Although, despite her tough exterior, even Dana was relatively easy to decipher. She had three basic settings that she allowed others to see: focused, semi-pissed, and flat-out furious. And it didn’t take psychic powers to figure out where she was.
Milo, on the other hand, rarely exhibited any kind of anger. Still, I knew that, deep inside, there were so many complex thoughts looping through his mind. And, because of my telepathy, I now owned a precious key that allowed me access to at least a few of those hidden compartments inside him. He still managed to keep fairly large puzzle pieces from me—I wasn’t quite sure how. For example, everything that had happened to him before he and Dana left their foster home and struck out on their own was a major mystery to me. There was a lot about Milo that I didn’t know, even with my telepathic access key…
“An access key, huh?” Milo’s spoken response was enough indication to me that when my own mind had wandered, his had followed.
It was my turn to blush. “Yeah, well. You know.”
“I do,” he said, smiling. “And I like that I do.”
I shrugged and inhaled before beginning to more clearly explain what I’d meant.
But Milo moved faster than my words, and before I could form a single sentence, he cupped my face, leaned in, and kissed me again.
It was heaven.
There was no better word to describe it, although whenever Milo and I kissed, words were lost entirely, replaced instead by the rush of our emotions swirling together in a perfectly reciprocal pattern. It was weird and wonderful—I sometimes couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
I let him pull me closer, so I was almost sitting on his lap, and his heart beat even faster than my own. I knew this not from physical feeling but from
knowing
, from our unique connection.
I
knew
, too, in that moment—as Milo’s sweet kiss continued, his hand running down the length of my side and then resting on the small of my back—that despite my sudden surge of hope, there was a deep sadness inside him today.
The moment I sensed it, I pulled away. That was always hard to do, but I wanted to gaze into his eyes. “What is it?” I asked. I reached up and held his face with both my hands.
Milo’s smile was tinged with an almost-imperceptible melancholy.
It’s nothing serious
. His thought was deliberate. Reassuring me.
Just…Lacey. And now this girl that Garrett’s looking for…
I nodded.
Jilly, yes.
And there’s also that little girl you saved today. It makes me crazy that you put yourself at risk
, he told me,
but I’m also glad you did. Proud, too. But sometimes it seems that for every girl we save, a hundred more go missing.
Milo exhaled loudly. He pulled me in close, his arm encircling me, so that my head rested on his shoulder. The bench swing rocked us forward and backward.
I just get sad sometimes, Sky. I wonder if what we do makes a difference. I know it’s a terrible thought, but—so many G-Ts are out there being abused. Harmed. And most of them are just kids
.
I was careful to keep concentrating on his thought until it was complete. I’d learned how to be polite and not interrupt—which
was
possible, even in telepathy-speak. When the last of his intentionally delivered words were through, I broadcast my own thoughts:
I get sad sometimes, too. But we have to believe that what we do makes a difference. All those girls in the barn? We made a huge difference for their families. You know? Sasha’s parents. Think about how different their lives are, now that they have their daughter back again. We did that.
Milo squeezed my shoulder.
Yes. We did. I know this. You’re right.
We’re going to help Sasha even more, and we’re going to find Lacey
, I continued,
and everything will finally be normal and…great.
Of course, I had no idea what
normal
would look like, other than
great
. I suspected it involved Milo and me going to prom or whatever the big school dance was called at Coconut Key Academy. It may also have included those elusive words that ended every romantic fairy tale—
and they lived happily ever after
. Dear Lord, what I’d give to live happily ever after with Milo forever at my side…
I realized with a rush of embarrassment that I’d let my mind wander again. I’d actually been imagining myself wearing a yellow ball gown like the one Belle wore in the Disney classic
Beauty and the Beast
, as I danced in the moonlight with a blue-coated and knickers-wearing Milo, his hair pulled neatly back at the nape of his neck.
Milo was back to gazing out at the water. Maybe his mind had been wandering, too, and he’d missed all of that.
Everything will be great
, I thought again, and he glanced at me.
