Split Second (Pivot Point) (9 page)

Addie:
Must learn what qualifies as a life-or-death situation.

My ringing phone woke me up. I groaned and pushed the hair off my face. “Hello.”

“Addie, hey, it’s Stephanie.”

I smiled. “Hi, Stephanie. How is cheer practice going?”

“Fine. Just two more weeks and then we get winter break. I’m so ready for a break.”

“You guys have a short break.”

“Does Lincoln High get a longer one?”

“We have six weeks off. But we don’t get as long in the summer.”

“So like year-round school then?”

“Yep.” I yawned. “So what’s up?”

“I was wondering if I could drag you shopping with me today.”

“For what?”

“Winter formal. I need to buy a dress.”

“Oh. Sure. Who are you going with?”

“I haven’t been asked yet, but I’m still hopeful. If I don’t get asked, I might just go with a bunch of girlfriends for fun. You should come too.”

I rolled onto my stomach and looked at the clock on my nightstand. Ten a.m. “To your winter formal?”

“Yeah. Come on. We’ll buy you a dress today too.”

“Sounds awful.”

She laughed. “I’m coming to pick you up. Be ready in thirty minutes.”

“Did you know he was going to be here?” I don’t know why I bothered putting that in question form. It should’ve been an accusation, because I knew it was true.

“Maybe.” She took a sip of her drink and stared at Trevor from where we sat by the indoor fountain in the middle of the mall. “It’s a fund-raiser the football team roped him
into doing with them. Calendars or something to raise money for new uniforms.”

He was at a table set up in front of a sports store with about eight other guys, taking money and putting it in a metal box as people bought calendars. “So how did you know they roped him into it? Have you been talking to him?”

She smiled like she had been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to. “We may have talked last night. I know you told me we needed space, but I couldn’t help it. I miss him.”

A twinge of jealousy squeezed my heart as I wondered who’d called who. I scolded myself for the thought. I had no claim on Trevor and no right to be jealous. Maybe I had read him wrong at the party. If he was still talking on the phone with her, maybe he did still like her. “You can do what you want, Steph; it was just a suggestion.”

She let out an airy squeal. “Okay, so what should we do right now? Should we go talk to him or buy a calendar or something?”

I laughed. “No, we should sit here and stare at him from across the mall like creepy stalkers.”

“Do you think the football players are shirtless in the calendars?”

I scanned the table of players, several of whom were pasty white and fifty pounds overweight. “Ugh. I hope not.”

She laughed. “So true.” She stood, apparently deciding it was now time to stop staring and start talking. “Let’s go.” She held her hand out for me, and I let her help me up. Then she tucked her arm around my elbow. “This is so fun. Thanks for coming with me today.”

“No problem.”

“I still think you should buy that blue dress. It looked amazing on you.”

“Well, after seeing you in that black dress”—I gestured
toward the shopping bag she held—“I don’t think I’ll ever wear a dress again.”

“Whatever.”

We arrived at the table and waited behind several customers before we were finally in front of Trevor. He looked up like he wasn’t surprised to see us. He had probably noticed us staring at him for the last half hour by the fountain.

“Hi,” Stephanie said.

“Hey. How’s it going?”

“Just shopping for dresses for winter formal.” She lifted up her bag a little. I knew what she wanted him to do. She wanted him to ask her who she was going with. It was obvious.

He didn’t take the bait, and I couldn’t tell if it was intentional or not. “Nice.”

“Have you guys been doing good today? Raising a lot of money?”

“We’ve been busy. I think the team will do well.” He rolled a pen between his hands. That wasn’t a good sign for Stephanie—he wouldn’t even meet her eyes. Although that wasn’t a good sign for me either—he was looking at a pen.
Stop analyzing him
, I told myself. It was none of my business.

“Well, I want to buy one.” Stephanie set her drink on the table and started digging through her purse.

He took a calendar from a box on the floor beside him and put it on the table. “Did you figure out why your grandmother’s grave is at Pioneer Park?” He looked at me with the question.

