Tracers by J. J. Howard Read Free Book Online Page A

the invite to train with them. He forced a shrug, but fake shrugging turned out to be more of a physical challenge than the two-story drop. Cam thought he saw Dylan smile—maybe he’d noticed the awkward hunchback moment—but his next words were a relief.
    â€œLoujaine floating terminal—in Brooklyn. You know it?”
    Cam nodded, tried hard not to grin. Then he realized he actually
didn’t
know the place. “No! I . . .” Just then, the elevator started moving downward.
    Dylan called down to him: “Gowanus Bay. Pier Twenty-One. See you tomorrow at dawn.”
    â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢
    Dawn took pretty much forever to arrive. Sleep was not happening. Part of the problem: he was afraid that if he did drift off, he might
over
sleep. He’d been known to sleep right through his alarm on more than one occasion. He knew if he blew off Dylan’s invite to train, he probably wouldn’t get another. So he lay with his phone right under his pillow, and checked it every half hour or so.
    The other reason he was wide-awake at three in the morning: stupidity. He would have felt embarrassed if anyone else knew just how excited he was to see Nikki again—to show her how much better he’d gotten. Cam knew she’d be impressed.
    Or at least he
hoped
she’d be impressed.
    The problem was, he’d pictured himself showing off his newfound skills for her so many times in his head, it had started to seem impossible that it would actually happen.
    In Cam’s experience, imagining something good equaled “never gonna happen.”
    He tossed and turned, dozing off and then hurtling awake again because he was tracing in his dreams. He kept waking up mid-fall, breathing hard.
    Cam fell asleep for real just before dawn. He dreamed about Nikki.
    This time they were at the beach—but not a dirty, sad strip of land like the beaches Cam had seen around New York. They were standing on some faraway shore with clean white sand glimmering in the sun. In the sunlight, Nikki’s eyes were the color of the sky.
    His alarm ripped him back to reality. He had turned the phone up to maximum volume, and set it on the most obnoxious sound possible. Cam fumbled for the phone in the dark, knocking it onto the floor. He swore, rolled out of bed, picked up the phone, grabbed his sweatshirt, and was out the door.
    For the whole long subway ride, Cam couldn’t sit still. The train was nearly empty, but an older woman sat beside him, glaring in annoyance at his bouncing leg before moving away from him. Cam ignored her. When he finally reached Pier 21, he forced himself to slow down from a sprint to a jog. He spotted the group waiting for him in front of an old chain-link fence.
    â€œHey,” he said.
    Nikki’s eyes were on the pavement, her hood pulled over her head. Cam forced himself to focus on Dylan. Because Cam was being Mr. Casual.
    Dylan gave him a nod. “This is Tate, and Jax.”
    Tate shook his hand, but Jax gave him a grin and offered a fist bump.
    â€œCam.”
    â€œOh, we know,” Jax told him, grinning.
    â€œHow’s it going?” Tate said.
    â€œAnd that’s my sister, Nikki,” Dylan told Cam.
    Her head shot up. “We’ve already met,” she spit out. She turned on her heel, grabbing the chain-link fence and scrambling up the side. She then flipped over the fence and ran out of sight.
    â€œOkay . . .” Cam stared after her.
    â€œShow-off.” Jax nodded toward Nikki’s retreating figure.
    Dylan rolled his eyes, slid the gate open, and the rest of them
walked
through.
    So she really had been showing off.
    The ship was massive—it must have been a cargo ship once. But now, abandoned, it was just another part of the jungle gym. An awesome part, filled with jumps and obstacles (the good kind—not people, who mostly just got in the way). On the ship, it was just the five of them. The boys caught up