I glanced to the front of the class, hoping in vain that no one was looking. All eyes were on me. I yanked forward a few times. The strap didn’t give, and it was too tight for me to extricate my arm from it. I thought of asking for help, but my mortified brain wouldn’t form the words. After a few more twists, I finally knelt down, lifted my arms, and managed to wiggle out of the pack. I stood, opened the door, and yanked my pack out.
A few snickers echoed behind me but stopped when I turned around. My axe-murderer expression turned everyone back to the front, even the instructor. In my regular chair in the back right corner of the classroom slouched a typical, twenty-something, stringy blond-haired surfer dude complete with tank top, board shorts and flip flops. I mentally called him a dipstick, Grandma’s favorite insult, and turned away from him when static lifted a few hairs on top of his head.
Since this was a computer science class, the room was filled with five rows of long tables that each accommodated three computer stations. Each row was three tables wide with aisles between each table. A sturdy, 1970’s looking metal desk commanded the front right of the room for the professor. The rest of the front of the room sported dry erase boards that doubled as a screen for any audio visual stuff the professor wanted to torture us with on any given day.
The only open computer terminal was in the center row at the far left end by the wall of windows. As energy spots were concerned, the open seat wasn’t too bad, if the door wasn’t shut. I turned to open the door.
“Please leave the door closed to minimize ambient noise, Ms. Burns,” Professor Willis said. “We’re having a pop quiz today. No one is to leave the class until it’s done.”
Ambient noise my foot. He just didn’t want anyone to see him dozing like he always did when we took quizzes.
A collective groan escaped the class. Everyone’s stress levels spiked and the energy level in the room surged. I grabbed my ponytail to keep it down. I needed to leave, but I couldn’t exit gracefully, especially now after the quiz announcement and my stellar entrance. I’d have to try to stick it out.
I slogged through the heavy, charged air to the available computer. When I pulled out the chair, the student at the terminal behind me caught my eye. He stared at me with the interested look of an entomologist with a new bug. I smiled, and he glanced away but after a few seconds resumed staring. He wore all black with ample amounts of chains and other metal adornments decorating his clothing. His dyed black hair hung to his shoulders in greased curls. Several piercings with gold hoops and studs adorned his nose, ears, and eyebrows.
I stowed my backpack under my desk and thudded down into the chair.
The professor cleared his throat. “You will find your quiz instructions and all necessary files to complete your quiz in a file on the computer desktop titled ‘Quiz.’ You have one hour as of now.”
I squinted and tried to block the emotional energy bombarding me. Professor Willis retreated behind his desk in the front of the class, put on his headset, pulled his keyboard toward him, and immediately dozed.
When I pressed the power button to turn on my computer screen, a spark arced from my finger to the monitor. The display folded in on itself and then flipped back into focus with a pop. At this rate, I was going to fry the computer before I got the test started.
A buzz cut through the air, and I pushed away from my desk.
“Sorry,” the girl next to me whispered. She pulled out her cell phone and ducked her head behind her monitor so the professor wouldn’t see her.
“Don’t call me anymore,” she whispered into phone. “No, I told you, it’s over.”
She hung up the phone and put it back on her tabletop. I scooted my chair back to my desk, now that I knew it was her cell phone that had vibrated and not my computer about to blow up in my face.
Her phone buzzed again. She checked the caller ID, and stabbed at a button on the phone’s side to disconnect. I pulled out my keyboard. The phone buzzed again. The girl’s stress level spiked as she read the caller ID again, and I pinched the bridge of my nose and squinted again to try and block her.
“Sorry,” she whispered to me. She grabbed the phone and mashed the power button to turn it off. “That ought to do it.” She dropped it into her purse.
I opened the files to begin my test and took long slow breaths through my nose to calm myself. I’d just answered the first set of questions, and was opening the sample database file to finish the rest of the test, when a tap hit the window beside me.
A man in his twenties crouched in the bushes on the other side of the window. He mouthed something and pointed to the girl beside me. I shook my head and turned back to my computer.
Another tap, this one louder. The girl next to me looked over and moaned. “Oh, no,” she whispered and shooed her hand at him. “Go away,” she mouthed.
He shook his head and motioned for her to come out. She shook her head.
They were throwing emotion at each other at a frenzied rate, and I was right in the middle of it. I put my face in my hands and sighed. Fate hated me.
The couple continued to mouth things at each other and my stress level soared. The girl finally looked away, so the guy outside threw a rock at the window. I jumped and several computer screens around me flickered. Students at the affected terminals looked around.
The professor still dozed, his fingers locked together on his stomach just under his man-boobs. I could probably leave, and he wouldn’t notice, but because of my graceful entrance, he’d remember I had been there. I’d fail the test and wouldn’t be able to retake it. Half a semester of work down the educational tubes.
I smiled at the girl next to me. “Maybe you should go out there,” I whispered.