That single look sent my heart pattering a million miles a
minute. Stephanie gave me a sideways glance. Crap, I knew I should’ve told her. I just didn’t want to make a big deal out of nothing.

“Apparently, that’s where she’s been. I just didn’t realize it was so close.” I didn’t feel like I could tell the truth without an explanation, considering most people didn’t have graves moved.

Stephanie’s wallet was slightly too wide for the narrow opening of her purse, and when she finally tugged it free, it smashed into her drink. As the cup fell, Trevor tried to save the calendar in its direct path and ended up knocking the entire metal box of money off the table.

The box flew toward the floor, money floating out of it slowly because time had changed to a crawl. I shouldn’t have done it, but it was my instant reaction to grab the box, closing the lid as I did, and shove it back on the table. Only a few stray coins hit the ground. I quickly removed my hands from the box, but it was too late. I met Trevor’s stunned eyes.

Stephanie was too busy scooping the ice back into the fallen drink to notice. “I’m so sorry. The calendar is soaked. I’ll totally pay for it.”

But Trevor was still looking at me.

“That was a close call,” I said.

He lowered his brow, then turned his attention to the two quarters on the floor by my foot. I reached down, picked them up, then placed them on top of the cash box.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?” I asked. “I saw that your elbow was going to
knock it off the table. I just stopped it from happening.” My head throbbed, and I tried not to lean on the table for support.

“No. My elbow
did
knock it off.”

Stephanie held out a ten-dollar bill. “Here. For the calendar.”

“You don’t have to buy a damaged calendar, Stephanie. It’s no big deal.” He handed her one that wasn’t wet and took her money, carefully removing the two quarters from the top of the box and lifting the lid. The money inside was a mess, sideways and jumbled. He straightened a few piles. Then he looked at the ground again and back at me.

“Well, we better get going.” I tugged on Stephanie’s arm, but she gave me that look like she wanted to stay and talk and I wasn’t helping. “There are people waiting to buy calendars.” Sure there were seven other guys sitting at the table, but still, I just wanted to leave. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t let a stupid cash box fall on the ground. So glad I used my ability to save a metal box from certain destruction.

“Yeah, we better go,” Stephanie said. As we walked away, she bit her lip. “Is something going on between you two?”

“What? No! I asked Rowan for help. Trevor tagged along. Really, it was no big deal.”

She brushed at a wet spot from the spilled drink on her shirt. “I should’ve stayed and talked to him. I was hoping he’d ask me to the dance.”

“You have to leave him wanting more,” I said, remembering Laila giving me that advice at some point in the past. “Always understay your welcome.”

“What does that even mean?”

I laughed. “I have no idea.” Just as we were about to round the corner, I heard my name.

“Addison!”

I turned to see Trevor walking toward us.

“Can I talk to you alone for a minute?” he asked when he reached us.

“Yeah, sure,” Stephanie said, the hope in her voice so apparent.

“Um.” He looked at Stephanie, and I could tell he didn’t want to hurt her feelings when he said softly, “I meant Addison.”

This was one of those dramatic moments in books where the main character was supposed to say,
Anything you need to say to me, you can say in front of my friend
. But that was the problem. I knew what he wanted to say, and he absolutely couldn’t say it in front of my friend. So instead I tried to put him off so Stephanie wouldn’t be hurt any more than she already was. “We’re kind of in a hurry.”

But he took the drama that was supposed to be mine and used it. “It will only take a minute, but I can just ask you right here. What are—”

“No!” Great. Now I was going to look like the biggest jerk. “Sorry, Stephanie. I’ll be right back.” I marched past him and into the empty tiled hall that led to the bathrooms. I faced him.

He squared off in front of me. “What are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“Tell me I’m crazy.” He looked into my eyes, and the intensity
of his stare, the set of his mouth, the angle of his brow—it all seemed so familiar. Like I had been here before with him staring at me like that. It caught me off guard, softened my resolve, and I hesitated. I had to look away. I knew what my father said about lying and how one of the first indicators was when someone couldn’t look you in the eyes.

“You’re crazy,” I said to the wall over his right shoulder.

“While looking at me.”

