Mind Magic Read Free Page B

right. They don’t want anything to do with me now.”
    Slowly she turned around. “What are you talking about?”
    “You’re just going to keep poking and poking, aren’t you?” Abruptly he turned away. “My Gift got away from me.”
    “Oh, no, Nicky!” Instinctively she moved closer and reached out—then paused, her hand hovering uncertainly in the air between them. “What happened?”
    “It was that damn Wayne Diamond. He was talking—bragging!—about this girl that he got drunk and I told him that was rape, and it was, but he just laughed, and when I said I was going to report him, he hit me, and he kept hitting me, and . . . and that’s no excuse. I know that, but . . .” She heard him swallow.
    She vaguely remembered hearing something about Wayne Diamond getting hurt. He was a jock, a football player, and she never paid attention to them, so she didn’t remember what had happened to him. “I’m pretty sure,” she said cautiously, “that he didn’t die.”
    “No.” He still wouldn’t look at her. “Your Mr. Smith was on campus that day. He’d come to see you, but you were out. When he saw the EMTs, he . . . we talked.”
    “I assume,” Mr. Smith said dryly, “that’s why Demi decided I’d abducted you. She knew I was on campus and yet I didn’t talk to her, so I must have been there to kidnap you.”
    “But—but Nicky, you don’t want to work for the NSA! You always said—”
    Now he looked at her. Glared at her, really. “That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. I knew you’d throw that in my face. I changed my mind, okay? Mr. Smith is helping me get my Gift under control, and I need that.”
    “But—”
    “Geez, Demi, can’t you take ‘you were right’ for an answer? You told me Mr. Smith was different and I should trust him.”
    No, she hadn’t. She hadn’t said anything like that. She opened her mouth to remind him of what she’d really said—that Mr. Smith had helped her a lot and she thought he was helping the others, but she wasn’t sure anymore, not since he broke his promise about Amanda.
    “I don’t want to hear ‘I told you so,’” he said quickly. He took two steps and closed his hands around her arms. That startled her as much as all the odd, angry things he’d said. “Look, we had a good thing going, the two of us, but everything’s changed now. Though I should’ve known you couldn’t take a hint.” His mouth cocked up on one side, and for a moment he looked like the Nicky she’d known. “Hints just blow right on past you. And I guess you deserved to hear from me in person, so here it is. I’m breaking up with you, Demi. I like you. I think you’re a great girl. But we aren’t a couple anymore.”
    Nicky had lost his mind. Had he gone crazy when he lost control of his Gift and hurt someone? He couldn’t break up with her because they’d never been a couple. They’d been friends, and that was better than—
    He bent and brushed her mouth with his, shocking her into utter stillness. “There’s your good-bye kiss,” he said firmly. And then, with his face still close to hers, he looked at her and suddenly his eyes were wild. And he whispered very softly, “Run.”
    *   *   *
    THE other thing Demi had figured out about disproportionate force was that no one ever expected it. If someone was selling his car, he didn’t expect anyone to offer him twice as much as he was asking. If a woman was rude to a clerk at the store, she didn’t expect the clerk to shoot her in return.
    Mr. Smith hadn’t hurt her. He hadn’t locked her up. He hadn’t even forced her to return to the Refuge to live where she’d be more under his control, and he could have. She was underage and Bright Haven Refuge for Gifted Young People was her legal guardian—which was the same as him being her guardian, because they did whatever he said. No, he’d used what he considered the minimum force necessary to get Demi to stop making trouble. He wanted her