“No, that’s what he wants. Just ignore him. He’ll go away.”
She turned back to her computer. He folded his arms over his chest and stared at her. He wasn’t saying anything, but the angst continued to flow between them.
A faint, high-pitched squeal sounded from my monitor, and it snapped off with a pop. That was it. Grade or no grade, I had to leave before I shorted the whole room out. I twisted in my seat to grab my backpack, and the man behind me caught my attention again. Astonished, he held his hand out to me as if he felt something in the air.
My pulse jumped. Could he somehow feel my energy? One look at him, and I knew it was true. His eyes gleamed with excitement, and a sly smile curled his lips.
Without breaking our locked gaze, he pulled out a cell phone, pushed a few buttons, and held it to his ear. I had to get out of there. I tried to turn away but realized that he held one of my backpack straps. I yanked at it, but his grip held fast.
Fear clenched my stomach. The monitor between the man and I snapped and went out. His wicked grin disappeared, and he pushed his chair back a few inches. His grip held steady. Panic swirled molten twisters of power in my brain, chest, and abdomen.
“Let go,” I said, my voice a harsh whisper.
He spoke into the phone in a language that sounded Middle Eastern. He tucked the phone against his shoulder and held his hand again, palm up to feel the air in front of him. Whatever he said next sounded excited. He was telling someone about me. I pushed my hands against the back of his desk, trying to pull the pack from him.
“Let go,” I said again, “or someone’s going to get hurt.”
The lovesick guy outside shouted something, and a loud bang rattled the window. Something inside me snapped. A pulse shot from my head and chest. The man holding my pack flew backward, and the bank of windows beside me exploded. I ducked and wound up half lying on the girl next to me.
A few seconds of silence enveloped the room, then the screaming started. People cowered on the floor. Someone shouted that we were under fire.
“Everyone stay down,” the professor yelled from under his desk.
Monitors near me crackled and went black then the monitors behind those monitors winked out as my erratic abilities sent a shock wave through the room. I sat up and grabbed my backpack from the desk behind me. If I didn’t get out of there, the whole place would short out. In fear for the lives of everyone in the room including myself, I crouched and ran toward the door. The dark man behind me grabbed my arm but a pulse leapt from my chest to my arm and threw him back against the wall.
An electric arc jumped from my hand as I reached for the doorknob. Fighting the panic that twisted my mind and heart, I wrenched the classroom door open and fled down the hall, through the outer doors, and escaped into the night.
CHAPTER THREE
V
OID
A
LLEY
I retreated to the only safe place I knew on campus, the small alley between the food court and the science building. I’d found this little haven by accident one day while taking a short cut to the Dolphin Credit Union. It was lined with brick walls–two stories up on one side and ten stories on the other. It’s only full time inhabitants were the metal doors leading to the kitchen areas of the fast food places and the dumpsters where the businesses dumped their trash. Something about the way the small alley was made blocked outside energy making it the only energy-dead zone on campus.
I ran into the alley, squatted between two dumpsters, and tried to slow my breathing and heartbeat. I’d never been here at night. The place had a completely different feel than during the day. The buzzing sodium lights high above threw shadows that pulled the night into the crevasses and corners. The relatively quiet quad outside created an eerie echo of far-away classroom voices and growling traffic of the nearby 57 freeway. The unexpected creepiness amped up my body’s alarm. Pulses erupted from me, intermittently shooting in different directions, and I sensed each jolt’s erratic path as it bounced against the walls until it dissipated or escaped the brick enclosure.
If I could only learn to emit pulses like this on purpose, I’d have far less problems with my energy levels. I just couldn’t figure out how to send energy out into space. For me, it had to be sent toward something that was touching the ground. It was like electricity. It didn’t go anywhere unless it could complete a circuit.
These little bursts I formed when I was on overload seemed to be an exception to the rule. They just shot out at random and dissolved like fireworks.
I took deep, measured breaths and concentrated on being calm. After several minutes, the jolts lessened as my panic ebbed. Eventually, I didn’t felt like a bomb with the timer at two seconds, but I still needed to expend energy to become less volatile, or I’d never be able to join the land of the normal again. Since the only things in my makeshift sanctuary were the dumpsters, I put them to use.
With my fingers together and pointed toward a dumpster, I gathered some of my body’s erratic energy and bundled it near my right shoulder. Then I pushed the ball of power down my arm and out of my hand. The dumpster jumped away from me about six inches.
Pushing an item away from me was relatively simple, just gather energy and send it toward whatever I’m moving. Pulling an object toward me was more difficult. It involved more control, and control was something I didn’t have.
My energy level was still too out of whack for me to trust pulling a large dumpster toward myself with any precision, and becoming a human pancake between two dumpsters didn’t sound like my idea of fun. So, I stood and retrieved one of the pieces of two-by-four wood the food service workers used to prop the dumpster lids open.
