Ozrik
Gale hugged the camera to his chest, every muscle in his body stiff and unyielding. He couldn’t have looked more uncomfortable if he tried. I’d seen similar anxiety in the bathroom at CineVision.
Every time I made eye contact, he looked away, and I sensed he would have preferred if Lex had left him by the side of the road.
The rescue might have appeared self-serving, a means of boosting Twisted Fates in the eyes of the viewers, but that hadn’t been my intent. Olivia’s sheer disregard for his safety had pissed me the fuck off. He could have been seriously hurt or killed had the funnel decided to touch down.
I wanted to believe she’d taken off after seeing that Gale was safely with us, but I couldn’t help wondering if they’d even noticed he was missing until after they’d driven off.
Noah filming the whole thing had been advantageous. Our virtuous deed would look good on screen. Nothing like a spontaneous act of altruism to win over an audience. One man risks his life to save another.
Not what I planned, but I would happily reap the benefits. Olivia’s negligence deserved to be punished. You didn’t bring a newbie along on a chase without at least giving them a basic safety lesson. What if we hadn’t been there? I shuddered to think of what could have happened.
Ten seconds in Gale’s company had taught me one thing. He was painfully shy and severely introverted. I’d suffered bouts of secondhand discomfort the entire ride home. The guy was an unraveling ball of nerves who didn’t seem to know how to simply exist.
I was glad the guys had gone easy on him after the camera stopped rolling. We had a tendency to target one another’s weaknesses and make fun of them. Gale would have likely taken it personally.
The night was dark and muggy in Elk City. Heavy clouds blocked the moon and stars. The house was lit up, but I didn’t see signs of my mother watching or waiting for my arrival. It was practically a miracle.
“Come on. I’ll take you home.” Aiming for my car, I patted my pockets. When I didn’t find the keys, I paused, only then remembering they were in the pants I’d worn earlier. I changed before racing from the house, so eager to get away that I’d forgotten to transfer them.
“Shit.” I didn’t even have my wallet, that was how determined I’d been to break free from my mother’s scrutiny.
“Is something wrong?” Gale had obediently followed me up the driveway, keeping a generous distance.
“My keys are inside.”
“Oh.”
Staring at the house, I raked my fingers through my tangled curls and blew out my cheeks. “Fuck my life. I really wanted to avoid the battlefield.”
“I can walk.”
“No. It’s fine. Wait out here. I’ll try to be fast.”
Gale retreated a few steps. “Really. It’s okay. My sister doesn’t live far, and I could use the fresh—”
“Dude, stop.” Gale went rigid, abandoning his retreat. “Trust me. You’re doing me a favor. Let me drive you home. I want to drive you home.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
I stared at him.
He stared right back, apprehension leaking from his pores. I couldn’t make out his eye color in the dark, and I was oddly curious. The rush earlier had stolen my attention, but now that we were alone, I couldn’t fight the impulsive need to look at him. Take him in.
Without contemplating how weird my actions were, I extended a finger, holding it out like ET.
Gale frowned. “What are you doing?”
I wiggled the digit. “Humor me. I want to know if we’re still conductive.”
Understanding blazed in Gale’s eyes as he glanced from my finger to my face.
I didn’t think he’d do it, but after a beat, he balanced his camera in one arm and extended his finger to mine.
The tips touched. No electric shock, not that I expected one, but I caught the faint kiss of a smile on his lips.
“Zap.” I feigned a jolt.
His smile grew, and he dropped his hand, looking adorably shy.
I aimed for the house. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck? Why am I wishing you luck?”
I chuckled. “It’s a long story. Just… stay. No running away.”
“I’m not a dog.”
No, but I got the sense he would vanish the second I went inside, and for whatever reason, I didn’t want him to go.
Once I was convinced he wasn’t going to flee, I braced for impact and headed into the house. The TV was on in the living room, loud enough to drown out most noises, but if I thought I could get in and out unseen, I was delusional.
My mother had a sixth sense. The fact that she wasn’t waiting at the door was already miraculous, but I would never make it to my bedroom and back without triggering her internal alarm.
In fact, she came around the corner as the door silently snicked shut. Clutching her chest, she heaved a sigh of relief as she collapsed against a nearby wall with enough dramatics to win an Academy Award.
“Oh, thank god. I thought you’d died in a ditch. I’ve been texting you for an hour. Why haven’t you answered? How’s your stomach? Did you eat?”
“Couldn’t text. Didn’t have a signal.” I weaved around her and headed down the hall.
