Bladed Wings (47 page)

“Well, I’m glad you’re making a mistake then.”

“You’ll get disgusted. You’ll run away, but I won’t blame you for that.” He smiled, a little sad this time. “I’ve got to say something else. This has been good. In the last few years, I haven’t known anyone like you. I’m with you, and things feel brighter.”

              He didn’t want to be with her. He liked being with her. Kayla didn’t know how to interpret that. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say after a guy told her something like that. Seriously, what was she supposed to say? If she didn’t know what guys normally thought, she definitely didn’t know how to answer that.

              “Did I hurt you?” he asked, “I could take you home.”

              “No. I’m fine.”

              “I want to be honest with you. You have that effect on me for some reason. I could lie to everyone else. I wouldn’t even need to warp their minds. People can look at me and just know I’m telling the truth, especially when I’m lying. But you’re different.”

              “I’m not going to just ditch you.” Kayla didn’t want to admit the next part. “I know how it feels. Friends. Even family, a little. So yeah,” she smiled at him, “You’re stuck with me.” She didn’t want that night to end. Kayla didn’t know what should’ve made her more nervous, the thought he’d want to take her home and disappear or how nervous she got at the thought. She shouldn’t have been that scared. A guy wasn’t supposed to be able to do that to her.

              “Maybe.” Only the sound of the engine, the faded screams of a distant siren, managed to puncture the silence. “I’ve never met anyone like you,” he said.

              At the same time, he pulled off the road and maneuvered into a parking garage. They were down town, surrounded by Sacramento’s few sky scrapers. They got out at the same time, and Kayla admired her surroundings. Cold and crisp air touched her lungs. It was energized, like it had the promise of something new, something different. She wanted to think something special would happen. Each of the buildings were darkened with just a few lights. They glowed like squared and yellow stars. Overhead, Kayla noticed a flurry of real stars.

              “Where are we?”

              “It’s a surprise.”

              They started walking together. He didn’t take her to the stairwells. Instead, they just walked through the shadows. None of the lights were on. Each level was black. As they walked down the incline, Kayla couldn’t see her feet. Instead of feeling scared and alone, it felt warmer and safer. She knew he was beside her. She could feel Seth in a way she couldn’t explain. It was like an electricity, this little pulse of energy that vibrated between them.

              “Can I ask you something?” Kayla nodded, remembered that he couldn’t see her, and said yes. “If the Alliance decides to leave you alone, if you get to pick your life, what will you choose?” He sounded even, flat. It was the same tone he used whenever he was curious and nervous at the same time. Kayla felt a corner of her mouth rise in a quarter-smile. She was getting to know him. That felt special. That felt important.

              “Anything?”

              “Anything normal.”

              “College, I guess. Maybe meet someone. Get my degree. Get a job.”

              “Nothing more specific? Like what would you want to major in? Anything fun?”

              “Not really. I haven’t thought about it much.”

              “I’m guessing medicine.”

              “No, I don’t want to be a doctor.” Kayla felt herself shiver. “I wouldn’t want to have to tell people that their loved ones died or got sick. I don’t think I’d be good at that.”

              “I do,” Seth said. “You sound like you care. I think people would pick up on that. Like they could look at you and know you want them to feel better.”

              “If you say so,” she said. “So I guess it would have to be something else.” They cleared another level. Part of Kayla didn’t want to leave the dark. She didn’t know where they were headed and she didn’t care.

              “Astronomy,” she said.

              “Really? Stars.”

              “You’re surprised?” It didn’t sound special to her. Sure, it wasn’t the same communications or business major everyone else wanted.

              “I guess so.” There was something else, something she couldn’t name. “Doesn’t that go against your Christian ideals?”

              “Science?”

              “Yeah. What happens if you figure out that Earth isn’t the center of the universe?”

              “That’s not fair.”

              “The Church didn’t want scientists to share that theory, and then it was proven, and the priests didn’t look very bright,” Seth said. He didn’t sound like he wanted to bash her beliefs. He just sounded curious about how her faith and interests might go together.

              “Astronomy makes sense,” she said. “I know that God exists, I know that He is good, and I know that He gave us a very beautiful universe. Ignoring it seems kind of insulting, don’t you think? I want to understand it.”

              “What happens if you find something you don’t like?”

              “Don’t like?” she asked, “Or don’t understand?”

              “You really are like no one I’ve ever met.”

              They cleared the dark. Up ahead, there wasn’t a restaurant or a theatre, nothing she would’ve expected where they’d hang out. Instead, it looked like the double glass doors of an office building. That’s when they cleared the ceiling and she could look up.

              The building in front of them wasn’t a generic cube or rectangle. It was a step pyramid. Kayla had seen this building from the freeway or when her mom drove her downtown to the mall. Looking up, this building was way bigger than she thought. The lights were off in the individual rooms, but the pyramid was lit up, this golden beacon that anyone could have seen for miles. She still didn’t know what they were doing there, but she’d trust him. Kayla was pretty sure she’d always trust Seth. It was a different kind of faith, just as special.

              Despite the hour, the doors slid open for them. There were two guards off at the counter, and they looked up, annoyed and pleased at the same time. Probably annoyed because two teenagers just came into their building. Pleased because they were about to kick them out. Of course, they didn’t know who Seth was. He held up two fingers and waved himself through. They both sat back down.

              “Does that ever not feel weird?” she whispered, scared that if they heard her the spell might break.

