I didn’t know whether to smile or run at his comment so I just bit my lip and chuckled under my breath.
“So, you ready to get out of here? Wanna see a movie?”
“Sure. We can’t go back to your house can we?”
“No. Not tonight. There’s gonna be a lot of crap going down tonight at my house with the whole family there. Believe me, you don’t want to be there anyway.”
I could beg to differ. Caleb was there and whatever this imprinting thing was, it wasn’t a joke. I could still feel his heart beating if I thought real hard about it.
“Ok. What do you want to see?” I asked as he flagged down Callie for the check.
“Anything you want, even a chick flick if it’ll cheer you up.”I wrinkled my nose. “I’m not really into chick flicks. I’m more of a Sci-Fi girl.”
“Ah, you’re gonna fit right in.” He grinned and took my hand to pull me up. “And I know just the movie.”
I let him pull me to the car, again feeling that ping of wrongness for holding his hand, but not before Rebecca and the rest of them saw us. Her eyes bulged and I saw her glance at our hands. Then I saw Chad, sitting in the very back of the group. I should’ve known. That was why Callie was asking about him.
He was there.
His face was a textbook description of hurt and confusion and anger. He looked like he wanted to stand, but thought better of it. He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms and glared at Kyle. Boy were they all wrong about what was going on, but I was sure it still looked bad. It might have been better if he saw me with Caleb instead. They didn’t know Caleb, but he knew Kyle. This was like betrayal to Chad.
I quickly turned and left the restaurant before any of them could move towards us.
“Kyle, you shouldn’t have done that. Those are your friends. Now Chad’s going to be all weird around you.”
“I’m leaving and so is he. It’s not like I’m going to talk to him anymore. We only hung out in our group and at football. I wasn’t really his friend. Besides, from what you just told me back there, he’s a complete idiot anyway.”
“Still.” Then a thought hit me and I pulled him to a stop. “Did you do that on purpose? Did you see him back there?”
“No. But I might have done it on purpose if I had. He’s not worth your time. He cared more about football than you. He proved that when he ended it when you guys could have tried to work out some long distance relationship or something. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“I know,” I started as he towed me again, “but that doesn’t mean I want to hurt him on purpose.”
“You’re too sweet, you know that? You can’t let people just do away with you. You are too good for him, even your parents, if they can’t see how great you are.”
He opened my door and put me in, reaching over to do my seatbelt. “Uh, Kyle, I can do it.”
“Oh. Right.” He smiled bashfully before going to his side. “So, are you a popcorn or candy girl?”
“Popcorn,” I answered.
“Ah,” he groaned and shook his head. “You’re killing me here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing, just...you’re pretty awesome.” He gave me a sidelong look at the red light, staring with a little smile and I blushed involuntarily, looking away. “Huh,” he said smiling wider, looking entirely too pleased with himself. “Maybe Caleb’s got some competition after all.”
“Kyle-”
“Ok, I know. I know,” he said, his hands raised in surrender before taking the wheel and turning into our spot in front of the theater.
It was literally two blocks from Pablo’s.
I opened my own door this time, feeling a little more like my old self. I was even starting to wonder why I was taking everything so well. I mean, I just found out there are people out there with powers or abilities or something. Not human. I had bound myself, unintentionally, to one of these people I just met and couldn’t get him out of my mind. Shouldn’t I be freaked?
“Two for Battlestar National, please,” Kyle said to the attendant then smiled at me. “You’re going to love this. Have you seen Lord of the Rings?”
“Of course,” I scoffed.
“Well, this is nothing like that.”
I laughed and he laughed, too. The attendant rolled her eyes as she passed him the tickets. He took them and we made our way in the doors and to the concessions stand. I took off my jacket, stood behind him and waited.
My mind drifted to Caleb. I scolded myself. I’d never been so smitten in my life. I mean, this was borderline boy crazy. I didn’t even remember being like this with Chad. I felt a little foggy thinking of Caleb. I had an urge to leave, right then. Head out the door and straight to Kyle’s where I knew Caleb would be. A lump grew in my throat the more I thought about it. My hands twitched at my sides and I took a deep, steadying breath.