I wish this were a fairy tale, but I’m afraid it’s not, Sky. It’s real life.
Okay, so he
had
seen my fantasy dance in that yellow dress. I hurriedly continued:
We’ll also find Jilly and we’ll help her get away from Rochelle. Because that’s what we do.
Assuming, of course, that Rochelle hadn’t already killed the girl. I hated to think that, but it was hard to assume Jilly was safe, considering that story Garrett had told us. The screaming in the kitchen, the broken dishes, the threats of “locking her in,” whatever that meant—
Suddenly—like static interrupting a perfectly clear frequency—
A door. Slamming shut.
Darkness. Muffled yells and then crying. God, the crying…
Without warning, Milo jumped away from me, propelling himself off the bench. As our contact was broken, the sounds and image of darkness ceased. Just like that.
“Hey,” I said out loud and stood up to take a step closer to a suddenly faraway Milo. “What
was
that?”
“Nothing!” Milo exclaimed with an urgent, almost-irritated tone to his voice. “It was—nothing. Sorry,” he added.
“It wasn’t nothing. Someone was crying. In a dark room. That was…creepy. Was that
you
? I mean, were you thinking about that?” If what I’d just heard and seen
wasn’t
something Milo had been thinking, it was entirely possible that I was having some kind of psychic or prescient vision. And if I was, I needed to know.
“Yes. That was me thinking that. Sorry.” Milo actually let out a nervous laugh, which was strange because I’d never heard him do that before. He crossed his arms over his chest and cleared his throat. “It must’ve been because…well, Dana’s been downloading horror movies again, and I made the mistake of watching one with her. That must be it.” He cleared his throat again. “I’m not a fan.”
Dana lived on a constant diet of incredibly scary movies. And Milo was
not
a fan. He’d told me that plenty of times before. It kind of made sense.
Except that it hadn’t felt like the memory of a movie. The whole thing had felt way too real.
And was it really a coincidence that I’d been sending out waves of childish Disney-prince fantasies, complete with my fairy-tale longing to live happily ever after, right before Milo took an express train trip to the nightmare-hell level of his mind?
I stood there, just looking at him, uncertain of what to say. “Sorry?”
He shook his head. “No,
I’m
sorry,” he said.
I sat back down on the bench, but instead of joining me, he leaned against one of the ends of the frame that held the swing in place. He crossed one ankle over the other before he folded his arms over his chest. He was just far enough away from me so that we were easily able to talk to one another—without being close enough to touch.
“I got spooked.” He attempted a joke. “Next time, I’ll pick the movie and go for something a little less hardcore, like
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
. Still terrifying in its own way, but…not…yeah.”
So okay. Milo was acting super-weird, and I wasn’t going to pretend otherwise.
“I also don’t want to… I mean, man, all that renewed hope,” he added as I struggled to understand him without having access to his thoughts. “I’m pretty discouraged,” he continued. “I mean, yes, we rescued Sasha and all those girls in the barn that day, and that was a good thing. But it doesn’t seem like there’s an end in sight.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to make it all about me, but Milo’s body language was weirding me out. And I couldn’t help but feel as though it had absolutely nothing to do with him feeling discouraged. In fact, if anything, it felt like it had
everything
to do with me.
Had I made a mistake, maybe come on too strong with that inadvertent burst of hope that I’d hit him with—my faith that we’d help Sasha and find Lacey and even Jilly?
All that renewed hope
, he’d said, like maybe it was something alien or unpleasant.
And I’d also told him how much I enjoyed having access to his secret thoughts, followed by that full-on fairy-tale fantasy filled with insane-girlfriend-type thoughts of happily-ever-afters and forever-by-my-sides.
Oh, my Lord…
“I’m sorry if I…” I started but didn’t know how to finish. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d done or how I could fix it, so I retreated to another simple “I’m sorry.”
