Twisted Miracles Read Free Page B

away. I don’t know how long I was in there, but when I came out, Shane was still waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall. He must have heard everything I’d been thinking, but he didn’t comment.
    “I’m ready,” I said.
    “Then let’s go.”
    * * *
    We didn’t talk much on the plane. Shane gave me the window seat, and I was grateful. I didn’t want to sit with my leg crammed next to the guy in the aisle seat, who was playing some sort of first-person driving game on his phone. I’d never be able to block out his thoughts if I was touching him, and I sure didn’t want to hear them. Men really did think about sex every seven seconds.
    As it was, I was working as hard as I could to avoid Shane’s mind. He took up too much space in the seat beside mine, his thigh brushing my leg, his arm grazing my shoulder. We shifted away from each other in silent mutual agreement, but each brief contact was enough for me to catch a flash of his mood—anguish like a deep pit of black water, spikes of white-hot fear, ripples of anger and annoyance. I didn’t know what was for Mina and what was for me.
    I wanted to know more about what happened, but I knew better than to mindspeak. It took practice to keep your mental voice from wandering. It took practice not to pick up things you’d rather not see.
    Eventually, I fell asleep slumped against the bulkhead with a flimsy airplane pillow wedged under my neck. I don’t know whether Shane slept, but when the plane started its descent at 4:00 a.m. and I woke up with stiff joints and a cottony mouth, he was watching me. I looked out the window at the oil refineries lighting up the swampy land to the west of the airport, sodium lamps and occasional flames decorating the blackness. Neither one of us spoke.
    When we landed, Shane carried my bag through the airport. Everything was closed up and dark—the praline shop, the frozen yogurt stand, the fried chicken place. Even the security guards were quiet. In the long-term parking garage, Shane’s red ‘67 Camaro was the only car in the lane.
    Christ, I’d managed to make myself forget that car.
    We’d had our first kiss in it—my first kiss. Spring of my junior year of high school. Shane was fixing the Camaro up himself at the body shop where he worked, and every week something new showed up—vinyl upholstery on the seats, a fresh coat of paint, the trash bag on the back right window swapped for glass. The night it was finished, I snuck out to see him. We parked on the lakefront, mentally warming the air inside until we had to take our jackets off.
    “See?” he said. “It’s easy.”
    “Sure, once you know how.”
    “You picked it up fast.”
    I traced a line through the condensation that collected on the cold window glass. “You’re a good teacher.” For once, I hadn’t looked away when he met my eyes.
    That was the night my adolescent crush gave way to something bigger, something I hadn’t dreamed he shared. It was everything those moments usually are, all lust and fumbling, but with Shane there was more, his hands and his mind both running over me hard and fast, me gasping and pulling him closer, feeling the first twinges of real desire in the pit of my belly. I’d been certain I’d never feel that way again. Turned out I was right.
    I looked up to find Shane watching me where I’d frozen in the middle of the walkway.
    “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Embarrassment made my tone sharp. I followed him to the car.
    “We don’t know.” He stowed my bag and slammed the trunk a little harder than necessary. “She went out fishing. I dropped her off at Ruddock before sunrise on Thursday. I was supposed to pick her up that afternoon, but I never heard from her.”
    “You tried to contact her?”
    “Every half hour. Nothing.” His voice was even, but fear and exhaustion were whipping around him. Mina was his twin sister. They could hear each other through sleep, through storms. She’d gone off on