by Harris, Noah
“We’ll move with the crowd until we can move to the busier part of the neighborhood. We can catch a ride from there, and hopefully, we can get to a safe house without anyone jumping us on the way,” Johnny explained.
Kell nodded, moving to stand beside Johnny and take his arm in his own. “Okay, we’ll be as inconspicuous as possible.”
Johnny looked down at their linked arms. “What are you doing?”
Kell smirked up at him. “If we walk like this, no one is going to pay much attention to us. Just two guys, out together for a good day. And anyone who might have an issue with two guys together is going to do everything they can to pretend they don’t see it. It’s perfect. Don’t worry, I won’t infringe on your heterosexuality.”
“It’s a little presumptuous of you to assume I’m straight,” Johnny told him.
Before Kell’s eyes could do more than widen with surprise and a little bit of interest, Johnny raised his hand. With a flourish of his fingers, more habit than necessity, he drew back the primary effect of the illusion. To the crowd, it would appear as if they were just approaching them, having somehow missed their presence until now. The secondary effect, meant to steer the crowd away naturally, would still be in effect. As planned, the crowd continued to surge around them, this time with a few dirty looks from people who thought they were simply rude to have stopped in their path.
Johnny smiled down at Keller. “And just like that…”
“No one even seemed to notice,” Kell said with awe.
Johnny chuckled, preening at the unintentional praise of his skill. “And they’ll never know what they never saw. Now, let’s get you somewhere safe and warm.”
With Kell clinging to his side, Johnny began a measured but brisk pace down the sidewalk to match the crowd. While he was charting their path, a part of Johnny wondered if the two of them made a good pair to an outside observer. He wasn’t quite sure where the sudden desire to have Kell or to give the illusion of claiming him had come from, and Johnny wasn’t sure how to deal with the thoughts. It was, in Johnny’s mind, a product of the strange circumstances and the even more peculiar smell which hung around Keller.
Once he had them safe and secure, the hormones would recede and Johnny would come down to earth, surely.
Chapter 3
Keller
If Kell had thought being near Johnny in the street had been difficult, sitting next to him in the cab was even more trying. He’d done his best to hide his attraction to the stranger who’d saved his life and he could only hope he’d been successful. Johnny didn’t show any signs of knowing Kell was feeling anything other than grateful, so Kell took it as a good sign.
However, it didn’t change the fact that being stuck in an enclosed area with the other man was making it even harder to hide his attraction. What bothered Kell the most wasn’t that he was attracted to Johnny—the man was incredibly handsome—it was just how strong his attraction was. The feeling came from a source within Kell he’d never known existed.
Kell would normally find eyes as blue and bright as Johnny’s attractive and attention grabbing, but he found he couldn’t stop glancing at them, just to catch a sight. Every time Johnny moved in his seat, Kell watched every shift of muscle in the man’s body. The tapping of Johnny’s fingers on his knees drew Kell’s attention to the long, dexterous digits, making him wonder what it would be like to have them run over his body.
The one time Johnny’s leg had bumped against his, Kell had barely suppressed a shudder. The simple, accidental touch had sent alternating waves of hot and cold through his body. Johnny had murmured an apology for the act, but Kell wanted to reach out and take hold of Johnny’s knee, to stroke the muscles of his thighs and tease the man into something more. Kell had never known an attraction so powerful and so immediate. The only time he could ever remember being so into someone was when he was already in the moment, clothes off and mid-foreplay with his partner.
The worst part was he suspected Johnny knew. The dark-haired man would glance at him at the moments when Kell’s arousal surged and there was a knowing look in his eyes. Kell shoved against the thought, resisting it as much as he did the absurdly strong arousal. He didn’t think running away from a secret group of people wanting to kill him was the best time to be hornier than he’d been in ages, or to be paranoid about mind reading.
“We can talk more when we get there,” Johnny said, the first words they’d spoken since stepping inside the cab.
Kell nodded. “Kinda sounded like you had more to say.”
“I didn’t believe standing on a sidewalk was the best place for the rest of the conversation. There are a few matters I think we should go over before we figure out what comes next,” Johnny said.
Kell had plenty of questions but he was keeping them to himself while they rode. The driver didn’t seem to pay them any attention, but Kell still didn’t want to risk being overheard. Not that he believed the driver would even react to what they were saying. It was his experience that most cab drivers existed in a world all their own, separate from their passengers. Conversation would have been a nice distraction from his thoughts, though, and he would be glad to have something to focus on other than his body’s surging hormones.
“Is the place we’re going far?” Kell asked.
Johnny shook his head. “We’ll be there soon. It won’t be permanent, but I always make sure to have a few places to go when I come into a city.”
Kell smirked. “Not a Boston native?”
Johnny looked askance at him. “Yes, I picked up the accent you so subtly pointed out before from living in this city.”
