Touching Darkness by Scott Westerfeld Read Free Book Online Page B

that’s all. I thought that was the way you wanted it to work. So quit feeling sorry for me and think for a second.”
    Rex took a deep breath, turned to stare out the window, and began to examine the mental fragments she had left inside him. He had to ignore what he’d learned, the awesome sadness of it. He had to forget for a moment that he had never managed to understand what his best friend….
    “Rex…” she growled.
    “Oops, sorry. Thinking about the message now.”
    And suddenly there it was against the bleak backdrop. A kind of undigested thought in his head, like a dream not quite remembered in the morning. He closed his eyes, but strangely that made the thought disappear, so he opened them again and stared out at the passing oil fields. Gradually his attention was caught by the rhythm of derricks rising and falling under the bright orange suns of mercury lamps. And then it became clear, like looking just to one side of a faint star and discovering that the periphery of vision is stronger than the center.
    “We must have Jessica Day,” he murmured.
    “Bingo,” Melissa said.
    “You heard that…? In normal time?”
    “Give the man a cigar.”
    Rex blinked, hearing the voice, distant but clear, exactly as Melissa had when they’d driven back from Rustle’s Bottom that night. “It was a human. You’ve known for a whole week that something human wanted Jessica.”
    “The Eagle has landed. Houston, we have a winner.”
    He stared dumbly out the window, unable to believe what he had heard in his mind or to comprehend the hysteria in her voice. Why would she hide this from him?
    Then suddenly he blinked. Melissa’s old Ford was passing a house he recognized, the two-story colonial fitting neatly over a vision she had left inside him. They were at the exact point on Kerr Street where she’d heard the voice.
    “Why didn’t you tell me?” Rex asked in amazement.
    “Because…” Melissa’s voice choked off, and she breathed deeply, getting herself under control. Finally she sighed. “Well, Loverboy, why don’t you figure that one out on your own?”

11:24 p.m.
DARKLING MANOR
 
    Rex was pissed. You didn’t have to be a mindcaster to know that.
    He stared glumly out the window, watching the houses flash by, his mind tasting of stomach acid and day-old Mountain Dew, the flavor of betrayal with a topping of wounded authority.
    As for Melissa, she didn’t much care that Rex was angry. It was far better than having to feel his pity.
    She still felt the tingle in her right hand, as if the flaking plastic of the Ford’s steering wheel were buzzing under it. The touch hadn’t been so bad, really. A little mindless maelstrom never hurt anybody, and just before the end she’d felt some kind of release, something shared between them that wasn’t just night terrors and cosmic angst. Something she wanted to try for again.
    But then Loverboy had to freak out. Like there was any reason to get all upset about the psychodrama that was her existence. Melissa figured that was just the way things were. And she had managed to give him the memory, one little token of communication amidst the crap-storm. That was something, at least.
    “I still don’t get it,” he said.
    She sighed. He never would.
    Why hadn’t she told him? The reasons all seemed to splinter as she thought of them, dividing into more and more… because she hadn’t been really sure she’d heard it. Because you couldn’t get upset about every stray thought. Because Jessica Day wasn’t her problem anyway.
    Nevertheless, he knew now. And she’d given the knowledge to him in a way that was more… interesting than just telling him. Funny—she hated seeing other people hold hands in school, their thoughts all syrupy and self-involved. But with Rex it hadn’t seemed so bad.
    Maybe next time he wouldn’t freak out.
    Melissa’s mind wandered again, opening itself wide to catch the dreams and nightmares of sleeping Bixby. Hardly anyone awake,