“I made dinner. Did you eat that sandwich? You didn’t. I know you didn’t.”
“I can’t stay. One of the guys is waiting for me outside. We’re heading to Noah’s to edit footage. I probably won’t be home tonight.”
“Ozrik, you promised.”
“I didn’t.”
I located my keys and wallet and darted back the way I’d come. Mom blocked my way, taking me by the shoulders and raking her gaze over every inch of me. “You’re soaking wet.”
“It was raining.”
“You can’t go out soaking wet. You’ll catch your death.”
“I would be so lucky.” I tried to squeeze past, but she refused to let go and angled me toward my bedroom, giving a shove.
“At least change your clothes.”
“Mother—”
“Don’t argue. I’m getting the thermometer. You feel warm.”
“Christ.” I headed back to my room and found dry jeans and a clean tee before racing to the front hall, hoping to slip out before I had to endure an examination.
No such luck. Stella Devereaux was fast and waited for me at the door, armed with a thermometer and an unmarked bottle of pills.
“The doctor prescribed these,” she said, shoving the device under my tongue.
It amazed me that she thought her stories logical. What doctor prescribed pills to a person they hadn’t seen or examined? And after business hours at that.
The answer was none, but it was easier to go along with it than fight.
Stella clamped my chin in a vice grip as she watched the numbers on the screen.
It could be worse, I thought, remembering the days before I grew a backbone and she insisted on taking my temperature rectally because it was more accurate.
Fourteen-year-old Ozrik had fought back one day and won, threatening to call the cops if she so much as touched me below the belt, let alone shoved anything up my ass again.
I eyed the orange bottle that poorly mimicked a prescription bottle, wondering what she’d hidden inside it. The thermometer beeped, and I grabbed it from her before she absconded with it and invented numbers to fit her narrative.
“Oh, look. Ninety-eight point six. No temperature.”
She’d already moved on, uncapping the bottle and dumping two pills into my palm. “These are the inhibitors you took last time. The doctor wants to start here before he considers chemotherapy. They might make your stomach upset. You should stay home.”
Oh, they would make my stomach upset all right. That was the goal.
She produced a water bottle, already uncapped, and waited while I took the pills. I knew the drill and took them with as little water as possible, then showed her the inside of my mouth and the underside of my tongue. The cancer angle was ballsy. She had to realize I wasn’t a stupid kid anymore.
Stella cupped my face and stroked my cheeks. “You’re so pale, sweetie. Let me pack you something to eat.”
“No. It’s fine. We’re getting pizza.”
“That’s too hard on your stomach.”
“I’ll muscle through it.” I dislodged and slipped out the door before she could think of some other means of making me suffer.
Hustling down the porch steps, I half expected to find Gale gone, but he was there, at the end of the driveway, seeming lost in his head as he peered down the road. Under the wash of the streetlight, he looked almost ethereal, blond hair nearly white and face pale and drawn. Troubled.
I recalled his white-knuckle grip on the bathroom counter at CineVision, water sluicing off his nose and lips. The tortured way he’d met my gaze in the mirror.
Gale didn’t respond to the front door slamming, so I quieted my footsteps. My first order of business was to empty my stomach, and I didn’t need an audience or the questions that would surely follow.
I aimed for the side of the house to vomit out of sight, but slowed my pace, unable to tear my gaze away from Gale. Not for the first time, something about the guy captured my attention.
Olivia’s girl-next-door vibe had been a mystery for months. Vern called my obsession an attraction, but I wasn’t so sure. Her personality drew the eye. It was larger than life. In your face.
Gale was fucking with my brain in a similar way.
Like his sister, nothing about his appearance was particularly noteworthy.
Ordinary, yet I found myself entranced, more so than with Olivia.
On our way back to Elk City, I’d caught myself staring, searching, and trying to sort out how the twins could be so similar yet completely different at the same time.
Olivia was verbose, the definition of an extrovert. Gale seemed uncomfortable in his own skin.
Olivia’s demeanor demanded, Look at me. See me. Pay attention to me. While Gale’s body language begged to go unseen, unheard, and unnoticed.
Yet I saw, heard, and noticed everything about him for reasons I couldn’t explain.
A quiet storm raged in his core. It tore him apart from the inside out.
I felt it in my bones. Under my skin. It hummed with the same raw intensity I often felt during real storms. A current ran between us.
It had literally sparked in the car, startling us both.
Okay, fine. It was a static charge and nothing more, but still.