Page 28 of Envious Of Fire
Leland presses against Kyle’s back, his eyes wide. “Did you see something?” he whispers, alarmed. “What was that?”
“Don’t know.”
They remain still, neither daring to draw a breath.
“After that incident with the ring stuck on your finger last Friday,” Leland whispers, clinging to Kyle, trembling, “I’m a little freaked out by coming back here. I keep thinking—”
Kyle shushes him, continuing to focus. When nothing else seems to move, he uses his Reach, seeking any presences in the alley. All he finds is the rippling fear from Leland, still clinging to his back, and the cheerful energies from their friends inside the bar. He senses nothing else.
“Do you think it came back?” whispers Leland. “That dark, creepy ghost-thing you said you saw out here that one night?”
“No,” says Kyle after a pause. Then: “No,” he repeats with more confidence. “Because of the deal, we’re being left alone. We shouldn’t have any reason to fear. We’re safe.”
Leland nods. “Yeah, deal, right.” Then he squints, leans in closer. “What deal?”
Kyle lets out a breath of relief, puts on a smile, and turns to slap a reassuring hand on Leland’s back. “Don’t worry about it. It was just a mouse … or something heavy settling in the other dumpster. Didn’t Sylvia throw out her old TV yesterday? Let’s finish closing up and go home.”
Leland returns a nervous smile, not fully convinced, but the two head back in anyway.
It’s only half an hour later when Kyle and Elias are making the short drive home. The entire town is asleep, and the drive is slow, windows rolled down, radio off, nothing but the night in their ears. Kyle lets his arm hang out of the window, feeling the air brush over his fingers like soft hair. His Reach still senses no one but the quietly sleeping people of Nowhere between the vast, empty spaces of nothing at all.
“I should visit Patrick,” says Kyle suddenly.
Elias half turns to him. “The fuck …?”
“He’s an innocent participant in all of this. He’s suffering for no reason at all, sitting in a jail cell, worrying about his …” Kyle’s voice cuts off.
“His family,” finishes Elias, “which George already ate for a light supper.” When he reaches the next stop sign, he puts the vehicle in park and turns to Kyle. “Are we just gonna forget he shot you pointblank? In the face?”
“All on George’s orders.”
“Patrick was told to steal an hourglass. Not kill you.”
“He panicked. He recognized that I was … what I am.”
“A nice and patient guy who took a bullet in the face for a kid whose birthday we just left? Jeremy could be dead right now.What would you even say to Patrick?”
Kyle wonders the same thing. Is it guilt that drives him to want to talk to him? Pity? Does he even have a good reason?
“I would tell him …” Kyle feels a pinch of doubt. “Lies.”
“You’d what?”
“Lies,” he repeats, quieter. “I’d say his family’s okay. I’d say they’re somewhere safe. That I hope he gets to see them soon.”
“Why would you say all that?”
“Because I know what it’s like. To lose your family. To lose the love of your life. To think … nothing is going to be okay again. Is it such a crime to want him to have a little peace? If it wasn’t for my kind, he would be home right now, happy, with his wife and …” Kyle swallows, ashamed suddenly. “I don’t know what I’m thinking. Forget it.”
Kyle grows still when Elias caresses his face unexpectedly, gently stroking his cheek with a soft thumb. “You are beautiful, you know that?”
“Elias …”
“And it wasn’t your kind who did this to Patrick. It was the other guys, the assholes who think they run things around here. You’re not one of them. Look at me.” Kyle turns, guided by the gentle pull of Elias’s grip. “You’ve got a heart that’s as deep as the ocean. It’s no coincidence why you’ve got the gift you do, being able to feel what others feel. And you know what else is interesting about the ocean? No one’s ever been deep enough to truly know it.” He leans over to put a kiss on Kyle’s lips. A fever takes him over—a fever Kyle senses immediately. Elias’s mouth drags down Kyle’s neck, places another kiss, then lower, breath shattering as his passion ignites. “Little bit of mystery, I gotta admit, makes you pretty damned sexy, too.”
Kyle sighs with a sort of exasperated delight, half a laugh. “If you can’t turn every situation into something sexual …”
“You make me crazy,” groans Elias.
