by Allie Burton
Why me?
Chapter Eight
I crossed my arms and glowered. How dare Xander think Fitch had set me up? I didn’t believe it. Xander didn’t know my history with Fitch, except what I’d told him. Didn’t know how I’d been lost and desperate and alone. Didn’t know I’d been about to give up on life.
Sure, Fitch wasn’t the sweetest man in the world, but he took care of the basics. A place to live—even if it was condemned, food to eat—most of the time, a vocation—although illegal. But Xander had no right to question what he knew nothing about.
I did though.
My gut sank with rocks of doubt. Why, when I had argued that another night would be better, one with less moonlight, had he insisted we go tonight?
Jeb had said, she looks the right age and Xander and I were both sixteen.
Had Fitch known?
How could he? Fitch didn’t know about the Society and its teachings. Didn’t know they planned to steal the amulet on the same night. Didn’t know the significance of the summer solstice. He wasn’t all that religious.
“We need to rest.” Xander pointed to a group of buildings on the far side of the soccer field. “What do you think of those?”
“I thought pharaohs didn’t tire?” All my concerns and questions turned into irritation with him. He’d made me question Fitch’s loyalty.
“I’m not a pharaoh.” His reasonable tone added to my crankiness. “You’re not a pharaoh, either. You only host one.”
Xander left the blacktop and headed back into the cover of the trees. “Do you think we can get in the stable?”
“Not a problem.” I headed for the barn-like structure and checked the vicinity. The job looked simple, but I didn’t tell Xander that. I just wanted to get in and be safe. I might not admit to being tired, but I needed time to think about this crazy situation. Time to digest what had happened. Time to analyze why Fitch had left me.
In order to get that time, we needed to hide from the Society and the cops. “No lights. There are a couple of cameras.” I indicated the two I’d spotted. “Probably not operational. No wires. Just to scare off vandals.”
“I won’t even ask where you learned that.”
I planned to tell him anyhow. He wasn’t the only one with specialized knowledge. I could do something. “I was a technical specialist.” Until tonight, my position on the team had been studying the security systems of jobs, finding the flaws or a computer’s backdoor. “Learned a ton about computers, cameras and alarms.”
He jiggled a door handle. “Do you think these doors and windows are alarmed? Because they’re locked.”
I wiped the grime off the window with my fingers and peered inside. Straw lay on the ground and saddles and reins hung on the far wall. Horse stalls lined both sides of the building, a few of them occupied with the large beasts. I only spotted a few spider webs in the corners. “The alarm should be simple for me to get around.”
Like a Swiss army knife for thieves, the flat packet I took out of my pocket held a number of small items, including a wrench, scissors and tweezers. Too bad I’d left my favorite pick back at the museum. I jimmied the lock and then flashed an I-told-you-so-smile.
He didn’t react. Just stood there with a passive look on his handsome face. Even wearing the dingy homeless people’s clothes didn’t make him look bad.
My shoulders slumped at his non-reaction. I wasn’t expecting applause but a few kudos would’ve been nice. “You open the door and I’ll slip inside and cut the alarm.”
He positioned himself by the door, careful not to touch me. First, he wasn’t impressed with my skills and knowledge, and now he didn’t want to be anywhere near me.
“One, two, three.”
He opened the door. The alarm clamored and I rushed past. I found the wire leading to the box and cut it in two pieces. The alarm stopped.
“All clear.”
Xander entered the stable and walked straight over to a brown horse covered by a blanket. He rubbed the horse’s nose and made shushing noises. Obviously, he’d been around horses before and liked them. He cuddled the animal, his lips turning up in an angelic smile. “Aren’t you a sweetheart.”
I sucked in a breath getting a strong whiff of hay. The smile and the words weren’t meant for me but their intensity scorched. “You like horses?”
“The Society has a stable south of the city.” He patted the horse’s nose, appearing more comfortable with animals than people.
