by Allie Burton
Face down, I laid on a wet, but steaming sand patch. Dazed, I gently rolled over and looked up. Heavy white vapor surrounded me. I didn’t see the nearby rocks or Xander on the stairs. I didn’t feel the water. My clothes weren’t even wet. “Super-sarcophagus.”
I twisted the cotton of my shirt between my fingers. Not even damp. I patted my black jeans, which should’ve been soaked and uncomfortable, but only felt rough material on my fingertips. I’d fallen into the ocean. Knew my body hit a wave. Heard the splash.
“Olivia!” Xander’s voice sounded like a foghorn in the middle of a dark night. Like he was reaching out to me. Like he cared—about me.
A wave retreated around me clearing some of the fog and mist. The water avoided my body like stripes should avoid plaid. The water circled as if I stood in the middle of an air vortex. My head spun. The dizziness spiraled down my throat and into my stomach. I gagged.
“Here.” I waved with a limp arm.
The after-effect from the fall, the water’s reaction, and visualizing what I could do to the ocean made me weak. I should have drowned. Except, with water shunning me drowning would be impossible. Guess learning to swim was a big waste of time.
Xander waded into the water getting the bottom of his borrowed pants wet. “You okay?”
“I think so.” I checked my arms and legs for broken bones or scratches. Nothing seemed damaged.
I struggled to my feet, wiping the dry sand off my hands. I needed to get out of the ocean before I lowered the water depth. I didn’t want to help the Society’s cause and prove their blackmail accurate.
He trudged closer to me, the knee-length depth of the water slowing him down. “You broke it.” He moved in front of the pole and reached for the hanging piece of the wood at the same time I did.
Our hands touched.
We both stared at each other holding the wooden piece in our hands. Together. At the same time.
Skin-to-skin.
I snatched my hand back and held my breath waiting for Xander to fall. To be dehydrated. To become limp with weakness.
He didn’t.
My body tensed. My skin tightened. My heart dropped with a sonic boom. “Why weren’t you zapped?”
“I don’t know.” His green gaze questioned what we’d both observed. His head tilted at an angle. He touched his chest and abs as if testing its strength.
Another wave rushed going up to Xander’s thigh and avoiding me completely.
At least I hadn’t sucked the ocean dry. Maybe I wasn’t as powerful as we’d thought. Maybe I’d used up all of Tut’s power. “Did I lose the power?”
But then I’d be dead.
He raised both eyebrows like the arches on the Golden Gate Bridge. “I don’t think so.” He pointed to the non-existent water around my black gym shoes. “That is totally sick. It’s like that guy in the bible who parted the Red Sea.”
“How do you know about Moses? I thought you trained for Tut’s religion.” Another wave rushed in, avoiding me.
“I studied all religions so when I needed to argue I’d know what I was talking about.”
Weight added to my bones. I wanted to sink to the ground. I still had the power. And he still had his intelligence and good looks.
I glanced at the mansion, knowing we should get far away, but curious all the same. “Should I touch you again?”
He firmed his lips. His eyes flashed a touch of bravado. “Do it.”
I touched his hand again, lightly skimming my fingers across his skin. A shiver passed through me. His muscles bunched under my touch. My chest lightened. I could touch him! We could hold hands and hug and kiss.
A satisfied smile bloomed on his face. “I didn’t feel a thing.”
Was that good or bad? Because I’d felt plenty.
Felt the warmth of his hand, felt tingles on my skin, felt a connection like I never had before.
Had he experienced any of those things? When he said I didn’t feel a thing did he mean he didn’t get zapped by my power? Or had he really felt absolutely nothing? Felt nothing for me?
“I can touch you?” My voice quivered, with excitement or fear or worry.
“I think you can.”
Like a science experiment, I was taking advantage of the opportunity. For me and for a test. I held my arms up and moved toward him. The distance between us appeared like crossing a trip-wired floor of a highly secured building. I took a step closer. My arms went around his broad shoulders. My hands connected behind his back. My heart brushed against my ribs like a caged bird. I tightened my arms with a squeeze. Our chests touched. His heart against mine.
