Page 4 of Awry
Chains, the still-seated biker, grunts, hauling her up by the upper arm as if she can’t walk on her own.As if she can’t be trusted to take three steps down the short hall that bisects the cafe.
As I’d guessed, Chains isn’t that much shorter than Breaker, but his potent essence is less … malicious.Not that I’m usually able to sense the fine stitching of an individual’s essence … except when it’s pertinent to executing a knowing.Though it’s possible I’ve inherited a new level of awareness.Or it’s simply information I’m going to need.
If Chains follows the teen into the bathroom …
I shove the possibility away, thought unfinished.
I might manifest an event into being just by thinking about it.If it’s already set, I can’t do anything about it.Except react in the moment.Which is how I’m accustomed to moving through the world anyway, so no big deal.
I keep walking, aware that the other biker, Breaker, is still watching me as he leans against the front counter with his phone partially raised.
Shooting video?
He’s going to be really surprised when he tries to watch it.A still photo of my vehicle might be more reliably captured.But since it came with my inheritance — well, one of my inheritances, one of over a half-dozen classic cars I now own— I doubt it.When I’m skimming a knowing, my path is usually obscured from pure tech.Usually.
Occasionally, though, the universe has different plans, which is why I also have backup systems in place.Again, usually.This particular path hasn’t been … well thought out.So my backup systems will be more about cleaning up in the aftermath, rather than the usual process of fogging the edges of my present.
I cross to the classic BMW, hoping the car might draw some of the bikers’ focus off me.Bikers like cars as well as motorcycles, right?I unlock the passenger side, placing the to-go bag in the front seat after pulling the milkshake out of it and tucking it into the aftermarket cupholder.Then I step around the car, keeping my pace casual.
I’m moving along a quiet eddy ofintentionnow.It stirs around my booted ankles.I unlock the driver’s-side door, sliding my bag behind the seat.
Breaker’s interest in me is an ever-thickening thread between us.Normally, I would endeavor to thwart such a connection— because with it, I can feel that he is apoweror a subset of a power.Part of a pack, no doubt, but also something I’ve not encountered before.
I don’t ever deliberately draw the attention of power.
At least I didn’t up till three weeks ago, when my own mostly clandestine existence took an abrupt turn.
Instead of ignoring Breaker’s regard, I look up, fortifying the connection between us as I slip into the driver’s seat.I can’t see Chains from the corner of the building.But the older woman, the owner, has stepped out from the kitchen and appears to be talking to someone at the mouth of the hallway.Hopefully Chains.
Breaker sneers at me through the cafe window.He reaches down and cups his genitals … so apparently he’s flirting, not contemplating kidnapping me?
Or maybe both are one and the same for him.
Nausea flutters in my belly, and I whisper a quiet prayer to a god who doesn’t have any reason to listen to me that the purple-eyed teenager is too young to have caught Breaker’s or Chains’s attention.That they haven’t raped her or forced her to service them.
Then I deliberately ignore the utterly unhelpful focus of my own thoughts.Instead, still smiling broadly, I send a flicker ofintentthrough the temporary connection I’ve fortified between Breaker and me as I start the car.
At least I’m hoping the connection is temporary.Again, the tenor of his essence concerns me.
I add a thought, a suggestion, along the thread stretching between us.Something important needs your attention.
I turn the key in the ignition, and the car’s engine awakens with a smooth growl.
Breaker glances back over his shoulder toward the cafe owner and whoever she’s flirting with — the cocked hip and her reaching out to lightly brush her hand across a broad, leather-clad shoulder tells me everything I need to know.Then he’s looking beyond to the door to the cafe bathroom.Breaker’s mouth moves, head tilted in a question.Is he asking after the teen?
I need to keep moving.
Ipushharder, weaving more specifics along the thread of his life force that I’ve got in my grasp.I’m not actually capable of manifesting nothing out of nothing, and I’m definitely not a telepath in the traditional sense, but I can push forward something that was already about to occur …
A phone call.
A problemonlyyou and your club brother can solve.
Breaker frowns.Then he finally settles his gaze on his phone.A moment after, he beckons to Chains with a sharp impatient jerk of his head.The cafe owner steps forward as the other biker also crosses into my line of sight.
The owner looks up and over the bikers’ heads.And in the briefest of glances, she meets my gaze through the window, then instantly starts calling to the server, Daisy, pulling her into an animated conversation.
All the while, she continues to obstruct the entrance to the short hall that holds the bathrooms.
