Stained (5 page)

Julia frowned. She was going to find out. Today.

She sat up and rubbed her eyes. After a week in warehouses, the lavish suite made her head spin. It was all rich colors and wealth--delicate crystal glasses and hand-painted plates set on end tables, spider-like chandeliers and heavy drapes. And lots of windows.

Cayne stood before one of them, his big body angled so he could see Julia, the door, and most of the room. He gave her a look. It might have been irritation, or maybe curiosity. No, she decided as his brows bunched--definitely irritation.

"You slept long enough."

Julia scowled as she slid off the super-high bed. "Good morning to you too. Did you stand there all night?"

"Maybe."

"You're creepy."

"You snore."

"You're wearing clothes that went out of style in 2001."

Cayne, looking puzzled, glanced down at his t-shirt--the same fitted gray one he'd worn every day since Julia met him.

"Why don't you wear the stuff I picked out?" His frown deepened, and Julia snapped her fingers. "Oh, I've got it. Because then you might pass as almost cool."

"I--"

"I know. That would be too much for you. Just way too much."

Cayne gave her the evil eye, and she took a small step back, tripping over one of his new sneakers.

"Like walking is too much for you?" he said.

"Like taking a shower is too much for you."

"Like not drooling when you sleep is too much for you."

Youch.
Em-bar-rass-ing.

"Yeah, whatever." She grabbed the channel changer and hurled it at him. Cayne snatched it from the air.

"Watch some TV," she said. "Might help your people skills. If they can be helped."

"Where are you going?"

"Where do you think?" At his vacant stare, she rolled her eyes. "I'm taking a shower."

"You already had one."

"Daily, Cayne. Most people bathe
daily
. I know I got a bath last night, but this is this morning. A new day."

"We have important things to do."

Julia threw up her hands. "I'm a girl. I like to stay clean. Unlike someone, who still smells like the river."

She smiled tightly as she closed the bathroom door, feeling bouncy and slightly breathless. Being with him in an enclosed space was something new. He was just so...magnetic. It was awful. Among other amazing things--the simple beauty of his hands, the not-brown-not-black color of his soft-seeming shaggy hair, infinite etceteras--Cayne did in fact not smell like the river. He smelled like...nature, the pure, clean kind. She'd caught herself trying to stand close to him just to catch a sniff. Ridiculous.

As Julia scrubbed her arms, she reminded herself to watch out. She should trust him less. She should remember she hardly knew him.
Instead, she remembered the dream she'd just awoken from. He had been holding her, stroking her hair, his lips trailing down her--
God
, was she serious?

She dressed quickly, eager to get out of the steamy bathroom, and found Cayne cross-legged on the foot of the bed. He was staring at the TV, transfixed.

Two girls in criminally small bikinis were bouncing around. MTV's Spring Break.

Julia turned turned the TV off. "Didn't you say we had important things to do?

Several hours later, Julia leaned on a sign outside the Memphis Zoo and groaned. The last thing she wanted to do was move. "Cayne, this is
horrible
."

He grinned. "It's what?"

"
Hor
-ri-ble." So he liked the accent. "Could it be any hotter out here?"

"Maybe if you complain more, the temperature will change."

"Maybe you should shut up."

Cayne smirked as Julia trudged behind him. He was in a weird mood. Too upbeat. She grabbed his sleeve as they moved through a sea of elementary school kids--a sea that parted gladly as they passed.

Even though it happened all the time, Julia still wasn't used to the whole Everyone Does What Cayne Wants thing. He must have felt sorry for her, because one of the kids' chaperones gave her a big bottle of water.

They shot the breeze as they walked their usual haunts, high-rise-less areas where Sam could easily swoop down. Julia wasn't thrilled with the location--it was hard enough to keep her mind off Harry and Suzanne without coming so close to her old home--but Cayne had insisted.

Since she'd requested it, he'd quit doing his weird "blending in" thing, where, for minutes at a time, he'd be all but invisible to her. It had made her feel too exposed.

Julia assumed Cayne had other tricks in his bag, because when she'd mentioned that she was afraid of being recognized, he assured her with a confident wink that he could spirit her away if the situation called for it. Naturally, he wouldn't say how.

She wondered, because right now they were in an area where cops liked to linger and innocent young Julias didn't.

