Untouched (Denazen #1.5)(4)
Kiernan snorted, pulling a twenty from her back pocket and handing it to the woman inside the booth. “Don’t tell me you’re an agoraphobic…”
“A what?” I had no idea what that was—but it didn’t sound good.
“It’s his ability,” Dez said, caution creeping into her voice. She took my hand and squeezed. “His skin is deadly.”
Kiernan stopped walking, eyes wide. “What do you mean, deadly?”
“If you were to touch my skin, you would die,” I said. There was no reason to sugarcoat it. I was who I was—and it didn’t bother me anymore. Not really. I used to sit and dream about what it would be like to touch someone—to feel someone’s skin beneath my fingers—but then I found out. I found Dez. The inability to touch others simply didn’t faze me anymore. As long as I had her, nothing else mattered.
Kiernan looked uncomfortable. “Um, is it safe for you to be, I dunno, out in public?”
I was about to mirror her statement—Dez hadn’t told me the park would be full of so many people—but she interrupted. “It’s safe. Kale knows how to avoid contact. He’s been doing it his whole life. He’s wearing gloves and a long-sleeved shirt. He’ll be fine unless someone tries to kiss him.” She winked at me. “And if that happens, I’d kill ’em before they ever got the chance.”
And just like that, my worries faded away. I wondered if one day it would be possible for me to make Dez feel the way she made me feel. Perfect. Infallible. When she looked at me, I was the most important person alive.
We made our way farther into the park, keeping out of the main line of traffic and off to the side. Dez was right. It wasn’t bad. People tended to give each other space—which was something I’d never understand. If you had the ability to touch someone, why wouldn’t you? The sensation was amazing.
Down the main path, we came to a large statue of a man with a too-pale face and strange blue and yellow markings on his skin. His clothing was bright, ill fitting, and reminded me of something Sue—my surrogate mother and, ironically, Dez’s biological one—had shown me in a book once when I was a child. A rainbow. I couldn’t remember her saying anything about people wearing them, though, and would never understand the fascination the world seemed to have with bright colors. Did it not occur to the normal mind that glaring colors painted a target on your body that could prove fatal? No one here even tried to blend in.
The Statue Man’s wild hair matched his clothing, and he had a circular red object in place of his nose. There was something about him that stirred an uneasy feeling in my belly. Like at any moment he might jump forth and try to snatch me away. I extended a finger and poked his chin. Still solid. “Are you sure people come here for fun?”
Dez chuckled and tapped a finger against the Statue Man’s head. With a grin that sent little shivers up and down my spine, she leaned into me and whispered, “What do we have here? Is my super-hot assassin boyfriend freaked out by clowns?”
I glanced back at the statue. It was still standing motionless, but its beady brown eyes seemed to follow us. “I fail to see the draw of this place.”
Kiernan snickered. “That’s Jeepers the clown. Like, the mascot of the place. Come on, everyone likes clowns!”
I looked from her to the Statue Man. If everyone liked clowns, then this was just another example of how I would never fit in with normal people.
Colorful structures in various shapes and sizes lined either side of the narrow road that went through the park. Several looked as though they might be vehicles of some sort, having multiple seats and complicated-looking controls. Others appeared to be shelters, housing hundreds of identical toys in various sizes. There were small pink bears and larger blue ones, as well as dolls in the image of the strange, shifty-looking Statue Man.
One shelter had a large table at its center full of glass cups. Each cup had a small orange fish floating inside. That must be where they stored the food.
We continued on until we came to a large sign with a crude picture. A map of the park. The sign had several pictures of the strange Statue Man—I refused to think of him as Jeepers—pointing to different locations.
Beyond the sign, just across the way, was a large, colorful wheel with what appeared to be buckets hanging in equal increments around its entire surface. The strange Statue Man’s face was on the front of the wheel in large form. He seemed to be everywhere and Kiernan had called him a mascot… This led me to believe he must be of particular importance to this place.
I wondered how it was still open.
“What is that?” I asked.
Dez looked away from the map and across the lot. “The Ferris wheel?”
“Ferris wheel?”
“It’s a ride. Like the coasters. You sit in the seats and it spins around. It’s fun!”
People had an odd definition of fun. What was amusing about sitting in something that spun in a circle? “I’m starting to wonder if the majority of the population is more severely damaged than I am. I’ll never get used to the way people think.”
“Good,” she said, rising up on her toes and kissing me briefly. “I like the way you think.” Large wheel forgotten, she turned back to the map. Tapping the largest picture of the Statue Man, she said, “This is us.”