Ruin - By N.M. Martinez Page 0,71

I try to walk past Alex but he stops me with words.

"What is it like where you come from?"

I freeze. My heart needs more massaging from my fingertips. "I thought you weren't supposed to ask about the past?"

"I'm not."

But he is. The entire Neutral Territory is now part of my past, a place that I will never be able to return. Everything that I've known and loved is there.

I rub my forehead, dotting the corner of my eyes with a knuckle while I try to push all my thoughts back down into the mental locker I've stuffed them.

Alex folds his arms across his chest and waits while I take a deep breath of dust. Nothing says I have to answer him. He isn't threatening me. The two of us stand together in the bare room, and I find myself oddly grateful for his company. Grateful that he even cares enough to ask me about my old life. It's something even Brandon didn't do, though I realize he didn't because it's not done. Still, it sits oddly with me the same as his not telling me about Jimmy and the way that he's friends with someone like Aaron.

Alex reaches out for me again, this time to lightly brush my fingertips with his own as an encouraging smile spreads across his lips. It's dangerous. I can see it right away. Not dangerous like he'll hurt me, but dangerous like he has a natural power over a girl like me and he knows it.

"Alex, what's your power? Do you have one?"

He turns his head, though his hands still stay attached to my fingers. "I can control bodies with my eyes."

It makes no sense to me. I've looked him in the eyes plenty of times and I still feel normal. Except for the way my heart pounds and my cheeks flush. "You haven't controlled me, have you?"

Alex grimaces at that. "No. I wouldn't." He turns back to me with a frown and lowered eyebrows. "You would know. I won't do that to you."

My fingers get squeezed tightly between his. He looks at me intently, and I just nod, my words stuck again as if this was some alternate power of his. His frown loosens, not quite into a smile, and he gives me a tug and pulls me back into the hallway to the stairs where we can both sit near each other.

I sit on a step higher than him. It helps us sit eye to eye, though I still find myself avoiding his gaze. It was never this difficult to look Rob in the eyes. Alex works to catch my eyes again, gently prodding my leg with his knuckles.

"Please tell me about your home."

The words stick in my throat again, and I have to work to swallow around them before they will come out. Once they do, I find it's harder to stop talking about home than it was to continue. Everything pours out. I tell him about apartments and cars and school. School interests him the most. He asks me questions about reading and books the way I want to ask him about his fighting; we both accept them as skills we can't learn but we're still curious. The one topic I avoid is talking about my mother. He don't notice the absence, or if he does, he doesn't say anything about it.

At lunch, I invite him to Henri's to have something with me, but he hesitates. We both go to the door and that's where he stops.

"Are you scared Henri's going to do something to you?"

Alex shifts his weight on his feet. "No. I shouldn't be here alone with you."

That surprises me. "What's the difference between being alone together here and alone together in the hall?"

Alex glances over my head at the rest of the apartment before looking back down at me. He doesn't even smile when he says, "Temptation." Then he leans down and kisses my forehead setting my face ablaze again.

His fingers brush my cheek and then he goes back down the stairs and takes his normal seat at the bottom. I have to go back inside and splash cool water on my face.

I stay away from Alex for the rest of the day. A good portion of the afternoon is spent on the couch with my hands covering my face, trying not to think about Alex. Thoughts of him are just too much, and they turn into thoughts of Rob and home. And Mom.

Making dinner for Henri means