I sensed Axel moving closer. I stilled, waiting for something to happen.
Axel caught my arm, wrapping his fingers around my elbow.
Fear and distrust caused me to pull away, wrestling myself out of his grasp.
“Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” He reached, slower this time, and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. “I know you’ve probably heard this before, but trust me.”
I relented, letting him take my wrist. His thumb trailed over the underside, right below my palm, in a reassuring motion. If my heart could quiver and then stop and relax at the same time, that’s exactly how he made me feel.
He held my arm out with his to hover over the tank, and then as if reconsidering, moved to take my hand in his, his palm to the back of my hand, intertwining our fingers.
“Here,” he said, his voice as quiet and as calm as ever. “I’ll do it with you.”
“Do what?”
“You’ll see.”
With that, he lowered our joined hands into the coolness of the water in the seemingly empty tank.
A shiver went through my spine, but it wasn’t totally from the chill of the water. I held my breath. Anticipating.
He stopped when both of our hands were inside. “Watch,” he said.
He moved our hands together, shaking up the water.
A glow emanated from the water. It was faint, like glow-in-the-dark stickers, but it was there. Blue. Ethereal. The more violently he shook our hands, the brighter the glow became.
“Holy crow,” I breathed, as if speaking out loud would stop the reaction.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” he asked. He released my hand in the water. “Go ahead. Shake it up yourself.”
I did, feeling the smoothness of the water passing by my fingers, and playing with the level of the glow depending on how quickly my hand moved. If I stared hard enough, I thought I could see the little things clustering against the rocks, illuminating together.
“Certain creatures have unusual reactions to different environments. The tiny creatures in that tank get that glow effect from ...”
“Bioluminescence,” I said, excited by the idea he had this in his bedroom. “Defense mechanism? That’s why you have to shake them up to see it?”
Axel studied me quietly. I wondered if it was because I interrupted him. “I thought you dropped out of school,” he said.
“They let me take my GED early so I could get out and take care of my younger brother after my mom died,” I said. “I’m not an idiot.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound surprised. Most girls I’ve met usually hate it when I talk about science.”
“Not all girls are the same,” I said. I stopped the movement of my hand, letting the light fade in the tank. “What is this? What’s the name of it?”
“Noctiluca scintillans,” he said. “The common name is Sea Sparkle.”
“Is that why you’ve got the scorpion?” I asked. “And the frogs? You’re studying glowing animals??
There was a movement and the light flicked back on again. Axel’s face carried a softer, interested smile. “You know about those, too?”
“Scorpions glow all weird under a black light. And certain types of frogs glow. It looked like a couple of your fish started to do it, too, while the light was out. What are those? Firefish? Or... um... sorry. I can’t remember the name. Are they supposed to do that? No, that has to be a genetic manipulation. Those don’t glow on their own naturally, do they? Or is it a new breed?”
A dark eyebrow shifted. “Are you sure you’re Kayli Winchester?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He held up his hands, palms up. “If you’re that smart, why the hell are you picking pockets?”
I huffed, drying my hand on my shorts. “It’s complicated.”
“No shit.” He moved back to the closet, flicking the light on. “Come here and find a shirt you can wear. We’ll wash your clothes.”
I grunted, but moved forward.
His closet was as big as the tiny bathroom we had at the hotel. There were boxes along the floor on either side and cartons of notebooks and folders and more textbooks on the shelves. Shirts and jeans and other clothes hung up along the two racks on either side, but I got distracted by some of the equipment in the back. “Is that a diving suit? What’s that shotgun for?”
“Will you stop being nosy for a minute?” He yanked a black button up shirt off of one of the hangers. “Here. Take that shirt off. And those shorts. This should be long enough.” He passed the shirt to me and then snatched another one in a deep green color, and stepped out of the closet, turning around. He started threading his arms through the sleeves.
