Magnetic Shift (24 page)

Everyone filed out of the room and went about their business. I remained against the wall, unmoving. I had to tell Dean. I had
no choice. This was going too far.

Colton pushed himself off the wall, nudged me, and turned toward the door. “You coming?”

“I need to talk to Dean.”

Dean looked up from his papers. Colton’s shoulders squared and his chin lifted a fraction of an inch. He knew I was about to tell Dean what I’d been hiding since the day I arrived. He also knew I didn’t plan on letting him stay to hear it. He collected himself and left the room.

As the last person exited and closed the door, I stood up from the wall. “You have to send me back, Dean. Send me back to the salvage yard. It’s your only hope of saving yourself from this.”

“Lex, I don’t want you to worry about all this. His allegations are ridiculous. This will all blow over in a week or two.”

“But what about the sponsorship? This will ruin any chance you have of keeping Guardian on board.”

“Even bad publicity is good publicity. Let’s just hope the board sees it that way, too.”

“You can’t take that chance. You heard what Mr. Langdon said—the board is already on the fence. Can you afford to finish the season without them?”

Dean said nothing, only pursed his lips. He knew I was right. DSG Racing couldn’t afford two race teams without that sponsorship. I’d overheard him telling Lorna just that a few nights ago.

I had to do something.

I’d feared this moment since my first day of high school, when I’d first discovered what I could do. I had to tell someone. If I didn’t, I’d be ruining multiple lives along with my own.
Lives I cared about.

I glanced down at my feet, not sure I wanted to see his reaction. “Carl’s allegations aren’t false. Not entirely, anyway.”

“What are you … Lex?”

I stepped closer to the table, avoiding Dean’s darting stare piercing through me like a laser. “I haven’t figured out what I am, exactly. My father didn’t stick around long enough to tell me.” I looked up at him, then took a deep breath and readied myself to drop the bomb. “What Carl said is true. I can move things, move them without needing to touch them. Only things made of metal.”

“Lexi, listen. I appreciate what you’re—”

“No. You listen.” I squeezed my eyes shut. Avoiding Colton was one of the hardest things I’d had to do, but this was a close second.

I opened my eyes again. Dean’s arms were now crossed.

“You have to send me back now. If Carl succeeds, if he goes public, we all go down. Me, Colton’s career, your company, all of it. Carl’s not crazy. Creepy, in a perverted kind of way, yes, but not crazy. I’m the one who threw Mitch’s car into the wall to keep him away from Colton in Bristol.”

Dean’s eyes grew wide.

“I didn’t mean to do it. My ability feeds on my emotions and sometimes I lose control. It doesn’t happen often anymore and it’s never done anything this drastic before, but when I saw Mitch collide with Colton again, I lost it. And Mitch Benson paid the price. It’s why the hauler’s roof caved in. It’s why I was bleeding from the eyes and nose.”

Dean shook his head. “This is crazy. This is—”

“The truth.” I moved closer to him. “Carl witnessed it all.
He knows.”

He reached for his forehead, massaging his temples with his thumb and middle fingers, but it did nothing to ease the deep creases between his eyebrows. “I don’t believe this. I can’t believe this. This is too …”

My gaze fell to where the fancy pen he always carried around lay on top of a pile of papers near his briefcase. My heart raced. Showing him was the only way he’d believe me.

Here goes nothing … or maybe everything.

I released the breath I’d locked in my throat, singled out the pen from the other objects I detected in the room, and levitated it off the table in front of him.

Dean’s hand fell to his side. A look of pure fear contorted his face. He slowly stepped back, keeping his eyes on the pen as if afraid it would attack him.

My posture weakened at the sight of his reaction, but I continued. I turned the pen over and unscrewed the ends. The aluminum center and plastic ink refill inside fell and rolled to the floor. I twirled the two remaining ends around each other in a sort of dance. I looked back at Dean’s face. I’d known since I was old enough to understand that I was different and after Mama died that I was a freak, but seeing it confirmed in his expression made it that much more real. And I had no words left in me to say. A dull pain spread through my entire body. Now Dean knew the real me. And I was pretty sure he didn’t like it one bit.

