Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131364 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
She didn’t know why it mattered so much when they’d interacted only once, spoken only once.
But it did.
It always had.
Always would.
“Working as a J,” she began, “eventually wears away the shielding that means Psy don’t pick up thoughts through touch.” It was a natural barrier, that shielding, because babies, who’d had no training in creating shields, didn’t scream from an influx of thoughts while being cradled by their nurses. “I’m a Sensitive on the far end of the spectrum. I could die if I touch the wrong person with my bare hands.”
Adam’s pupils expanded, the unusual pale brown of his eyes gaining a fine edge of intense yellow. “What about if a person touched you on another exposed section of skin, like your face?”
“Same result,” she said, “but it’d take longer. For whatever reason, the hands seem to be the strongest conduit—perhaps because we’re wired to use them to connect with people? I can’t explain. No one’s ever studied it.” Because no one cared; Js lived, did their work, then they died.
The end.
A flush across the top of Adam’s cheekbones. “So if this serial killer assaults you and manages to touch your bare skin, he could kill you?”
A small fragment of her wanted to believe it mattered to him if she lived or died. She’d been wrong after all…the girl she’d once been wasn’t wholly dead. “I think if I’m that close to him, then my death is already on the table.” A simple fact. “That’s why I need to hunt him down, rather than the opposite.”
Adam shifted to put himself in her line of sight, bracing his arms above the doorjamb; his muscular biceps were rigid against the soft gray of his T-shirt, his wide shoulders taut. “Putting yourself in the line of fire isn’t an act of penance that’ll wipe out the past.”
The blow got through the wall of numbness enough to reverberate throughout her psyche. “No,” she said, shockingly aware of the heat and power of him in this fleeting instant when the wall had fractured, “but it might save a number of futures.”
What, she thought in the wake of the psychic shock wave, would she feel if she touched Adam Garrett without gloves? “It’s a fair enough trade.”
Their eyes locked, held, that unspoken thing a living, breathing creature between them.
A muscle ticced in Adam’s jaw, and for an instant she thought he’d break the impasse, speak about the topic they were both willfully avoiding—and she couldn’t bear to face it, even in her numbness—but then Mi-ja’s voice rang out across the parking lot. “Yoo-hoo! Adam! I heard about Jacques! Such a terrible thing.”
Adam moved to look at Mi-ja—who continued to talk on the subject as she made her way to them. “Do you have any idea who could’ve done it? It had to be an out-of-towner, surely? I mean, why would one of us attack Jacques?”
Eleri watched Adam’s expression shift to one of quiet patience. “We don’t know much right now,” he told the older woman. “What I do know is that you have your finger on the pulse of the town. If you hear anything, you’ll tell me?”
“Oh, of course!” Her small face scrunched up into a scowl. “I’d like to string up whoever it was that hurt him. That boy was always nice to my Dae when other kids used to bully him. Jacques put a stop to it straightaway.”
Adam frowned. “I forgot about that. They were in the same manufacturing class that one semester, weren’t they? The one that took students across grades?”
“Yes, and how they got on—Dae would tell me all the stories of their adventures.” Her smile was shaky. “He’s so shy that he’s always had trouble making friends—it made me happy that he’d linked up with Jacques. I think the two of them still have a beer together sometimes.”
“They meet up lately?”
“No, Dae’s been so busy with work.” Her lips turned down. “Were you thinking Jacques might’ve mentioned something? Well, if he had, Dae would’ve told me last night, when we first got word of the shooting.”
“You’ll ask him to pass on anything he hears, too?”
“I’ll message him straightaway.” She took her phone out of her pocket as she spoke. “He wanted to eat breakfast at the diner today.” A roll of her eyes. “Says my waffles are terrible, but doesn’t he scarf them up when I make them?” Message sent and phone back in her pocket, she threw up her hands. “Kids!” Then she turned and headed back to her office. “Toodle-oo! Have a businessman coming in today—have to get his room sorted.”
Adam spoke after the other woman was out of earshot. “Watch Dae. I don’t know what he’s up to, but he gives me a bad feeling. I know for certain that he and Jacques weren’t friends at school. Maybe he just made up a story to placate his mother when she worried about him making friends, but the fact he’s kept up the lie this long worries me.”