I turned my back on him. I was wearing a pretty modest bra and panties. If he could parade naked in front of me, I wasn’t going to pretend to be that modest about him seeing my back and butt.
I bent over a little, slipping the white tank top off. I inspected my bra, checking for wet spots but didn’t see any so thought I could keep it on. I looked for a place to put down my shirt so I wouldn’t get soda on some notebook or his other clothes.
A hand touched briefly at my shoulder blade. I jumped in my skin, and turned quickly, holding my shirt against my body.
Axel hovered over me. His firm jaw set in a rigid expression. His eyes had gone dark. “Turn back around,” he said, the smoky and severe tone returned.
I lifted an eyebrow, wondering why he was telling me to turn when he was the one that poked me. I faced the back of the closet, unsure of what he wanted.
His fingers returned to my skin, and traced along a spot just under my shoulder. “Where’d you get that scar?”
My heart raced, mostly from the touch of his fingertips smoothing over my skin. It became difficult to remember what he wanted to know. “I ... elementary school, perhaps? Some kid knocked me off of a platform on the jungle gym.”
“And that one?” he asked, his fingertips glided down, to one along the edge of my ribs around the height of my elbow. He traced at the scar with the edge of a fingernail and then repeated backward with his thumb pressed a little harder, like he could massage it out.
“A fight in school a couple of years ago. Wasn’t my fight. I was just walking by but got slammed into a staircase.”
His fingers lowered along my spine, sending a gentle ripple through my body. I stared hard at the back of his closet, at the diving suit. At the shotgun. At the boxes of folders. At the life of someone I’d just met not an hour ago, and here he was poking into my past. I dreaded the next question, even when I could guess it was coming.
He traced the scar that was at the start of my hip, the one that continued down along my butt. “And this one?”
My eyes closed. I wanted to answer him as coolly as I had the others questions, but for some reason I couldn’t find the nerve. And with his fingertips on my skin, I couldn’t think of a lie. “I don’t want to tell you.”
Axel’s voice deepened. “Are there more?”
My lips glued shut. I wasn’t going to let a complete stranger rip the past from me just for showing me glowing fish.
Someone started knocking on the door. Axel grunted. “What?” he bellowed.
The bedroom door opened. “Is Kayli in here?” Corey asked.
Axel drew his hand away, and I turned to see his eyes locked on mine. His were quietly telling me I could tell Corey to go away if I wanted.
“What do you need, sugar?” I asked, willing to do anything to stop Axel from prying.
Footfalls sounded in the bedroom, and I half turned to meet him while I unbuttoned the shirt Axel had given me so I could slip it on.
The moment Corey’s gaze met mine, his eyes widened then lowered down my body, walking over my breasts, down to my hips in the shorts, and the thin line of my underwear that peeked out. “Ah,” he stammered, and turned, facing the door frame, but his eyes kept sliding to my body. “Oh. Sorry. I mean ... I just wanted ...”
“You’re f
ine,” I told him. I threaded my arms through the sleeves of Axel’s shirt and started buttoning it. I tried not to puff out my chest at his adorable modesty on my behalf.
Axel sighed and then took my soda-stained shirt from me. I slipped my shorts off under the shirt that fell to my thighs, covering me enough. He collected the shorts, too, and my socks. He filed past Corey.
Corey only watched, his blue eyes curious and his mouth working like he wanted to comment but couldn’t come up with anything. The lower hem of the shirt was long enough that if I was wearing really short shorts, it would have covered them. Did he not know girls who wore shorts like that often? I didn’t imagine it was a problem for him. Despite the nerdling exterior, he was pretty stunning.
I planted my palms on my hips for a moment. “What?”
He blinked hard and shook his head, his eyes finally zeroing in on my face. “Sorry. I just wanted to ask you ... your brother takes a lot of high level math classes, and he’s got this one computer course he’s working on that’s an AP course for college. I was wondering if he was interested in computer science.”
I stammered for a moment, “How’d you know?”
