by Sarah Biglow
“See, not so hard,” he said.
“Guess you were right.” I gestured to his t-shirt. “I believe we had an agreement.”
His cheeks flushed, but he tugged the fabric over his head. He was left wearing a tank top. I frowned, expecting a bare-chested guy to be standing opposite me. I’d just have to work a little harder. “So, how did you come up with the whole working in reverse thing?”
He glanced at the cameras recording us. “Your mother.” He paused and then, “Our powers aren’t all that different and I figured if it worked for me, it might work for you, too.”
“Please don’t tell me that whatever else you can do is thanks to my mother. Please tell me you figured it out on your own?”
He flexed his biceps. “I mean, when I first realized I had these powers, I could do little things like move a coffee cup across the table or levitate my phone across a room. She may have showed me how to build things up, but I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve.” He glanced at his bare arms and smirked. “Well, you know what I mean.”
“God, so cheesy. Why don’t you show me what you’ve got if you think you can top my badass-ness,” I openly taunted.
He gestured to my tank top. “Get ready to lose that.”
“As if,” I replied.
He gave me a devilish grin that only made him hotter as he took a few steps back from me.
“Wha—” He didn’t give me time to finish my question before objects began flying through the room at me.
I let out a wholly undignified shriek and ducked down to avoid being smacked in the face by a chair. Objects continued to swirl around me and he stood in the eye of the makeshift storm, completely calm.
“What the fuck are you doing?” I finally yelped and flattened myself to the ground to avoid the distorted bar bells flying toward my head.
“Teaching you to deflect,” he answered as the chaos of the room ceased.
“Give a girl some warning next time,” I huffed.
“Right, because the bad guys are going to tell you before they attack. That’s not how the real-world works, Tina. You have to be able to anticipate and react at a moment’s notice.”
“Well bad guys are assholes,’ I grumbled and pushed myself to my feet.
‘That they are. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be prepared.”
“Fine,” I replied and lobbed one of the weights at him.
It barely got within two feet of him before he batted it away with a small flick of his wrist. Damn, he’s good. “Nice try.”
“Show off,” I shot back.
He smirked at me and said nothing, instead gesturing at my torso. He mimed taking off my shirt. It was my own damn fault for suggesting the game in the first place. I pulled the fabric over my head, leaving me in a bra and pants. I caught Reese eying me as I tossed the shirt to the ground. I stepped up to him and leaned in close. “So, I’m still waiting for an answer on if you want to give this a try.” I made an exaggerated gesture up and down my body.
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he pointed to the cameras keeping an ever-watchful eye on our every move. “Why don’t you get rid of those first.”
“With pleasure.” With a satisfying sizzle, the cameras shorted out, their indicator lights going dark.
“What does that earn me?” I pressed.
“It was cute. Not wildly impressive, but cute. I’ll allow it,” he said and in seconds stood shirtless before me.
“So, what other tricks are you hiding?” I probed, pressing the tips of my fingers to his muscular chest.
“Stuff that’s well beyond where you are right now. Let’s get the basics down and then we can pull out the flourishes later. Okay?”
“You can’t even give me a little hint?” I teased.
“Now if I showed you everything on day one, what would we do on our second date?”
My ears perked up at his words. “So, you think this is a date?”
“I thought that might get your attention,” he said.
“You standing here without a shirt got my attention just fine.”
“Maybe we should go somewhere a little less dangerous to talk about this.”
“Fine.” He put his clothes back on and I did the same. “One thing. Could you stop a bullet with your powers?” I realized how insensitive my words sounded as soon as they were out of my mouth. “Sorry. Just forget I even asked.”
Reese went quiet as he led me back to ground level of the library and sat on one of the benches outside the front entrance. An oppressive heat had settled over the town and I tugged my hair up off my neck and fanned myself with one hand.
“I really am sorry about the whole bullet thing. I wasn’t thinking,” I apologized again.
“I know,” he sighed, not meeting my gaze.
“So, you’re really not going to show me what else you can do?” I asked again.
“Not right now. You aren’t ready.”
“You know, you were totally flirting with me back there,” I said and nudged his shoulder.
“Well you started it.”
“Guilty. I guess I should have come out and told you I thought you were pretty decent looking before.”
He laughed, but the accompanying smile didn’t reach his eyes. “That’s not how I would describe your reaction in there.”
My cheeks warmed in embarrassment. “Whatever. Look, how about this. We’ve both got to eat so why not just you know, do it together? No pressure. Just two people who work together, eating dinner in a very public place.”
“Public, huh?”
“I swear, no ambushes or handcuffs this time,” I replied.
He considered my words for a few minutes in silence, the heat slicking my neck with sweat. “Well, I suppose I could eat,” he finally replied. “Okay. Fine, where do you want to go?”
“How about Chinese?”
He gestured for me to lead the way and we wound up seated in a back booth sharing Sweet and Sour chicken with egg rolls. He watched me as I bit into a roll and savored the flavor of the vegetables and morsels of pork filling.