I ducked back down and inserted the wood in one of the metal forklift blade pockets at the bottom of the dumpster at my back. I lifted the other end toward the dumpster in front of me and propped it on my backpack. It would be my bumper just in case I accidentally pulled too hard.
I lifted both arms this time, spread the fingers on my left hand, and pulled at the energy in the air. With my right hand, I pushed power along the right side of the dumpster. When I felt the stream clear the back of the dumpster, I pulled harder, and the rope of energy circled the dumpster and returned to my left hand, effectively creating a lasso. I was now a complete circuit. By decreasing the amount of energy in the loop, it tightened across the back of the dumpster and pulled it toward me. When the dumpster stopped against my make-shift bumper, I released the loop. Between the small amount of power in the loop, which dissipated when I released it, and the power that naturally leaked from the loop as it made its circuit, pulling the dumpster drained my energy level more than pushing it. Unfortunately, my body still vibrated with overload. I continued to push and pull the dumpster, hoping the twisting maelstrom inside me would drain to a safe level before someone needed to dump their trash.
I could just hear it now, “What’s that crazy woman from the Archive Department doing pushing the dumpsters up and down the alley?” The university has over three thousand staff and faculty, but that’s small when gossip is involved. And Carl hated undue attention.
Twenty minutes into playing horizontal yo-yo with the dumpster, a man appeared beside me. No sound preceded his appearance. He was just not there one moment and there the next.
He appeared during one of my pushes, and he startled me, which was a bad combination. The dumpster crashed into another dumpster and blocked a nearby door.
I stood and pressed my back against the wall. My head had to tilt up to look at him, which meant he was over six feet tall. He wore black, tight-in-the-right-places slacks and a snug, black T-shirt with a logo over the breast pocket. Dark, wavy hair brushed wide shoulders. A slight frown on his lips, which looked like they belonged on a Greek God, slid upward into a predatory smile. He looked into my eyes a moment longer and then his smile seemed to falter into puzzlement.
“Fascinating,” he muttered.
As gorgeous as he was, I didn’t need an energy source when I was trying to un-charge. He moved to step forward, but I raised my hand to stop him.
“Look, buddy, we both need for you to keep your distance.”
I braced against absorbing more energy, stupidly keeping my hand raised as if I could fend it off. If I could stop absorbing by simply raising my hand, my whole day—heck, my whole life—would have been much easier, and I wouldn’t be in a garbage-perfumed alley with this Adonis look-alike. I stopped feeling sorry for myself long enough to realize that he emitted no energy.
He raised his palms toward me like he was warming his hands on a campfire, and his smile returned.
Ice ran down my spine, stirring up a small blizzard in my stomach as it passed. Somehow, he felt my energy. Even more frightening, I couldn’t feel his—at all. Even with very emotionally contained people, I could feel their life static. I think most people can feel other people on some level. Like when a person enters a room, no matter how silently, and another person looks up as if feeling the newcomer’s presence. I always felt people. Some people were stronger signals than others, but I could always feel a person when they were near me.
Until today. Until this man.
“My name is Rune.” His voice was deep and smooth. He inched toward me again, and the energy I threw off became as erratic as the fireflies in my stomach. A strange urge to lean closer to him raged inside me.
“Please stay back. I don’t want to hurt you,” I said.
The high-set bulbs of the alley danced blue-black highlights across his tousled black hair as he shook his head. He didn’t move any closer, but he didn’t step away.
He lowered his hands. I left mine raised.
“I am a friend of Samuel. He sat behind you in the class you just left.”
“Yeah, well, your friend has a staring problem, and you have a problem taking a hint. Please go away. I’m not feeling well.”
His presence surged toward me without physically moving. My power pressed against him. He projected presence with no energy, which was impossible. Every nerve ending in my body registered threat. My power pressed against him like a shield, and it was all that kept distance between us. I hadn’t consciously willed this shield. It was unlike the accidental energy spikes I emitted. It was more of an automatic response that formed a natural barrier against harm.
Rune’s smile softened from predatory to friendly.
“I don’t mean to frighten you. In fact, I believe I can help.”
“You have no idea what you’re dealing with. Heck, I don’t even know what I’m dealing with. Please. Go. Away.”
I scooted to my left. The brick wall snagged my shirt as I slid along its rough surface, but I couldn’t bring myself to move even a fraction of an inch toward the mesmerizing man in front of me. Every instinct told me to keep moving away from him and get out of the dimly lit alley, but his eyes called to some basic part of me. Probably the same part that made me want to pet the Bengal tigers at the zoo.
He moved to his right, remaining in front of me. His gaze held mine.
“You did not intend to break the windows, correct?”
“No.” My voice sounded far away. I stopped moving away from him.
He raised one hand and felt the air around me.
“Your power is not totally in your control?”
