Boundless (Unearthly) (17 page)

“Okay,” I concede, “they’re
kind of
scary,” and now I’m vaguely disappointed that we’re not here to watch a zombie movie.

“Next time,” Christian says.

“Hey, I have a new rule for our date,” I suggest with a cheerful grin. “No mind reading.”

“Sorry,” he says quickly. “I won’t do it again.” He sounds so serious all of a sudden, embarrassed like I’ve caught him looking down the front of my shirt, that I have no choice but to throw a piece of popcorn at him.

“You’d better not,” I say.

He smiles.

I smile.

And then we sit in silence, munching popcorn, until the lights dim and the screen flickers to life.

Afterward he drives me to the beach. We have dinner at Paradise Beach Grille, this little upscale place on the shore, and after dinner we take our shoes off and walk along the sand. The sun set hours ago, and the light of the moon is playing off the water. The ocean gently shushes us, lapping at our feet, and we’re laughing, because I have admitted that my favorite movie is
Ever After
, this old and completely cheesy retelling of the Cinderella story where Drew Barrymore tries and fails to master an English accent. Which is embarrassing, but there it is.

“So, how am I doing?” he asks after a while.

“Best date ever,” I answer. “Good movie, good food, good company.”

He takes my hand. His power and mine converge, the familiar heat sparking between us. A cool breeze picks up and blows my hair, and I toss it back over my shoulder. He glances at me out of the corner of his eye, then looks away, out at the water, which gives me a chance to look at him.

It’s awkward to call a guy beautiful, but he is. His body is lean but strong, and he moves with such grace—like a dancer, I think, although I would never tell him that. Sometimes I forget how beautiful he is. His gorgeous gold-flecked eyes. Those thick dark eyelashes any girl would kill to have, his serious eyebrows, the finely chiseled angles of his cheekbones, the full, expressive lips.

I shiver.

“Are you cold?” he asks, and before I can answer, he takes off his jacket, the black fleece jacket, and pulls it around me. I am immediately enveloped by his smell: soap and cologne, a whiff of cloud, like he’s been flying. I flash back to the first time I wore his jacket, the night of the fire, when he put it around my shoulders. It’s been over a year since that night, but the vision still lingers bright in my mind: the burning hillside, the way Christian said,
It’s you,
the way it felt when he took my hand. It never actually happened that way, but it feels like a memory.

It’s you,
he said.

“Thank you,” I say to him now, my voice faltering.

“You’re welcome,” he says, and picks up my hand again.

He doesn’t know what else to say. He wants to tell me how beautiful I am to him, too, how I make him feel like the best, strongest version of himself, how he wants to tuck my runaway hair behind my ear and kiss me, and maybe this time I’d kiss him back.

Now I’m the one cheating.

I let go of his hand.

It doesn’t matter,
he says into my mind.
I don’t mind you seeing what’s inside me.

My breath catches. I have to stop being such a chicken, I think. It’s not that I’m afraid of him, exactly, because if there’s one person in this world who makes me feel safe, it’s Christian, but I’m scared to let go, to let what’s between us really happen. I’m afraid to lose myself.

“You won’t lose yourself,” he whispers.

Now we’re clearly both cheating.

I won’t?
I ask silently.

Not with me,
he says.
You know who you are. You won’t let anyone take that away.

He loves that about me. He loves—

He pulls me closer and looks into my eyes. My heart careens wildly in my chest. I close my eyes, and his lips touch my cheek near my ear.

“Clara,” he says, my name is all, but it sends a tremor through me.

He draws back, and I know he’s going to kiss me, any second now, and I want him to, but in that moment, his lips inches from mine, I suddenly see Tucker’s face. Tucker’s blue eyes. Tucker’s mouth a breath away from mine.

Christian stops, his body going rigid. He sees what I see. He pulls away.

I open my eyes. “I—”

“Don’t.” He rakes his hand through his hair, stares off at the water. “Just … don’t.”

He hates me. I would hate me about now, too.

“I don’t hate you,” he says sharply. Sighs. “But I wish you would get over him.”

“I’m trying.”

“Not hard enough.” His eyes are flinty when he looks at me this time. He’s not used to chasing girls; they’ve always chased him. He’s certainly not used to being someone’s second choice. The thought makes him clench his jaw.

