Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
I glanced at him and asked, “Does it matter?”
“Kind of. I mean, we’re about to break into this guy’s private property. I’d like to know the whole story.”
“Technically, it’s his family’s private property, but okay. He wanted me to go back to school, choose a career, and basically grow up. I was working as a bodyguard for an up-and-coming pop star who spent every night at the clubs, so I’d end up sleeping all day. I had to sleep sometime, obviously, but to my ex that made me seem like a giant sloth. When he realized he couldn’t nag me into changing, he dumped me.”
“Are you two still in touch?”
“More or less. We said we wanted to be friends, but Reg only texts me every four or five months.”
“Is Reg short for Reginald?”
“Yes.”
“And are those texts actually booty calls?”
“Sometimes,” I admitted, “but I don’t hook up with him. I don’t want it to be more than a friendship.”
Andy mulled that over for a while before coming up with another question. Fortunately, this one wasn’t about my ex. “Which pop star were you working for?”
“You’ve never heard of him.”
“Tell me anyway.”
“His name was Jon-Jason Tyler.”
“Never heard of him.”
“Like I said.”
After a pause, he asked, “Do you really think you can find the cabin, after all this time?”
“I know I can. I have a freakishly good memory.”
“So good that it’s actually a superpower?”
“No. Just freakishly good by regular guy standards.”
He glanced at my profile again. “Does that mean you remember what was in Mercanti’s journal? You spent a long time studying it.”
“I remember the important part, the final formula all those notes led up to.” He swore under his breath, and I asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It means those men are chasing us for a reason—we actually have the information they want. Somehow, that makes all of this scarier. If they catch us and get the formula out of us, they could use it to cause real harm. The thought of a supervillain who can take anyone’s powers for themselves is terrifying.”
“I wouldn’t give them the formula,” I said. “Not even if they tortured me. I know how harmful it could be in the wrong hands.”
“I know you wouldn’t—not on purpose. But they might have ways of extracting it from you.”
“It’s going to be okay, Andy. They’re not going to catch us.”
He sat up straighter and rested his hand on my thigh. There was something protective in that gesture, and I found it oddly comforting.
CHAPTER 13
ANDY
Our destination was utterly isolated. The only neighbor we’d passed had been maybe five miles back, before turning down a private road. The cabin sat in a clearing, surrounded by a pine forest. When we got out of the car, the only sounds were birds chirping and the low hum of insects.
Actually, it was more of a fancy chalet than a cabin. The exterior was dark wood, with a wide front porch, a steeply pitched roof, and enough architectural flair to make it look like something out of a movie. That was my only frame of reference for this sort of thing. I’d spent my whole life in a big city, and chalet vacations were never in the budget. No wonder this felt like an alien landscape.
Given its remote location, I had no idea how Sam managed to drive right to it, even with a good memory. He then quickly found the key, which was hidden in a fake rock. Once he got the door open, he entered a four-digit code into a panel to disable the alarm, and I murmured, “You even remembered that.”
“It’s Reg’s birthdate.” The fact that this place belonged to his ex-boyfriend bothered me, but it wasn’t like we had a lot of choices right now.
After we brought in our meager possessions, I followed him on a quick tour. The interior was beautiful, with tasteful landscape paintings, multiple river rock fireplaces, and high-end furniture that was meant to have a rustic feel. Three bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms, and a gourmet kitchen surrounded a central living area with two-story ceilings. Eight large windows created a mosaic of sorts on the back wall. The top four formed a triangle, filling the space created by the steep pitch of the roof. That window wall provided a view of a deck, and a sweeping panorama of trees and mountains.
We’d made one stop on the way here, to fill up the tank and grab a few things at a gas station with a general store—including over the counter motion sickness pills, so I could stand being in the car for hours on end. Sam had been the one to go inside and do some shopping, since half my outfit consisted of a towel. Now, as he unpacked the bags onto the granite kitchen counter, he said, “I got you a few T-shirts, but that was all they had as far as clothing went. Let me go check the closets, there might be something we can borrow.”