“You have something on your chin,” he said and pointed at his own face.
I wiped at my chin. “So, this may sound like a really self-centered question, but why do you even like me?” I blurted not able to help myself.
“I think the powers are part of it. It’s nice to have someone else around who can do what I do and gets that part of me. And, I don’t know. You just always kind of intrigued me. You were quiet in school, but you still managed to stand out.”
I ran a finger through my hair, suddenly self-conscious of the vibrancy of the hair dye I’d clung to for so long. Hoping it would attract the right person’s attention. “You noticed me?”
“Yeah. I mean, after Lena took me under her wing, I watched you. I saw what you could do.” Reese sipped from his glass. “Your mother and uncle weren’t the only ones aware of what you and your friends were doing. I don’t condone vigilante justice, but I get why you operated the way you did. I liked that you and your friends were trying to use your powers for good.”
“I guess I was trying to get someone’s attention and it worked. Just not the person I was aiming for,” I said into a forkful of chicken.
“I’ll take that as a compliment. And you may not think you deserve people who care about you, but that’s not true.”
“Tell that to the bitch who raised me.”
“Well, she’s missing out. You are smart, courageous, and willing to take risks when other people aren’t. Your methods may be a little rough around the edges and yeah it does rub me the wrong way how often you flaunt the law, but that’s just who you are.”
“Do you think people can change and be better?”
“Yeah, I do. That’s part of being human. We evolve and learn and grow. That’s the beauty of growing up and finding out who we are. You’re nowhere near finished finding out who Tina Boudreau wants to be. You’ve got time to make whatever changes you want.”
> He was the second person to remind me in the past few days that change was possible and within my control. So much of my life had felt like it was out of control that I still couldn’t quite believe them. No matter how much I wanted to accept their words of encouragement.
“So, do you have a plan beyond recovering the calls your uncle covered up?” he asked.
“We confront him and see if we can get him to flip on my mother.”
“From what I overheard the other day, it sounds like he may be easier to convince than you might think. He doesn’t want to cover things up anymore. I don’t know how long it’s been going on, but it sounded like he was fed up with it.”
“Good. Now, we’ll just have to figure out who has been attacking civilians.”
“And how do you plan to do that?” he asked.
“I have my ways.” I wasn’t about to admit that I had tracked my friends’ GPS locations. But it did provide a convenient way to see if they had gone rogue. I knew for a fact neither Spencer nor Declan went anywhere without their phones.
I didn’t voice the nagging feeling in the back of my head that my mother was prepared for whatever we were going to throw at her. She was calculating and manipulative, why she had been able to stay under the radar for this long. She’d ruined my father without really trying and had convinced dozens of people desperate for children to undergo experiments that created babies with superpowers. Somehow, we had to try to take her down. Even if that meant she spent the rest of her life in prison. I could live with that. After all, I wouldn’t be alone. I had a father who wanted to be a part of my life and people who for better or worse had stuck with me when they could have jumped ship.
“Let me know if you want help doing some more digging,” Reese said, pulling me free of my mental spiral.
“It’s just going to be a bunch of algorithms doing their thing. Nothing super exciting. You don’t need to waste your time.”
“We could practice some more outside of your mother’s watchful gaze. After all, there’s a lot more items of clothing to lose.”
I couldn’t deny I liked the sound of that. Besides, once I set the algorithms running, there wasn’t much I could do until they ran their course. Besides, if it meant this do over of our first date didn’t have to end just yet, that was a bonus. “Okay. We can go back to my place. It’s going to be empty for a while. After all, it seems only fair you get to see my room.”
Chapter Fourteen
Reese
As Tina predicted, Lena was nowhere to be seen. Tina led me to her bedroom, hastily tossing clothes into the closet and slamming the door shut.
“It’s nice,” I commented and sat on the end of the bed.
She didn’t respond to my comment. Instead, she acted like I was sitting there, inviting her to make a move and grabbed her tablet. With a few quick taps, she’d entered Mitchell’s credentials. “If Uncle Nick deleted the logs from his own user ID, I should be able to find it and restore it. He’s a decent cop, but he’s no tech genius.”
“How long is it going to take?” I prompted.
She shrugged. “Depends on how many files it needs to recover. I guess we’ll just have to sit and wait.”
I watched Tina sitting there in her element and couldn’t help being impressed with her confidence. She may not have mastered her powers yet, but she had no fear when it came to hacking. A fearlessness I wish I’d had sooner.
“What’s got that handsome brow all furrowed?” she teased.
“Just thinking I spent so much time letting my sense of duty and loyalty define my life. I let it tell me who I was supposed to be attracted to. I feel like maybe I’ve wasted too much time hiding behind the rules.”
“It’s not too late,” she reminded me, reaching out to brush her fingers along my right forearm.
