Page 41 of The Mist of Stars
“It’s not like he gives a crap if I’m here.” She draws her seat belt over her shoulder. “But he also likes to control me.”
I buckle my own seat belt. “What about Alex?”
“He’s that way with him, too.” She drives forward, the tires squealing against the wet pavement of the driveaway. “So, what the heck happened?”
I force an exhale out of me, as if that’ll somehow help with my stress. Then I give her a recap of what occurred from the moment I left her room to when I returned. When I’m done, we’ve reached the main road that weaves through town.
“I’ve seen that in the basement. I told you about it, remember?”
I nod. How can I forget? It was just today. Besides, I wouldn’t have forgotten, anyway. Not when she implied her father hit her after she had seen the machine.
“It looked similar to the simulator at the academy.” I slide my shoes off and prop my feet up on the dash. “It definitely wasn’t exactly the same, and like I said, it was almost like it was calling me to it through the energy it was emitting.”
She flips on her blinkers. “He’s had that thing in there forever, but I’ve never felt any energy coming off it.”
“I wonder if Alex has.”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Well … I haven’t told you this yet, but since Alex found out about it today, I probably should.” I pull an apologetic face as I tell her, “Ever since I can remember, I’ve felt this electric current in my body every time I’m near Alex. He told me today that he feels it, too.”
“What?” she screeches as she turns into the parking lot of a diner. “And you never told me this because …?”
I shrug. “Because it was embarrassing, and I thought it was one-sided. But then I found out it wasn’t, so it’s not as bad.”
She pulls into a parking spot. “Why were you embarrassed about it?”
“Because it’s like so … I don’t know, like a crush, swoony crap.” I lower my feet to the floor. “Like if I were writing about a guy I had a crush on, I’d say I felt this electricity between us.”
She snickers. “What kind of book are you writing?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “It’s a metaphor.”
“I know.” She slips the keys out of the ignition. “I’m just giving you shit because you didn’t tell me for years about this. I thought we trusted each other more.” She says the comment offhandedly, but her tone conveys she’s hurt.
She grabs her bag then hops out of the car while I put my shoes back on. Then I climb out and meet her around the rear end of the vehicle where the neon glow of the retro diner casts across the night. She’s sliding the handle of her bag over her shoulder as I approach her.
“I do trust you,” I stress, zipping up my jacket. “More than anyone else. I really was just embarrassed. And I didn’t tell anyone because, in all honesty, I think I was trying to pretend it wasn’t real.”
Her hair blows in the wind as she assesses me. “No more secrets.” She holds up her pinkie.
I hitch mine with hers. “No more secrets.”
She smiles. “Good. Now let’s go get something to eat. All this chaos is making me so hungry.”
“Me, too.” My stomach growls at that precise moment, causing us to giggle.
We loop arms and start toward the entrance door. The restaurant is visible through the windows, revealing that the place is relatively empty. Good. The last thing I need right now is to be suspicious, which I know will happen if I’m in a crowd. Again, I’m getting increasingly paranoid. The thing is, I’m not sure what to be paranoid over. Sure, a lot of shit has been going down, but like Aislin said, it’s chaos.
Then again, her father is definitely someone I need to be suspicious of.
After we order our burgers, we take a seat in a corner red leather booth. A jukebox is playing an old-school tune, and the air smells like grease, but in a yummy way.
“So,” I say as I overlap my hands on the table, “any ideas on how we should proceed with all this chaotic crap going on?”
Aislin is sitting across from me and fiddling with the saltshaker. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot. I think we need to find another foreseer to talk to, one who perhaps is a reader for a living.”
Readers are shunned from the foreseer world due to the fact that they use their powers for business-like purposes, most of them reading people’s futures in exchange for goods and money.