The sidewalks were cracked, the buildings had break-in bars, busted cars lined the street, and there was a lot of barbed wire. Even the trees seemed run down. They were thin, crooked things with spindly branches and plastic-looking leaves.

A woman in a blue button-up rushed out from a nearby Minute-Mart, fountain drink in hand. Julia thanked the lady, who smiled vacantly and sprinted back to the building. Her big boobs bounced, and Cayne tried to hide a smile. Julia laughed.

"You're such a perv," she said.

"Perv-ess."

"You can't say that. -Ess only applies to stuff like heiress or princess." She swatted his shoulder. "Isn't that what you meant to say? Princess."

He drew away, and Julia saw goosebumps on his forearm. His pace quickened, and she hurried to keep up. With so much caffeine pumping through her, she felt shaky and sugar-laden, not at all like rushing.

Cayne gave her an incredulous look. A look he was giving her often now.

"I'm going as fast as I can," she whined.

"I've seen the infirm move faster."

She folded her arms.

"Lepers have a longer gait."

"Ewww, lepers?"

"Lepers."

Julia laughed. "When would you have seen a leper?"

Cayne shrugged.

"Okay, Mr. Mysterio, just chill."

"Are you scanning auras?"

Julia elbowed him. "Quiet. And yes."

Her Sight worked all the time, but auras were barely discernible smudges when she wasn't focusing; they ballooned to all-out color bubbles when she was.

Cayne had told her that the more she used her Sight, the easier it would be for Sam to find her. It sent up a red flag...

Or something like that. Julia had tried not to think much about her starring role as The Bait.

"What do you see?"

"Mmm...mostly not-so-good stuff. Brown. A lot of people are brown. Not all-out done for, you know, just sad or maybe tired, that day-to-day blah stuff."

"What else?"

"I'm seeing more yellow-green than usual," she said quietly. "That's sick. A lot of them are red, too. Mad."

"Can you see your own aura?"

"No." Julia smiled. "It would be funny if I could. I wonder if I would try harder to keep it blue...you know, try to stay happy."

"Blue is happy?"

"Usually."

"Weird-ess." He winked and stepped behind her so an older man with a dog could pass. "Do you like seeing things?"

"It's good for some things." She shrugged. "For instance, I can see how people feel and predict how I should act around them."

"That's useful."

"Yeah, I guess. But I don't do it unless I have to."

"Has anyone ever noticed?"

"Hmm. Some of my friends thought I was psychic sometimes. And sometimes it would make me act weird, knowing stuff I shouldn't know. Like if Suzanne--" Julia drew in a breath. "Um...if someone was sad and they didn't want me to know, I would if I was looking. I mean, I don't look really ever now, but sometimes it's hard not to. And I used to not know it could be bad. So I would see people's moods. And how they are. I can tell if you're a pink person or a blue one or a red one in general, because your undertone is always the same. Everyone has a certain look."

Cayne looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "What do you think of mine?"

She hesitated, and his nerves flared in Christmas colors. Julia had been trying to keep herself from looking at him much. Out of respect for his privacy, and also because she remembered what he looked like from their first encounter--way too beautiful. Unusual silver, so bright she had to squint.

She pasted on a grin. "You answer my questions, and I'll answer yours."

Cayne actually looked tempted, if only for a fraction of a second. Then he shook his head.

"All right." She rolled her eyes. As she did, she caught something red. About fifty yards away, above a cluster of oak trees, she saw a giant crimson flare, and then an explosion of purple pain.

She gasped, and Cayne moved in front of her. "Is it him?"

Julia shook her head. They'd been going in a circle and were almost back to where they'd started, near a little park beside the Minute-Mart.

Cayne's fingers pressed into the tender skin inside her elbow. "What is it?"

"I don't know. A fight or something."

"Then it doesn't concern..." he trailed off as Morris Park came into view and a ghastly pot-bellied man backhanded a woman. His aura was red. Hers was purple-black.

"Cayne, help her!"

The fat man hit her again. Cayne's jaw twitched.

"We have to do something," Julia insisted, but Cayne was pulling her away. "That woman needs help! You're a guy! You're bigger than him, Cayne! Chivalry!"

"We can't afford distractions. Samyaza could have orchestrated this to--"

The woman was on her knees now, the man moving over her. Julia looked desperately for someone, anyone, but a wino on the other side of the street was shuffling away, and the few passing cars didn't slow.