“I... uh...”
I squinted at him, folding my arms. “You’ve got a copy of his transcripts?”
His eyebrows raised. “Don’t be mad.”
I wanted to yell at him, but something in that face of his stopped me. He was a computer hacker. I got that. What I wanted to know was why he was still poking around my life? And then really, it was Wil, so my instinct was to be more protective. However, was it really menacing or was he trying to find something? When the spark of anger faded, it simmered into curiosity. “Can you show me?”
“What?”
“I didn’t know he was in a computer science class. Can I see?”
He nodded, motioning for me to follow him. I trailed behind him to the computers set up in the dining room. He went to the one he was working on, sitting down in the chair. He used the mouse to bring up a document that listed Wil Winchester’s high school transcripts. He scrolled down, and then pointed at the screen. “There. He took a computer science last year and trigonometry. Now he’s in a follow-up computer class and trig two.”
I leaned over Corey, dropped my hands on his shoulders to hold myself up as I leaned over his head. I scanned the screen. Wil’s transcript was a little confusing to decode because all the information seemed clustered together. Trig and computer classes topped the list. “He didn’t tell me about this. Is he doing okay?”
“Best in his class. He’d be valedictorian except that there’s this one little twelve-year-old girl who is taking some sort of specialized physics class. Technically I think he’s earned it, but they’re making exceptions for her being a little girl graduating so early.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. I knew he was doing well but I didn’t know he was amazing. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell me. He only said he was taking what everyone else was taking.”
Corey shifted forward so he could turn and look at me. “I was going to say, he could technically graduate right now unless he really wanted to stay and graduate with his class. If he is interested in computer science, I could talk to a professor friend of mine and the dean at the local university. If he’d be willing to work in the science lab, maybe even starting now, he’d be able to get into some early classes that start up in January.”
I blinked at him. “You’re not serious.”
“What?”
“He could get into college now? But there’s fees. And I mean there’s an application process and the cost of classes.”
Corey’s cheeks tinted. “Well, he’d have to put some work in. I know a few people that could help.”
My mouth fell open. I couldn’t even begin to imagine this was even a possibility. “You don’t even know him. You’d do that?”
Corey’s face lit up. “I just thought it’d be easier on you both if he got in as soon as possible. He’d be able to stay in the dorms if that’s where he wanted to be. I don’t know for sure if that’s what he was planning to take in college, it just seemed like he was heading that direction. I thought—”
I stretched out, and took Corey’s face in my palms. “Tell me you’re not messing with me. I swear to god, I’ll kick your ass...”
“No one’s kicking anyone’s ass.” Raven materialized next to me. “What are you doing? What’s with this shirt? And let my boy go. I do the ass kicking around here.”
I slapped his bicep, right on a tribal tattoo. “He said he’d get Wil into college in January.”
“Yeah?” Raven said. He popped me on the arm. “So?”
I squared off my shoulders at him, holding up my fists and ready to hit him in the chest or face or wherever I could reach. Maybe I was crazy, but I kind of liked that he fought back. Most guys played too easy, too soft. Raven was ready to go head to head to me and I respected him for it. “So none of you guys know me or him. Forgive me if I don’t want to get Wil all excited by the suggestion if he’s all talk and it won’t really happen.”
Raven cupped his palms around my fists. It made me realize how much bigger his hands were compared to mine. Not to mention the way his biceps flexed. If he’d really wanted to, he could probably take me down in one hit. He held my fists together in his hands. “If Corey says he’ll do it, he’ll do it.”
“Yeah,” Corey said. “I don’t mind. I did the same thing when I graduated high school and got in an early semester. It interrupts his current classes, but when I did it, the school let me take the final exams early. So unless he really wanted to graduate with his current classmates, he’d be able to start now.”
“But,” I said, unsure how to put it. “I mean, I haven’t even done anything for you yet. Why would you?”
