Free Cursed by Jennifer L. Armentrout

your touch. With others, it just stops whatever they are doing. If someone is telekinetic—can move things with their mind—my touch would stop them from doing so. If I drain just a little, it can take the edge off some of their gifts. For some reason, with you, it just knocked you on your butt.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “Maybe it’s because your gift is so tied to your life-force now. I don’t know.”
    “So we can touch, but one of us ends up… hurt?”
    A slow smile spread across his lips. “If we aren’t careful, yes. Anyway, how did you discover it? I—we never saw that.”
    I remembered how I thought he’d looked familiar when I first saw him. I had caught glimpses of him.
    “Ember?”
    “After the accident,” I said finally. “I had a cat named Sushi.”
    “And?” He pushed off the railing, coming to stand in front of me again.
    “I picked it up.” I took a deep breath and looked away. Part of me didn’t even know why I was sharing this, but it felt liberating telling the truth for once. “It died, right then and there. Then I tried to hug Olivia.”
    “Whoa,” Hayden murmured. “Poor kid. Poor kitty.”
    “Yeah… well, I told Olivia the cat ran away. That was before I understood what she could do. I mean, really understand.” My cheeks were hot, but I kept going. Diarrhea of the mouth, I supposed. “I quickly learned plants and animals pretty much keel over right away. People are different. My touch hurts at first, then… well, you already know what happens.”
    “It was an accident,” he said without hesitation. “And he touched you .”
    “Does it really matter how it happened? He’s dead because of me.”
    “It’s not the same thing.” He appeared to want to say something else, but shook his head. “Why were you upset earlier? Was it the phone call?”
    Lying would be pointless. The lump in my front pocket was obvious. “I had to call my friend and let him know I was okay.”
    “Did you tell him where you are?”
    A frown tugged at my lips and I lied, sort of. “No.”
    Hayden seemed to relax. “We can be ourselves here. Outsiders are rarely trusted. My father wants it to be different. Being the mayor has helped.”
    “He’s the mayor?” Cromwell’s words came to back to me. I have all the right. This is my town .
    “Not illegally or through manipulation.” He stepped back and leaned across the railing, crossing his long legs at the ankle. “Outsiders just love the man. Everybody does.”
    “Great.” I started chewing my lip. “Does he think I’m going to run around and kill people now, because you know, that’s how I roll? Is that why he brought us here?”
    Hayden tipped his back and laughed, really laughed. It was a nice sound. Rich. “No. I don’t think he believes you want to kill anyone.”
    I zeroed in on his word choice. Want to kill people versus kill people by accident. I sighed again, feeling uncomfortable in my own skin.
    His dark eyes flickered over me. “You’re not a freak. None of us are. And maybe I—we can help you get control of it. All you have to do is trust us.”
    * * *
    Just trust us.
    Trust was a two-way street that usually didn’t start with being kidnapped.
    I weaseled my way out of dinner even though Olivia threw an epic tantrum. She didn’t understand I needed time alone to think all of this through, to figure out what the next course of action should be.
    So I skipped dinner, but still had no idea what to do. Now I was freaking starving. When I was pretty sure I was going to start gnawing on my arm, I sucked it up and tried to find my way back to the kitchen.
    The hardwood floors didn’t creak under my sneakers and the paint was an array of soft, welcoming colors. It was nothing like our worn-down home in Allentown. I kind of missed that old place, no matter how sad it had been for the last two years. It felt like us, and this house didn’t.
    Eventually, I found the right hallway, but the kitchen wasn’t empty