His nostrils flared slightly. He leaned toward me a half an inch at a time.
I gazed into his eyes, falling into the greenness like I’d fallen into the ocean earlier. Taking in his unique scent of lotus and palm. My heart thrashed so loudly in my chest I’m surprised he didn’t hear it. My throat went dry.
I embraced Xander in his first-ever hug.
The waves continued to come and go, but of course I didn’t feel the water. Didn’t hear the surf, either. Didn’t see the sun or the sky. I was completely focused on him. On the strength of his arms as they wrapped around me. On the broadness of his chest. On the length of his legs.
On the sudden stiffness of his body.
Each and every muscle I touched tightened in rejection. I stilled. My mushy body straightened, firmed. My arms holding him seemed awkward and out of place.
Maybe he didn’t want me touching or hugging him. Maybe he didn’t like being touched. Or maybe he didn’t want his first hug to be from me.
Too late.
I dropped my arms from around him and took a step back, letting his arms fall. I went for a casual approach. “I can touch anyone.”
Like it wasn’t a big deal I’d hugged him even though my skin still tingled from his touch. Even though my tummy twisted in confusion. Even though my heart cracked and broke.
“Guess so.” He looked at the sky, then at the five inches of water he stood in, then back at the sky. As if trying to avoid my gaze.
I looked away and climbed onto a rock that jutted above the water. He didn’t need to see the yearning in my gaze and the ocean didn’t need my presence to lower it more.
Xander ran his hand at the broken spot of the column. “It’s hinged.” He stood on tiptoes and glanced inside. “There’s something here.”
If I tried to peer inside the pole we’d bump heads. More touching that he didn’t want. I tapped my foot on the slippery rock waiting for him to do something. Apologize? Come running to me? Or just look in the stupid Nilometer. “What?”
He reached his hand into the column. “I can’t reach it. My hand is too big. You try.” He moved away.
I peered into the open pole and saw what he was talking about. The object glinted. I reached inside and inched my hand down inside the pole. My fingers hit a piece of something odd-shaped with scratches on the sides. Spreading each finger out like a claw game, I hooked the object and gently tugged it up and out of the pole.
The gold object shined. The round-shaped jar had pictures etched in the side. “Another vessel,” I whispered. “Do you think its one of the oils?”
“Our clue said nothing about a Nilometer or water.” Xander examined the piece.
“It talked about pyramids.” And lovers united, but I didn’t bring that up. Not after my embarrassing over-reaction hug.
He removed the stopper from the top of the vessel and smelled. “Juniper.”
“Like a tree.”
“It’s an oil meant to calm and cleanse.” He put the stopper back on and climbed over the railing and back on the wooden stairs.
I could use some of the calming part. Besides the big chase that has become my life, and let’s not forget about having a boy’s soul inside my body that seemed to rebel at the oddest times, I’d just fallen into the ocean and didn’t get wet, hugged Xander, and almost shared a first kiss.
And, I’d been rejected.<
br />
Ignoring my non-wet clothes, I hopped to the next rock and climbed back over the rail to stand next to him. “Let me read the hieroglyphics.” He handed me the bottle and I read, “Gateway to gold. Lights behold.”
“Haven’t a clue what that means.”
“We have two of the essential oils. Now what?”
“We should go to the police.” His voice was flat, resigned.
My breath hitched. “No. I can’t go to the cops.” I didn’t trust cops. They’d never give me a fair chance. In the past, I’d run away and they’d find me and send me to a worse foster home.
“The police are the only answer.” At least he didn’t believe the Society was the only answer.
“They’d take us into custody.” Especially me. “And I’d slowly burn out in jail.”
“What do you suggest we do?” He took the vessel and placed it carefully in his bag. “The Society plans to rule the world by threatening governments with mass destruction.”