Corey blinked at me, like he didn’t understand. “I don’t need a reason. I just didn’t know about him before. But now I do, and if it’s like you said, you’re trying to get him into college, this will get him in quicker. He’d still have to go in and talk to them.”
I yanked my hands from Raven’s grasp and leaned forward, wrapping my arms around Corey’s shoulders and drawing him into a hug, almost falling on top of him. “Can you? I’ll pickpocket all the people you want. I’ll even put the wallets back. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Make her not hit me back any more,” Raven said. “I get to hit her and she can’t hit me back. Make her have to get sodas from the fridge for a month. No wait, I want—”
“You don’t have to do anything,” Corey said. He planted his arms down on the chair, trying to hold himself up while I was hanging around his neck. “I don’t mind.”
I cupped his cheek in my palm, drawing his head over until I could plant a kiss on the opposite cheek. “Please, please, please?” I begged. I don’t know why I was still asking. I think I just wanted to play. I was so excited, and I didn’t know how to say thank you for this.
“I said yes.”
“Please?”
Corey laughed, and patted at my arm around his neck. I leaned heavily into him and the chair swayed underneath us. “Stop it, I’m going to fall over in this thing.”
I was about to release him when I felt thick arms wrapping around my shoulders, and leaning against my body. “Please,” Raven mimicked my light tone of my voice. “Please, Corey. Please?”
Corey started to teeter in his chair. I was trying to push back to let go, but Raven leaned too far forward and I ended up pushing on Corey.
Corey fell backward in the chair, and I landed on top of him, sprawled out awkwardly, with the shirt riding up my hips and exposing my underwear. Raven landed on top of me on top of Corey. My face landed smack into Corey’s chest.
I started laughing, too caught up in their promises to be angry. Wil? In school? It was a struggle before to think of him getting into college in the summer. Now it could happen as soon as a few months from now. It was unbelievable. If it were for myself, I’d have said not to worry about it. Fo
r Wil, though, I’d do anything to help him get going to a better life than what we’d had. If it meant swallowing my pride so Corey could do me a favor, I’d do it. If I had to sink deeper into this strange group to get it to happen, I’d do it.
Corey chuckled underneath me. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I said.
He dropped a hand on top of my head. “Don’t hit me,” he said. “I’m just trying to...” He wriggled underneath me, and held on to my arm a bit, as if trying to make sure I was okay.
“I won’t hit you,” I said. I tried to push myself up off of his chest but Raven sunk his full weight onto my body, crushing me against Corey. “Ugh. You jerk, get off of me.” I reached around, slapping at Raven’s arm.
Raven shifted above me, and a hard spank landed on my thigh close to my butt. “Girl, I swear...”
I whimpered, rubbing at the spot where he hit me. It didn’t really hurt that bad, I was going to pout and then pop him back when his guard was down.
“Hey,” Marc’s voice barked behind us. “I leave you guys for five minutes. What the hell are you doing to her?”
“Raven did it!” I cried out, reaching around to point at his head. I had a brother. I knew how to win this, and it was whoever planted the blame first.
Marc chuckled over us. “Why are you in your underwear?”
“Raven ... Axel ... I don’t know. Long story. It’s their fault.”
Raven planted a palm on my back, shoving himself up while squashing me back into Corey. He hopped up. “Don’t look at me. If I’d taken her clothes off, there wouldn’t be any left.”
I crawled up until I was on my knees on the carpet, and felt my cheeks catch some heat as Marc and Brandon stood over us, gawking. I huffed, and rose from the floor, stretching the shirt over my hips. “Can we get this stupid party thing over with before one of them kills me, please?”
PIECES OF A PUZZLE
All of the guys gathered around the coffee table for pizza, while Marc went over the plan again. The only one missing was Kevin. Mostly it looked like Marc was informing me, because his eyes stayed on mine. Everyone else looked like they’d heard this before. I guessed for them it might be a review.