Cursed

“Hot?” he asked with overt innocence.

I laughed. “That too, but it’s more than all of that. And I like you. I really do.” Even that sounded stupid to me. “I don’t know.” My pulse picked up, and my palms felt gross. “Does that tell you anything?”

“Yes,” he said softly.

“I don’t know what any of it means. I’m… not used to any of this, but yeah, I like you.”

Hayden scooted down, wrapping his hands around my arms. “You know I think you’re amazing.”

I knew my face was on fire. I think I nodded.

“And I don’t feel this way,” he brought my hands to his chest, over his heart, “about anyone else.” Hayden locked eyes with me, and I really felt on fire then. “So where does that leave us?”

“We’re… dating?”

“No.” His expression was full of desire, along with another emotion, one that thrilled and frightened me. “‘Dating’ doesn’t sound right.”

I swallowed, unable to look away. “Then, what?”

“I think you know.” Hayden pulled me forward as he lay back, his hands spread over my back. “Do you want me to say it?”

“Yeah,” I breathed.

“Come closer.”

I lowered my head. “Close enough?”

Hayden closed the minute distance between us and brushed his lips over mine. It was just a touch, but I stopped breathing all together. When the kiss deepened, I lost track of the world around me, and the fact that he never answered the question. Not that he needed to. This kiss was beyond silly titles. This kiss was something—I pulled back when I felt Hayden’s fingers spasm. We’d gone too long. Both of us were breathing heavily, and a sudden realization floored me.

This could be the last time I ever kissed him. A sharp, stabbing pain sliced through my chest. Would Hayden forgive me for exposing Cromwell?

I didn’t think so.

And I didn’t want to waste another moment with him. His hands spread up my back, over my shoulders. When he put some space between us, I made a sound of protest. But then his hands were on the move again, stealing down the front and under the hem of my shirt. His knuckles brushed close to my navel. At once, fire and ice coursed through me.

Somehow my shirt ended up on the floor, and I should’ve felt embarrassed. I’d never been this exposed with a boy before and with the scars… but in the soft light and under his intense stare, I’d never felt more perfect in my life.

His shirt stayed on, and so did the rest of his clothes. Obviously, we could only take this so far, but I could still feel the heat through his clothes and it felt amazing—especially when his hands grasped my hips and he held me close, our lips touching every so often, our bodies rocking together.

It was the simplest of touches that got to me the most. Just being able to be this close to him felt a thousand times better than anything I could ever imagine—like lightning shooting through my veins each time he whispered my name.

Amidst all these wonderful sensations, my heart swelled so big I was sure it would explode from my chest. I knew what it was. I knew what I was feeling.

I was in love with him.

* * *

My stomach twisted and turned from the moment I stepped into the shower until I climbed in my Jeep. Instead of focusing on the huge part of me that wanted to forget all of this, I set my plan into motion. A nervous sort of excitement thrummed through my veins and so did a measure of dread, but I felt kind of badass.

Like a spy or something.

I’d patiently sit through three of my morning classes before skipping out. Waiting any longer would be risky. I ended up getting to school way too early. The corridors were unusually silent, and my footsteps echoed down the hall. As I made my way toward my locker, I couldn’t help but feel a little creeped out. I half-expected the lights overhead to flicker out and a gruesome one-handed, one-toothed janitor to jump out at me.

I didn’t feel so badass then.

I shook my head in an attempt to get rid of the image and focused on my locker. Even though I knew there wouldn’t be anything in it, the locker still filled me with unease. Phoebe had officially traumatized me when it came to lockers.

Drawing in a deep breath, I closed my eyes and unlocked it. A couple of heartbeats went by, then maybe a minute, and I pried one eye open. It was, of course, empty.

By the end of English, I started to feel queasy and my temples felt like they were about to explode from the pressure in my head. My nerves were getting to me and I knew I was going to chicken out if I waited as long as I’d planned. When the bell rang at the end of second period, I gathered my stuff up in a rush and hurried from the classroom.

I stopped at the front doors. Fat raindrops splattered against the pavement. My hair was about five seconds from turning into a giant frizzball. Chewing on my lip, I glanced over my shoulder and about fell over.

Mr. Theo stood by the entrance of the admin offices, chatting with another teacher. If he turned his head, I was so busted. Then he did look up, right at me. I started to back away from the door, but he raised a brow and smiled, then turned away.

I couldn’t believe it. And I couldn’t stand here any longer. I pushed open the doors just as the skies ripped open and sleety rain poured. It felt cold enough to snow.

Navigating the rain-slick streets with bald tires proved harder than I remembered, but around forty minutes later, I parked the Jeep in front of the Cromwell mansion.

Soaked to the bone, I went in through the garage and made sure all the cars were gone. Then I shrugged off my wet sweater and hung it on the back of a chair in the kitchen. Even my thin shirt underneath was damp, but I didn’t have time to waste changing.

