He took a step toward me, his eyes darkening with something I didn’t recognize. It never occurred to me how tall he was, but he seemed to tower over me then, leaning down until our faces were level with each other. I could see what I would have done if our situation had been different. If I had been in control of myself. I could see what he wanted.
What I wanted.
My foot slipped against a rock as I stepped away, my back scraping against the wall, my head sending me spiraling into panic. It was trilling in anticipation, relishing how close he was. Maybe his anger had evaporated, but whatever he was feeling now was stronger than before, stronger than pain or frustration or fury. The words Get away from me and Don’t were stuck in my tight chest, wedged between terror and want. Liam’s lips formed my name, but there was nothing outside of the blood rushing in my ears.
I tried one last time to wrench myself away, but my knees, the traitors, buckled under me. Spots in every shade of the rainbow popped and burst in front of my eyes.
And that’s when he grabbed me, only this time it was to hold me up, not pull me to him. It didn’t matter. The moment his hands circled my waist, he was gone.
EIGHTEEN
MY EYES WERE SHUT, but I could imagine what must have happened. How his pupils must have shrunk and then dilated, open and vulnerable. Waiting for a command.
Liam’s mind was a blur of colors and lights. One moment I was standing next to a young, blond boy in overalls, clutching a woman’s hand. Then I was balancing on the front bumper of an old car as a gentle-faced man with strong arms pointed out the engine. I saw the face of a kid rocket back as I punched him in the nose, heard a roar of approval from a circle of boys formed around us. I stared at Chubs’s long legs as they hung over the edge of the top bunk, and then I was standing in front of Black Betty, watching Zu climb into the backseat, looking frail and hungry.
And then I was seeing me.
I was seeing me with the sunlight reflecting off my dark hair, laughing my fool head off in the passenger seat. I didn’t know I could look like that.
No.
No.
No! I don’t want to see—
I slapped him across the face. The sound echoed up through the tree branches. Pain flared in my hand, spreading quickly up my arm to the center of my chest. I heard something else, too—a snap, like a dried-out wishbone being pulled apart. I reeled back, as if he had been the one to hit me. I almost wished he had, because the pain would have distracted me from the dizzy disorientation that came next.
I panicked. I knew from countless experiences at Thurmond that the best way to break a connection was to do it slowly, carefully. Unravel the invisible threads linking us together one by one. Wasn’t this exactly what had happened with Sam? One wrong touch and I had pulled back so hard and so fast from her mind that I ripped away every single trace of me.
Wasn’t it?
Wasn’t it?
The pain lessened, the farther I dragged myself away from him.
“Ruby?”
Why did I always have to do this? Why couldn’t I just hold it together for once?
Liam was staring at me. At me, not through me. He looked focused, if not completely bewildered. My eyes fell on the red welt forming on his cheek.
Had I heard that right? My name?
“What the hell just happened?” He let out a strangled laugh. “I feel like I just got hit by a linebacker.”
“I slipped—” What could I possibly say? The truth was on the tip of my tongue, dangling there, but if he knew, if he knew what I had just done to him…
“And there I was, trying to be all valiant and stuff by catching you?” He chuckled, using the closest tree to help him stand. “Lesson learned! You’re falling next time, darlin’, because, man, you have a hard head.…”
“I’m sorry.” I whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.…”
Liam stopped laughing. “Green…you know I’m just kidding, right? Really, it takes a special kind of guy to get knocked out by the same person he’s trying to catch. Aside from bringing back a few humiliating memories of school sports, I’m fine, honestly—what?”
Do you even remember what we were talking about?
“Oh my God,” he said, all of a sudden noticing I was still on the ground. “Are you okay? I can’t believe I didn’t even ask—are you hurt?”
I avoided the hand he offered. It was too soon.
“I’m fine,” I said. “I think we should head back now. You left Betty running.”
My voice sounded calm, but inwardly I was such a desert. All of the hope that had sprung there, growing and spreading and yielding like a stream, had dried up in an instant. I had slipped up, but he didn’t know. They never did.
This couldn’t happen again—I was lucky this time; he still remembered me, even if he couldn’t recall what I had done, but there was no guaranteeing that luck would hold.
No more touching. No more fingers brushing against arms, or shoulders pressed against shoulders. No more taking his hand, no matter how warm or big it was.
That alone was a reason to find this Slip Kid. To beg him to help me.
“Yeah…yeah.” He nodded, but I didn’t miss the way his brows furrowed when he looked my way again, or the grinding ache in my chest when he passed by and didn’t let his hand reach for mine.
I stayed five steps in front of him as we made our way back around the rest stop, past the water fountains, through the silver benches and tables under the overhang. I moved faster, practically jogging as I came around the corner. I half expected to see Chubs and Zu outside trying to rig the vending machines into burping up whatever snacks they had left.
But it wasn’t Chubs waiting there for me, and it certainly wasn’t Zu.
Dark hair, darker eyes. A man that couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, with a scar that began just under his right eye and raced up to his hairline, where the shiny pink skin had prevented any hair from growing back. My brain processed his features one by one, in agonizing slowness. I watched as his face twisted, turning his narrow nose up in disgust.
Liam called my name in a panic, his feet thundering against the cement. Run, I wanted to scream to him, What are you doing? Run! I turned back to face the man—the skip tracer, in his wrinkled blue Windbreaker—just in time to see the butt of his rifle flying down toward my face, knocking every thought clear out of my skull.