Soulless The Girl in the Box - By Robert J. Crane Page 0,46

the last of her drink, and walked over to the table with the guys. When she was a few feet away, they all sat up and took notice of her, especially when she leaned over once she reached the table. I heard her tone, not her words, and it sounded conversational, almost confessional, like she was telling something to an old friend she hadn’t seen in a long time. One of them got up and dragged a chair over for her. She sat in it, giving him a smile and running a hand along his exposed forearm, eliciting a shiver from him.

I turned back to the bar and stared at my drink, wondering why I couldn’t do what Charlie could. I wasn’t that outgoing, that confident, that fearless. Sure, I didn’t have any interest in any of those guys because they were way too old for me, but even if they’d been a table full of guys my age, all hot, I still wouldn’t have had the guts to do what she did. I turned and watched the easy manner with which she wrapped them all around her finger, with a joke that had them all laughing, with a gentle caress on the back that left the man on the receiving end wanting more.

All I’d had thus far was Zack, and he wasn’t exactly wrapped around my finger. I mean, I’d pretty much driven him away because I was afraid I’d hurt him. Even the revelation that Charlie had given me, that there were ways we could be intimate without him getting hurt, sounded awfully risky (not to mention fairly devoid of any romance), maybe moreso to me because I wasn’t really sure how it all worked. I mean, I’d only ever kissed him for three to four seconds before I had to stop, and she was talking about protection and muscle control – it was bizarre and exciting and scary as hell all at once, but I didn’t know which feeling was heaviest.

Also, I’d let him go. I felt a twinge of guilt and pain, and took a drink to bury that feeling under the rush that the liquor granted, that heady sensation that would be making me drift oh-so-pleasantly in just a few more minutes. Of course the aftereffects would suck, but since when do teenagers worry about consequences? I took another drink, trying to banish that thought. Self-awareness was a curse, a terrible curse. The ice clinked in the bottom of my glass and I realized I had downed the whole thing without noticing.

I started to wave over the barman, but he was already coming with another. His face was almost gaunt, his eyes sunken when he set the Whiskey Sour in front of me. “Here you go,” he said.

“Okay, but after this I’m done.” I picked up the drink and took a swig.

“And your friend?” He nodded toward Charlie and I turned to see the whole table laughing again, every one of the men paying rapt attention to her, leaning over each other to tell her something, to catch her attention. I watched the way she twirled her hair, the way she laughed at them, smiled. “You gonna keep paying for her?”

I handed him my credit card, the personal one, not the one from the Directorate. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess she can probably convince those guys to buy her a round or two, but give her one more on my tab, then close it out.”

He smiled at me. “Done deal.”

I looked down at my drink, studying the amber liquid in my glass broken by the white of the ice cubes and the red of the maraschino cherry that floated on top. I pulled out the cherry and popped it into my mouth, leaving the stem on the napkin that held my drink. I took another long sip and thought again about Zack. Maybe I’d been hasty. Or maybe I’d been sane. I looked back at Charlie and wondered how she could be so cavalier, so quick with her touch when it could be so harmful, so deadly if she wasn’t careful.

“You’re prettier than her.” There was a voice at my elbow and I looked to see a familiar face. His hair was spiked, and his handsome features looked slightly more rugged tonight, though his shirt was still unbuttoned at the top. James smiled at me, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “Don’t doubt it for a second; she may have