Heavy Metal gr-2 Read online

  Sam stood mired in worthless guilt as he stared after the car. Anson hadn’t just been his college roommate. Everything he knew about goddesses, he’d learned from Sam. Maybe no one would have been hurt if the two of them had never met.

  He suddenly realized how long Riley had been in the bathroom. Had someone gotten inside through another entrance and cornered her again? He dashed for the building, but the glass door opened and Riley came out.

  “You okay?” Sam gripped her shoulders and studied her face. “Did something happen?”

  “What? No!” She pulled away, tilting her head so her hair hid her face, but not before he saw her bright eyes and pale skin. “No,” she said more calmly, walking toward her car. “No one came at me again. Sorry I took so long.” Without another word, she climbed into her car, started it, and waited for him to take the lead.

  Baffled, Sam shrugged and got into his own car, paralyzed by opposing forces—the pull to go back and fix whatever was wrong, and the figurative knife at his back, urging him to get her out of there. He should have made her ride with him. They could get separated too easily on the highway like this.

  But he knew she’d never go for leaving her car behind, not when it was her only symbol of freedom and control and she’d just gotten it back. He’d have to keep a careful eye on her and make sure nothing happened.

  Maybe he was wrong about Anson. The bright sky and tops of the nearby trees had been reflected in the driver’s side window. Sam had only gotten a split-second glimpse of the guy behind the wheel, and people changed in three years.

  But if he was right and that was who’d been following Riley?

  Sam didn’t have any other choice. She was his responsibility now.

  Chapter Four

  Once a young goddess has determined the source of her abilities, she is encouraged to experiment under safe, controlled conditions to determine the extent and range of those abilities. Privacy is also encouraged, to protect against the negative repercussions of public notice.

  —The Society for Goddess Education and Defense, New Member Brochure

  Riley cursed as she followed Sam onto the crowded interstate a few minutes later. She paid enough attention to barreling semis and flying Mercedes to avoid getting crushed, but half her mind was still back in the quiet library.

  A few minutes into their Millinger search, she’d noticed tension in Sam’s hands as he typed, and his tone had grown more clipped. She felt so stupid. Without intent, she’d pressed herself all over him. He probably thought every lean was a come-on, when she was only trying to see the screen better. When she shifted away in a hopefully not-too-obvious manner, he’d relaxed a little, confirming his discomfort. But what kind of discomfort was it?

  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.

  She firmed her jaw, clenched her fists, and strode after him. She damn well would be up for this. Especially if she’d caused it.

  No. Guilt wouldn’t help. She banished the idea and slipped between barrels. Under the shadow of the overpass, the moans and thumps of vehicles speeding above echoed around them, covering shouted orders among the crew. The crane operator and some of the workers had gotten the I-beam safely to bare ground, half on the grass, half on the cracked concrete of the road. All the workers gathered around the trapped man. A couple tried to wedge a long chunk of concrete under the forklift, but it wouldn’t fit. Hands shoved at the tipped-over lift, but of course, no one was strong enough to budge it, and the positioning made it impossible to get enough people around it to combine their efforts.

  Sam squeezed through the crowd, calling out instructions with enough authority that no one questioned him. Riley watched for a moment as they folded cloth to put under the guy’s head, held a water bottle for him to drink from, and bent close to Sam when he asked the guy questions.

  When everyone’s attention was on Sam and the injured man, Riley hurried to the equipment. Her ridiculous, arrogant fantasy spun through her mind. She didn’t know if she could even raise the small forklift.

  Her bare hands landed on the cold metal, followed by the familiar sensation of everything about her body becoming more, and relief filled her. Now to figure out the best way to do this.

  Leverage.

  She turned her back to the machine and bent her knees, bracing herself against it and curling her hands around a lip above the gas cap. She closed her eyes, willing strength into her legs. For the first time, she concentrated on drawing energy from the metal. No, not from it. Through it. She could sense it, like flowing water except totally insubstantial, detected only in an eerie sense of movement out of the metal into her hands. She clenched her jaw, tightened her muscles, and heaved, shoving with her legs and pulling energy at the same time.

  The forklift rose. Only a few inches, but Sam shouted something, other people yelled, something scraped across the ground, and the forklift became suddenly heavier. She strained not to let it drop and opened her eyes. Several feet of empty space between the machine and the crowd gave her permission to let go. But that would call attention to her, so she held on. Every muscle screamed so hard she almost gave voice to the pain, her mouth opening wide. But the sound only vibrated in her ears, externally silent. She slowly bent her legs and lowered the machine to the ground. As soon as she released it, she collapsed.

