Page 84 of Rise of the King (Checkmate 5)

“That so?”

“Mmhm.” Relaxing into it, I allow our arms to swing between us. “I wonder if they keyed any particular names in?”

“You already know the answer to your own question.”

Smiling, I nod. “I do. I know the answer. He keyed your name in himself. I watched him do it. He sees the death certificate, but he holds hope that it isn’t true. And if it is, he’s watching for the organization that hurt you to make themselves known.”

“How’d you get so smart, Soph?” He pulls me under his arm. “How do you know how to do the things you do?”

I shrug. “I honestly don’t know. My brain just works at triple speed for some reason. Ever since I was eighteen months old, I could read. At two, I was memorizing the multiplication table, and at three, I created a lemonade stand and pickpocketed more cash than I earned.”

He laughs. “You’re just a regular street thug, aren’t you? My baby thug. This computer stuff–” it’s like he consciously doesn’t sayhacking stufffor fear of triggering the sensors, “–is it something you learned? Did you go to a special school for X-Men to harness your powers?”

I love him. I love that he can be so silly, but in the same breath, so deadly. I love that he doesn’t make me feel like a freak for my differences. “The opposite, actually. School didn’t like teaching me, because no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t reprogram my brain. And since it wasn’t in line with what they wanted, I became somewhat of a problem child. I was too smart, too fast, and while they taught the regular kids, I got bored. I’d made too much of an impression by first grade, so my parents moved us to a new state and let me start in a new school, fresh, and with no preconceived reputation. They told me to blend in, and in the evenings, we would work on my stuff.”

“Do you have any imperfections?” His playful eyes come down to mine. “Seriously. You can’t be hot, smart,andlet me touch your butthole in bed. It’s just…” He lets out a sigh of contentment. “It’s too much.”

Crossing into the street, I smack his ribs and laugh when he chokes in surprise. “Shut up! Don’t talk about touching my ass in public. I just finished telling you about the security in this town. What the hell is the matter with you?”

“But seriously,” he laughs. “You dance like an angel; you swear like a sailor; you outsmart me every time we turn around; you…usecomputers the way you do. Your loyalty is so intense, you do things that others wouldn’t dream about. You cook a decent steak, and you suck my cock like a high-priced hooker. That’s a lot of value I’m getting in my Happy Meal.”

“I hate you.”

“That’s a shame, because I kinda fell in love with you.”

Ugh.

He kills me.

“I don’t see colors the way you do.”

“You… What?” He stops just twenty feet from the back entrance to Kane’s building. “You mean, you’re colorblind?”

“No. I have color vision deficiency.”

“So… you’re colorblind.”

“Color vision deficiency. Be sensitive to my condition, dammit!”

Laughing much too loud considering our location, he pulls me in and squishes until the oxygen leaves my lungs. “Wow, Soph. How do you hide something like that? I asked you last week to get me the socks with theredstripes. How did you do that?”

“I see colors in my own way,” I huff. “It’s different than how you see them, but I still know what I see.”

“What color shirt am I wearing right now?”

Thisis why I don’t bring it up often, because it’s literally the first questioneveryoneasks. “It’s navy blue.”

He glances down at his shirt. “What color are my eyes?”

“Black, like the devil.”

He flashes a boyish grin. “What color is the stitching in your shorts?”

“Um…” I look down and panic. “Uh…”

“Oh my God! You can’t answer. Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” He pushes me back and drops his hands to his knees the way he did in an old railroad tunnel so long ago. “I’m finally smarter than you.”

“You’re not smarter than me! Nobody is smarter than me. And the thread is gray. Light gray.”

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