Riley had been attracted to Sam since the moment she saw him in the bar, a tower of steady strength. Rescuing her from Sharla and Vern and the other guy had turned up the volume, but she wasn’t that shallow or out of touch with herself. She knew the difference between gratitude and chemistry. But maybe he thought she didn’t and squirmed because he didn’t want her attention.
There’d been a definite contrast between his reassuring manner this morning at breakfast and his abruptness when he packed up in the library. For a second, when he’d looked at her full-on before shutting down the laptop, Riley thought she saw a flare of interest, and heat had surged through her body. And then the tension returned. So maybe he was attracted to her but didn’t want to be.
“Stop it,” she scolded aloud. It would take three hours to get to Boston, and she would drive herself insane with all this. She liked Sam. He was sweet and courageous, not to mention friggin’ hot, but she had way too much going on already. She was homeless, for one thing. Sam saw her as helpless, and that wasn’t a good basis for a romantic relationship. So she’d force herself to forget all that, stop reverting to high school with all the he-likes-me, he-likes-me-not drama, and just concentrate on getting her life back.
She wasn’t convinced that Sam’s path—education and “defense” by the Society—was the right one, but he’d made good arguments. All her mother’s and grandmother’s ranting for all those years had become so much noise in her head now. Her insistence that the Society was dangerous and not to be trusted stemmed from a child’s lack of understanding. Try as she might, she didn’t remember any details that would explain why her family had felt that way. It was time to form her own opinions and make her own decisions.
Maybe her great-grandmother had been a goddess. A barely discernible image hazed through her mind of her mother’s grandmother doing…something Riley had wanted to think was magic. G-Nana had died when Riley was four, so she knew she wouldn’t remember any more than that, but maybe she’d still had her abilities. Why didn’t her grandmother, then? Or her mother? And why had it suddenly reappeared in Riley herself?
The Society was as likely as anyone to have answers. What was the worst that could happen? They could refuse to give them to her. Laugh and turn her away. Throw stones and chase her out of town with a pitchfork.
But they could also welcome her. She could meet other people like her. Not real family, of course, but women who understood what it was like to be unique in the world. The information she’d read so far indicated some goddesses worked openly, using their abilities in their jobs. Others kept their heritage private, their talents for personal use.
Yeah, but none of them are like you. She swallowed bitterness. So far, her abilities only allowed her to harm people, whether unintentionally or out of self-defense. Sometimes even offense. She winced, remembering how she’d ground her foot into Vern’s midsection. What good was that, unless she wanted to hire on with the mob?
There was so much else to deal with before she could worry about a career. She wasn’t homeless and jobless because she was a goddess, though that little detail had helped things along. Getting some education and training might make her feel less lost, more capable of taking care of herself, but that was just a symptom. It would do nothing about the problem that was Millinger.
Millinger.
Usually, when Riley thought of the people who’d messed up her life, her shoulder muscles turned to rock and spawned sharp pains at the base of her skull. But a simple name changed all that. Instead of being a target, she had a target.
Taillights flashed in front of her and she slowed, keeping an eye on Sam’s car as a couple of others quick-merged between them. Orange-and-white-striped barrels angled across the left lane ahead, funneling everyone to the right. Riley could almost hear the combined grumbling of all the drivers around her.
They crawled along for half a mile, and she studied the urban landscape out of habit, picking out metal items—lampposts and mailboxes and wrought-iron railings. House numbers and scaffolding, debris that might be metal but was probably plastic littering the side of the road. She wished she could come up with a practical way to carry more. The pipe rested half on the floor, half on the seat next to her. That was plenty of source material, but it weighed several pounds. What was she supposed to do? Hang it from a scabbard on her hip?
Squeaky brakes from the car in front of her alerted her that they were stopping again, and she glanced ahead to see what was going on. The overpass they were approaching was under construction. A crane in the grassy median slowly rotated, a dark green I-beam dangling from the crane arm as workers under the bridge used other equipment to haul it into place over the closed left lane.
That was a massive hunk of metal. How much power could she get from that? Enough to do superhero-type things? Like lift equipment off a pinned construction worker? She watched the I-beam swing over the road, ponderous and heavy, and imagined touching it, energy pouring into her, enough to fling an overturned bulldozer off its victim. In her mind, it tumbled end over end, crashing safely to the ground a dozen feet away.
Shouts jerked her out of her imagination. Tires squealed as someone slammed on the brakes, someone else hitting their horn as the I-beam swung wildly. Groaning metal echoed over everything. More shouts. Riley gaped, watching through her windshield as the I-beam tilted and began to slide in its harness. Men scattered on one side, others struggling to control it from the opposite.
A clang reverberated so deep and loud it vibrated Riley’s car. The I-beam had collided with some kind of forklift-like vehicle, and it tipped, in slow motion but still far too fast.
“Oh, my God.” Riley clutched the wheel, frozen, staring at the hard hat and waving arm of the man now trapped under the forklift. What… Had she done that? Had her fantasies somehow pulled the I-beam toward her?
Doors opened, and people climbed out of their cars. A few pulled out phones, some assholes clearly taking photos or video, while others put the phones to their ears, probably calling 911. Riley numbly put the Beetle in park and shut off the ignition. Her legs shook as she opened the door and tried to stand. She wrapped her left arm over the top of the door to keep herself upright, her eyes locked on the man on the ground, his coworkers struggling to move the machine on top of him.
“Riley!”
A familiar shout a couple dozen feet away.
She tore her gaze away and found Sam, motioning for her. She couldn’t move, couldn’t comprehend what he wanted.
“Come on!” He waved again, then turned and ran toward the accident.
Something snapped in Riley’s brain. She hadn’t noticed that sound was muffled until she could suddenly hear again, excited chatter and revving engines and shouting voices. Colors went from tinted grays back to brilliant oranges and reds, gleaming blacks and blues. She took off, dashing around people but swerving close to their cars. Light flashed off chrome trim and wire antennas. Her fingers brushed metal as she went, something other than conscious recognition guiding her touch to the smallest bits of her source within reach.
Small infusions of strength fed her muscles, her pounding heart and aching lungs, and by the time she reached Sam’s side, her shock had been displaced by determination.
“There.” Sam turned his attention from the crowd to the forklift. It lay on its side, canted where the body jutted out wider than the base, the man’s entire lower half pinned near the spot where metal met concrete.
Riley nodded, recognizing the leverage point Sam indicated. “But they won’t let me over there.”
“I’ll distract them.” He didn’t wait for her to respond, didn’t ask if she was up for it, just assumed she was.