Free Touch by Michelle Sagara Page A

his coat, and part of his face
     were sticky with blood. It wasn’t his—which did help—but it was disturbing. Mostly,
     it was disturbing because he didn’t appear to notice or care. Both he and Chase acted
     as though this sort of thing happened every day. Or every night.
    “Eric,” Chase said, “I’m taking Allison home.”
    Emma stopped walking. “No, you’re not. Not looking like
that
.”
    Chase bristled. “Would you like to keep her here so someone else can try to kill her?”
    Allison made a strangled sound and ducked out from under Chase’s arm. “Don’t say that!”
     She was trembling, she was white, and she was—and this hurt—frightened. But she was
     also angry, and that added a bit of welcome color to her cheeks.
    Chase grimaced. “Allison—”
    “Don’t ever say that again. Emma didn’t want me to stay—
I
wanted to stay.”
    “And now you know why it’s a very bad idea. Look, Allison, I know the two of you are
     friends—”
    “Best friends.”
    “Whatever. But she’s a Necromancer. You’re
not
. Even if there’s something you could in
theory
do, you don’t have the training, you don’t have the experience. The best you can
     do is die painlessly. The Necromancers don’t always aim for best case. They don’t
     care about you. They care about Emma because they think she’ll become one of them.
     But they don’t spare friends or family. Trust me.”
    Emma’s throat tightened. Chase was right. She knew he was right. Forcing herself to
     speak lightly, she said, “If you take her home right now, her mother will see you,
     covered in blood, and have a coronary. If you’re very lucky, she won’t call the police.
     And I know you—you’re never going to be that lucky.”
    Allison winced and managed a strained laugh. “She’s right.”
    Chase swore. “Fine. Come with us to Eric’s and hope that we don’t get traced.”
    “Emma,” Allison said, in a much more subdued voice, “I’m sorry.”
    That was the worse of it. She apologized and she
meant
it.
    “Why?” Emma said, wanting to grab her by the shoulders and shake the words so far
     out of her they never came back. She was surprised by the anger, by how visceral it
     was.
    “Chase is right. I didn’t do anything. I couldn’t do anything.”
    “Ally—neither could I.” Emma glanced down at her hands. At the hands that both Allison
     and Nathan had grabbed. “I couldn’t do anything, either. I thought you—” she stopped
     speaking; it took effort. “It’s not you who should be apologizing. It’s me. I—I should
     have at least as much power as they do—and I couldn’t do anything, either. If Chase
     and Eric hadn’t arrived, you’d be dead, and I’d be god only knows where.
    “But I’d never, ever, forgive them.”

NATHAN
    N ATHAN’S SURPRISED AT HOW MUCH Chase seems to hate Emma, and how much Chase seems to
     care about Allison.
    Most of Emma’s friends at Emery are like Emma. They’re comfortable in crowds; they
     fit in; they find energy talking about similar things. Clothing. Boys. Music and Drama.
     They go shopping in packs, roving the malls with bright eyes and easy laughter; not
     all of that laughter is kind, but it has an energy that’s fascinating at a distance.
    None of those girls is Allison. Allison wanders into bookstores and paper stores.
     She sits to one side of the group, buried in words that she didn’t write and won’t
     have to speak out loud. She’s moved by things that are imaginary. Her head, as Nan
     once said, is permanently stuck in the clouds.
    What Nan doesn’t see is where Ally places her feet. Yes, her head is in the clouds,
     but she’s rooted, grounded; when she can be pulled out of them, what she sees is what’s
     there. Maybe, Nathan thinks with a grimace, that’s
why
she likes clouds.
    There are no clouds for Allison now. Her eyes are dark and wide. There’s a livid bruise
     around her throat, and her hands are shaking. She snaps at Chase, Chase