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But Milos remained calm, and sure of himself. "Is it my words that anger you," he asked, "or is it because you know I speak the truth?"
If there was any hope that Mikey might warm to Milos-- maybe even become a reluctant friend, that hope was now gone. "Allie and I ... Allie and I care for each other. We've been through a lot together--you have no idea!"
"You are right," said Milos, "but I do know that she bears a certain sadness. You must see it."
Yes, of course Mikey had seen it, but he wasn't about to admit it to this skinjacking outsider. "Like I said, you don't know anything."
"You claim to care for her, but I do not see this. If you cared for her, perhaps you would see that your destinies now lie on different paths."
"Do not anger me!" Mikey roared. "I am not to be trifled with!"And he heard in his own voice a roughness and a rawness he hadn't heard in a long time. Overtones of the McGill.
Milos put his hands up in surrender, as if he were backing down--but Mikey knew this was just another calculated move. "Then pardon me." Milos said, "I meant no disrespect."
"You say that a lot," Mikey pointed out, looking him right in those weirdly distracting speckled eyes. "But I think disrespect is exactly what you mean."
"I am only thinking of what is best for Allie," said Milos with a gaze that penetrated uncomfortably deep. "Are you?"
Then he left Mikey alone with his rock, his thoughts, and the moon. * * *
The next day, they came to the town of Lebanon, Tennessee, and again Milos asked Allie if she wanted to come skinjacking with him. She broached the topic as gently as she could with Mikey.
"There are things he can teach me about skinjacking," Allie told him. "Things that could probably help us."
"Why are you telling me?" Mikey snapped. "If you want to go, then go. Why should I care?"
"I'd feel much better about it if you weren't acting so childish."
"Maybe I don't want you to feel better about it."
Allie clenched her fists and growled in frustration. "I swear, Mikey, sometimes ..."
"Sometimes what? Sometimes you wonder why you put up with me?"
Allie took a moment to calm herself down. "I know why I put up with you. What I don't understand is why you don't trust me."
Mikey looked down and aimlessly kicked the ground. The living world rippled like waves in a pond. "I trust you," he said, his voice a low grumble. "Go learn something useful."
"Thank you." She gave him a gentle peck on the cheek, then went off to join Milos.
Once they were gone, Moose and Squirrel approached him.
"Why don't you come with ush, Mikey?" Moose asked.
"Yeah, yeah," said Squirrel. "Skinjacking can be fun to watch, too. Especially the way we do it."
And although tagging along with the two of them was the last thing he wanted to do, he went along, because it was better than spending the day thinking of Allie in the company of Milos.
Mikey had to admit, watching Moose and Squirrel skinjack that day was entertaining, in a blood-sport sort of way. The were both ingeniously inventive, and decidedly deranged.
First they skinjacked two older teens who were on their way to summer school, but instead used them to get into an R-rated movie. Then, when they got bored with the movie, they skinjacked two policemen and took their squad car for a joyride, leaving the policemen and the car in a ditch, to wonder how they had gotten there.
Each time they skinjacked, they left their fleshies stuck with whatever bad situation they had created, and walked away scott-free. Hit-and-run jackers, he dubbed them.
"We're just having fun," they complained, when Mikey suggested that their activities were depraved. But then, who was he to talk? He had been the McGill--yet even though he had perpetrated a good many mean-spirited, spiteful things, his depravity had a little more class.
Next, Moose and Squirrel went into a bar, got two middle-aged fleshies exceptionally drunk, then peeled out of them just before they were ready to puke.
"No harm, no foul!" said Squirrel. "Right? Right?"