I forced myself to turn away so I wouldn’t stare. “Tell me about growing up with the Society. Did Jeb raise you like a dad?” I kicked a few straws of loose hay.
Xander coughed. “I never knew the word dad existed until I started reading. I’ve always called him Jeb.” Xander’s matter-of-fact voice almost covered the hurt in his tone. He sounded like one of the boys at home when he’d scraped his knee and didn’t want to admit pain.
Sympathy splashed through me. “So, Jeb’s not your dad?”
“I don’t think I had parents.”
“Everyone has parents. You know, man and woman fall in love, make a baby…” I mushed my lips together. I wanted to kick myself for starting this conversation, with a super-gorgeous guy. I ducked behind an empty stall wall pretending to look for something.
“Maybe I was a test tube baby.” His quick response made it seem like he’d thought about this before. Like he’d found a reason no one claimed him as their own.
At least one of my foster families had actually seemed to care about me. Not that I lasted there long. I didn’t trust their niceness. The way they made me breakfast every morning, washed my clothes, tried to tuck me in at night—although I wouldn’t let them.
“Did they say you were a test tube baby?” I peeked around the short wooden wall.
“No. But I never felt like I belonged to any of the Society members. I didn’t really look like any of them and no one ever paid special attention to me. I was like an apprentice…or an experiment.” He sounded not only lonely but completely alone.
His loneliness echoed in my chest. I understood the difference. At Fitch’s place I was never alone. Shared a room with a number of the other kids, never went anywhere by myself, planned and played together. And yet I didn’t feel a sense of closeness with anyone. Responsibility, yes.
I kept my hopes and dreams tucked away inside. Never dared breathe even a word of what I wanted to do with my life. Go to school, make non-thief friends, maybe even go to college someday. Impossible dreams, but dreams all the same.
Sounded like Xander’s life had been anything but normal, too. Our similarities kept stacking up.
He stroked the brown nose of the horse in a rhythm. His mind must’ve wandered off.
“You said you’d never been touched.” Gee, I wonder why that fact stuck in my mind. “They never held your hand or tucked you into bed?”
“No.” He gave the horse a firm pat and dropped his arm to his side. “I always pictured myself like a star fighter, being trained for the greater good. Comfort would make me weak.”
Coldness seeped into my bones and chilled to my very core. I stared at him with his thick black hair and strong jaw but saw him as a young child. A cute little boy playing by himself and forced to learn an archaic language. No caring touch, no comfort, no love.
“Your idea or theirs?” Cause he didn’t look weak to me. “The weak thing, I mean.”
He shrugged, trying to ignore my question. “Does it matter?”
Stepping over, I reached out to touch Xander’s shoulder and he pulled back. “Sorry, I…” I forgot. No touching.
Not because he wasn’t used to a touch or didn’t want my touch, which still could be possible, but because if I touched him I’d zap him. I clenched my hands together and turned away again to look around the stalls. “So, where do we sleep?”
“You find an open stall and I’ll fork clean hay.” He again sounded like a small boy, but this time a happy one. Another part of his big adventure.
&nbs
p; The last stall was available and I liked that it had a small window. The smell of hay and manure didn’t overpower. The wood planked floor looked fairly clean and wouldn’t be crawling with bugs. The empty water trough signaled the location had been empty for awhile.
Xander brought over forkfuls of hay and spread it on the ground. Then, he took two horse blankets from a storage area and handed me one. “Should keep us warm.”
We both settled down on opposite sides of the stall. The horse blanket warmed, while my thoughts heated.
Technically, I was sleeping with a guy.
My lungs deflated, covering my rapidly beating heart. I glanced over at Xander’s prone form. The pants covered his fabulous legs, but I already knew what they looked like because the image was ingrained in my brain.
We weren’t touching. We weren’t even close. His even breathing made me remember his warm breath on my skin. The hay gave with his every move, signaling how close he lay. The palm scent of his skin infiltrated my senses.
Shifting around, I moved away from him. I faced the stall’s wall and kept my back to him, trying to ignore his movement, his sounds, and his scents.