I looked away. “Please send me away or lock me up, at least. You’ll lose everything if you don’t. I don’t want to be the reason you, your family, and Colton sees the dreams you’ve all worked so hard for get taken away.”

I shoved back my urge to cry and continued. “I knew I should’ve gone home when I had the chance. This is the reason I couldn’t go to school like a normal student, or tell anyone what kind of man my stepfather was. I would have never survived in foster care. I knew my place with Roy.”

Dean fell back in his chair, displaying the many stages of grief all at once. I bit my lip and brought the floating pen pieces back onto the tabletop. Dean’s eyes stayed glued to the objects, as if they were a new specimen, of sorts. His silence tortured me, making me wish I’d left things as they were.

“Please say something.”

He got up slowly, moving his focus toward me. My breath caught. His lips thinned and his eyes narrowed. He rounded the table and reached for me. I flinched. His fingers wrapped around my upper arms with gentle force.

“Have you done anything else, other than what you did to Mitch?” His voice was stern, serious, but not enraged.

“No, I would never—”

“Colton’s success is all his own? You’ve never helped him along?”

“Nothing besides removing that engine a little faster than normal, no. I can’t project it that far. Anywhere other than Bristol, it would’ve been impossible for me to do anything to give Colton an advantage.”

His jaw clenched. “Who else knows?”

“No one.” A tear rolled down my cheek. A tear of fear, or was it of shame? “I swear, I haven’t told anyone. Roy doesn’t even know.”

He let go and pointed his finger in my face. “You keep this to yourself. You tell no one else, you hear me?” He grabbed me
again and shook me slightly. “And you stay as far away from Carl Stacy as you possibly can. Don’t you fall for any of his tricks, or this is over.” He let go of me, backed away, and bolted straight out the door.

I buried my face in my hands and allowed my fear to release its tears as I fought to bring my breathing back to normal.

Or this is over.

What had he meant by that? Was I welcomed back to the hauler? Was he relieving me of my duties? My contract?

I composed myself, left through the main doors, and headed for the infield, head down. A large shoulder slammed into me and whirled me around.

“Oh, I’m sorry. I—”

Carl Stacy’s eyes stared daggers back at me from under his large hat, attacking me with his scowl. I swallowed hard. Already I was breaking one of Dean’s rules.

“I’m onto you, Magic Fingers. I
will
expose you for the abomination you are. There’s no sense in hiding anymore.”

chapter twenty-two

I stared up at his hate-filled face, my feet stuck fast, breath and words caught in my throat.

“Lexi!” Colton’s voice came from somewhere in the distance. I wanted to look in his direction, but I couldn’t move. Carl’s devious grin twitched his peppered whiskers. He leaned in closer.

“If you’re smart, sweetheart, you’ll run along and join the circus.”

Sweetheart
? Only Lenny called me that.

“Lexi!” Colton called out again, this time closer. His arm hooked around my waist and pulled me back.

“Stay away from her, you creep,” Colton said with a contorted look on his face I’d never seen before.

Carl tipped his hat and sauntered the other way.

Colton grabbed me by the arms. “You mind telling me what you were doing with him?”

I wiggled out of his grasp and balled my hands at my sides. “Relax. Nothing happened. I’m fine, by the way.” I turned and
marched away.

Colton followed close behind. I could practically feel him breathing down my neck. “I said nothing happened. Now, can you quit following me?”

“Trust me, I got better things to do than to follow Little Miss Secrets around the infield, but I can’t. Boss’s orders.”

I growled at him. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Oh, no, not at all. I’m instructed to keep you away from Carl, and where do I find you? With Carl.”

“I can handle him.”

“Yeah, you really handled him back there.”