“The cops wouldn’t believe me.” They knew me, had records and suspicions.
“We can’t run forever.”
True, but it’s what I did best.
“Do you have a better idea?” His smirk made me bristle.
“You should go to the cops.” He’d be better off without me. “Tell them about the Society’s plans.”
I was the problem, the person with the power. The person who would burn out and die. I couldn’t run from myself. I had to take action. Do something.
“I need to find all the oils.” My voice came out strong, assured, even though I quaked inside. Maybe the Society knew of a way to stop the burn out. “Then, I’ll have something to bargain with.”
“I?” Xander lifted a dark brow. “You’re not doing this alone.”
“It’s dangerous.”
“I thought we were partners.”
“We are.” But he’d rejected my hug. “But—”
“I’m helping.”
“Fine.” If he wanted to risk his life helping me what choice did I have? And I kind of wanted him along.
The first poem ticked in my head. I wanted to yell and scream. “Stupid pyramids.” I glanced at Xander before staring out at the Pacific. “We don’t know where to begin to look.”
“If we were in Egypt, I’d say the pyramids of Giza.” His eyes widened and he smiled showing perfect white teeth. “But since we’re in San Francisco…the Transamerica Pyramid.”
His shot in the dark exploded in my brain. “That must be—”
Pop. Pop. A sound echoed off the cliffs.
A chunk of rock shattered apart from the sheer wall near Xander. A jagged piece flew past.
Pop. Pop.
“Duck.” I crouched and covered my head. “Someone’s shooting at us.”
Chapter Fifteen
I recognized the sound of gunshots. Heard them in the streets of the Tenderloin night after night. Knew when to take cover. I moved closer to the cliff wall, keeping my head down. My heart stopped and re-started. My stomach twisted. My mind questioned. Who was shooting at us? “The Society?”
Pop.
Xander jerked his head left and then right. “They don’t know we’re out here. Fitch?”
“No way.” My automatic reaction. “More scary homeless people?” It was kind of a joke, but I wasn’t laughing.
“We can’t get stuck here. We need to get to the public path without getting hit.” Xander edged away from the wall and looked up. “We’ll just have to run for it.”
I moved out from the wall to assess the logistics on my own. “There’s no cover. We’d be easy targets.”
“If we stay here, we’re sitting targets.”
Good point.
Three men stood on the edge of the cliff to the left of the mansion, not on the Society property. They were hidden from the mansion’s view behind a large tree. One man held binoculars, no doubt looking for us. Another man held a handgun. A third man grabbed onto a scraggly bush and lowered himself onto a barely-there path leading down to the water’s edge.
“They’re coming after us.” Panic edged my voice. We had to make a decision fast.
“How can you tell?” He looked in the direction I’d been looking.
“What do you mean? There are three guys. One just lowered himself down. The other has a gun. Another binoculars.”
“What type of gun?” Did Xander need to know every minute detail?
“I don’t know. A handgun of some sort.”
“And you can see all that?” His voice pitched higher.
“Y-yes.” It was kind of weird that I could make out the details at this distance. “What does it matter?” The second guy, the one with the gun, dropped onto the path. “They’re heading toward us.”
“All of them?”
My tummy vaulted into my throat. The acid made me gag. “Yes.”
“The public path is to our right, past that third house.” Xander seemed to calculate the odds. “If we wait to run until they’re lower down, they won’t have a good angle to shoot.”
“They’d also be closer.” Meaning their shot would be more accurate.
“We can run fast.”
Speak for yourself. “Okay.”
Holding my breath, I watched the three men continuing down. They slipped in a couple of spots and I rooted for one of them to break a leg. That would really slow them down.
The waves continued to surge in and out, creeping up the shore, getting closer and closer to the rocks. If only it was high tide. Then, they’d have to cut across the rocks and it would take longer.
“Do you recognize any of them from the Society?”
