The Untouched: THE UNSEEN SERIES, #2

by Sheldon, Piper

  The Untouched

  THE UNSEEN SERIES, #2

  Piper Sheldon

  Querque Press

  Copyright © 2021 by Piper Sheldon

  This book is a work of fiction created from the dregs of this author’s brain juice. Any resemblance to real humans of this planet earth and current timeline is highly coincidental and totally unlikely.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Reader be advised this novel has elements of trauma including intergenerational trauma, child abuse, and mental health.

  1st Edition, June 2021

  Querque Press

  Copy edits by Michelle Millet of Write On Editing

  Proof edits by Rebecca Kimmel of The Writing Refinery

  Cover by: Julianne Burke of Heart to Cover LLC. www.hearttocover.com

  All rights reserved.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Sneak Peak

  My Bare Lady

  Also by Piper Sheldon

  To J.R., always

  And to Lynsey, a personal SHE-roe.

  1

  Julia

  “Let’s hope I don’t kill anything tonight,” I say to the plant buckled in my passenger seat.

  She doesn’t say anything back. Never name the plants. It just makes losing them hurt all the more.

  Don’t go pitying yourself. My grandmother’s voice is as clear in my head as if she were standing right next to me. Focus on what’s working. I grip the steering wheel of my Jeep and take a deep breath in and out. The aching pain in my back and clammy skin could almost feel like the flu if I weren’t so used to the symptoms of my illness.

  “I am Julia Russo. I’m alive. I’m not feeling great, but I will soon.” I list these things out loud to myself knowing the looks I’d get if anybody were to see. Thankfully, there’s a reason I’m alone. “I have a steady job that I am good at. I have a best friend and a pet fish to keep me company.” I don’t think it’s pertinent that said best friend exists solely online and that I haven’t ever met her in real life. “I have legs that work and lungs that breathe.” I take another big deep breath as though to hammer in the point. “I am grateful to be here today.”

  Just because I can’t touch people without potentially shocking or burning them doesn’t mean I can’t be grateful. Just because I’m all alone doesn’t mean I don’t have hope. Before I get out of the car, I blow a kiss to the worn photo of my grandparents on the dashboard.

  “Miss you.” I push away the ache of loneliness that threatens.

  The plant is tucked safely in my right arm as I maneuver out of the Jeep, gym bag over the other shoulder. Like an unruly dog on a leash, the sickness inside me pulls impatiently, causing a wave of nausea. A flash of light zaps from my arm to the metal door.

  “Sorry,” I say to the plant.

  It probably felt that even if I didn’t. The bright green leaves shimmy in the warm summer breeze.

  I stand in the darkness listening only to my beating heart and the ticking of the engine as it cools. Up here, closer to the peak of the mountain and away from the city, the new moon allows for a thousand glittering lights to shine, expanding out around me like an ocean of diamonds.

  I close my eyes as the power under my skin start to simmer. I don’t fight it now though; I don’t need to. A shimmering light begins to illuminate me from the inside out.

  The fern and I make our way to the long-abandoned factory. The crunch of gravel under my shoes is the only sound in the still night, save the occasional nosy birds wondering at my presence.

  I stop and turn toward the trees.

  “If I were you, I’d fly a little farther out,” I call to them.

  It’s enough to startle them to flap their wings and disappear into the inky sky.

  I close my eyes and say a little prayer for any creatures that might be hiding in the factory. Rats or not, they didn’t ask for this.

  Inside the abandoned building the smell of mildew competes with the elemental scent of iron support beams and the musty, decaying concrete surrounding me. The windows have been painted black and even the spray paint tags are at least a decade old. Rumors of ghosts and serial killers even keep teens from messing with this place now.

  If only they knew I was the one to fear.

  My sneakers are silent on the cement floor as I make my way to a back room, deeper into the den of containment. The echoing room is about the size of an elementary school gym. The walls are black with burn residue. It’s solid concrete; there are no windows and the acoustics are great.

  “Hello!” I shout.

  My voice echoes back.

  Under my skin, the power is folding over, tripling and growing like some lab experiment gone wrong. It can feel what’s coming next.

  “Easy now,” I tell myself. When I look down, the veins in the back of my hands glow silvery white. I take a deep breath.

  This is my life. Some people get period cramps and I get containing my mystery illness until it starts to eat me from the inside out and then come up here to relieve the pressure. And sometimes the period cramps, too.

  In one corner of the room, I set down the plant.

  “Don’t worry, plant. I got this,” I say as I run my thumb over the bumpy leaves.

