’re on the phone to me and the next I don’t hear from you in a fortnight. My sister doesn’t remember a single thing that happened inside the shelter. I ask her about you and she’s got no idea who you are. But I can feel you in her mind. All over it. You’re everywhere, even if I can’t find you.”
I braced my palms against his chest and tried to push away. “Can you please let go?”
“Why?”
“We’re in public.”
Denial seeped into his laugh. “You can do better than that, darling.”
It was now or never. I gulped.
“I just wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”
“And what idea would that be?”
This was too hard. I wished desperately to be back inside that shelter getting my ass kicked. It hurt less than watching the mix of confusion and despair in those eyes that had always softened when he looked at me.
“It’s difficult to explain. If you’ll just loosen—”
“You’re scrambling, darling. If you want me to understand, just tell me what’s going on.”
“Zeke and I are together.”
He froze. Then his arm tightened around me. I was like that basketball, slowly deflating of air. The problem was that I wanted him closer. That was why I needed to get away. His mind brushed against mine in a slow sweep that had me mentally shivering. So that was what it felt like. I might really only be a Whisper but Whispers had telepathy and he was reading mine. The black and silver of his power rolled over me, trying to find a weak spot in the wall.
I’d come prepared, though. Everywhere that his mind searched there was the forest green of Zeke’s presence. Wrapping my min
d inside the vital link was too easy. I might not have the wherewithal to keep myself protected when it came to Ryan, but Zeke did. Zeke might have come over all fluttery, but at the end of the day, Ryan was a guy I didn’t want in my head. My best friend saw to that. I couldn’t be more grateful.
With each touch the probe became more insistent. Until suddenly it wasn’t there anymore. And then he wasn’t there. A shiver of ice ran down my spine when he released me. Now he stood too far out of reach.
“I’m sorry.” It couldn’t have come out more pathetic if I tried. “It just sort of happened. When I thought I was going to die it made things very clear.”
“So then you just tried to ignore me and hoped that I’d go away?” This was the voice of the fighter they called Hades. Savage. Cold. It made me think he’d been playing with me from the moment we’d met.
“I was trying to sort through how I felt.”
His laugh was almost cruel. But it seemed to be directed inward rather than at me. “I’ve never met anyone who is more certain of what she wants and knows how to go after it. So pardon me if I’m having trouble swallowing it.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say and apologising again seemed really phony. He wouldn’t meet my eyes and I was glad. There was every chance I’d break down if I didn’t walk away soon.
“Abigail saved my life. I tried to protect her when Izzy Collins went supernova, but I guess I didn’t do a great job if she can’t remember any of it. They used her to speed up the blood transfusion process. I wouldn’t be surprised if her telepathy tapped out and that’s why there are gaps.”
“That’s all well and good except you’re the only one she can’t remember at all. So on top of cutting me out, you’re lying to me too.” He searched my face. I couldn’t break eye contact because that was the easiest sign of duplicity. It was also the wrong move.
He might not be able to get into my mind, but his was suddenly an open book. If Zeke and I were having this fight, we would have both stormed off well before this point. Our emotions ignited in an instant and then fizzled just as quickly. Ryan had a much cooler head. I didn’t like where his thought process was going. When he eventually smiled at me, my heart seized from both fear and desire.
“You’re not a liar, darling. I love my sister. She’s a packaged little nightmare, but no way she goes into a fight with two units of stiffs and half of Claudia’s guards and comes out alive without you doing something insane. So if you want to play this game, let’s play. I can bet you’re not as good at bullshit as I am.”
He moved so quickly I didn’t have time to evade, let alone think. His arms caged me against his chest. Try as I might, I couldn’t move. There was only one way I could get out of this and I didn’t like doing it. But when his lips moulded over mine, the electricity sparked of its own accord. To my alarm, instead of shocking him, the green of Zeke’s presence started to recede. In its wake was what appeared to be a silver and black thread.
Hell no! The nanobots were trying to create another vital link.
I might try to hide my feelings from Ryan but they knew me at my innermost core. Thankfully, I wasn’t just a kid with a neat trick anymore. For a fraction of a second, I allowed myself to indulge in the intoxicating sensation of his kiss. He was rough and yet pliant in all the right places. When the whimper tried to claw up my throat, I discharged an electrical pulse strong enough to knock him backwards.
He jumped a metre and lifted his head, grinning like he’d won a tournament. His chest expanded and contracted as he caught his breath from the shock of being electrocuted. Part of the front of his T-shirt was actually smoking. “Pleasure doing business with you, darling. Give my regards to Zeke. See you soon.”
How the hell did this end up with me standing here gaping while he walked away? I lost track of time standing there trying to piece together how it had all gone wrong. My brain was so pre-occupied I didn’t know how I managed to drive back to Hyper without getting into an accident.
It wasn’t until I got out and shut the car door that I noticed the piece of paper stuck in the passenger-side windscreen wiper. No!
The thought of picking that piece of paper up made me shiver.
Zeke must have noticed me standing there in the surveillance camera because he came out a few minutes later.
“How’d it go?”
I pointed at the offending piece of paper. He walked over and slipped it out from underneath the wiper. It was folded in half. A frown appeared on his brow as he read and then held the offending message out to me. I took it with trembling fingers:
The aftermath will echo through the city. Soon it will need a champion.
No signature. Plain white printer paper. Black ink. My stalker was back. My mind was already racing, trying to tap into the surveillance drones for footage of the block of time when I’d been away from the car. But not a single soul had been anywhere near the vehicle.
Icicles lanced my insides. I didn’t know if I could do this a second time.
Pre-Order Echo
Life keeps getting more complicated for Willow and it’s about to test her to the limit. She has managed to keep the secret of her alter ego so far, but will the instability in the ranks of the Kings force her to intervene? And how will she stay away from Ryan with Abigail’s vital link still intact? To find out, pre-order Echo now!
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