Milo looked at me with his intense, dark eyes. He took a deep breath in and then blew the air out slowly. I didn’t need to be psychic to know that he wanted a cigarette—even though he’d quit smoking months ago. The cravings still haunted him, especially in times of stress.
“Are you out of nicotine gum?” I asked. He still hadn’t kicked that part of his habit entirely, but it was much better than the alternative.
“I am,” Milo said and shrugged. “It’s okay.”
For a moment longer, we locked eyes and said nothing. I longed to touch him. But I didn’t move from the bench swing.
And he didn’t move from where he stood.
“It’ll be okay,” I said out loud, finally. If nothing else, my words broke the silence, which had become too much for me to handle.
Milo nodded. “Yes,” he said. “It will all be okay.”
But for the first time since I’d met him, Milo made me feel anything but reassured.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s getting colder. I’ll walk you home.”
And he did. But he didn’t reach for my hand, so I kept mine in my pockets, too, as I wondered how I could fix this—whatever this was that I’d somehow stupidly done.
Chapter
Seven
“Would you rather eat fried cow eyeballs or drink a gallon of cockroach juice?” Cal asked me. He was leaning his head against the steering wheel of his car.
We were parked on the side of the road, half-hidden in the tall reeds as we staked out Rochelle’s palatial “beach house,” looking for any sign of her daughter-slash-niece Jilly. We’d been here since six a.m.—or as Cal called it,
the butt-crack of dawn
—and we were both feeling it.
At around ten o’clock, Rochelle had left the house, pulling out of her garage in her expensive convertible and vanishing down the street toward town. Milo had followed her on Dana’s motorcycle. Meanwhile, Dana and Garrett had gone off in Garrett’s car to do God knows what.
The idea that Dana was spending the day with Garrett was making Calvin cranky. Crankier, that is, than he normally might be from sitting in a car for going on eight hours now.
We’d run out of food a long time ago. Calvin now licked the inside of an empty bag of chips while moaning quietly.
I was extra cranky because Milo hadn’t called. According to Dana’s official plan, Cal and I were under strict orders
not
to leave the safety of Cal’s car until Milo called to say the coast was clear, meaning that Rochelle had her head in a beauty parlor sink or was securely locked in a spray tanning booth. But it was fast approaching two o’clock, and Milo still hadn’t called.
I checked my burner phone again—nope. No calls, no texts, no Milo. He’d been distant again this morning while we’d all shared breakfast, and I’d been using this endless stakeout to fine-tune my obsession. Why had he jumped away from me like that yesterday at the beach? And why had today’s good-morning kiss ended so quickly?
“We
could
just walk down to the house, maybe peek into the windows,” I started to say.
Calvin turned his head so that just his left cheek rested on the steering wheel. He lifted one eyebrow with deliberation as he glared at me. “Girrrrl, just because Rochelle McCrazypants isn’t home right now doesn’t mean she won’t be coming home soon, and if she
is
a Destiny addict, she’ll know right away that you’re a G-T and she’ll immediately try to suck your blood.”
“She’s not a vampire,” I pointed out, although right now the idea of staking someone through the heart was extra appealing.
“I’ve been giving it some thought,” Calvin countered, “as I sit here starving to death. D-addicts
are
freakily vampiric. The blood of innocents makes them stronger; they lose their souls; they’re creepy as shit…”
He was being overly dramatic, but not about the
Rochelle will know right away
part. A Destiny addict
could
tell if a girl was a Greater-Than. And vice versa. One up-close moment with Rochelle and—if she was a D-user—I’d be able to ID her, too.
Unfortunately, I hadn’t gotten more than a hint of her shiny blond hair as she drove off this morning.
I aimed the binoculars again. What I was really hoping for was a glimpse of Jilly’s emo-punk green-and-pink hair through one of the humongous sliders that led out onto the equally monstrous deck.
But nothing continued to move in or around the house.
I finally gave up, surrendering the last of my dignity as I tried Milo’s phone again, but my call went straight to voice mail. I wrote another text:
Would love a report.
But then I backspaced and changed
love
to
like
before I hit Send.