Revolution (22 page)

             
I was scrubbing my head with my hands and biting my lip ring when a conversion van screeched into the parking lot. It swung around and fishtailed until the back door was pointed toward the warehouse entrance.

             
I could only stare at first as three men piled out of the back, their faces covered with bandanas…and they opened fire on anyone who was between them and the food inside.

Taste Buds

Ryan

             
The room was too hot. I rubbed
my
eyes and rolled over…only to find that I wasn't alone in my 'tent'. I didn't need to squint in the dark to see it was Ellie. I sighed.

             
We had not done anything since that day that I kissed her. Nothing in the way of 'us' anyway. We'd all been too busy. When we were together, there were twenty people in the room with us. It was bad timing for someone who might want to say something to another person.

             
Like say…that he wanted to kiss her again
just to taste her
. That he wanted to kiss her so hard that she clung to him for mercy. I didn't have any idea where the thoughts were coming from, I just knew that she was precious to me. Like
a
charge was for me, but more than that. And I wasn't really sure…what to do with her. Or if she even wanted me to think about her that way. So I kept my mouth shut and so had she.

             
But the looks across the room were unavoidable. If I caught her looking at me, then she knew I was looking, too, and vice versa. So why were we tip toeing?
             
"Ellie?" I asked, my voice hoarse from sleep.

             
She whispered, "Please say it's ok if I just lay here."

             
"What happened?"

             
"Nothing. I just…miss you. And my bed is right by the elevator and I don’t like it."

             
"Uh, sure," I told her, hating the gruff grate of my voice.

             
She lay down again. The only part of us that was touching was our knees as we lay on our sides facing each other. I could see her, but there was no way she could see me. I studied her face. She was so young. I knew my body was young, but I felt old inside.

             
I looked at her porcelain face, so pale, but in a way that made her features stand out and be beautiful. Her long dark hair
,
a curtain that worked perfectly for the shy girl. Her neck was smooth and… I felt my throat tighten. The notion that I had absolutely no idea what was going on in that human's head about me was infuriating.

             
She could have
made
any manner of conclusions, all of them wrong. Or all of them
right and maybe that's why she
kept her distance this past week.

             
The brushing of the sleeping bag I was laying on made me pause. She was leaning up and sitting on her legs. "You can see me in the dark, can
'
t you?"

             
"Yes."

             
She nodded and seemed disappointed.
With me? With my ability? I sighed in frustration some more.

             
"What?" she asked and squinted, hearing my displeased grunt.

             
"I just…don't understand you." Her face took on this fallen look that made me feel like a jerk. Was my statement offensive? "I mean that I just don't know…what you want from me."

             
Again that look, but worse. She rolled over and her breathing accelerated. Then she was up and out of my tent before I could even say anything else.

             
What just happened?

             
I lay there and tried not to listen to the sounds of everyone else awake on the other side of the warehouse. I wasn't in a mood for people right then, except maybe for Ellie. Though it was exhausting to be around her
,
and not know what was really going on, I enjoyed her company. I enjoyed her shy smiles and the way she seemed completely lost one second and then completely sure the next.

             
Ellie, my conundrum.

             
I wondered if it was prudent or dutiful to go after her. But if she left, she wouldn't want me to follow, would she? Unless she was a woman that wanted to be chased.

             
I sat up in the dark and gripped my hair in frustration. I was such an idiot! Of course she wanted to be chased! All human females had this need to feel wanted and needed. I'd snubbed Ellie with my own self consciousness without even meaning to. She thought I didn't want her, that I had rejected her, when in my cowardice, I was asking her the same thing.

             
Did I want her? Was the electricity that ran through my veins at the notice of her in the room enough to warrant that? Was
it
the fact that when I first met her, and she clung to me so violently, she needed me in
a way that no one else ever
had?
She had chosen me to be her guardian that day. And all the silliness in between now and then was trivial. Was I in love like Merrick or Jeffrey? No. But could I see the potential
within myself
to be?

             
I got up from my pallet and made my mind up. Even if she refused me, at least we’d both know where we stood.
I pushed my sheet curtain aside and
made my way through all the pallets and boxes.

             
I found her speaking with Miguel. She was crying and he patted her back as they stood close. Some strange fire burned through my chest at the sight of them.
I cocked my head to the side and felt my eyes narrow in a glare. Miguel looked up and caught my gaze. His eyebrows jumped and he nodded to me. He said something to Ellie and patted her back once more before nodding my way.

             
She turned. Embarrassed, red eyes met mine. I felt like the worst kind of scum. I made a swift path to her and looked around before grabbing her arm and pull
ing her into the designated bathing
area. Her lips were thin and she let me pull her easily. Her face held this little defiant tilt that told me she was willing to fight if need be, but her willingness to come with me belied that.

             
"What?" she asked in
a hard voice. One I'd never heard before.
             

             
Was it true anger or passion?
             
"Why did you run out? Why are you crying?"

             
She wrenched her arm away from me. "I don't need to stay where I'm not wanted."
             
"What makes you think I don't want you?"
             
She scowled and repeated my earlier words back to me. "I don't understand you. I don't know what you want from me."
             
"Those are valid questions," I said, but hurriedly added, "
It's not all right for me to wonder about you?"

             
"That didn't sound like wonder," she muttered. "It's sounded like contempt."

             
"I'm not a human," I told her bluntly and blasted all
of
my worries at her. "Do you understand that? I'm not human. I'm thousands of years old, stuck here in a body that doesn't belong to me. You're in love with this face, not me."
             
"Not your face," she whispered and looked up at me. "When you held me in the van, I couldn’t see your face. It was
you."

             
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just continued on with the truth. "There's a place that Keepers go. The After. The closest human word to describe it is paradise, but it's so much more than that. Merrick and Jeff, they know they'll never see the After and they're fine with it. I'm…not all right with it. If I were to…fall in love with you, it'd make me want to stay." I looked her straight in the eye and said as clearly as I could. "The After is all I've ever wanted and when this is over, I will be going there.
It doesn't matter what I feel.
"

             
Her chest started to shake with little sobs that I couldn't stand to hear, but she had to see that I wasn't capable of giving h
er what she wanted, not matter how much this body wanted it.
"Don't make the mistake of falling for this body, because the person inside it is gone and soon, I will be, too. I'm sorry-"

             
She pushed away from me. "Why are you saying all
of
this? I never asked you to give up your paradise and stay her
e with me.
"

             
"But you did," I countered. "When you kissed me-"

             
"You kissed me!" she said and glared.
             

             
"All right, yes
,
I kissed you. The way you were looking at me-"

             
"You kissed me and I get blamed? And that suddenly means that we're going to get married or something?" She laughed humorlessly. "Wow, you're so arrogant."
             

             
"It's not arrogance, i
t's knowledge. I've watched wome
n for years."

             
"Apparently not the right ones."
             
"I won't budge on this, Ellie. I like you a lot and I don't want to see you hurt, especially not by me. That's why this has to stop now. As much as I may want…

something more."

             
She reached her hand up. At first I thought she might slap me, but she touched my scruffy cheek. She smiled sadly. "I'm just sorry that you're not the man I thought you were."
             
"I'm not a man," I couldn’t stop myself from saying.

             
She let her hand slide from my face and turned as she said, "I can see that."

             
Well
,
I got my way. She was officially knowledgeable about my status on this earth and she walked away from me with grace.