I sensed Axel moving closer. I stilled, waiting for something to happen.
Axel caught my arm, wrapping his fingers around my elbow.
Fear and distrust caused me to pull away, wrestling myself out of his grasp.
“Calm down. I’m not going to hurt you.” He reached, slower this time, and wrapped his fingers around my wrist. “I know you’ve probably heard this before, but trust me.”
I relented, letting him take my wrist. His thumb trailed over the underside, right below my palm, in a reassuring motion. If my heart could quiver and then stop and relax at the same time, that’s exactly how he made me feel.
He held my arm out with his to hover over the tank, and then as if reconsidering, moved to take my hand in his, his palm to the back of my hand, intertwining our fingers.
“Here,” he said, his voice as quiet and as calm as ever. “I’ll do it with you.”
“Do what?”
“You’ll see.”
With that, he lowered our joined hands into the coolness of the water in the seemingly empty tank.
A shiver went through my spine, but it wasn’t totally from the chill of the water. I held my breath. Anticipating.
He stopped when both of our hands were inside. “Watch,” he said.
He moved our hands together, shaking up the water.
A glow emanated from the water. It was faint, like glow-in-the-dark stickers, but it was there. Blue. Ethereal. The more violently he shook our hands, the brighter the glow became.
“Holy crow,” I breathed, as if speaking out loud would stop the reaction.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” he asked. He released my hand in the water. “Go ahead. Shake it up yourself.”
I did, feeling the smoothness of the water passing by my fingers, and playing with the level of the glow depending on how quickly my hand moved. If I stared hard enough, I thought I could see the little things clustering against the rocks, illuminating together.
“Certain creatures have unusual reactions to different environments. The tiny creatures in that tank get that glow effect from ...”
“Bioluminescence,” I said, excited by the idea he had this in his bedroom. “Defense mechanism? That’s why you have to shake them up to see it?”
Axel studied me quietly. I wondered if it was because I interrupted him. “I thought you dropped out of school,” he said.
“They let me take my GED early so I could get out and take care of my younger brother after my mom died,” I said. “I’m not an idiot.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound surprised. Most girls I’ve met usually hate it when I talk about science.”
“Not all girls are the same,” I said. I stopped the movement of my hand, letting the light fade in the tank. “What is this? What’s the name of it?”
“Noctiluca scintillans,” he said. “The common name is Sea Sparkle.”
“Is that why you’ve got the scorpion?” I asked. “And the frogs? You’re studying glowing animals??
There was a movement and the light flicked back on again. Axel’s face carried a softer, interested smile. “You know about those, too?”
“Scorpions glow all weird under a black light. And certain types of frogs glow. It looked like a couple of your fish started to do it, too, while the light was out. What are those? Firefish? Or... um... sorry. I can’t remember the name. Are they supposed to do that? No, that has to be a genetic manipulation. Those don’t glow on their own naturally, do they? Or is it a new breed?”
A dark eyebrow shifted. “Are you sure you’re Kayli Winchester?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He held up his hands, palms up. “If you’re that smart, why the hell are you picking pockets?”
I huffed, drying my hand on my shorts. “It’s complicated.”
“No shit.” He moved back to the closet, flicking the light on. “Come here and find a shirt you can wear. We’ll wash your clothes.”
I grunted, but moved forward.
His closet was as big as the tiny bathroom we had at the hotel. There were boxes along the floor on either side and cartons of notebooks and folders and more textbooks on the shelves. Shirts and jeans and other clothes hung up along the two racks on either side, but I got distracted by some of the equipment in the back. “Is that a diving suit? What’s that shotgun for?”
“Will you stop being nosy for a minute?” He yanked a black button up shirt off of one of the hangers. “Here. Take that shirt off. And those shorts. This should be long enough.” He passed the shirt to me and then snatched another one in a deep green color, and stepped out of the closet, turning around. He started threading his arms through the sleeves.
I turned my back on him. I was wearing a pretty modest bra and panties. If he could parade naked in front of me, I wasn’t going to pretend to be that modest about him seeing my back and butt.
I bent over a little, slipping the white tank top off. I inspected my bra, checking for wet spots but didn’t see any so thought I could keep it on. I looked for a place to put down my shirt so I wouldn’t get soda on some notebook or his other clothes.
A hand touched briefly at my shoulder blade. I jumped in my skin, and turned quickly, holding my shirt against my body.
Axel hovered over me. His firm jaw set in a rigid expression. His eyes had gone dark. “Turn back around,” he said, the smoky and severe tone returned.
I lifted an eyebrow, wondering why he was telling me to turn when he was the one that poked me. I faced the back of the closet, unsure of what he wanted.
His fingers returned to my skin, and traced along a spot just under my shoulder. “Where’d you get that scar?”
My heart raced, mostly from the touch of his fingertips smoothing over my skin. It became difficult to remember what he wanted to know. “I ... elementary school, perhaps? Some kid knocked me off of a platform on the jungle gym.”
“And that one?” he asked, his fingertips glided down, to one along the edge of my ribs around the height of my elbow. He traced at the scar with the edge of a fingernail and then repeated backward with his thumb pressed a little harder, like he could massage it out.
“A fight in school a couple of years ago. Wasn’t my fight. I was just walking by but got slammed into a staircase.”
His fingers lowered along my spine, sending a gentle ripple through my body. I stared hard at the back of his closet, at the diving suit. At the shotgun. At the boxes of folders. At the life of someone I’d just met not an hour ago, and here he was poking into my past. I dreaded the next question, even when I could guess it was coming.
He traced the scar that was at the start of my hip, the one that continued down along my butt. “And this one?”
My eyes closed. I wanted to answer him as coolly as I had the others questions, but for some reason I couldn’t find the nerve. And with his fingertips on my skin, I couldn’t think of a lie. “I don’t want to tell you.”
Axel’s voice deepened. “Are there more?”
My lips glued shut. I wasn’t going to let a complete stranger rip the past from me just for showing me glowing fish.
Someone started knocking on the door. Axel grunted. “What?” he bellowed.
The bedroom door opened. “Is Kayli in here?” Corey asked.
Axel drew his hand away, and I turned to see his eyes locked on mine. His were quietly telling me I could tell Corey to go away if I wanted.
“What do you need, sugar?” I asked, willing to do anything to stop Axel from prying.
Footfalls sounded in the bedroom, and I half turned to meet him while I unbuttoned the shirt Axel had given me so I could slip it on.
The moment Corey’s gaze met mine, his eyes widened then lowered down my body, walking over my breasts, down to my hips in the shorts, and the thin line of my underwear that peeked out. “Ah,” he stammered, and turned, facing the door frame, but his eyes kept sliding to my body. “Oh. Sorry. I mean ... I just wanted ...”
“You’re f
ine,” I told him. I threaded my arms through the sleeves of Axel’s shirt and started buttoning it. I tried not to puff out my chest at his adorable modesty on my behalf.
Axel sighed and then took my soda-stained shirt from me. I slipped my shorts off under the shirt that fell to my thighs, covering me enough. He collected the shorts, too, and my socks. He filed past Corey.