Kyle looked back at me and frowned. “Don’t think about him, I told you.”
“What’s happening to me?”
“It’s just new. It’ll fade,” he grimaced, “some.”
“You both keep saying that. What does that mean?”
“Just stop, ok? Don’t think about him and you’ll be fine,” he said, irritated.
He turned to place our order and handed me a drink while he squirted butter on our huge bucket of already pretty yellow popcorn.
We started towards our theater and I heard someone call Kyle’s name from behind us. I groaned as I turned, thinking it was guys from school but it wasn’t. I’d never seen those guys before. There were six of them and they were all black haired and tall. Kyle groaned beside me, so I didn’t feel much better.
“Jacobson,” the guy said lilting and sardonically. “What brings you out? Oh, I see,” he said like he hadn’t seen me already. I raised an eyebrow at him as his eyes perused me openly. “My, my, I do see. Hello.”
“All right, Marcus, enough,” Kyle barked and I balked at his tone.
“What? I only said hello. So, Kyle, you breaking your clans rules now? I always knew you were a rebel at heart. What movie are you seeing?”
“Not interested in adding to our group, but thanks.”
Kyle tried to turn us but Marcus grabbed my arm. I had another jolt and for just a second I worried that I was imprinting with someone else. But I realized, that was the last thing I was doing. My veins screamed in protest and my skin burned hot on my arm. My body was warning him; my blood, whatever, however it worked. This guy’s intentions were not to keep me safe and the imprint reacted.
He released my arm with a curse like I shocked him. He and his group eyed me with wide, scared eyes and something else; anger.
“She’s your significant! Impossible!”
“Not mine. She belongs to Caleb. Now back off.”
“She’s human. She’s what...fifteen?”
“Seventeen,” I butted in, annoyed.
“Impossible,” he repeated, but this time he growled it and I stepped back, Kyle pulling me behind him.“Don’t freak out. You’ll call Caleb and all hell will break loose. Breathe,” he told me quietly and waited for me to take a deep breath, then turned back to Marcus. “Back off. You know now that Caleb’s imprinted, it’ll only be a matter of time until he gets his ascension. You’re not stupid enough to mess with his girl, are you?”
“Marcus, let’s go,” one of the guys said behind him. “Enough already.”
“For now, human,” Marcus spat and eyed me evilly before they moved on.
One guy hissed at me. Hissed! I shook my head. “What was that?”
“Bad news. Crap, why tonight? They are a rival clan. They haven’t been imprinting for a while either. This will definitely stir up the pot now that they know about you.”
“Why is everyone so hard pressed to date? I don’t get it. So you don’t find your soul mate. There are tons of single people out there. It’s not like you can’t live that way.”
“No. You don’t get it. Wait.” He looked around and pushed our theater door open, taking us to the very back to sit down. “See, if we don’t imprint with anyone, we don’t ascend. If we don’t ascend we don’t get our abilities. It’s not just about being single. This is our whole life, our heritage, being an Ace, protecting our family, having the power to do that. But without finding our mate, we can’t do that and it’s crippling our clans, making us vulnerable.”
The full weight of what he’d been trying to tell me hit me like a ton of bricks. That’s what Caleb meant when he said I was special. This was a big deal. No one had imprinted in years. Caleb was the first one of his kind in a long time and they were gonna make a fuss about this, good or bad, and I was stuck in it with no way out, but wasn’t sure I wanted out.
The screen blinked with an advertisement for concessions then went straight into a movie preview. I settled back in my seat and tried not to think about Caleb. Whenever I did, I felt a zing in my chest, an ache, but a pleasure as well. It was all very confusing and frustrating. While I sat and pretended to watch the movie, my mind was somewhere else. On a blue eyed, brown haired boy. And though it made me feel anxious, his heart beat coming to me in waves and pulses the harder I thought, and I fought to stay in my seat, I did it anyway. I thought about that boy.