Quick Fix by Linda Grimes Read Free Book Online Page B

Knowing Billy, he wouldn’t shed his baggage before he was certain he had me in reserve. If then.
    Billy came back in from loading our bags into the car. I’d watched him out the front window the whole time. He hadn’t taken his cell out of his pocket once.
    “All right, monkey girl, the car’s packed. Do you have your Sea-Bands on?”
    Molly clapped her wrists together like Wonder Woman, showing Billy she was heroically prepared to stave off an attack of motion sickness.
    “I gave her some candied ginger, too,” I added. I also had plenty of large, resealable plastic bags, just in case. I didn’t mention that in front of Molly, though. Didn’t want to undermine her confidence in the home remedies.
    “All right, then. Let’s hit the road. Anyone need one last pit stop before we leave?”
    Molly shook her head. She’d already been to the bathroom. I, not wanting to leave Billy alone with his phone, hadn’t. I looked at him sharply but decided he seemed preoccupied enough with Molly to risk a brief absence.
    He was hanging up as I returned.
    “Who was that?”
    “Mommo. She wanted to say hi to Molly.”
    “What’d you do?”
    “What do you think? I let her say hi to ‘Molly.’”
    “She bought it?”
    He lifted one brow and didn’t bother to answer. Silly me. Of course she bought it.
    It was considered bad form to use another adaptor’s primary aura without express permission, but I didn’t imagine Molly much cared under the circumstances. I think being stuck in orangutan form qualifies as implied consent.
    I was still a little suspicious. “So why aren’t you still Molly? Since you just hung up and all?”
    “Mommo wanted to talk with me again after she spoke to Molly. Any other questions, or is the interrogation over?” He winked.
    I held myself tall (-ish) and brushed past him to pick up Molly. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    “No?” He put his hands over Molly’s ears on the pretext of dropping a kiss on her head, and said, “I like it when you’re jealous.”
    He removed his hands before I could respond, so I had to make do with a dirty look.
    “Did you let Molly touch you while you were her?” I said, shifting topics. “Maybe she could reabsorb her own aura somehow.”
    His eyes lit. “No—didn’t think of it. Cuz, you do have a brain.”
    Back to projecting Molly in an instant, he took her from me, staggering a bit under the weight. Molly clutched her erstwhile aura and closed her eyes. She rubbed her hands up and down Billy’s arms, bringing them to rest on his face. As her thumbs stroked his—or rather, her own, in this case—cheeks, she slowly opened her eyes.
    Nothing happened.
    Billy looked at me with Molly’s eyes, so disconcertingly like his own. What now? they asked.
    “Give it a minute. You know secondhand auras can take a little longer,” I said.
    “That’s right,” he agreed, though it wasn’t technically so. Sure, you had to touch a secondhand aura longer to maintain it, but you ought to be able to project it instantly. Besides, it wasn’t really secondhand—it was her own aura. But what are straws for if not to grasp at?
    “Hey, why don’t you help? Maybe a double dose would do the trick.”
    I obliged and added my own Molly projection to the mix, taking one of her hands and trying my best to give energy instead of take it. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. Assuming an aura is voluntary; it’s not like you can impose it on someone, even if they are an adaptor.
    Still, we waited a full minute more before we gave up, each resuming our own form. If it hadn’t happened yet, it wasn’t going to.
    “It was worth a shot,” Billy said with a too-casual shrug. “Not to worry, sis. James is the brilliant one, and we’ll be at his lab in no time. Heck, he’ll probably have the whole thing figured out by the time we get there.”
    Molly drooped against him, the saddest little ape in the whole world.
    After she was safely buckled into a hastily