Xander ran a hand through his dark hair, making it stand up in more places. “No, but it’s hard to see from here.”
Not for me. I could see a line of dirty sweat smear down the one guy’s cheek. Another man had a scar on his nose.
“I’ll signal when they hit the sand. That’s when we take off.”
The sun burned down and I closed my eyes and waited, trying to calm my nerves. I imagined I wasn’t hovering by a cliff waiting for the bad guys with guns. Instead, I imagined the heat of the sun caressing my skin. Imagined the sun burning, brighter and hotter. Imagined I was at the beach, the tide surging. Heat built inside me as if the vision was real.
“Go.” Xander shouted over the suddenly noisy waves.
I shook off my fantasy and opened my eyes. Xander cruised past. The men reached the end of the path and jumped to the sand. Their faces were in shade. One of the men was taller than the others. Seagulls squawked overhead. The corner of my gaze caught the magnitude of the newest waves. High tide had come early.
I turned and hurried to catch up to Xander. “Look at the waves.”
“It looks like a tsunami.” His awed-out tone echoed off the cliffs. “If those guys don’t move, they’re going to get hit. That piece of sand is below high tide.”
“That will give us more time to get away.” I scrambled the steep climb that pretended to be another path. My fingers dug into the rocks to pull myself up. My manicure was history.
He halted. “The sun controls the tides.”
No time for a science lesson now. “Yay, tides.” My body overheated from the climb. I willed the surge to get higher and stronger.
A humongous wave barreled toward the shore. The men’s expressions changed. They stopped running toward us and turned to the rocks behind them. The tall guy grabbed onto a piece jutting out. One of the other guys tried to scramble into a crevice. The third guy jumped and grabbed onto the top of one of the lower rocks.
The ginormous wave rolled forward like a freight train. It crested just before the small sand spit and then crashed like a building falling down. The water hit the rocks and the three men clinging.
I stopped a few feet from Xander. “Do you think they’re all right?” I wanted to get away, not watch the men drown.
“I don’t know.” Xander’s sober tone sounded unsure.
Like watchin
g a disaster movie, we stood still. The wave rushed back out again. I focused my attention on the place where the men had been hanging to the rocks. A spot of black. “I see them.”
“Alive?”
One of the men moved. He pulled himself higher onto the rocks.
“Yes.” The word whistled through my teeth.
Xander’s intense gaze focused on me. “The sun controls the tides. You control the sun.”
The air emptied out of my chest. Hollowed. I tried to focus. “Are you saying, I caused the tidal surge?”
“It’s possible.”
“If I did, I’m using more and more of my power. I’m going to burn out faster.” My insides quivered like moldy jelly. “I need to learn how to control this power.”
“We will.” He sounded so confident. “First we have to find the oils.”
* * *
A couple of bus rides later, we arrived at the base of the Transamerica Pyramid and marched into the lobby. The entire trip I kept remembering the waves and the men clinging to the rocks. If I didn’t realize when my powers were being used, I’d never know how to control them and I’d only burn out faster.
An Italian deli, a few shops selling aspirin and other necessities, and a florist lined the perimeter leading to the elevators. I scanned the businesses listed on the wall next to the security guard hoping to find an Egyptian sounding name. “See anything?”
“Nope.” Xander leaned over my shoulder reading the listing. His scent of palm and lotus tickled my nose and I wanted to turn into his arms. He stepped closer to the elevator. “Let’s go to the top.”
“Can I help you, kids?” The security guard behind the podium by the elevator tried to look down on us even though Xander was taller. His yellowed teeth showed through his fake smile.
“No.” I shook my head and proceeded forward. The best way to deal with quasi-cops was to ignore them and act like you know what you’re doing.
“Unless you’re visiting someone in the building, I can’t let you up.” The guard frowned.
Of course, the act-like-you-know-where-you’re-going philosophy would’ve worked better if we hadn’t studied the business listing. “My dad works here.”