He must’ve known the lying rule too.

“I have to go. Stephanie’s waiting, which, by the way, you should really ask her to winter formal. It would make her day.”

“Addison.” Why did he call me that? And why did I like it?

He put his hand on my shoulder. I met his eyes again, my heart beating in my throat. His normal friendly exterior was stripped away, replaced by a vulnerability that made me want to tell him everything. “You’re crazy,” I whispered, then walked away.

Laila:
Never give anyone the benefit of the doubt.

I counted the money again, even though I knew it hadn’t magically multiplied overnight. I sighed, shoved it back into the toe of my boot, then threw the boot in my closet. It would have to be enough. I would make it be enough. Face wasn’t beyond manipulation.

A shrill scream came from the backyard, and I smiled and looked out my window. A minimal amount of snow had fallen overnight, and my brothers thought they could go sledding on the tiny hill in the back.

I grabbed my scarf, slipped on a pair of wedges, and went to watch them. When the first few runs didn’t work, they decided
to gather up as much snow as they could to form a trail just wide enough for the sled. After an hour of hard work and me making fun of them, they actually managed to get in a few decent slides.

“Look, Laila, despite your lack of help, we are the masters of the snow,” Derek called out.

“Was there mastering going on? I missed it.”

Eli threw a snowball at me. It landed perfectly, so that the cold ice leaked beneath my scarf.

I jumped up, shaking off the snow. “Can you read my mind now, Eli?”

“I don’t have to, but you’ll have to catch me first, and I don’t think any running is going on in those shoes.”

He had a valid point. I pretended I was going to chase him, and laughed when both he and Derek squealed like little girls and ran away.

It was one o’clock. I told myself I would go over to Face’s at two and try my luck. I went inside to make some hot chocolate.

“I’m going out,” my dad said just as the door shut, cutting off any chance I had at a response.

“Okay, good to see you too,” I said to nothing.

I filled the kettle and put it on the stove. My phone dug into my thigh, and I pulled it out and looked at it accusingly. I didn’t want to call Connor. It was none of his business what I was doing. Sure he had helped by introducing me to Face, but I definitely didn’t need him there this time. Then why did I feel like I owed him the call to let him know I was going over there today?

My phone rang, and for a second I thought it would be
Connor, as if he’d read my mind and knew I was going. But then the caller ID flashed my mom’s number.

“Hello.”

“Hi. I thought I’d be able to come home between shifts, but Susan called in sick and overtime pays the bills.”

“Okay. What time will we see you then?”

“Late. How are things there?”

“Fine. The boys are masters of the snow.”

“I thought they’d like that. Do we need anything?”

“No.”

“Let me talk to your father. I couldn’t reach him on his cell.”

I looked out the window, but his car was already gone. “I would, but he just left like the responsible parent that he is.”

“Laila, give him a break.”

“You give him enough breaks for all of us.”

“If you had his ability . . .”

“Lots of people have his ability and seem to handle it a hundred times better. And he’s not even trying to break the addiction. If he would just do one addiction program . . .” My mom sighed, and I felt guilty. She had enough to deal with. “You’re right. I have no idea how it feels to hear people’s thoughts.” And saying it reminded me it was true. Maybe I’d be exactly like my dad if I were bombarded with people’s innermost thoughts.

“Thank you for trying to understand. I gotta run.”

“Bye, Mom.”

I scooped chocolate powder into some mugs and then poured the hot water over the top. “Masters of the snow, come get your
hot chocolate,” I called out the back door.

They ran in and attacked the offering. I tugged on Eli’s arm. “So . . .”

He knew what I was asking. I had given him the new electronic clip the night before, and I wanted to know if it was working.

“Haven’t tried it yet.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“Confidence.”

I had told him the risks of programs not approved by the DAA. Apparently, that was harder for him to overlook than it was for me. “Well, make sure you tell me if you decide to do it.”

He nodded and took another swig of his hot chocolate.

“I’m going out.” I headed down the hall, and Connor’s face flashed through my mind again. Fine, guilt, be a stupid pest. I dialed his number.