  This is it. This time I will release the sickness without hurting the plant. If I learn to control myself then maybe I can live a normal life. Maybe I can stay in this strange little town that instantly felt like home. I won’t need to always be on the run …

  But then, as always, Grandma Sue’s voice is in my head: It’s too dangerous to stay, my jewel. We would if we could.

  My equipment bag drops to floor. I slide off my sneakers and pull on tap shoes from my bag. I warm up and stretch.

  Tap. Tap. Like always, I’m instantly drawn back in time to one of my first lessons with Grandma Sue. She would have loved how each test step reverberated around the cavernous room. Chills prick my arms and I take a deep breath in and out. I’m not sure how or when we discovered that the exertion of dancing triggered the light to come, but once we did, the dance lessons were a regular occurrence.

  The room is perfect for what comes next.

  Well, perfect would be dancing with Grandma Sue again in the basement of the current house we lived in, not hiding in a creepy factory that could collapse on me any second. But needs must and all that.

  I place an earbud in my right ear, leaving the left out so I could still hear the satisfying taps from my feet, and start the music.

/>   With eyes closed, I slip back into the familiar routine of my dance.

  In my mind Grandma Sue is smiling happily at my side. She taught me everything she knew from her days in the chorus line in New York. Everything from traditional tap to the waltz and jitterbug. When she could no longer dance with me, I took to transforming her tap routines to something a little more contemporary. The joy on her face when she watched me dance was all I needed to feel the light grow within me. That joy is what I picture when the loneliness creeps in.

  Right foot extended … toe tap. Heel tap. Flap. Slide.

  The tip-tap, tippy-tap of my shoes against the solid stone floor. The satisfying slide of the metal against concrete as I swirl my foot out and around. It all feels like chugging ice-cold water after a walk in the desert; satisfying to the core. I move to the routine I’ve practiced a hundred times. All the while the sickness grows, burning and licking under my skin, begging to be freed.

  Sweat prickles my forehead but I’m smiling. My heart rate picks up, and my internal temperature starts to climb. The heat doesn’t burn me or my clothes. It just seems to radiate out of me and onto anybody near me. Or anything.

  I lose myself in the song. Though my grandma started me off in classical tap performance, my own style is far more contemporary. I’m proud of this unique routine I’ve created. My rapid tapping mixes with the electronic, dream-like moodiness of Billie Eilish’s “Ocean Eyes.”

  Light flashes against the walls like lights of a nightclub as I dance and twirl. The glow in my hands is so bright as rays of light shoot out of my palms, crisscrossing around the room like stage lights. I’ve only ever seen what happens next from my own point of view. Grandma Sue learned the hard way that it was best to leave me alone for this part. Everything around me goes dark and my internal dimmer switch cranks to the max. Already the aching pain starts to melt away, like sinking into a hot bath after a long workout.

  After the next twirl, I glance to the plant in the corner. She sits unchanged, alive as ever. So I won’t name her but I can give her a gender? Sure. Welcome to my illness, where the rules don’t make sense and the points don’t matter.

  I fall back into the music and lose myself. The steps come to me as easily as breathing. I send out the surge of light just enough to feel relief but not too far that it overtakes me.

  Look at me go!

  But the second I think about the illness taking control, fear grips me and the tables turn.

  The world turns white. The heat boils over all at once. My vision changes to a black and white version of reality, like the screen of an old security camera. The relief comes unexpected and dreaded. I’m frozen in place as it rips through me. The only thing I can liken it to is the sudden crash of an orgasm, but an intense and uncontrollable one. The relief is as intense as the pain. A total saturation of color. Burning bright. My body freezes. Every muscle locked in place.

  A yell rips out of me but I don’t know if I’m actually making sound or if the light scourging out of my throat is silent.

  When it’s over, I collapse to the ground, panting. Pebbles dig into my knees. I’m a live wire spurting out the final bits of energy that fizzle out onto the floor around me.

  I’m empty now. Only the afterglow remains. I feel amazing and that brings on the guilt, twisting my insides with shame. I can’t bring myself to look up at the plant.

  Despite what I told myself, despite knowing the truth, I had hoped maybe this time would be different. I thought if I could let it out enough to feel better without going all the way that I could stay. I’m naive enough to still hope for some sort of compromise.

  But there isn’t, is there? This is what Grandma Sue and Grandpa always warned of. I can’t control it. After all the years of practice it still gets the best of me … so now I have to leave the place I’ve called home these last two years. Though physically I feel wonderful, the sadness at my lost hope keeps me down.

  I crawl on hands and knees to the corner, chin tucked, still afraid to confirm what I already know.