              “Actually, I’m used to it. That whole thing about power corrupting absolutely.”

              “Think the same thing will happen to me?” Kayla had only used her abilities a couple times. She understood them better with Seth’s help, yet she still couldn’t imagine some moment where she’d grab stuff from the kitchen with a flick of her wrist or a pull of her finger. That might’ve been a bad idea too because she couldn’t let herself get rusty, not when Sasha was out there. An enemy, she had an enemy now, someone who wanted to hurt her.

              They came to a bank of elevators. Seth hit the button and turned to her, “No. That’ll never happen.” He said it like a fact. He said it like there was just no way he could think it would ever, ever take place. “You’ll be the exception.”

              “That doesn’t make very much sense.”

              With a roll of his shoulders, “I don’t have faith, but I think you’d find some way to be okay no matter what. You’re the one person who might be surrounded by complete evil and darkness and everything, the worst of the worst, and somehow you’d still be good.”

              “I wish you were right.”

              “Okay then,” Seth said, “Tell me, what’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?”

              “That’s not fair.”

              “Why not?”

              “You won’t tell me. Why should I tell you?”

              “Because the worst you ever did might’ve involved stealing a barrette when you were like ten, but then consumed by guilt you probably ran back to the store owner apologizing and offering to pay twice what it actually cost.”

              The elevator doors opened and Kayla tried to keep her face down. She didn’t want to admit that that was pretty close to the truth. Beside her, she heard him chuckle, “I’m right, aren’t I? C’mon, tell me I’m wrong because you can’t. You know I’m not. I was right. I was totally right.”

              “Quit gloating,” she said and looked back at him. He had relaxed again. It didn’t happen very often. He could have been really popular if he didn’t have his abilities and didn’t have to hide from the Alliance, Kayla thought. It wasn’t hard to imagine him with someone just as strong, just as special, just as beautiful. Outside of some divine intervention, a quirk of fate or genetics, Kayla shouldn’t be with someone like him. “I thought you said you couldn’t read my mind. Cheater.”

              “I didn’t.” Seth held his hands up in surrender, “I just know how to read people.”

              The elevator stopped and the doors opened. There was another hall. Blue carpet covered the floor. The walls were decorated in different pieces of art. They were all designed to be inspirational, she thought. There were guys running up a hill, a knight fighting a dragon, and soldiers raising a flag over some mountain.

              “This really isn’t what I expected.”

              Seth led her forward through a confused series of turns. She tried to keep track: left, right, left, right, right, right, left. But she had to give up and trusted him. It was late enough that they didn’t see anyone else. Eventually, they came to another set of double doors. These looked like they were made of some heavy oak or some other expensive wood. Very rich executives signed billion dollar deals in places like this.

              “What did you expect?” Seth asked with a glance over at her.

              “I don’t know. Bowling?”

              “Bowling’s easy. I thought you’d like something a little more special.”

              “Hungry?”

              “I could eat,” she said. Her stomach grumbled beneath her jacket. She hadn’t eaten since lunch, and now she felt that weakness surge through her skin.

              Seth pulled the door open for her. On the other side was a dining room. It could’ve housed twenty, maybe thirty different tables. It was like a conference room or dining hall for overpowered executives. But now there was just one table with food.

              “I hope this is okay,” Seth said, “I’m not very good at this.”

              Across the room, past the empty tables, two candles softly glowed over the tablecloth. Softened light glowed from the lights overhead, everything gold and warm. “No,” she said, barely a whisper. “It’s perfect.”

              When she sat down with him, there were menus on the table. They looked out the windows and watched the different cars stream by. It was an incredible view, the kind that reminded Kayla of how small she was. Cars streamed by on the freeway, but she could see shoppers walk from the malls and shops downtown. They even had a clear view of the river. They started telling stories about the different people.

The guy at the end of the street with five big bags was out shopping for his wife because he wanted to find the perfect gift, couldn’t decide, and had to buy everything. There was the couple. They looked like college students, and the guy was nervous because he was going to tell his girlfriend that he loved her for the first time.

Their waiter’s eyes flickered with that same blue, but Kayla figured it must’ve been okay. She saw the tip at the end of the meal: three hundred dollar bills. She ate and didn’t taste the food even though it was the kind of gourmet critics would’ve hailed and worshipped. She sipped her Coke and laughed with Seth. She didn’t think about anything else. No parents. No fights with friends or anyone else. This was easy and warm and fun and energized all at the same time. And for a little while, it felt like a date.

That was the only leak in those two hours looking down at downtown. She knew it wasn’t a date. Seth didn’t spend time with everyone else, so he probably grew up a lot faster. This might’ve been what he really thought teenagers did in their free time, and she wouldn’t hurt him by breaking that illusion.

“Do you want some dessert?”

“If you do,” she said, mostly because she didn’t think she’d really taste that either.

“I want to show you something.” He got up and led her back through the maze of tables and back to the elevator.

This time he didn’t just hit a button. He pulled out a key, unlocked a different panel, and pushed a button. The pull of gravity tugged on her stomach, but she couldn’t be sure what triggered that feeling. The red numbers over the entrance went up.

When the doors opened, she expected cold air to rush over them. They were high up or this would be some little adjunct building where they kept their spare ladders. But it was warm. This roof wasn’t for storage or utilities equipment. Like the rest of the pyramid, it was stylized and intended for someone very rich, someone very special.