From there, I half-ran, half-slipped over the hardwood floors. Statues and paintings seemed to watch me as I entered the right wing. I came to a halt outside Cromwell’s study and sucked in air. There was a chance the door would be locked—if so, a waste of a good hair day.

A little nagging voice whispered in my head that what I was about to do was wrong. I’d be prying around in other people’s personal business, but my reasons for doing so were far more important than a silly little thing like privacy. Right?

I reached into my pocket and ran my fingers over the coin. This was supposed to be for good luck. Well, I needed some luck now. I pushed on the door. It creaked open and a blast of frigid air hit me.

Clamping down on the voice that screamed moral outrage, I headed for the glossy oak desk. Geez, my conscience acted like I planned on doing something terrible. Where was that voice when I cheated on tests and at computer games?

Not the same thing, I guessed.

I yanked open one drawer. No keys. I moved to the second, third, and finally, the middle drawer. The key ring gleamed up at me. I grabbed them and whirled around.

The keys felt strangely heavy in my hand. After several false starts, I found the right one and yanked open the drawer in the credenza. I hesitated a moment; the little voice was back again, whispering I might not like what I found.

I ignored it and grabbed Kurt’s file first, having no idea what to expect.

The first pages consisted of basic information: birthdate, hometown address, and a brief outline of his gifts. From what I read, he had extensive abilities in the mind-wiping field, able to remove certain memories while leaving others intact. Adam had been a perfect example of that. He’d remembered everything—except me. But Hayden had said whoever had done the sweep on Mom hadn’t done it right. Looking at the file on Kurt, I doubted he’d mess up so badly. I assumed whoever was behind the car crash would’ve also wanted Mom to believe Olivia had died, too.

Pushing the hair out of my face, I flipped to the second page. Bingo.

It wasn’t a criminal record—not a formal one, at least, but Kurt had quite the history in his younger days: B and E, robbery, and assault. All before the age of twenty-one, which I didn’t think was such a big deal—people change. But the psych eval on the third page caught my eye.

Kurt was described as exhibiting malignant narcissistic personality traits paired with antisocial and paranoid tendencies from onset “G.” I assumed that “G” stood for “Gifted.” I didn’t need a degree in psychology to know some of the words didn’t bring the warm and fuzzies, but nothing pointed to him being a full-out psycho-killer.

Disappointed, I shoved his file back in and picked up Parker’s. As I read through his stuff, I began to wonder why Cromwell even had files on them. Why did he keep this information? Cromwell was a mayor, not a psychologist, and stuff like this belonged in a clinical setting.

Parker’s personal information didn’t come as a surprise. Cromwell commented on his inability to block out other’s thoughts, which led to antisocial traits. Phoebe’s had the same stuff about controlling the empath in her, and there was a recent note about her reaction toward me and a treatment guide outlining blocking techniques that Cromwell wanted to work on.

Gabriel’s file didn’t mention much of anything.

Olivia’s included a bio with all the normal stuff: our parents’ names and whatnot, but just one word about her gift: “Miraculous.” I stared at it for a while, and then I shoved it back inside and moved to grab mine.

But I saw another file labeled “T.G.” and nothing else. Curious, I grabbed that one and cracked it open. The first page had been blacked out the same way I imagined they did with classified papers. I flipped to the second page, then the next. Everything had been blacked out. Frowning, I put it back it the drawer and pulled my file out.

I prepared myself for the worst, figuring I’d see things like “bad-mannered” and “ill-tempered” as character traits. So I was surprised when I found nothing on the first page. Not a damn thing—no bio, no birthdate, just the date Hayden and Kurt had shown up at my house, the day they’d relocated me. Weirded out by that, I turned over the page, already cringing at what I would see. And God, did I want to go find Cromwell, rip off my glove, and choke-slam him.

I didn’t even have a freaking name. The sporadic notes referred to me as “Project E.”

Project E has an unstable gift. The ability to disable and even kill with a touch proves to be reminiscent of Project J. Project E is also a candidate for the Assimilation Program. At current time, there has been no evidence that her gift can be controlled. Caution must be exercised.

My fingers curled around the paper until I heard the pages crumple. Assimilation? For me? He could assimilate my foot up his ass. And when did he start believing I had a gift? If I remembered correctly, the last thing he’d called it was unnatural and wrong.

I slammed my file back down, and because I couldn’t help myself, and because I was mad and confused, I picked up Hayden’s file. I sat down and cracked it open. Immediately, my eyes scanned down the page. Just like Kurt and the rest, there was a full bio and I knew the good stuff would be on the second and third pages.

Don’t do it.

But I wanted to do it and I needed something to distract me from my desire to burn down Cromwell’s office. There was a lot about Hayden’s gift that I hadn’t known. Being an enerpath, he could manipulate almost any form of energy: use air to crush a house, create fire out of the electricity in the air, and even move the ground like a mini-earthquake. It was all pretty amazing… and frightening. I flipped the next page over and flinched.