Chasing Power (Hidden Talents) (9 page)
Except I can’t call them that anymore, Sam thought wryly, not after this spectacularly impossible run of luck on roulette. So spectacular that Samantha spotted a pit boss making his way towards them now. Looking back towards Lane, tapping his fingers on the top of the table, Sam could see that he, too, had caught sight of the man.
“We have a winner!”
“WOO HOO!” Al jumped up and down, more excited than Lane. Then again, Al didn’t see the six-foot-two brick making a beeline for them. The dealer, a fake smile hiding his irritation, slid Lane’s chips over. Lane grabbed them with a broad smile, “Thanks. I think I’m going to cut loose while I’m ahead.”
He turned and walked away from the table. Samantha took a more circular route, to intersect him by the bank where they cashed in the chips. Lane silently passed her about a fourth of his chips. The rest he divided between Harry, Al, and himself.
Smart
, Samantha thought. Big pay-outs required paperwork for the IRS. This way, they could take the money and run, so to speak. Within moments they had cashed in their chips and were heading out the door, thankfully without confrontation. Pockets heavy, they hit the Strip with another half an hour to kill before the dealership opened.
“You need some clothes,” Lane said.
“I do?” Samantha said. She looked down at what she was wearing. Her jeans were ripped and dirty; sure, crawling across a gravel parking lot would do that. OK, and maybe there was some oil on the flannel blouse she had on, but, “This stuff’s still good. No point in wasting good money.”
“Is that stuff good for wearing another few days? Will it be comfortable to sleep in? And, most importantly, we have money to waste.”
“You do,” Sam said, handing over her share of the cash, “I don’t. This isn’t mine.”
“If it’s my money, I get to say how I want to spend it then, don’t I?”
Sam faced off with Lane. She’d gone through life on a cash-basis. The first loan she’d taken out had been for college, and she avoided credit cards like the plague. Already she owed Lane her life. Money for clothes on top of that?
“Look, you’re being stubborn for stubborn’s sake. Just take the money.”
“Me?” Sam said, “What about you?”
“I have clothes, thanks! I got to pack a bag! You expect to travel cross-country in filthy clothes?”
“It doesn’t bother me. I’ll make due.”
“OK, then, it bugs me,” Lane said, “To be honest, your clothes are starting to smell a little funky.”
With a glower, Sam reached forward and snatched some twenties from Lane’s hand. Arching her chin in the air, without a word, she pocketed the money.
“Low blow,” Al hissed to Harry. Sam could hear his stage whisper from ten feet away. So could the rest of the world.
“You know, there’s not a lot of choice here.” The casino boutique and gift shop was the first place Samantha had walked into. It had the advantage of being on the way to the dealership. It had the disadvantage of catering towards a different taste than Samantha’s. Namely, that of a sexually promiscuous and color-blind tourist who didn’t mind his or her clothing being excessively flammable.
“Pink, black, or blue, that’s not bad. I think any of those colors would look good on you.”
Lane was referring to the warm-up outfits arrayed in front of them. Matching hooded sweatshirts and pants for the discerning woman who wanted to look like she was working out and yet still remain swathed in velvet.
“It’s not the color that bothers me,” Samantha replied. She picked up a pair of pants and flipped it over, revealing the rhinestone text bedazzled on the backside: “Sex Kitten, Play Bunny, or Vegas Vixen. Stellar options, everyone.”
“I like the pink one,” Lane supplied. That was the one that read Sex Kitten.
A salesgirl appeared, apparently out of thin air, smiling, “I think it would be super-cute with your complexion.”
“I don’t wear pink,” Sam repeated, “I like blue.”
“I bet your friend already has a lot of blue, doesn’t she?” The girl sidled up to Lane.
The look Samantha shot the saleswoman could have been frozen ice. So what if she did? She liked blue. She had always liked blue. Blue was nice. It brought out the color of her eyes and went with everything, including the jeans she always wore and especially the closet full of blue stuff she already owned.