“What?” he answered, and I almost hung up, any feeling of obligation gone.

“I’m going to Face’s today. Two o’clock. I don’t need you there.” Then I hung up and ignored the phone when it rang. I reached my bedroom and stopped, horrified, in the open doorway. My entire room was ripped apart. All my clothes pulled from the drawers, my mattress resting crooked on my bed, the contents of my desk spread across the floor, my laundry basket upended.

“No . . . no, no, no, no.” I walked farther in. I knew it was gone, but that didn’t stop me from opening my closet, grabbing
my black boot, and reaching all the way to the toe. Empty. Even though I knew exactly which boot it was in, I checked the other one just in case. Nothing. I threw my boot hard at the wall, and it bounced off and hit me on the leg.

I hated my dad. More than hated him, despised him.

I rushed back down the hall and paused by the kitchen. “If Dad happens to show his face here in the next hour or so, call me.”

Eli put down his hot chocolate. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

Once in my car, I began dialing my dad’s number every minute. By my third try, I was sure he had turned off the ringer, but I kept at it anyway. Then I started calling his usual hangouts. Then actually driving to his usual hangouts. Apparently, he was smart enough to go somewhere new today. I couldn’t find him anywhere. When I showed up at Face’s house, an hour late, Connor was there. Great.

I must’ve thought about that money at some point today when my dad was around. It was my own fault. I had to protect myself better. Keep him out. Keep everyone out.

At least now I knew I could make money with my ability. I looked at the house. Maybe I could make Face some promises of future payment. My time was running out. I was seeing Addie in one week. I hoped to have advanced my ability by then so I could restore her memory. Maybe it wasn’t too late to start on the DAA track.

I took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. Connor
must’ve been inside, because only his motorcycle was parked along the curb, his helmet hanging off a handlebar. I knocked on the door and put my flirty face on. This time a man with curly red hair answered. Three rings pierced one eyebrow.

“Is Face here?”

“You’re looking at him.”

“Oh. Right.” I noticed two things I hadn’t before. One was a small blurry spot on the right part of his neck. His image was a little flawed. Not that anyone would notice if they weren’t looking, but it reminded me that there were ways to see through lies. “Not your best look.”

“I don’t take votes.”

The second thing I noticed was, “Your voice is the same.”

“Eh. Too much trouble to change it. I have to be very familiar with another voice, and it’s hardly worth the effort. Most people think it’s a different voice just because it’s a new face.”

“Most people are slow. It’s obvious.”

I didn’t see Connor anywhere, but I didn’t care. I did my best work alone. Especially when I had nothing to work with except my flirting abilities.

“It’s good to see you,” he said. “I’m short on cash.”

“Well, that’s the thing. I had your money, but it got stolen, so I was hoping you could do this first lesson on good faith and I’ll have it for you next week.”

“Well, here’s my thing, I don’t have good faith in anyone except Mr. Cash. I get along well with him. And until he shows up, I won’t do a thing.”

I Erased his memory twice and started over, each time trying something a little different, to no avail. In the end, I Erased myself from his day completely and went outside. An invisible hand felt like it was trying to take my life by squeezing my throat. I crawled in the back of my truck and lay down, staring at the cloudless sky. Maybe this was pointless.

I heard the scuffing of feet before the voice. “And just like that it’s as though you never existed.” Connor’s head appeared over the side of my truck.

I didn’t move.

“Face didn’t even remember you were there. Craziest thing I ever witnessed.”

“You need to get out more.”

“Why would you need to advance your ability when you can do that?”

“Are you mocking me? Because I’m really not in the mood.”

“Bad hair day?”

My hands clenched into fists. “Just leave. I’m not going back in there, so you don’t have to worry that I’m going to ruin your life.”

“Why do you want to advance your ability so badly, anyway?”

I finally looked at him. The smug look on his face just made me angrier. “What about ‘leave’ don’t you understand?”

“Mainly the whole ‘leave’ part.”