Without warning I pulled her closer until our shoulders touched. “Practicing?” she asked with what sounded like nervous laughter.
“Something like that,” I replied, pushing strands of hair off her face. I trailed my fingertips along her jawline, noting every tiny crackle of electricity dancing along her skin. She hadn’t given me time to react when she’d kissed me before. Time to return the favor. I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers.
The electric current dancing on her skin jumped to mine the longer our lips touched. I expected it to feel like getting a static shock, but it spread through me like an inviting warmth, igniting every nerve in my body until I could swear we resonated at the same frequency
“Whoah,” Tina rasped when I finally pulled away.
“Whoah,” I echoed, my hand still lightly pressed against her chin.
Tina glanced down to see we were again floating a few inches off the bed. “You’ve got to show me how to do that.”
“Uh … It’s not just me. You’re doing it, too. I think our powers are interacting somehow,” I answered.
“I guess we could see what else happens,” she suggested, pulling her top off. She slid into my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck. “No tricks this time. I swear.”
“Good.” I shed my own t-shirt and undershirt.
She pressed her lips back against mine as we hovered there in midair. All thoughts of the last time we’d found ourselves in this situation vanished and I let creating this new memory take hold. I committed every detail in my mind’s eye. The feeling of her breasts pressing against my chest and the softness of her hair between my fingers. When I finally came up for air, she leaned back against my arms with an impish smile. I heard the ‘snick’ of a zipper being pulled down and looked to see she’d undone my fly without lifting a finger.
“Slow down there,” I said, settling us back on the bed and pulling the zipper up.
“You’re really telling me you don’t want to?”
“Not on a first date. Besides, what’s the rush?” I asked.
“I just thought … you’d want to. You said you were up for continuing our game,” she answered just as the tablet on the desk gave off a loud ‘ping’.
“Saved by the bell,” I gave a weak laugh.
Tina sighed and grabbed the tablet, purposely shifting to the desk chair to put distance between us. She turned her back to me so I couldn’t see what she’d found. She hooked her right foot through the shoulder strap of her messenger bag, pulling it to her and retrieved a phone. After a solid five minutes of silence, she exclaimed. “Holy shit.”
I waited for Tina to elaborate, but she stayed quiet, her gaze fixated on the phone in her hand. After another minute of silence, I nudged her foot with mine, finally drawing her attention.
“You can’t just say ‘holy shit’ and then go quiet. What did you find?” I prompted.
“Sorry … he’s been deleting logs for at least a year. Some of it’s just destruction of property, but the more recent stuff … there was a call about a guy insisting he was mind controlled to crash his car.” She dragged her finger along the tablet screen and pointed to another log. “This one the report says a woman claimed someone was reading her mind. She tried to kill herself. The most recent was last night. A report of a fire breaking out. No casualties, but there were some injuries.”
“Is there a call that coincided with the crash?”
She tapped the screen and nodded. “Yeah, that’s here, too.” She went silent again, her lips pressed together in a firm line as she studied something else on the screen I couldn’t see. Even if I could make out the screen, I wasn’t adept at reading upside down.
“Okay, so we’ve got proof that people with powers are going around attacking people.”
“But mind control, reading thoughts and even fire. All of those sound like powers I know. People I know,” she said.
“Your friends,” I noted and she nodded.
“Now wait, I know them and they wouldn’t do that. I mean, sure, Declan got his kicks beating up bad guys, but he’d never hurt an innocent person. And I checked Spencer and Declan weren’t anywhere near the locations of those calls. Neither was H
enry.”
“And how exactly do you know that?” I pressed.
She held up her phone. “I may have tracked their phones.”
“For once, I’m not mad about the law breaking. So … what do we do now?”
“We need to get this to Clayton and we need to confront Uncle Nick. See if we can flip him to our side.”
“You really think it can’t wait until the morning?” I asked.
“My mother is covering up for people with powers like ours and they are doing real damage. This intel is what I’ve been working on finding for him. Yes, he needs to know now.”
“Okay. Call him and set up a meeting.”
She shook her head. “There isn’t time. These logs are getting closer together. These people, the incidents are all escalating. You’ve committed to our side of things. It’s time you saw the base of operations. We’re going to need a car though.”
“Cars can be traced too easily. Besides, I have a much faster way,” I said and took Tina by the hand, leading her out to the backyard. I hadn’t intended to show her my flying trick yet, but we didn’t have time to keep things like this hidden.
“I’ve never done this with someone else before,” I admitted when Tina fixed me with a side eye.
“Done what?”
I turned one hand towards the ground, let the power build up beneath my fingers and pushed off the ground. I circled the backyard in a wide arc before setting back down.
“You can fly!” she yelled.
“Keep it down,” I hissed. It was one of the things I’d discovered on my own that I hadn’t told Lena about. Given what was coming to light, that had been a prudent decision on my part.
“Hold on. I have an idea,” she raced back into the house, leaving me to stand there staring after her.
