Flash Point by EmKay Connor

Author:EmKay Connor [Connor, EmKay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781683614036
Publisher: Decadent Publishing LLC
Published: 2020-03-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

They were about two hours northeast of Baltimore when Joe finally broke the silence. Beatrice had settled in on the back seat, and Tamson had almost dozed off.

“Are you ready to explain?” There was a tentative note in his question, as if he’d been anxious to ask but didn’t want to be intrusive.

She knew what he asking about. The way she’d pulled away from him and demanded he not touch her. He must think she was a prude or a virgin. The latter was true, but not by choice.

She’d isolated herself so effectively that she’d never had to explain the mysterious affliction that made it unbearable for her to touch or be touched. If she told him the truth, would he believe her or write it off as yet another idiosyncrasy?

“Tamson?”

The way he said her name felt like an aural caress. She closed her eyes and lingered on the sound of it.

“You’ll think I’m a nut job,” she warned.

“Try me,” he said. For a moment, it seemed like he intended to reach out and take her hand. She shifted closer to the door, more to curb her own impulse than to avoid his touch.

“Something happens when people touch me,” she began. “It started when I turned fourteen.”

She waited for a snicker or snort of disbelief or some other belittling comment. Instead, he remained silent.

She liked that. It made her feel unhurried, as if he was willing to wait for her response. It invited her to share more, to open up to him.

“Any physical touch—even the lightest brush of skin on skin—felt like being branded with a red-hot poker. The pain was incredible.”

“Was?”

“Is.” She gulped, then launched into the second part of the phenomena that had started plaguing her for almost fifteen years. “There’s more.”

Again, he gave her space and time to answer when she was ready.

“In additional to the physical pain, I’m overwhelmed with emotions and visions. Not mine, but the person I’m touching. It’s like being engulfed in a tornado. It’s a wild frenzy that leaves me breathless and weak and confused.”

“There’s no way to control it?”

“Not that I’ve found,” she admitted. “Aside from avoiding people.”

“That sounds incredibly lonely.” The empathy in Joe’s voice said he knew something about loneliness himself.

“What about you?”

He jerked, as if surprised by the question. “Twenty years of covert operations. To do the job, I learned to blend in, become invisible. Now that I’m out, I still feel invisible.”

“I see you,” she whispered. She laid her hand on the padded console between them. Joe laid his parallel to hers.

The rest of the trip passed in a blur as desperate what-ifs whirled through Tamson’s mind.

***

After her stunning revelation, Tamson drifted off. Joe was relieved when he pulled into the underground parking lot adjacent to the building housing the Phoenix Agency offices shortly before nine. Tamson woke when he shut off the car engine.

“You’re in Baltimore at the agency offices. You’re safe.”

“You probably saved my life.” Her eyes, the green of grass in springtime, shimmered, but she blinked the tears away.

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