“I’m sorry,” I say. He deserves so much better than this.

He shakes his head and starts back up the beach toward the road. I trail after him, struggling to put my shoes on as I go.

“Wait,” I say. “Let’s not go yet. It’s still early. Maybe we can—”

“What would be the point?” he interrupts. “You think we should brush it off and try to pretend it didn’t happen? I’m not built that way.” He sighs again. “Let’s just go.”

I hate the idea of the silent drive back to Stanford. “I can get home by myself,” I say, taking a step back. “You go. I’m sorry.”

He stares at me, hands shoved in his pockets. “No. I should—”

I shake my head. “Good night, Christian,” I say, and then I close my eyes and call the glory and send myself away.

I mean to go to Buzzards Roost, someplace quiet, where I can think, but when the glory fades and my eyes adjust, I find myself in an enclosed space in pretty much pitch black. I almost have a panic attack right there, but then I think this can’t be my vision, my doom, because I left Christian behind. I stumble forward, arms outstretched, feeling at the floor with my feet, breathe out a sigh when I find that it’s not slanted. I encounter the wall, rough and wooden, and attempt to walk along it in slow, shuffling steps. I run into something like a row of rakes leaning against the wall, which fall to the floor with a very loud crash. I hurry to set them upright again, then figure,
Screw it,
and call the glory to light my way.

I hold up my hand and concentrate on drawing the glory inside it, the way Dad says you do with the glory sword, but right now I’m thinking lantern, not blade. I’m impressed with myself when I’m able to shape a glowing ball in my hand, which feels so warm and alive it makes my fingers tingle. Ah, glory, I think, so useful—the power of the Almighty when you need a weapon, but also doubles as a handy flashlight.

I look around. I’m in a barn. A very familiar barn.

Crap.

I head for the door, passing the horse stalls on the way out. Midas nickers a greeting at me, his ears tilted forward, his eyes on me and the glowing ball in my hand, strangely unafraid of my light. Maybe he thinks he’s seen it all already.

“Hi, handsome,” I say to him, reaching with my free hand and stroking his velvety nose. “How are you, big boy? Do you miss me?”

He leans down and blows a wet, hay-scented breath onto my neck, then gently nips my shoulder.

“Hey, cut it out,” I laugh.

Suddenly the barn floods with light. Midas backs away from me and whinnies in alarm. I spin around to find myself at the business end of a shotgun. I yelp and lift my hands in immediate surrender, my glory ball instantly dissipating.

It’s Tucker.

He blows out an exasperated breath. “Good grief, Clara! You scared me!”

“
I
scared
you
?”

He lowers the gun. “That’s what you get for sneaking into people’s barns in the middle of the night. You’re lucky it was me that heard you and not my dad; otherwise you might be missing your head about now.”

“I’m sorry,” I blurt out. “I didn’t mean to come here.”

He’s still wearing his flannel pajama bottoms under an oversize tan work coat. He sets the gun against the wall and goes to Midas, who’s throwing his head back and kicking at the door.

“Horses don’t like surprises,” he says.

“Obviously.”

“It’s okay, buddy,” he says, and reaches in the coat pocket and produces a handful of what look to be candies. Midas immediately steps forward, snuffling, and Tucker feeds them to him.

“Do you always carry candy around with you in case of emergencies?” I ask.

“He likes jelly beans,” he says with a shrug. “We’ve kind of been letting him have as many as he wants, too. He’s getting chubby.” He strokes Midas’s neck, then looks over at me. “You want to feed him?”

“Sure,” I say, and he hands me some.

“Keep your hand flat,” Tucker instructs. “Or you might lose a finger.”

Midas jerks his head up and moves around impatiently as I step forward. Then he drops his nose into my palm and slurps the jelly beans right up, munching them noisily.

“It tickles,” I laugh.

Tucker smiles, and I reach for another handful in his pocket, and for a minute things feel normal between us, like we haven’t had all that sniping and awkwardness and telling each other good-bye.

“You look nice,” he says, looking at me appraisingly, at my curled hair and makeup, his gaze flickering over the hemline of my little black dress, my pretty sandals and painted nails, up to the black fleece jacket, which I’m still wearing around my shoulders. “Not a funeral, this time.”

“No.” I don’t know what else to say.