Kell chuckled, winking at Johnny as the man shook his head. While he didn’t like feeling like he was being dragged along by his babysitter, he could at least appreciate Johnny not treating him like he was fragile. Johnny certainly seemed to be keeping an eye on him, if his sidelong glances were any indication. Kell wasn’t sure if the man’s attention was simply because he was trying to keep Kell safe or if Johnny was interested in something else. Johnny’s comment about the possibility of him not being straight had stuck with Kell, leaving him curious.
“I think any and all questions can wait till we get there,” Johnny told him.
The paranoia about Johnny being a mind reader cropped up in Kell’s mind at the comment, and he stared at the man. Kell was being thrown into a strange new world he wasn’t even fully convinced existed yet. While he wanted to remain skeptical, it was difficult to do when Kell had seen the evidence of something outside the norm happen on that street. If he was willing to consider that maybe magic had been worked by Johnny, he inevitably would have to consider that telepathy was real. Yet as he looked at Johnny, he thought there were perhaps worse things than being dragged headfirst into a new world when you had such an attractive guide to lead you.
Johnny smirked, glancing over at Kell once again. Kell’s heart leapt into his throat, and in a flash of understanding, he realized he hadn’t been paranoid. Whether Johnny could read everything or only what popped up on the surface of Kell’s thoughts, he was definitely reading something.
The thought didn’t have a chance to settle as the car pulled up to the curb. Kell opened his door and slid out onto the sidewalk, beginning to dig into his pocket for his wallet. When he looked up, he saw Johnny was already handing the driver money, enough to earn a noise of surprise and thanks from him. Kell shot him a dirty look, waving the wallet he’d just extracted from his pants, but Johnny waved a dismissive hand, looking amused at Kell’s grumpiness.
The building the car stopped at didn’t stand out, just one more apartment building in a row of others. The brick on the face of the building might have once been bolder but time had faded it to a muddied brown. It certainly looked to be in better shape than his building and he remembered Johnny had made a comment about having more than one place to hide in the city if it was needed.
“So, what do you do for a living?” Kell asked when Johnny came up beside him.
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Johnny looked at him, smirking again. “A little of this, a little of that. Why?”
Kell shook his head. “Just wondering what I need to do in order to make enough money to rent a few places in a city at one time just for a visit.”
Johnny laughed, walking toward the front door. “A lot of it is just knowing the right people to talk to. The Children are everywhere, and we can blend into human society if and when we want to. We’ve been alongside humanity for as long as its existed. We know how to act mundane at any time.”
Kell rubbed at the back of his neck as a throb pulsed through his skull. “That’s a comforting thought.”
Johnny led the way in. “It certainly has helped us survive throughout the years. You remember the Inquisition?”
“Is this the part where you tell me you avoided being caught because you were so good at hiding in plain sight?” Kell asked.
Johnny snorted, taking the stairs near the front entrance. “No, we weren’t too strict about hiding back then. We were used to a humanity that knew we existed and tended to give us space for the most part. We were too stubborn to see the signs when the Church took over and we almost paid for it. By the time everyone got their heads on straight and started behaving appropriately, it was almost too late.”
Kell nodded slowly. “So the Inquisition was a wake-up call?”
Johnny stopped on the third floor, opening the door into the hall full of doors. “Not to just the changing times. I’m not exactly an expert on our history, but if you read between the lines a bit, you can tell that the Children back then weren’t too worried about humanity. The worst of them considered humanity to be lesser, either animals to be herded or supplicants to worship them. Even the best mindset back then considered humans to be less, cousins to be watched over sure, but more like fragile children to mind.”
“Sounds like the Children were a little full of themselves,” Kell remarked as Johnny busied himself unlocking the door to an apartment.
“Centuries of worship and fear had made them that way. No one expected the Inquisition when it happened, and even in the beginning, no one took the movement seriously. It wasn’t until humanity began purging us with great efficiency that the Children realized what was at stake. The Children learned just how dangerous humanity could truly be and agreed to stay in the shadows, sowing disbelief and doubt about our existence as a shield. So long as humanity as a whole did not treat our existence as fact, they would no longer be a threat to us,” Johnny explained, finally throwing open the door.
The apartment wasn’t very large, but it was clean and cozy looking. The furniture was plain black leather and well-maintained, and the paintings on the wall were vibrant but looked as if they’d been picked up in a big box store. Nothing in the apartment spoke of any individuality or personal touches, but it was still a finer sight than Kell’s apartment.
“Cozy,” Kell remarked as he flicked the light switch to illuminate the dining room with a glass topped table and cushion covered chairs.
Johnny snorted. “It’s nothing special, but it’s not connected to either of us and will keep us out of sight for a little while.”
Kell rubbed his forehead. “You wouldn’t happen to have any painkillers in this place, would you?”
“Head bothering you? Give me a moment. There might be some in the bathroom,” Johnny said, turning down the short hallway leading out of the dining room.
Kell glared out the window at the gray sky. “Honestly, if the weather would just break, it would do me wonders.”
Johnny reappeared with a thin plastic cup of water and a couple of white pills in his palm. “What makes you say that?”
