Untouched (Denazen #1.5)(6)

When I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary on the ride with us, I turned my attention back to the lot beyond. The crowd had thinned in front of the ride, and all I could see was an elderly couple on the bench directly across from us; a group of kids, younger than we were; and a man.

The man.

His back was turned so I couldn’t see his face, but his meticulous black suit and silver white hair made the breath catch like tar in my throat. I squeezed my eyes closed and took a deep breath. When I opened them again, the man was gone.

“What’s wrong?” I heard Dez whisper.

“I—sorry. There’s a lot to see here. I was just overwhelmed for a moment.” A lie. Something I didn’t do—not with Dez. But what could I say? That I thought I’d seen… No. What I thought I’d seen was impossible. Denazen was desperate to get me back and to get his hands on Dez, but there were some lines even he wouldn’t cross.

“I hope it was a fun kind of overwhelmed.” She laughed.

I kissed her. Warm skin. Soft lips. Rushing pulse. Euphoria in its simplest form. Every inch of me was alive when I touched her. It was like I walked through my life in a haze, only waking when we were close—when she set my senses on fire and made my heart pump faster.

She pulled away a few inches to look at me. Other people’s scrutiny sometimes made me uncomfortable, reminding me of my days at Denazen. How Cross would parade agents and new Residents past me like I was some kind of exhibit. Not Dez, though. The spark I saw each time our eyes met made me feel like I could do anything. Be anything. All I wanted in that moment was to drag her closer and kiss her some more.



But she pulled back and let out a loud hoot. “Better hold on!”

The wind kicked up, and for a moment I thought it was getting ready to storm, but then I realized it wasn’t the wind that was moving—it was us. And it was amazing…





5


I tried to sit up, but whatever it was that had broken our fall was making movement difficult. Dez had dragged me up a long set of stairs for a ride called The Cyclownian Slide. Once at the top, the man—also wearing an annoyingly colorful suit—made us sit. Dez wrapped her arms and legs around me—that had been the best part—and suddenly we were moving. Gliding downward along a smooth, narrow surface. Smooth but not level. We dipped low, then to the right and left. At one point, we’d been moving so fast, I was sure we’d fly over the edge. When we landed, it wasn’t on solid ground like I would have expected, but in a pile of…spheres. Colorful ones.

I picked one up, turning it over in my hand several times. “What are these things?”

“They’re…” Dez was having a problem maneuvering herself through the stuff. Each time she tried to stand, the spheres would hamper her balance and she would topple sideways. Why would they put these things at the bottom knowing people came down here? “…balls. The slide empties into a ball pit.”



“A ball pit?”

A familiar hoot, faint at first, then louder, filled the air as Kiernan appeared. She landed in the balls beside us, screaming and waving her arms in a frantic motion. At first, I panicked, thinking something was wrong, but then I realized it was just excitement. She was excited. To be rolling around in colorful balls.

Dez tried—and failed—to climb to her feet again, waving both arms and legs in an attempt to struggle upright while laughing hysterically. “Yeah. You remember. Like the one we saw when we spoke to—umf—Katy Macnamara. That Six in Fenfeild?”

Our second stop had been to warn a Six with the ability to speak with animals. We found her working at an odd eating establishment whose spokesperson was a rodent with a hat and shirt. On our way out, we observed children playing in what resembled an oversize tub full of colorful plastic balls. The kids bounced and laughed and admittedly I’d felt a little jealous. It had looked like so much fun.

What had I been thinking?

I pushed my foot down, trying to find the floor. After several tries, it finally hit solid ground. “You said this place was supposed to be fun, but I’m not sure that’s completely accurate.”

She laughed. “Just trust me on it. It’s cooler than it looks.” She was finally wading successfully through the sea of spheres.

Kiernan came up beside us. She tossed one of the balls in the air, then let it fall to the floor. “Not a fan of the ball pit, huh?”

Dez laughed again. The sound was enough to make me forget about my irritation with the impossible-to-maneuver spheres. “He’s not a ball pit kind of guy.”

Kiernan waggled her eyebrows. “Well, tell me. What kind of guy are you? What’s your idea of fun?”

I thought about it for a minute. No one had ever asked me that question. What kind of guy was I? My idea of fun was Dez. My eyes found hers. Spending time with her, holding her…kissing her. Just being close to her. These were the things I enjoyed. The things that made me feel most alive. I believed without a doubt that my heart began to truly beat the day I met her.



She cleared her throat and looked away, blushing. It took a moment for me to realize why. She’d been thinking of kissing. I’d told her just last week kissing her was my second favorite thing to do. The first—well, she told me that was something we should keep between us. I didn’t understand why exactly. Everyone should know about something so amazing, but I took her word on it. She knew the ins and outs of society far better than I did. Probably better than I ever would.