“The pink looks really ho—good on you,” Lane agreed, “That wishy-washy blue makes you look sort of—”
“Wishy-washy,” Salesgirl supplied helpfully.
Whatever. She wasn’t paying. Sam handed Lane the top, “Pink it is.”
Lane grinned, “Now, for something to go with it.”
“I have the perfect magenta cami to go with that!” Salesgirl squealed and disappeared. Sam blinked. How could one person muster so much enthusiasm over something as straightforward as a tank top? Sorry,
cami
.
“Magenta,” Sam said to Lane, “That’s pink, only slightly darker.”
Lane shrugged and laughed.
“You know, guys aren’t supposed to enjoy shopping.”
“I don’t,” he said, “What I do enjoy is watching the sparks fly between you and the salespeople. She’s trying to help.”
“I’m perfectly capable of helping myself.” And Sam didn’t like the way Salesgirl had assessed Lane and her and deemed them a non-couple. It’s not that she wanted to be considered Lane’s girlfriend, Sam reasoned, but she disliked being treated like she somehow wasn’t up to par for him. He was a nine, sure. But she had things going for her, too. Subtly, Sam turned to peak at herself in the mirror.
“Your butt looks fine.”
Sam’s eyes snapped to Lane and he shrugged again, “I have a sister. Take a breather, I told you I’m no telepath.”
“Telawhat?” the salesgirl said, returning with a cami that was, in fact, dark pink, “I think you should be an extra-small, lucky girl.” The girl handed the cami to Sam and crossed her arms under her chest, making sure Lane saw exactly why
she
couldn’t wear that extra-small. Resigned, Sam pulled the cami on. The darn thing fit perfectly and did, in fact, match the light-pink top.
“Fine,” Sam said, “We’ll take it.”
#
Finally, the car lot opened. Sam, being the most conspicuous, was to wait somewhere else. Al would have to go, due to his expansive knowledge of everything with wheels. After some discussion, they decided that Lane would go with Al and they’d buy the car together, using Lane’s mojo to make the process go smoother and, if possible, avoid any traceable paperwork. It was a complicated process, and it surprised Sam how quickly and efficiently the friends worked it out, with a little good-natured bickering and unspoken trust that it would work out fairly in the end.
But it left Harry, once more, in the place of watching Samantha. Or protecting her. Depending on whom you asked. Lane felt Harry was protecting her. Harry, Sam guessed, saw himself more as a different type of guard. That didn’t bother Samantha. He was cautious, he worried over everything, and in that, if not much else, they were kindred spirits.
Though he reminded Sam of a stuffed animal, the others considered him the big guns when it came to powers. Harry being the only one whose ability could do actual physical harm—despite the toll it took on him.
Doing her best to hide her hair under a cap Lane snagged for her, Sam followed Harry to a bookstore café to wait. There they sat. Harry halfheartedly leafed through a magazine on cameras. Being a natural introvert like Sam, he didn’t feel the need to make stilted conversation and they sat in comfortable silence, reading.
Once or twice, Sam felt, faintly, that slow build of energy, and with it, the migraines. The first time, she tried to dispel it by trying to move a coffee mug with no success. The second time, she reached out for her coffee, brushing Harry’s hand. The pain evaporated. Harry looked up and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
“Harry,” Sam whispered, “How do you do lightning?”
Harry shrugged, “I don’t do lightning. I
call
lightning.”
“All right, so how do you
call
it?”
“First you have to create static electricity...” Harry said, and then launched into a very technical description involving charging ions and electromagnetic fields. Sam followed along, nodding. When he was finished, she leaned forward: “Can I do it?”
Harry shook his head, “No. Lane said you’re a kinetic, like Al. Kinetics can’t control the elements.”
Sam frowned. That wasn’t what she wanted to hear. She wanted to call lightning like Harry did. Her power so far seemed pretty lame. Al’s mechanical talents were somewhat useful but only on a small scale. Lane’s powers...she didn’t even want to go there. No, Sam wanted the flashy power that gave you some literal bang for your buck. “But Lane can read feelings
and
do TK, can’t he? Why can’t I have kinetic and elemental power?”
