Touch (Denazen #1)(16)

“What was it like for you?”

I leaned over and flicked off the light. A car pulled into the parking lot, headlights shining through the small gap in the drapes. The light sent shadows dancing across the walls.

“It was… different,” I admitted with caution.

Across from me, Kale gave a satisfied-sounding hmm, and I drifted off to sleep with a goofy smile on my lips.





6


As promised, we’d left the hotel at first light. The same woman who’d been manning the front desk the night before gave us an overly cheerful wave and thanked us for staying as if we’d been on vacation. Then, when we opened the door, she told us never to return.

Way to be hospitable.

The duffle bag Brandt had given Kale at the Graveyard had one of his blue T-shirts—luckily long-sleeved, a pair of black leather gloves, and two changes of clothes for me. Stuffed into the back pocket of my jeans was forty bucks. I felt bad for Kale having to wear a long-sleeved shirt and gloves in this heat, but better to swelter than unwittingly murder an innocent bystander.

We stood under the awning to wait for the bus—which was late as usual. I cleared my throat. “Look, I know you think you need to find this Reaper guy, but what if you skipped town?” The suggestion made my limbs go numb. I didn’t want him to leave, but I’d be a horrible person for not at least suggesting it. Selfish was something I’d never done. If Kale could make it on his own, who was I to try and keep him here?

“Skipped town?”

“Yeah, like, left. I can get you cash and you could book. Get a head start on Denazen.”

“And you would come with me?”

I started to pace. “Of course not. Now that I know my mom is alive, I can’t leave her. I’m going to find this Reaper and get him to help me save her.”

Eyebrows drawn, he shook his head. “Then why would I leave?”

“To be safe? To get away? I have a feeling life in that place was no day at the carnival. Why chance getting sucked back in?”

Kale stood and grabbed my hand. I had to remind myself to keep breathing. “If there is a chance to help Sue and see that you remain free, then it is worth the risk.”

Tiny prickles of happy sparked a reaction from every nerve ending in my system. A complicated swell of emotion—something I hadn’t felt in, well, ever—came rushing to the surface. I wanted him to elaborate. But of course, the bus picked that moment to roll into the stop.

We paid the fare and took a seat in the back. Kale wasn’t happy with the situation from the get-go. He scrunched up his nose and pointed to the woman in front of us. “Why is her hair like that?”

The woman, somewhere in her late twenties if I had to guess, turned and flipped us off.

I smacked Kale’s arm and whispered, “They’re called dreads. It’s a hairstyle.”

He didn’t lower his voice. “They smell funny.”

The woman turned again, this time gearing up to tell us off. Before she could get a word out, I mumbled, “He’s foreign. First day in America.”

She muttered something justifiably rude and turned back in her seat.

“Social Behavior 101…” I said, leaning close. “Don’t point out how other people look.”

He raised his eyebrows in confusion, and I sighed.

The bus dropped us off about three blocks from the address Misha had given me. The timing was perfect. In the short trip, Kale managed to piss off a pregnant woman by calling her large and a goth kid for inquiring about his makeup. If we hadn’t gotten off the bus when we did, there probably would have been a riot.

The strip was busy—summer was just getting started, and I felt better about being out in public. No way would Dad send his goons to attack us with all these people here to see it. At least, that’s what I hoped.

About two blocks away, Kale reached down and took my hand. At first, I freaked, thinking he’d taken it to pull me out of the way, or possibly to get my attention, but when my gaze skittered to his, panic thick in my throat, he wasn’t even looking at me. His eyes were trained on the sidewalk ahead, speed casual.

I waited, positive he’d let go…but he didn’t. When he caught me staring at our clasped hands, his brow furrowed. “What’s wrong?”

“I—nothing, I—” I felt like an idiot. I hadn’t stammered like a moron because of a guy since the age of thirteen. I definitely didn’t love this new turn of events.

“This is correct, right?” He raised our hands, fingers still laced together. He nodded to an older couple approaching, hands clasped and laughing. “This is what people do here?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that.”

“Everything seems complicated here,” he grumbled.

“That’s life,” I laughed. “Life is complicated.”

“And that’s good?”

I nodded. “That’s good.”

He let this settle for a moment before squeezing my hand. “Explain what I did wrong. With the hand thing.”

I sighed. If I had to have the sex talk with a guy my own age, I was going to die. Baseball analogies wouldn’t work. He probably didn’t even know what baseball was. “When two people like each other, they hold hands.”

He looked down at our hands, still confused. “You helped me, so I do like you.”