  Riley gasped for breath, drawing up her knees and begging silently for the muscles in her legs to stop hurting so damned much. Suddenly, the screaming in her ears died into a low wail, and a paramedic truck bumped over the shoulder, approaching the scene. She laughed and lowered her forehead to her knees, tears stinging at the corners of her eyes as her body finally relaxed.

  “Hey. You okay?”

  She didn’t need to lift her head to recognize Sam’s voice or the heat and gentleness of his hand on her back. But she looked up, startled by the admiring glow in his golden-brown eyes, only inches from hers.

  “Yeah,” she managed, flushing. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “You were amazing.” He glanced around. “We should get out of here. Traffic’s gonna be moving in a minute, and I don’t think talking to the police is a good idea.”

  “Police?” She stood on unsteady legs, a wholly different kind of weakness than when she first got out of the car. Sure enough, the lights of three state police cars flashed across the faces of the watching crowd. “Crap. Did anyone notice?”

  “Probably.” Sam ushered her around a stack of some kind of rubber tubes that were tall enough to hide them. “But no one will believe their stories.”

  “Unless they got it on video,” she muttered.

  Sam didn’t respond. His hand slid from her back down her arm. His fingers threaded with hers, and he tugged her to zigzag through the standing cars. Riley glanced over her shoulder once they were past the perimeter. A few cops waved at the traffic, ushering the first cars under the right side of the bridge, where they were supposed to go before the whole accident happened. Engines rumbled to life around them as people waited for traffic to clear.

  “You okay to drive?” Sam stopped next to his car. He brushed Riley’s hair back, tucking a few strands behind her ear, his expression now concerned. He kept casting quick glances at the cars and people around them. “Just to the next exit. It’s not far. We’ll stop at a restaurant or something.”

  Riley nodded and dragged herself away, trying not to shiver. They were in the middle of the highway. Even if Sharla and Vern or some other team had followed from Bridgeport, they wouldn’t do anything with so many police around.

  “I’ll follow,” she managed to croak, and pushed herself to a trot when cars rolled down the line. She got to her Beetle in time, ignoring the impatient honk from the guy in the car behind her.

  She kept her mind carefully blank as she followed Sam to a diner near the highway, but it didn’t stop nausea from digging in. She parked the car but gripped the wheel so tightly she couldn’t let go. She sat there, shuddering, until Sam opened her door and gently uncurled her fingers.

  “It’s okay.” He reached past her to turn off the ignition and pocketed her keys. “Are you hurt?”

  “N-no.” But the response was automatic. Sam lifted her knees and swung her around so her feet were out of the car. Crouching in front of her, bracketing her legs with his, he gently rolled her hands over. They were stained orange from the forklift’s paint but not br
uised or bleeding. They didn’t even hurt, really. But her fingers curled over her palms, the tendons still contracted by the weight of the machine, compounded by her death grip during the drive.

  Sam held one hand and pressed his other on top of it, flattening her fingers. His callused skin rasped against her still-tender palms, and her belly shivered. The tendons slowly stretched under the pressure, and Riley nodded. “That’s good. Thanks.”

  Sam repeated the action with her other hand. “I should have done this before I made you drive here.” His tone was annoyed, but the warmth of his hands seeped into Riley, settling the shudders and the chattering teeth. She resisted the urge to run her hands through his hair, so close now instead of two feet above her. Sam lifted his head suddenly, caught her looking, and she sucked in a breath at the impact of his eyes meeting hers. She’d never known a guy who wore his emotions so plainly. Now it was self-disgust and concern, but after a few seconds, his irises darkened from golden oak to brewed tea, and she read awareness and caring.

  Oh, she was so going to fall for this guy.

  She pulled her hands free and let them hang between her knees. “I’m okay.” Except for the nausea. She thought of the road worker and had to swallow hard. “How’s the guy? The one who was trapped? Did you see?”

  Sam nodded but didn’t move away. “He probably has a broken leg. Below the knee. That’s where most of the pressure was. But he wasn’t bleeding, and his upper body wasn’t crushed. He’ll be fine.”

  “Eventually,” she mumbled. Knowing that didn’t help.

  “What’s wrong?” Sam’s hands landed on her knees. “You saved him. Or at least his leg. Don’t you see how amazing that was? Not a lot of people, goddesses or not, could have done what you did.” He smiled a little and stroked a finger across her cheek, evoking a shiver. “But you look miserable.”