The distance helped. My body relaxed but my mind spun in a zillion directions.
I couldn’t touch Xander.
I couldn’t touch anyone.
I hosted a god I knew nothing about.
I possessed powers that left me…powerless.
Chapter Nine
I awoke screaming. Gigantic sobs rocked my body. Hugging myself, because no one else could, I swiped the wetness from my cheeks. The hard wooden floor of the stall bit into my back and the sharp points of hay poked my skin.
The dream had seemed so real. I’d lived through it. Had seen the darkness lining King Tut’s view and sensed his end. His soulmate, Queen Ankhesenamen had later died and moved on to the proper Afterlife, while King tut had lived in this empty middle ground because he’d abused the sun’s powers.
I am Pharaoh. I had every right to use the sun’s powers.
My breath hitched and my body spasmed, slight twitches I couldn’t control. As if Tut still suffered even though he now lived inside of me.
The dream had awakened more questions than answers. Forcing my eyelids closed, I tried to go back to sleep with hopes of learning anything else. It was no use. My body was restless. My mind raced.
I rubbed my eyes and scratched my butt. Then, I checked to make sure Xander was still sleeping. Like all teenage boys, of course, he’d slept through my screams of distress.
He lay on his side. Silky, black hair covered part of his face. A slight shadow grew on his chin. Early morning light filtering through the high window highlighted his long eyelashes.
I crawled over to him, the sharp straw needles poking through my pants. “Wake up.”
He turned away and burrowed deeper into the straw.
“Xander, wake up.” I held one finger an inch away from his shoulder. Would one tiny touch hurt?
“What?” he mumbled.
I didn’t want to tell him about the dream while he was still half asleep. “We need to get up.”
“Don’t tell me you want to catch a bus home.” He twisted toward me. “Can it wait until morning?”
The sun would rise soon. And with it, my powers. And Fitch’s anger. “Technically, it is morning.”
His eyes opened and their sleepy green tried to focus making me envision waking up with him every morning. His tousled hair stuck up in places. His mouth slumped in a frown. Guess he didn’t look perfect all the time. But he still looked good.
“What’s the hurry?”
“Hmm,” I poured sarcasm into my tone. “We’re in possession of a stolen museum artifact. The police, the Society and who-knows-who-else is looking for us. I’ve got the soul of an ancient Egyptian King inside me. And I could burn out and die at any time.” I took a deep breath. “You’re right. Maybe we should sleep in.”
“All right. All right.” He sat up and shook his head free of hay. The golden straws fell out of his kohl-black hair.
Kohl?
Where did I come up with that word?
My mind searched for an answer. I’d never heard the word before yet I knew it meant black. Jet black—like Xander’s thick hair. Hair a girl wanted to run her fingers through.
I squeezed my hand together. Clearing my head, I focused. “I had a dream.”
“Martin Luther King Jr.” Xander shot me a know-it-all smile. “How many points do I get?”
“This isn’t a game.” I wanted to slap him on the leg, but held myself back because I wanted him to concentrate on what I was about to tell him, not the pain. “I had a dream of King Tut dying. Except he didn’t go to his Afterlife, but was stuck in this half-life because he abused the sun’s powers.”
“Like a ghost?”
“He didn’t haunt anyone.” Although technically he was haunting me right now. My lungs tightened and I found it difficult to breathe. “What if that happens to me? I’m abusing the sun’s powers. What if when I burn up and die I end up in the same place?”
Separated from everyone I love.
“We’ll have to figure out how to end the burn out.” He shook the straw from his hair.
“How are we going to do that?” My voice rose with my hopelessness. We really didn’t know much about the curse. And after the dream, I understood the consequences if I died while abusing the sun’s powers. Even death wouldn’t be peaceful.
Xander stood and stretched. His T-shirt tugged up. Trim waist. Sculpted abs. My gaze glued to him. Tingles spread out along my tummy.
