Collide (41 page)

Considering how intense the last few weeks
had been, it shouldn’t have surprised me that the next time I
returned to school it felt like some kind of bizarre let down, but
it did. The only bright spot was when Maria walked through the
cafeteria doors and, laughing, rejoined our table to loud and happy
cries of “welcome back!” and “you were so missed!” I gave her a
huge hug and turned her over to Kat, who seemed to have forgotten
her past hostility regarding Maria’s treatment of her friends and
was just as excited to see her as the rest of us.

Needless to say, Maria and I never brought up
the old farmhouse as a possible location for our senior prom, and
classes and sports continued as usual. Akira helped our team win
their second basketball game in three years, a mighty feat that had
the entire school spazzing out over him. I still danced around him
and the whole “dating” thing because the
Gaki
had been right
when it said I had reservations. The biggest one was that he wasn’t
human, and there was no telling what his life span really was or if
there was a rule against dating humans in the paranormal world.
Then there was the fact that he’d most likely be returning to Japan
once the school year was up.

“I don’t know,” he said when I finally got up
the nerve and asked him about it. “I guess it all depends on what
my next assignment will be, though I know I’m due a little down
time since tracking and taking care of the
Gaki
took so
long. Plus I can’t really do anything until my boss debriefs
me.”

“I can’t believe there’s going to be more of
you,” I groaned and dropped my head onto the table.
Thud
.
“Ow.”

“And the top medical researcher in G.O.O.P.S.
is going to be coming, as well,” he added as an after thought.

“What? Why? You could have mentioned this
earlier!”

“I only found out myself yesterday,” he said
defensively. “She’s coming to check out Maria since, and I quote,
‘it is a paranormal medical mystery about how and why she’s still
exhibiting all the signs of being a living being while still
retaining enough traits of the dead to be classified as a zombie’.
So she’s gotten the research department curious, and they went into
hyper drive when she found out there was a newly awakened Shaman
here, too. On the plus side, my boss’ll be able to help with your
nightmares.”

“They are not going to run experiments on
her!” I growled and ignored his comment about the nightmares. I had
admitted their existence to him when he had hounded me about the
black circles under my eyes, but they had recently changed and
their memory made me shudder.

“That’s up to Maria, not you,” Akira said
gently. “You don’t have to protect her anymore, you know.”

“Old habit, and there’s nothing wrong with
being protective of your friends,” I grumbled.

“I never said there was, but you need to
remember that you can’t just go around slugging everyone who pisses
you off. I don’t know how you’ve managed to not get into any worse
trouble than what you already have. You should have been expelled a
long time ago.”

“It’s a gift,” I snarked and rolled my
eyes.

“Has to be,” he agreed with a grin. “I
suppose I can just add that to the list of ‘Jane’s Superpowers’
that I’m compiling.”

“Oh, that brings to mind another question I
wanted to ask,” I said as a memory from what felt like a lifetime
ago flittered into my mind.

“Hmm?”

“Why did you switch from calling me
‘Alexander’ to ‘Jane’ a while back? I always wondered.”

“Ah,” he said, and I stared as his cheeks
took on a light dusting of pink. “Back home, it’s considered
impolite to call someone by their first name if you don’t know them
very well, as that implies a much more intimate and close
relationship.”

My eyes narrowed. “More intimate
relationship?”

“It doesn’t have to mean romantic!” he cried
and flapped his hands in front of him. “It could mean family
connections or good friends who have known each other for most of
their lives, things like that!”

“Riiiiiiight,” I drawled and glared. He
grinned at me, and I shook my head and retreated back to my
musings.

So while life seemed to have returned to some
semblance of normal, I had the impending arrival of Akira’s boss
and some paranormal medical researcher to look forward to, SAT’s
were soon going to be on everyone’s minds (if they weren’t
already), midterms were rapidly creeping up and I had to figure out
just what it was I felt for Akira and what, if anything, I was
going to do about it. I didn’t have his self-confidence, and every
time I relived that kiss out at the farmhouse I had to fight off
the desire to hide my face and squeal in a very undignified
manner.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Akira suddenly
said.

“Huh?”

“Isn’t that the saying when you want to know
what someone is thinking about? You went somewhere, and I’d like to
know where.”

“Just thinking that we need to get this
project finished since the deadline is fast approaching,” I said
and neatly side stepped the truth. He knew me well enough now to
recognize that move, but didn’t push for more.

“Don’t stress, we make a good pair,” Akira
said with a shrug and grinned at me.

“Yeah,” I agreed slowly, thinking of
everything that had happened and all that we had survived. “Yeah, I
think we do.” And with that admission, a lot of the apprehension
that I had been feeling about the other G.O.O.P.S. agents arriving
and what they had planned in regards to Maria and myself vanished.
Whatever happened, Akira would be there, and I knew that I would be
able to face almost anything head on because of that.

And that scared me far more than the
Gaki
had.

###

About the Author

Alyson is a former librarian who currently
works with horses in the rurals of Virginia. She loves reading,
recommending good books to friends, and has an abhorrent fear of
anything with eight or more legs. “Collide” is her first original
novel.

About the Artist

Tomoka Murakami is currently a student at the
Maryland Institute College of Art.

While in high school, she enjoyed sneaking
peppermints to the horses during riding lessons from Alyson. The
cover illustration for "Collide" is her first published work.