  I make my way over to the plant. I find her. Dead. Brown and shriveled. My chin trembles in time with the crinkling leaves as I pick up the potted plant and hold it to my chest. My vitality for hers.

  “I’m so tired.” I blurt my confession to the dark warehouse. “I’m so alone.”

  Tears sting my eyes and I feel absolutely ridiculous. Like a canary in a mine, another plant has been sacrificed for me. Such a silly thing to cry over, but it isn’t just this plant. It’s years and years of trying and failing to control this power in me. Moving from place to place over and over again, always being alone. Afraid to make connections, afraid to get close to anyone.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry. I tried to control it.”

  A few leaves fall off the plant and to the ground. I gently scoop them up with shaking hands and drop them back in the pot.

  So silly to feel this devastation over a fern. From the outside it’s all so ridiculous. On the inside, I’m crumbling like the stems of this poor plant. So many years. So many attempts. Shaking, I collect my things and head back to my Jeep.

  I buzz with life. It’s like I’ve been given a B-12 shot, an extra fudge sundae, and ten cups of coffee. I’m alive. Color burns my cheeks and I don’t even have to see my reflection to know that my hair has body and life, though I could probably still use a shower. I’m sweating and satisfied but so damn sad.

  Focus on what’s working, little jewel. I wipe a tear from my cheek.

  After this week I will move again. I will find another town to temporarily call home. I am alive. I have a best friend and a fish. I have a good job that lets me travel the country.

  There is so much to be thankful for. I have to stop wishing for a normal life.

  I glance back to the wilted plant buckled into the car’s passenger seat. I think of the townspeople—the families and flourishing life all around that I never let myself engage in. I chew my lip and gather my resolve.

  You cannot stay.

  “I know,” I say with clenched fists.

  People aren’t safe if I stay. It’s time for me to move on to the next place. I’ll forget this town eventually. At least nobody will miss me.

  “Come on, Ferngully,” I say to the plant. “Let’s go home and pack.”

  2

  Julia

  The air blows in sweet through the rolled down windows of my Jeep as I head back down the mountain toward El Lugar. The wind cools my heated skin despite it being midsummer in Southern California. Tendrils of hair whip my face and tangle but I keep my arm out the window, my hand riding the waves of air like a surfer.

  The farther I drive, the more despondent I feel, despite my attempts to buoy myself. After moving more often than the average person actually flosses, I long to stay in El Lugar. I let out a defeated sigh and swear Grandma Sue side-eyes me from her picture.

  If she were here she would remind me of the dangers of staying in one place too long. She and Grandpa passed away before I ever learned to have control. They are the reason I stay on course. I had tried to get them to stay and ended up hurting someone I cared about. After that, they warned me of the dangers of making attachments. The closer I get to someone, the greater the risk of hurting them becomes.

  I shoot Ferngully a weary look. “Just you and me, my friend.”

  I pass the exit for the El Lugar National Labs but don’t take it like I would when going to work. The labs were built next to the abandoned mines in the mountainside. Better for secret tests, or so I’ve heard. The mines are shut down now and anybody caught trespassing is fined because of the danger of collapses. It was a perfect place for me to go … take care of myself. I will have to find another safe zone in whatever town I escape to next.

  I doubt any new place can compare to the town I’ve called my home the last two years. I like that there are no chain restaurants. I love that there’s a hot spring in the middle of town that makes it smells like boiled eggs if the wind blows
westerly. The labs attract some of the best minds from all around the world, which makes for a lot of character.

  I let out a long sigh. I love it here. It takes an oddball to love an oddball place.

  A giant ugly billboard smacks me in the face as I enter El Lugar city limits. One of many, these billboards are the only thing that doesn’t jive with the quirkiness of this little haven. It advertises Moore Investments Inc., the company that owns more than half the businesses in town and even some contractors on base. William Moore, with his big cheesy grin that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, fills the ten-foot-high sign along with the slogan WHERE THERE’S A WILL THERE’S A WAY! His dark brown hair is slicked with so much gel that it looks like it might make a sound if you flick it. I avoid looking at him whenever I pass one. He gives me the heebie-jeebies despite him being a decently attractive, older white guy.

  I pull up to my rental—a small house that came furnished. The labs are the primary employer for El Lugar. These houses are perfect for contractors like me who are just passing through.

  A lovely voice reaches my ears as I put my Jeep in park and get out. My neighbor is working in her garden and singing Billie Holiday to her tomatoes.

  Why can’t I just be normal like her?

  “The garden giving you trouble, Mrs. Davies?” I call over the short fence that separates her home from my rental.