Trance by Kelly Meding Read Free Book Online

that betrayed his discomfort. He fished into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a Vox. “I picked up your signal briefly outside of Salem. I found it again ten minutes ago when, I’m assuming, you arrived here at the truck stop.”
    I nodded, affirming his assumption. There were only so many direct routes from Oregon to L.A., so running into each other wasn’t entirely implausible. “My dad’s Vox was with my stuff. I’m glad it still works.”
    “Me too.” His mouth twitched into a pained frown. “Controlling my powers again is a bitch. It’s hard trying to filter everything like I used to. Putting all of the information in its own place.”
    “I bet.” Relearning control of his hypersenses had to be a pain (no pun intended). My stomach grumbled, reminding me again of its empty state. The adrenaline was gone and a gentle ache had begun at the base of my skull. “You know, I wish you’d found me before we left Salem. I think the trip would have been a lot more pleasant.”
    Gage’s eyebrows knotted and his eyes narrowed. “Did he hurt you?”
    “No, just unnerved me a bit.”
    He didn’t seem convinced. “Are you hungry?”
    “Famished,” I said before I could stop myself. The last thing I needed was to explain why the diner was out of my price range. “Where’s your car?”
    “In front of the motel.”
    “Staying the night?”
    “I planned to, yes, and then get a fresh start in the morning.”
    Not a terrible idea. I felt disgusting and was desperate for a hot shower. “I don’t suppose they have any more rooms available?” I asked, even though I couldn’t afford one. No sense in saying so and advertising my poverty to Gage. For all I knew he was a successful investor.
    “The desk clerk said I got the last one, but there’s plenty of space to share,” he replied.
    Share? Spend the night locked in a room with a strange man. The idea raised my hackles, but knowing it was Gage—a former Ranger who understood what I was going through, to an extent—kept me from falling into full-on panic. And it beat sleeping in an alley or under a car.
    I flashed him a smile, using it to hide my apprehension. “Should we flip a coin to see who gets the floor?”
    He shook his head. “I’ll take the floor.”
    “It’s your room, Gage, I was kidding.” I rolled my eyes at his mile-wide gentlemanly streak. “It’s not like I think you’ll attack me in my sleep, and as long as you’re not a warrants officer, we’ll get along fine.”
    Gage stared, and I could have bitten off my own tongue. What was wrong with me? I don’t let things like that just slip out.
    “Warrants officer?” he repeated. “Were you in jail?”
    I tried to shrug it off. Four years ago, an accessory to burglary charge had landed me in the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, where I spent the worst twelve months of my life. Which had, naturally, led to lack of good employment opportunities and the current state of my craptastic life. Not that I was doing so hot before I agreed to drive the van for a guy I thought I loved in exchange for 20 percent of the fenced merchandise. The money was supposed to buy us tickets to Arizona and a fresh start.
    Now I couldn’t technically leave the state of Oregon for two more years. Not that it had stopped me last night. “Let’sjust say I had a rebellious, misspent youth and not dive into details.”
    “Fair enough. You know, we got our powers back, so there’s a chance the Banes did, too. I think the state of Oregon can forgive your debt if we’re being called back into service.”
    Called into service. Put like that, it sounded almost noble. Would the American public, still recovering from the previous decade’s atrocities and the loss of their largest cities, readily embrace a new generation of Rangers? Or would they sooner burn us all at the stake?
    “You know, you’re really starting to look the part,” he said as he led the way toward the motel. “The purple becomes