Boundless (Unearthly, #3)(3)

Clara.

I hear the voice in my head, calling my name, before I hear it out loud. I’m standing in the quad at Stanford University, in the midst of more than fifteen hundred teeming freshmen and their parents, but I hear him loud and clear. I push through the crowd, looking for his wavy dark hair, the flash of his green eyes. Then suddenly there’s a break in the people around me and I see him, about twenty feet away, standing with his back to me. As usual. And as usual, it’s like a bell chimes inside me in a kind of recognition.

I cup my hands around my mouth and call, “Christian!”

He turns. We weave toward each other through the crowd. In a flash I’m by his side, grinning up at him, almost laughing because it feels so good to be together again after so long.

“Hey,” he says. He has to talk loudly to be heard over the people around us. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Yes, fancy that.”

It doesn’t occur to me until right this minute how much I’ve missed him. I was so busy missing other people—my mom, Jeffrey, Tucker, Dad—caught up in all that I was leaving behind. But now … it’s like when part of you stops hurting and suddenly you’re yourself again, healthy and whole, and only then do you understand that you’ve been in pain for a while. I missed his voice in my head, in my ears. I missed his face. His smile.

“I missed you, too,” he says bemusedly, bending to say it next to my ear so I can hear him over the noise.

His warm breath against my neck makes me shiver. I step back awkwardly, suddenly self-conscious. “How was the boonies?” is all I can think to say.

His uncle always takes him into the mountains during the summers, spends the whole time hard-core training, away from the internet and television and any other distractions, and makes him practice calling glory and flying and all other angel-related skills. Christian calls it his “summer internship,” acts like it’s only a step up from army boot camp.

“Same old routine,” he reports. “Walter was even more intense this year, if you can believe that. He had me up at the crack of dawn most days. Worked me like a dog.”

“Why?” I start to ask, then think better of it. What’s he training you for?

His eyes get serious. I’ll tell you later, okay?

“How was Italy?” he asks me out loud, because it’ll look weird to people if we’re standing here facing each other, not saying anything, while we carry out an entire conversation in our heads.

“Interesting,” I say. Which has got to be the understatement of the year.

Angela picks this moment to appear at my side. “Hi, Chris,” she says, lifting her chin in greeting. “How’s it going?”

He gestures at the crowd of excited freshmen milling around us. “I think reality is finally starting to settle in that I’m going here.”

“I know what you mean,” she says. “I needed to pinch myself when we drove down Palm Drive. What dorm are you in?”

“Cedro.”

“Clara and I are both in Roble. I think that’s across campus from you.”

“It is,” he says. “I checked.”

He’s glad that he ended up with a dorm across campus from us, I understand as I look at him. Because he thinks I might not like it if he’s always around, picking the random thoughts out of my brain. He wants to give me some space.

I send him the mental equivalent of a hug, which surprises him.

What was that for? he asks.

“We need bicycles,” Angela’s saying. “This campus is so big. Everybody has bikes.”

Because I’m glad you’re here, I say to Christian.

I’m glad to be here.

I’m glad you’re glad to be here.

We smile.

“Hey, are you two doing the mind-meld thing?” Angela asks, and then, as loudly as she can, she thinks, Because it is so annoying.

Christian gives a surprised laugh. Since when does she talk telepathically?

Since I’ve been teaching her. It was something to do on an eleven-hour flight.

Do you really think that’s a good idea? She’s loud enough as it is…. He’s joking, but I can tell he doesn’t love the thought of Angela being part of our secret conversations. That’s between us. It’s ours.

So far she hasn’t been able to receive, I say to ease his mind. She can only transmit.

So she can speak, but she can’t listen. How appropriate.

Ann-oy-ing, Angela says, folding her arms across her chest and glaring at him.

We both laugh.

“Sorry, Ange.” I sling an arm around her. “Christian and I have a lot of catching up to do.”

A flicker of worry passes over her face, but it’s gone so fast I wonder if I imagined it. “Well, I think it’s rude,” she says.

“Okay, okay. No mind-melding. I get it.”

“At least not until I learn to do it too. Which will be soon. I’ve been practicing,” she says.

“No doubt,” he says.

I catch the laughter in his eyes, bite back a smile. “So, have you met your roommate yet?” I ask him.

He nods. “Charlie. He wants to be a computer programmer. Married to his Xbox. How about you?”

“Her name’s Wan Chen, and she’s premed and extremely serious about it,” I report. “She showed me her schedule today, and it made me feel like a total slacker.”