I forced my legs to go faster, but Colton matched my pace. “Go
away
, Colton, I don’t—”

He sidestepped around me and blocked my path. “Lexi, talk to me. Tell me what you told Dean in there. Tell me what has him so wound up. It’s not like him.”

“I can’t, Colt. He swore me to secrecy.”

“Ugh. Again with the secrets. When are you ever going to trust me and realize that nothing you say to me can change the way I feel about you?”

“Not everything is about you!” I spat back. But wasn’t it? Wasn’t all of this about him? Weren’t my feelings for him the reason we were in this mess?

Colton’s lips thinned into a straight line while his jaw worked.

“Just drop it. Leave me alone.” I aimed my eyes at the ground and walked past him. Colton gave up and followed at a distance as I made my way back to the motor coach. Debra and Nancy must have worked their PR magic after the meeting, because not a single reporter tried to trample
us with cameras and large, fuzzy microphones. I welcomed the change.

I spent the next two days locked up in my room or in the hauler, escorted either by Colton, who had since stopped talking to me, or Dean, who I didn’t dare talk to. At least, from what I could tell, he planned to defend me against Carl’s allegations.

I’d never been so fidgety and distracted in all my life. My nerves were shot and my stomach wouldn’t stop twisting into knots. No one had a clue what Carl’s plans were yet, and the race was today.

Wearing my usual Guardian Auto Insurance swag, I headed down to the track early with Dean and Colton. Dean ordered me to hide out in the hauler and watch the race on the flat screen. I couldn’t blame him. Whatever Carl’s plans were, they definitely involved me—the more out of sight I was, the better.

Colton qualified third on Thursday, but my excitement for him and the race sank far below the nagging thoughts that plagued me. Carl had kept his distance from the media since his big announcement. He had everybody on edge, which was exactly what he wanted.

News reporters still buzzed around, waiting in anticipation for the proof of cheating Carl had promised. My nerves were frozen into ice cubes of tension. Countless scenarios played out in my head—Carl storming in here with camera crews to accuse me in front of them, or with a slew of doctors and government research scientists to haul me away kicking and
screaming.

During the pre-race coverage, speculation of self-sabotage and illegal modifications haunted the team. Reporters went as far as digging into some of the crews’ personal lives, airing their dirty laundry on the local news channels. Had that reporter who knew my name done the same with me? Had she sought out Roy and asked him about my life prior to having been sent here?

No. Not possible. Not yet, anyway. She would have blabbed about me all over the news already.

The anthem played, the jets roared overhead, and the famous four words were spoken. The rumble outside shook the hauler as the cars took to the track in single file on the flat screen. The sight gave me goosebumps. They rounded the corners, now grouped together two-by-two in a perfect formation of candy-shelled paint schemes, shining under the bright lights of the track. I desperately wanted to go out and watch the event live. Unlike Bristol, this track was large enough that my ability could never reach far enough to cause any damage. Still, Dean would have my hide if I disobeyed him. He’d specifically instructed me not to leave this spot, and I had no intention of pissing off the only other person who had the power to lock me away.

It’s funny how you take such little things for granted. For the past few weeks, I’d willingly locked myself up in here, able to come and go as I pleased, but now that I wanted to go out, I was forced to stay put. At least Dean let me keep my headset and scanner so I could listen in on the team.

“Great job, guys,” Colton said as he took to the track after the first pit stop. He had led a few laps in the beginning, but
then dropped back down, holding it steady in fifth place.

“Looking good out there, Colt, keep up the good work.” Lenny said.

The media kept a close watch on the whole team, and so did NASCAR. Four officials had been assigned to our pit stall instead of the usual one or two. They also weren’t taking any chances.

A close-up of the crew came on the screen. Lenny didn’t look so good. Sweat poured from his forehead and neck, his expression tight-lipped. He spent his time taking his cap off, putting it back on, and then readjusting his headset. Something was way off.