Free Locked by Eva Morgan Page B

I what?”
    “Kissed anyone,” he says.
    “You just said I never dated.”
    “Just because you’ve never dated doesn’t mean you’ve never kissed anyone.”
    The doorbell rings. I stand up. We’ve been sitting there, talking about whether or not I’ve ever kissed someone, for longer than I realized. Time goes quickly when I’m talking to Sherlock. The pizza guy’s hat is bobbing in the door window.
    Sherlock slams the laptop shut—he always slams it, he probably has to replace the screen every month—and grabs his coat.
    “That enthusiastic about the pizza, are we?” I say.
    “Pizza? What pizza?” he says. “We’re going to have a chat with Daphne Brown.”
    By the time I make it to the door after him, he’s halfway down the road, the pizza guy staring bewilderedly after him. I swear, shove some money at the guy, drop the pizza on Sherlock’s floor, and take off after him.
    “I really ought to steal Mycroft’s car,” Sherlock is saying when I catch up to him, which takes a little while, considering his ordinary stride is almost as fast as my run. “He loves that car more than anything. Meaning I’d have to crash it at least once.”
    “Sherlock, I don’t want this,” I say loudly, jogging so I won’t fall behind.
    “She only lives four blocks away. She’s president of the comic book club and they meet at her house. The address is on the Facebook page.”
    “No, that’s not what I meant.” I try to dart in front of him, but it’s like standing in front of a tornado. A very tall, handsome tornado. “I don’t want revenge. I don’t want you to go in there and yell at her—”
    “I won’t yell, then.”
    “Sherlock. You’re not getting it.” I’m out of shape, haven’t jogged since the accident, and now I’m panting and Sherlock won’t walk any slower. I grab his sleeve, jerking him back. “I don’t want—”
    “Of course you do,” he snaps. “Everyone does. Someone wrongs you, you want to hurt them. It’s human nature. It’s how people work.”
    It’s amazing how fast he can switch from amazing me to annoying me. “And you’ve conducted how many studies on that?”
    “Personal experience is my study.”
    “You’re a big revenge-seeker, then.” It’s windy and my hair is blowing over my face. I should cut it all off.
    He smiles again. That odd smile he uses whenever he says something that would make an ordinary person sad. “I motivate revenge-seekers.”
    “How could anyone take revenge on you?” I say, half-joking. “You don’t care about anything, so no one can hurt you. Remember? No risk.”
    There’s a silence. A car drives past and turns around the corner.
    “Bit jealous of that, actually,” I say awkwardly.
    Sherlock fastens the top button of his coat.
    I sigh. “I don’t want revenge because I don’t want the attention. People stared at me all the time even before the photo. Grief makes people interested in you. Not in a good way. And now with the photo thing, I don’t need Daphne telling people around school that I came to her house and freaked out—”
    “Fine.” He abruptly starts walking again. “We’re not doing this for revenge.”
    “No?”
    “We never were.”
    “Then why are you so interested in Daphne Brown?” I ask, hurrying after him.
    “Because she wasn’t the one who contacted Ares.”
    “Okay…? Then I reiterate my first question.”
    “But she was the one who sent the photo out.”
    “So you’re saying there’s a third person involved? And we’re going to meet Daphne to find out who this person is?”
    “That’s secondary. Mostly I just want to see if I’m right. I’m ninety percent sure that I am.”
    “Uh huh,” I say as we turn a corner into a residential neighborhood. “That’s two more things that I know about you—you’ll do anything to prove you’re right.”
    “What’s the second thing?”
    “And anything to find out why you’re wrong, if you are.”
    “Exactly. That’s how we