Kell took the offered items, nodding his head toward the window. “Whenever there’s a storm building, I get a really nasty headache. To be honest, these pills probably won’t even cut into the pain. The only thing that makes the headache stop is for the storm to give up and just come down, breaking the building pressure.”
Johnny cocked his head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “So, this is something which has happened before, enough for it to be a predictable pattern?”
Kell swallowed the pills with a nod. “Pretty much my whole life. Doesn’t matter if it’s a rainstorm or a snowstorm, I always get headaches before the big ones.”
“Have you ever had strange occurrences in your life?” Johnny asked.
Kell snorted. “My whole life has been pretty strange, Johnny. Asking someone who’s been shunted around from house to house in the foster care system if they’ve had anything weird in their life is like asking if water is wet. Yeah, I’ve seen plenty of weird things, and plenty of bad things, and a few good I guess.”
Johnny shook his head. “I didn’t mean odd things in the human sense. For example, did odd things ever occur when you were feeling particularly emotional, such as when you were angry? Have objects ever moved of their own accord, broken without warning, whenever you were in a highly emotional state?”
Kell blinked, unease slipping into his heart. “That’s a…very specific question.”
“And I’m asking it for a specific reason,” Johnny replied.
Kell eyed him. “Why don’t you just read it from my thoughts?”
Johnny smiled at that. “Riddled that one out on your own, did you?”
“You weren’t exactly the subtlest about it,” Kell said, thinking of Johnny’s knowing smirk.
Johnny shrugged. “I wanted to see if you might make the leap of logic on your own. I’d just finished telling you about a whole new world that’s existed alongside your own for years, I wanted to see if you could connect the dots and start figuring things out. When you’re dealing with the Children, you’re not always going to know what you’re dealing with, or what they’re capable of. You need to be able to read between the lines and evaluate each Child you meet on a case by case basis.”
“You were testing me,” Kell said bluntly.
“If I’m going to be of any help to you, I need to know how you’ll do,” Johnny said.
Kell wanted to be annoyed but he couldn’t blame Johnny for wanting to get a feel for what he was working with. If the roles had been reversed, Kell would’ve wanted to know what Johnny was capable of as well. With everything Johnny learned about him, he’d be able to make an appropriate plan of action for the future. As someone who liked having as much information as possible, Kell understood.
“Alright, so now that I passed your test, why don’t you tell me why you were asking those questions,” Kell said.
Johnny nodded, easing into a comfortable position against the edge of the dining room table. “You’ve mentioned there being…incidents in the past and that made me curious.”
“My life from birth to now could be called curious,” Kell said with a snort.
Johnny raised an eye. “That is…an oddly specific way of phrasing that.”
Kell shrugged. “I was a long-term baby. My mother was almost in her tenth month of pregnancy before she had me. Even the doctors were a little baffled by it but didn’t see any danger, so they let it happen.”
Johnny straightened. “You were a ten-month child?”
Kell blinked at his earnest expression. “I…you could call it that if you wanted to, sure.”
Johnny eased back slowly, looking thoughtful. “And there was a picture I saw crop up in your mind earlier.”
“Picture?” Kell asked, a flash of the AC unit falling, then the glittering shards of a broken window on the carpet.
Johnny tilted his head. “The glass is a new one. What was that?”
Kell shook his head vehemently. “Don’t do that.”
Johnny held up his hands. “I’m just trying to understand.”
Kell pointed a finger toward Johnny. “Fine, then ask questions and be prepared for the possibility that I’m not always going to want to answer you, or at least not quickly. You don’t get to start poking around in my head the second I show a little hesitation about answering. You might be used to using mag
ic to get what you want, but if you don’t stop reading my mind every chance you get, I’ll take my chances surviving on my own.”
The anger snapped out of him faster than he could reel it back in. It was hot and indignant, the previous unnerving feeling of having his thoughts picked out of his skull flaring up to a red-hot point. Johnny looked startled by the outburst but recovered quickly, looking more thoughtful than he did ashamed.
Johnny waited a minute before nodding. “You’re right. I spent the walk up here talking about how the Children were arrogant in the past and didn’t treat humans with respect, and now I’m repeating history. I’ll do my best to restrain the ability, but you should be aware I cannot always control it. There are moments where I gain insight into another’s thoughts without any effort on my part.”
Kell sighed, hanging his head. “No, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I should’ve just told you not to do it without getting mad. And it’s okay if it just happens, but please don’t pry into my head. It’s bad enough I have to wrap my head around everything you’re telling me, but it makes it worse to think someone can just…peer right in and see the process.”
“That’s not…quite how it works, but I understand. I’ll behave myself,” Johnny promised.
Hoping the man would keep his promise, Kell continued. “The images you saw were a couple of the weird things that happened to me before. Just like you described, I get really worked up and something weird happens. When those Vigil guys came after me, an AC unit fell off a building and almost squashed us. The glass was when I was a kid. I got into an argument with another foster kid and this huge bay window the foster family had blew inward.”
“And that never struck you as odd?” Johnny asked.