“Fine. I’ll leave.” I stood and thought I could get out the same way I got in, over the side. But my foot missed the tire, and I went down hard on my knee. My leggings ripped, and I could
feel the moisture from the blood before I saw it. With my knee throbbing, I stood and opened the driver’s-side door. Before I could shut it, though, Connor was there, holding it open with one hand.

“Just leave me alone.” My hands shook, and I clenched them into fists so he wouldn’t notice.

Without a word, he grabbed my leg and used it to turn me toward him.

“I will head-butt you if I have to. I’ve done it before.”

“You are so stubborn.” He took hold of the gaping hole in my leggings and ripped it open further.

He placed his fingers on the bloody mangled mess that was my knee, and we locked eyes. A tingling warmth stretched across my knee, and before I realized what he was doing I almost shoved his hand away. But right as I put my hand on his, it hit me. He was a Healer.

The tingling warmth turned into a searing pain—like fire tearing through my flesh. I squeezed his hand and gritted my teeth. The pain died, and I quickly let go.

Aside from the blood and ripped pants, my knee looked perfect. He had regenerated my skin. Healing was a rare ability. It was no wonder Connor kept it to himself. But that still didn’t explain why he failed all his Para classes when he was obviously very good at it. I pulled my leg away from him. “You should really ask permission before you use your ability on people.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Move so I can shut the door.”

“Who stole your money?”

“It’s not polite to eavesdrop, you know.”

“You’re such a loudmouth it’s hard not to.”

I placed my foot on his chest and was about to shove him out of the way so I could shut my door when he grabbed hold and yanked me off my seat. I landed on the running board that ran the length of my truck and now had to look up to see him.

“You think you’re tough, princess?” He was so close I could smell the musky scent of his deodorant. I glared at him. As if I needed someone else to show me I had no control today.

I’d show him how much control I had.

I looked down and then back up through my lashes. “I’m sorry. Thank you for Healing me. It’s just been a really bad day.” Step one: Seem vulnerable. Check. I wrung my hands together and then “accidentally” let them catch the bottom of his shirt. I pulled back when I realized, giving a little laugh. “Sorry.” I reached out and touched his chest with my apology, pretended to hesitate, then put my hand back and left it there. Step two: Contact. Check. “It was my dad.”

“What was your dad?” His breath came quick now, and I could feel the rise and fall of his chest beneath my hand.

“He stole the money. For suppressors.”

“Your dad stole your money?”

I nodded. Step three: Share something personal. Check. He leaned toward me. So the impenetrable Connor wasn’t as immune to me as I thought he was.

Step four: Draw his attention to my mouth. I bit my bottom
lip. His eyes flicked to my lips and then back to my eyes. Check. And step five would normally be: Reel him in for a fun, forget-all-my-problems make-out session. But since I couldn’t do step six with him—Erase his memories—I had to stop there. His eyes again went to my lips, and this time my heart picked up speed. I took a deep breath to control it.

“What’s your dad’s ability?” he asked.

Crap. In my attempt to play him, I had told him something real.

I stretched up a little, toward his face. He leaned closer. His breath touched my cheeks. It smelled hot and sweet. I blinked and reminded myself that I was proving I had control over him, not the opposite.

If I knew one thing about Connor, it was that he had a lot of pride. If I wanted to assert my control and make sure he never, ever came this close to kissing me again, I just had to do one thing. Make him feel stupid.

“My dad didn’t steal my money.” I gave a single laugh. “But you should see your face right now. You totally bought that.”

I thought he’d jerk away, be angry, but the smugness in his eyes made me think that he was the one playing me.

“Can I ask you something?” Connor said, still not moving away from the space where our breath mingled.

I felt myself nod, even though I had meant to play stoic.

He moved a millimeter closer. His bottom lip brushed ever so softly against mine and sent a chill up my spine. “Can I have my shirt back so I can go?”

Horrified, I looked down at my hand. It held a tightly clutched fistful of his T-shirt. So had I been the one pulling him toward me the whole time? I let go and stepped back up into my truck, swallowing the bitter taste of humiliation.

“Laila,” he said, but I didn’t give him a chance to finish. I slammed the door and pressed my thumb against the starting pad.