“A date.”

I’m tempted to lie, to say that I was out with a bunch of people, no biggie, nothing special, but I’m bad at lying, and Tucker’s really good at spotting a fib. “Yeah. A date.”

“With Prescott,” he concludes.

“Does it matter?”

“I guess not.” He pats Midas on the nose, then turns and scuffles away a few steps. The look on his face is killing me, like he’s trying so hard to act like he doesn’t care, but I know him.

“Tucker—”

“Nah, it’s all right,” he says. “I guess I should have expected him to make his move, now that we’re over and done. So how’d it go?”

I stare at him wordlessly.

“Well, it can’t have gone too well, or you wouldn’t have ended up here at the end of the night.”

“That,” I say carefully, “is none of your beeswax, Tucker Avery.”

“Well, you’re right about that,” he says. “We’ve got to move on, don’t we? But the way I see it, there’s one big thing getting in the way of us doing that.”

My breath catches. “Oh yeah? What?”

He looks at me coolly. “You keep showing up.”

He has a point.

“Look—” we say at the same time. He sighs.

“You go,” I say.

He scratches at the back of his neck. “I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry I’ve been so testy with you. You were right. I’ve been a jerk.”

“You were surprised. And you’re right. I’m invading your space.”

He nods. “Still, it’s no excuse. You’re not the worst thing that could pop up unexpectedly into my life.”

“Oh great. I’m not the
worst
thing.”

“Nope.”

We laugh, and it feels good, laughing. It feels like old times. But then I think, Maybe I
am
the worst thing that could pop up in his life. He’s looking at me with a flicker of longing in his eyes that I recognize all too well, and it sends a dart of fear for him all though me. I can’t let myself get close to him. I’m not good for him. Plus, I might not even make it through this year.

“Your turn,” he says.

“Oh.” I find I can’t tell him what I was thinking. I point my thumb behind me at the open barn door. “I was going to say that I should go.”

“Okay.”

He looks confused when I don’t move. Then amused. “Oh, right. You want
me
to leave.”

“You can stay. Only, the glory …”

“That’s all right.” He smiles with his dimples, then moseys past me toward the door. “Maybe I’ll see you around, Carrots.”

No, you won’t, I think grimly. I have to stop this. I can’t keep coming here. I have to stay away.

He called me Carrots.

Angela’s still in the same position she was in when I left her, scribbling away on Wan Chen’s bed. She stares at me for a minute after I materialize in the room.

“Wow,” she says. “You were right when you said it was like beaming yourself in
Star Trek
. That is pretty cool.”

“I’m getting better at it,” I admit.

“How did your date—” she starts to ask, then gets a look at my face. “Oh. It didn’t go well.”

“No, it didn’t go well,” I say, kicking off my shoes and lying on my back on my bed.

She shrugs. “Men.”

“Men.”

“If we can send one man to the moon, why can’t we send them all there?” she says.

I’m tired and can’t help but laugh at her joke.

“That’s why I don’t bother with men,” she says. “I don’t have the patience.”

Right. She doesn’t deal with mere mortals, she means.

“It’s Phen,” she says then.

“The father, you mean?”

She starts like my question surprises her, then hesitates for a split second before she says, quietly, “Yes. But you already knew that.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“But it’s also Phen in my vision,” she goes on to say. “The man in the gray suit. It’s Phen.”

Shock ripples through me. “Are you sure?”

She nods enthusiastically. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him before. All those times I had the vision, but I didn’t think it was about me.”

“Yeah, visions can be tricky that way.”

“I wasted so much time feeling sorry for myself,” she says. “I thought, since this happened”—she nods at her baby bump—“that I’d wrecked everything. But I didn’t. It was supposed to happen this way. It was meant to be.”

I turn over onto my stomach. “So what are you supposed to do?”

“I’m supposed to tell him about our baby,” she says. “The seventh is ours.”

This strikes me as a very bad idea, given all I know about Phen. He’s just not trustworthy, for all his charm. But Angela’s not going to want to hear that right now. She doesn’t listen to reason when it comes to Phen.

“Okay, let’s say that you’re right—” I start slowly.

“Of course I’m right,” she says.

“Of course you’re right,” I agree. “But how does Phen know to come? How will he know to meet you there?”