Child of the Fall (Gemini Gambit Book 3) by D. Scott Johnson

Author:D. Scott Johnson [Johnson, D. Scott]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780986396274
Publisher: Silver Spider Book
Published: 2019-07-22T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 33

Kim

Being able to touch someone, anyone, had always been the unattainable dream. She would never be that normal in her life. Kim could have friends, family, acquaintances, lovers, and enemies, but always at a distance. She could never touch them. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. Kim had accepted it as a baseline part of her reality.

And then Will hugged her.

Kim had no memory of what it was like to touch someone without pain, so everything now was new. People were heavy. They had a complex density, soft in some places while hard in others. They had corners, knees and elbows. Skin was not quite smooth, but also far from rough, like rubberized paper.

She’d felt all these things on herself, but it wasn’t the same. The displacement, the otherness of someone else’s touch, made it more powerful and more appealing than Kim had expected. The pleasure of stroking the back of Will’s hand had been mesmerizing. Like so many other things in life, she could simulate it all she wanted, but it was never exactly like the actual experience. It sharpened the edges of her longing for Mike. He was hers, but not in this particular way. And she wanted him in that particular way, not only the animal need for physical bonding, but also the innocent, gentle feeling of holding hands. The last thing she remembered was admiring the way her fingers interlaced with Will’s.

His disappearance was a crushing blow. She should’ve tried harder to get them moving, should’ve pushed and pushed until one of the scientists blew their cover trying to stop them. She had let her guard down, had let her greed for human contact override the decisiveness so many mistook for paranoia. Will was now paying for that mistake, a helpless child with a syndrome he couldn’t understand or manage.

All the more reason Emily’s first decision was a real shocker. “No, I don’t want the police. I want you.”

Kim’s reflex was to push that away. It felt too much like her Rage days, when they all looked at her for every decision, right up to the one that killed them. But that was the past, when Kim was an idiot child who thought she and everyone around her was immortal. She knew better than that now.

Kim still didn’t understand Emily’s decision. “Why me?”

She smirked from the other side of the dining room table. “I followed your exploits back in the day. You were the only one who got under Father’s skin. The mystery girl leading the charge against corporate America, known only by her silhouette and her name.” She put down her cup of coffee. Only a slight tremor showed how much pressure she was under. “But that wasn’t what impressed me. You never hurt anyone, never destroyed anything real. You were so fast.”

Admiration was the last thing Kim wanted. “We weren’t the good guys, Emily. People got hurt anyway. People died.”

“And you hate that. I can see it. You care. And you understand Will.” Saying her son’s name out loud almost cost what little self-control Emily had left.

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