Iced: A Dani O'Malley Novel (Fever Series)

Iced: A Dani O'Malley Novel (Fever Series) Read Free Page B

Book: Iced: A Dani O'Malley Novel (Fever Series) Read Free
Author: Karen Marie Moning
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feels wrong.
    I narrow my eyes, look down the street far as I can see, plot each obstacle on my mental grid until it all snaps into place: abandoned cars with open doors just waiting to slam me if I’m off by an inch, streetlamps ripped from the pavement with chunks of concrete attached at the base and strips of metal sticking out that are going to kill my shins if I’m not careful, tables flung through pub windows blocking the sidewalks. You get the idea.
    I take a deep breath and give in, set that
sidhe
-seer place in my head free and slide into a different way of being. Ro used to try to get me to explain it to her, like maybe she could figure out how to do it if she tried hard enough. The best I can come up with is this:it’s like picking your whole self up mentally and shoving it sideways, till suddenly you’re … just something else. I shift Danigears, I guess. The rush is megaintense and, well … I can’t imagine life without it because there’s no such thing as life without it.
    I do it now, shift hard and fast, and then I’m whole and free and perfect. Wind in my hair! Freeze-framing! Can’t even feel my feet, because I got wings on them! I scrunch up my face in concentration and push harder, faster, every nanosecond is going to count if I’m going to beat—
    I slam into a wall.
    Where the feck did
that
come from?
    How could I have missed it on my grid?
    My whole face is numb and I can’t see. The impact snaps me out of freeze-framing and sends me into a blind stumble. When I finally get my balance, I’m still not able to focus. I hit the wall so hard it temporarily blinded me. My face is going to be black and blue for days, eyes swollen to slits. How embarrassing! I hate walking around with all my mistakes on my face, right there for anybody to see!
    I waste precious seconds trying to recover and all I can think is: good thing it was a wall, not an enemy. I’m a sitting duck right now and it’s my own fault. I know better than to lead with my head when I’m freeze-framing. You can kill yourself that way. The body can take a much harder impact than the face. You’ll drive your nose up into your brain, if you’re not careful.
    “Sloppy, Mega,” I mutter. I still can’t see. I wipe my bloody nose on my sleeve and reach out to feel what I hit.
    “That’s my dick,” Ryodan says.
    I snatch my hand away. “Gah!” I choke out. I can feel my face again—because, like, it’s going up in flames. What kind of universe makes me reach out at exactly that fecking level to feel what I think is a wall and puts my hand on a penis?
    Then I remember this is Ryodan and scowl. “You did that on purpose!” I accuse. “You saw my hand go out and you stepped right into it!”
    “I’d do that why, kid?”
    Ryodan has the most infuriating way of asking questions without the proper inflection at the end. His voice doesn’t rise at all. I don’t know why it annoys me so much. It just does. “To embarrass me and make me feel stupid! Always angling for the advantage, aren’t you?” Ryodan makes me totally crazy. I can’t stand him!
    “Sloppy is an understatement,” Ryodan says. “I could have killed you. Pull your head out, kid. Watch where you’re going.”
    My vision is finally starting to clear. “I. Was. Watching,” I say pissily. “You stepped into my way.”
    I look up at him. Dude is tall. The only streetlamp that works is smack behind his head, casting his face in shadow, but that’s the way he likes it. I swear he stages every place he goes in order to keep the light at his back for some reason. He’s wearing that faint half smile he usually has on, as if he’s perpetually amused by us lesser mortals.
    “I am
not
a lesser mortal,” I say testily.
    “Didn’t say you were. In fact, it’s precisely because you’re not lesser that you’re on my radar.”
    “Well, get me off it.”
    “Can’t.”
    I get a sinking feeling. Not too long ago Ryodan tracked me down where I was hanging

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