Open Minds by Susan Kaye Quinn Page B

the same time.
    “Is it always this hard?” I asked. “This jacking thing is wiping me out.”
    “You’ll get used to it.”
    I wondered how long it would take for me to pass for a reader easily, like Simon. I gazed at the partiers who were still linked and kissing and drinking. “Did I do okay?”
    “You did great.”
    I peered up into his dark eyes. “When did you know? That you could mindjack?”
    He studied the weeds in the distance. “When I put my sister in a coma over a fight about… something. I can’t really remember what it was. I was twelve.”
    I held my breath, not sure what to say. “Simon, I’m sorry…”
    He shrugged and leaned back on the rock. “It took me three weeks to figure out I could wake her up again.”
    “You were just a kid.” I remembered my panic that first day, when I had knocked Raf out and thought I might slay the whole school if I went to class. What if I hadn’t inadvertently woken Raf up? I placed a hand on Simon’s shoulder, but his face stayed blank.
    “You didn’t have anyone to help you,” I said. “You couldn’t have known.”
    He ducked his head, examining the prairie grass at our feet. His hair fell forward, masking his face in shadow. I wanted to brush it back.
    “Well, she’s off to college now,” he said. “So I guess there was no permanent damage.”
    I swallowed. “I’m lucky to have you to help me.” He looked up, and a smile ghosted across his face. He smoothed down some tendrils of my hair floating in the breeze and stopped with his hand behind my head.
    He pulled me closer and his kiss was gentle, but the hot liquid feel of it still made my body sing.
    When he broke the kiss, he whispered, “What are you thinking?”
    I was thinking that I would rather be kissing than talking, but those words were not going to come out of my mouth, if I could help it. I just shook my head.
    “Well, that’s new for me,” he added. I didn’t understand. “Usually, I know what a girl thinks about when I kiss her.”
    Oh.
His smirk drove me to look back to the partiers. Simon had probably kissed a lot of girls before me. Girls that knew what they were doing in the kissing department. I ordered the blood out of my cheeks. Somehow my mind powers didn’t extend to controlling my own bodily reactions.
    “Hey. What?” He tipped his head to try to catch my eye.
    “I don’t think I blend very well.”
    “You’re not like them.” He touched my cheek to bring me back. “You’re much better.”
    Considering we lied to everyone about who we were, I didn’t feel much in the way of superiority. “How do you do it?” I asked. “Lying all the time?”
    His face hardened into a mask that sent a shiver through me. “You get used to it.” He glanced at his crew, still silently dipping to get their fuzz. “We’ll never be like them, Kira. Besides, we’re just marking time here. We’re meant to do greater things.”
    “What do you mean, greater things?” I was only hoping for
normal
, but somehow
normal
always escaped me.
    He lifted his gaze to the trees in the distance. “My birthday’s in two weeks,” he said with great solemnity, as if that were some fabulous pronouncement. The boy was definitely demens.
    “Um, happy birthday?”
    “I’ll be eighteen,” he elaborated. I was just as lost. “Then I’m going to walk into the principal’s office and get my diploma. I’m not going to sit around wasting my time in high school.”
    Could he really graduate as soon as he had reached the age? Of course. I had yet to hear Simon boast. It made me wonder if there was anything he couldn’t do.
    “What will you do? Get a job?”
    “I’ve been doing some small jobs. If things work out, I’ll have something lined up by then.”
    My suspicions came running out. “Like what?”
    “Something better than hanging out here, pretending to be like everyone else.”
    “Like what?” I repeated, disentangling from his embrace and stepping away. “More petty