“Lane’s an exception. He doesn’t like to brag, but there are very few dualies—less than one percent. None of them have elemental powers. And the fact that he has that slight kinetic ability actually limits his pathic abilities. You only have so much natural power to work with. It’s generally better to have all your power concentrated on one thing.”
“You mean, a jack of all trades is a master of none?”
Nodding his head, Harry picked his magazine up, signaling the end of the conversation.
Boy, that guy didn’t talk often, but when he did, it counted.
Car buying was never simple, even with special abilities, so it was over an hour later when the phone rang with the news that Al and Lane had found a car. Sam used about ten dollars of her dwindling bank account funds to buy reading materials for the car—totally worth it—and she and Harry went to the parking lot to meet the new car.
Sam’s eyebrow went up when a curvy SUV pulled into the lot. The black car had a couple of dents and dings, but the skinny electric blue racing stripe and shine showed that someone had once thought of it as bad-ass. The huge brush bar added to the overall effect of butch overcompensation. But, contrarily,
classy
butch overcompensation. Al hopped out, grinning from ear-to-ear, “Isn’t this great?”
Sam was shocked to see that the interior had been redone in black leather with coordinating electric blue trim and—“Is that shag carpeting?”
“Yes, isn’t it awesome?”
Actually...“I like it!” Sam chirped, jumping into the front passenger seat, “I love big cars. People get out of your way faster.”
Harry shook his head in dismay, “I thought we were going for something low-profile.”
“It is black,” Lane justified, “And Al said it was the best deal on the lot.” Al, unrepentant, started listing off the many pros of the car. Gas consumption, Sam noted, was not on the list.
“It was a major deal, Harry,” Al concluded, “This guy sank all this money into the customization and defaulted on the loan. Repossession. Then the dealership didn’t know what to do with it—can you believe no one wanted this?”
Harry gave the oversized tires a kick, “Yeah. Hard to believe.”
Al responded to Harry’s sarcasm the way he always had— by pretending he hadn’t noticed it, “Wait and see, you’ll love it.”
“Great,” Harry said, “The only thing it’s missing is an airbrushed barbarian woman.”
“Oh! That would have been so cool!” Sam perked up, “Oh, but it wouldn’t have helped us blend in.” She amended sheepishly, catching Harry’s look.
“Don’t worry about him,” Al said, “He doesn’t realize that this has a drive chain on the engine and that it could probably survive a mortar blast. Plus, they were happy to unload it on anyone since it was in a flood.”
“
WHAT
?” Harry gasped.
“Gullible, much?” Al said, “Look, Harry, we’re gonna take the brush bar and chrome junk off at lunch. After that, on the outside, it will be just another black SUV.”
“But we’re leaving the racing stripe, right?” Sam asked.
“That’s not exactly incognito—” Lane began, then saw the crestfallen look on Sam’s face, “Maybe we’ll cover it with electrical tape.”
Sam sat back, pleased.
#
Lane took his place at the driver’s seat. Adjusting the mirrors he stole a glance at Sam. She’d climbed into the far back and had the first genuine smile he’d seen since the library.
If this car can get that girl to loosen up
, he decided,
maybe it’s worth the flash
. Fastening his seatbelt, Lane put the car in reverse and pulled out of the lot, “Buckle up, folks, I hope you all used the potty—we have some time to make up.”
Lane was as good as his word. Once they hit the interstate he told Al and Harry to take turns looking for police and booked it.
Samantha for her part, stayed awake long enough to quiz him over their course (up route 93, which, according to Lane’s phone, was the most direct way): “So we’re just going to try and outrun them?” she asked.
“You have a better idea?”
Lane watched Samantha in the rear-view as she shrugged, peering out the window, “We could detour maybe, try and lose them.”