AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I don’t owe you anything,” I say.
“If you want to stay in the city limits, be my guest,” he says. “But a girl without a Blessing won’t last long in Dallas.”
I bite my lip, staring down at the ground. “How could you tell?” I ask quietly.
“Because I’ve got a Blessing that gave me keen senses,” he says, tapping on the side of his nose. “Andyousmell…well, you smell incredible. But not like a ‘borg, and…huh. Not like a wolf either. Just a girl who smells like wildflowers.”
His words make my skin crawl…but they make something else happen too, warmth tingling in the pit of my stomach, setting my flesh on fire. I summon up the courage to defy him, gripping my violin tightly.
“I told Houston no, and I’ll say it to you too.Thatis not on the table.”
“I wasn’t suggesting a table, but I don’t mind improvising when it comes to places and positions,” he says. His voice deepens as he speaks, and it sends a shiver down my spine. “And I don’t mind working for it either.”
I haven’t ever done anything like that with a man—never evenmeta man. There are only two people in my life, and they’re all I’ve ever had. My heart pounds in my chest, my body feeling all kinds of ways that I don’t fully understand. I resist the urge to blush, which might just encourage him, and I huddle against my violin case instead.
“Leave me alone,” I mutter.
Consciously, I know this guy is bad news. But some part of me says I can trust him. Maybe it’s just that he helped me, or maybe it’s that he’s cute—and he is cute, despite how much I want to deny it—but I feel safe.
And that’s dangerous. Gran always said I should never strangers.
Unfortunately, everyone is a stranger right now.
“Alright,” he shrugs. “No worries. We’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other…and I won’t touch you unless you ask, Sunshine.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, holding Gran’s violin like a lifeline.
That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.
That one day, I might ask.
CHAPTER THREE
?
ELIJAH
As night falls, we assemble our things and line up at the back of the booth, where Houston has carved a hole in the wall. That hole leads to a tunnel which connects to the maze of old sewers, subway stations, and basements that ultimately move into the plains south of the city, where we’ll travel with Houston until he sends us on our way.
Once we’re in the woods, we’re on our own.
And I could go straight to Austin, sure. I have keen enough senses that I’ll figure out a path.
But I’ve decided at this point that I intend on sticking with wildflower girl.
I scoop up my light duffel and stroll toward the group, a motley crew of six escapees, plus Houston. From the look of it, most of us are Blessed—all except the girl I’ve been calling “Sunshine”, along with the small child of a frightened woman with pale hair. I figure the woman must be trying to get her kid out of the city before the Angels scoop it up to tinker with—and I can recognize the woman as a ‘borg from the lack of pigment in her hair.
But it’s Sunshine I don’t get. I’ve rarely met an adult who hasn’t been under Angel experimentation, and beyond that, she doesn’t seem much like a Dallas native. In fact, she’s downright feral, like she’s never really been around people at all.
And there’s the issue of her scent.
I realized right away that she was the sweet smell I’d picked up while I was sitting at the tamale cart. Her scent grew stronger and stronger as I got close to Houston’s booth, and I only offered to pay her way because she left me so intrigued. It wasn’t cheap, either—in one fell swoop, I used up all the money I’d saved to get into Austin just in case anybody needed to be paid off.
And now it’s looking like it might not even be worth it.
She won’t let me anywhere near her, shooting me glares every time I try to approach, so I keep to the shadows behind her, inhaling that gorgeous scent. She’s like honeysuckle and magnolias, and fresh blackberries off the vine. Every time her scent hits my tongue, it makes me see things: like the blush of a Texas sunset over a field of bluebonnets.
I can’t help it; I need to be closer to her.
