unsettling

Everything had to be timed perfectly. Had to run smoothly. Any mistakes and her whole plan would crash and burn.

Crash and burn sounded about right. Lee hunted her down, pissed that Jess was making moves on Sin.

Apparently, everyone had seen her leave school with him.

Before she could even get a word in, the chick stormed off. Then Julian found her. Now he was back to watching her like he was thinking about having her committed.

Everything couldn't be more of a mess.

Damn cameras. Everything was hard enough without trying to hide it. Finally, she'd ran back up to her room so she could hide in her bathroom.

Sitting on the floor, she tried to work on removing her wrist band. That shit took a lot of concentration. By the time, she felt comfortable doing it she had a headache and had used every cuss word she knew. And she knew a lot of them.

Exhausted, her mind fried, she laid on the floor for a while. Once she left this room, Julian would be back to watching her and since she knew there was no getting rid of him, she decided to use him.

Back in her room, she shed her candora in exchanged for some of her own clothes. She made sure she had all her jewelry on. Her mind moving onto what she would pack to bring with her.

One bag. Hell, she might as well leave with the same shit she'd arrived with.

"Mel and Aunt Sarah will be home soon. Want to get out of here?"

He'd been silently watching her with his arms crossed. "Why can't we stay and have tacos like a family?"

"Told you, I have things to do. You coming or not?"

"I'm coming." For the first time ever, she knew she hurt his feelings.

God, she hated that.

They walked towards The Stage, passing it, and headed for the warehouses. Not the ones Kell's people used to hold all the things they'd taken away from them, but the empty ones... She paused, eyeing the buildings. "You think they have cameras around here?"

"At the front and back entrance. They aren't too worried about vandalism and no one has tried to get into them. No need, if someone wants something, they just searched the unused homes no one is using yet. Anything dangerous has already been destroyed."

She smiled at him. It was a smile he would know very well. They were going to do something they weren't supposed to do. "We better keep moving."

Jess held out her hand and as soon as he took it, she moved them on the other side of the wall in front of them.

Moving two people wasn't as difficult as she thought it would be. They still ended up bringing down a whole bunch of shelves because they landed right on top of them. Shelves full of dolls by the feel of them.

"Fuck, it's dark in here."

"Human Jessalynn, do you need some assistance?"

"If you have a light, sure."

Come to find out he did. From her wrist came a soft light. With hers and Julian's, nearly the whole damn warehouse was bathed in light.

"Anything else you can do?"

"My possibilities are endless."

"Ego much?"

"Not ego. Facts."

Julian held up a doll in each hand. "This is just unsettling."

He wasn't lying. There were dolls all over the place, then pass the dolls where stuff animals and toy figures. All the useless things that no one had gotten around to getting rid of.

It was like having full rein at a department store. Before long they had cleared them an area. Julian found some bean bag chairs and some comic books, but she wasn't paying attention to them. She was trying to pop from one end of the warehouse to the other. In no time, she had a headache. One wrong thought and she ended up all over the place. Her room. Twice. Kellum's room. Even Sin's room.

Luckily, he'd been away. Hopefully, doing what he was supposed to be doing.

"Come help me."

"What are we doing exactly?"

"Practicing. If I'm going to have this superpower I might as well know how to use it."

"Looks easy enough to me."

"Bite me."

"Don't tease, baby. You know I will."

He didn't think it was so easy when they ended up on her roof.

She nearly died. Only saving herself from hitting the ground at the last minute.

Julian nearly had a heart attack.

"Human Julian, are you_____."

"No!"

Thank God Julian was standing at the top. If he'd been falling, she didn't know if she could have saved both of them.

Bet Dez was confused as hell. Quickly, Jess went back to Julian's side so she could get them back to the warehouse.

"That was pretty far, right? At least two miles, right? Here, hold this giant bear and let's see if I can do it again."

She managed it but she wouldn't know if it would actually work until tomorrow. A bear wasn't the same as a third person.

She popped into her bean bag chair and reached for one of the people magazines she found. It used to be that she was all into celebrity gossip, but she couldn't get herself interested in who Tom Holland was dating. It didn't seem that important anymore. She knew who Brady Shaw was dating.

She tossed the magazine. "You think Dylan O'Brian is alive?"

"We are."

Yeah, but in a couple of hours she was going to wish she wasn't. "I'm going to look around."

Any other time, she would have been having the time of her life. Julian found a skateboard and her a ten speed that they played around on.

"You still upset about your car?"

"Different world. If we were still back home, I'd want to throttle you."

"Yeah, sure. Remember that time my mom was pissed because I went hot rodding with Dewy Beaudaux?"

"You took out Mrs. Datson's mailbox and she wanted both of you in jail."

"I thought mom was going to kill me." Her face softened at the memory. "You begged her to give me another chance. Promised her it would never happen again then you went and kicked Dewey's ass. You never could stand to see me in trouble."

"Believe me, I take full responsibility for your spoiled ass. If I wasn't going to let her spank your ass, then I should have done it myself."

"Big talk. You don't have it in you."

"Everyone changes."

He sent his skateboard crashing into some tables and scooped her off her bike.

Chuckling, she didn't even put up a fight when he sat on the ground and dragged her over his knees.

"Last chance, young lady." His stern tone only fueled her laughter.

There was something only Julian knew about her. She was extremely ticklish on her back. Her laughter turned into pleading.

"Don't. I'll be good." She pleaded as she tried to get away.

"Not going to happen. Where's my car? Let's don't forget my bike you got stolen in the fifth grade. Or that black eye I got when I had to fight Travis because you showed Donna that picture of him and Kimmy."

"You can't blame me for that... you took... the picture."

"That time I got detention because you told Mr. Cook to go on a diet."

"That was you. You're the... one who asked him... No, stop. You're killing me. You asked him if he'd hit three hundred yet."

"Yeah, so you wouldn't be in trouble all by yourself."

She shrieked again. "Okay. I give up."

Except suddenly, she wasn't laughing, she was crying and holding onto him.

"Hush, baby. It's going to be okay."

She shook her head against his chest.

"Just remember I love you. That never changes. And I know you love me. Anything is possible if we stick together."

His words were like driving nails into her already battered and bruised soul. "I do love you. Each and every one of you. Everything I do, I do for all of you."

"I know. Hush, now. We'll talk about all of this tomorrow. Okay?"

When she nodded, he kissed her forehead and dried her tears. "You'll see. It'll be okay."