“No.” This time it took a few seconds for me to realize I’d spoken. A haze shrouded my senses.
“I can help you if you will permit me.” He moved a step closer.
“Help me,” I echoed. “Yes.”
He slowly reached out to me, never breaking eye contact, and took my hand in his. The energy in my hand calmed. My body had vibrated with the pent up energy for so many hours that I’d become desensitized to it. Now, the lack of tingling in this small area accentuated the tingling in the rest of my body.
We stood in a cocoon as the calmness crept up my arm. His eyes drew me in, and glimpses of his life strobed through my thoughts. He was in an old fashioned room teaching young men in Romanesque robes. He was in a horse-drawn carriage in coat and tails with a high top hat. He held a dead old man in his arms.
He blinked as the last image struck, and it was enough to break our connection. I pulled my hand away from his and slammed back into the dumpster without any recollection of moving away from him.
My voice found its way past my ragged gasps for breath. “What the heck was that?”
He stepped toward me, and my body shifted into full alarm mode. My hair lifted and dumpster lids rattled.
He stopped short and ran his hand along the air like a mime feeling an invisible wall. Deep blue eyes connected with mine again, and he smiled.
I braced myself, but found that I could look at his eyes without sinking into them as I had before. This time I wouldn’t let down my guard.
“Amazing,” he whispered. “Your gift blocks your mind.”
My fear moved over as anger trickled in.
“Yeah, yeah. I’m amazing. I’m fascinating. And what I really am is tired, and now I’m pissed, too. I’ve had a really, really bad day.” Tears clouded my vision and crying made me all the more angry. “Look, Roman, or whatever your name is, I don’t know what kind of stunt you just pulled, but I didn’t like it.”
The sides of his eyes creased, and his mouth lifted in a knowing smile.
“The name is Rune. And, yes, you did.”
I rubbed my hand. It wasn’t numb exactly, but it felt deadened.
“Okay, it wasn’t bad, but I repeat, what the hell was that?”
He had me so mad I was cursing, and I never cursed, and that made me madder.
“You seem to have a unique gift to manipulate energy.”
“It’s more like it manipulates me. And how did you know—”
“I have a unique gift also.”
An unladylike snort escaped me. “That sounds like a very bad pick-up line.”
His laugh was as rich as his voice. I almost let my guard down just listening to it.
“My gift,” he said, “is absorbing energy.”
“How?”
“Through touch, when necessary. Although I can pick up small bits in the air from high sources such as you.”
“What do you do with it?”
“Excuse me?”
“The energy. What do you do with it?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“You have to do something with it. How do you dissipate it?”
“I use it.”
“To do what?”
“To exist.”
Worry has never been good for my telekinesis, and this man, as gorgeous and alluring as he was, seriously worried me. Bursts of energy shot from me. I felt them ricocheting down the alley, except for the ones that shot toward Rune. Those bursts simply vanished off my radar.
“To exist?” I asked. “You use it to exist?”
“Maybe gift was a misnomer. It is more of a condition. The point is that my condition could be of help with your predicament. Would you like my help?” The blue of his eyes deepened, but this time I was ready for him. I looked away and held up my hand.
“Don’t start with the Marvin the Mind Bender stuff again, or I’m out of here.”
He stepped back, and when I looked again, his eyes were back to their normal but striking color.
The door behind the dumpster rattled. A voice behind it shouted, “The door’s blocked. I’ll have to go around.”
“Time is almost up,” Rune said. “Do I help, or do you leave the alley in your current condition?”
My energy level was better than earlier, but I was still in no condition to go out in public. The sea of car alarms my misfiring ability would most likely set off between me and my car provided an impenetrable barricade. The dumpster next to me and the brick wall behind me were looking a lot like a rock and a hard place right about now.
“Okay, do it.” I closed my eyes and held out my hand, but he didn’t take it.
“What?” I opened my eyes a crack.
“To do this as quickly as we need to, I will require more direct contact.”
This was sounding iffy again.
“Like what?”
“Like this.” He closed the space between us in a heartbeat, and although he hadn’t captured my gaze, I couldn’t look away.
Just as my mind registered, “Oh, no he’s not,” his lips were on mine.
My body, stiff at first, relaxed as he deepened the kiss. My traitorous arms slid up around his neck, and I leaned into him. All the stress and worry of the day lifted making me feel slightly giddy. The tingling energy pulled from my extremities toward my head, out of my mouth, and into his. That tingling was replaced by another, more primal, tingling, which spread upward from between my legs to ignite flaming butterflies in my stomach.
A quiet moan rumbled from his chest. His head tilted more, and he grasped me to him. The dumpster lid beside us lifted. At first I thought I’d done it until I realized I didn’t have enough energy left to lift my hand let alone a huge sheet of metal.
Someone cleared his throat beside us. “Hey you two, get a room, huh?”