“We need to go to the Society of Aten’s headquarters.”
All thoughts of Xander’s tight abs disappeared. “Are you crazy?”
He walked over to an old desk and rummaged through the drawers. “We need to find out about the anointment ceremony. What better place?” He tossed me a granola bar he found inside the drawer.
I caught the snack. “That’s like swimming in the Nile to catch a crocodile.” Strange way for me to explain it. “I need to get home. Fitch’s client is expecting the amulet.”
And Fitch would expect me back. He didn’t like taking care of the younger kids. That was my job.
The grooves on Xander’s forehead deepened. He took a couple of sodas from the drawer and handed one to me. “You can’t give the amulet away, especially if we need it to end the burn out.”
We left the stable and walked through the park in the early morning light. I took a huge bite of the granola bar shoving it far into my mouth and almost choked. “Fitch was paid a cool million for the amulet. He’ll be pissed if I don’t get the jewelry to him as soon as possible.” He was probably already pissed.
“Are you willing to bet your life on that?”
Was I? Either way, I was taking a gamble. Go along with Xander and his insane plan to search the Society’s headquarters or go back to Fitch and hand over the amulet and possibly my life.
My natural instincts of question and distrust nudged me on. “Do you really think we need the amulet or are you just using that as an excuse to keep me from Fitch?”
“Honestly, I don’t know if the amulet is needed. It just seems like a risk to give it away.” Xander continued to munch on his granola as he spoke. “I feel partially responsible for the situation you’re in.”
“Why?” I’d stolen the amulet from him.
“Because I didn’t know about the burn out and the only way to find out the truth is to go to Society headquarters and find it ourselves.” He sounded earnest, like he wanted to help. “It’s the last place they’d expect us to go.”
Like hiding in plain sight or running toward the enemy, Xander had a point. And getting more information before telling Fitch would only help my situation.
My indecision wavered like a mirage in the Egyptian desert. “How would we get in?” Using my dirty nail, I scraped between my teeth trying to unstick the pieces of granola.
Gross. All kinds of germs could spread t
hat way.
“I don’t know.”
I took a large gulp of soda. “Do you expect to knock on the door and be welcomed?”
“No.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of the dirty pants he wore. “But it’s our best option. You’re the security expert. Can’t you break into a house?”
Did he still doubt my abilities? “Of course.” I spit a huge lugie on the ground.
Disgusting. I never did that kind of gross stuff. Especially not in front of a cute guy. The saliva gathered in my mouth again. Using my tongue I pushed the liquid forward. I drew back ready to let loose.
Horrified, I covered my mouth. Then, I forced the saliva down and swallowed. What was going on with me? I don’t spit. I don’t pick my teeth. Or, talk with my mouth full. And I definitely don’t know the word kohl.
I was acting weird. My usual routine had been changed so I was changing too.
Even my feelings for Xander turned on and off. From the minute I saw him at the museum I thought he was cute. I wondered what it would be like to hold hands or share a hug. Had my attraction grown because I couldn’t touch him?
And now, even though we’d grown closer, I didn’t want to touch him. Well, I did. But I didn’t. Was crushing on a guy always this complicated?
I watched his sexy swagger as he walked in front of me. Cute butt. Lean and defined muscles. Great hair. Tingles swirled in my tummy.
Then stopped. Shut down. Halted.
All my recent actions and thoughts collided in my mind like crossed circuits in a security system. My mind twisted with confusion. My skin shivered with want and revulsion. My heart squeezed.
King Tut was a guy.
King Tut’s soul lived inside me.
I had a boy’s soul inside my girl’s body. Is that why I was so confused?
Fan-pharaoh-tastic.
I reached up and pressed my palm to my cheek. Smooth skin. No inkling of beard stubble. I grabbed my nose. Pert. Narrow. Stuck out a little too much for my taste, but it was still my nose. I tugged my braid. No short boy-hair for me. Or back in Tut’s time, did guys have long hair?
