Free Lightning In My Wake (The Lightning Series) by Lila Felix

on accident. And as if the Almighty wanted me to be perfectly camouflaged when I discovered the gift—I flashed for the first time in the middle of a particularly noisy Louisiana thunderstorm. I was on the phone with Colby, one of our never ending phone conversations though we had been together in school and most of the afternoon, when I closed my eyes and imagined being on the roof opposite her room so I could see her through a window as she talked to me. Clutching my phone as my only float through the waves of space, I suddenly landed in a sloppy, bumbling mess on the roof I had imagined, and was then watching her through her open window.
    She continued speaking to me as if the most shocking and powerful moment of my life hadn’t just occurred. I had patted myself down, expecting to lose body parts or some of the depth of my form—something. But my body was just fine and my balance finally was regained in seconds.
    Of course, I walked home that night, afraid to try it again.
    Eventually, curiosity got the better of me and I tried somewhere a little further away—and a little further from that.
    The first time I landed in Israel, I nearly shit my pants right there in the Holy Land.
    That was the day before my birthday, three days before Colby had made me wonder if it had really been a gift after all.
    I hadn’t expected her until Frid ay morning but Thursday night, as I studied as much computer research as I could from the digital records the Synod would let me see, I felt the atmosphere shift around me. A bubble had popped somewhere near in the time it took for lightning to strike. Lightning had struck. I knew for sure when Colby knocked on my door, my conscience and my gift alerting me to her identity.
    Agitated nerves flared to life, knowing this was the beginning of the end. Many things could happen with Colby and me, with me and the Synod, with us and the Resin. Things that didn’t even take into account the government or everyday worries.
    Hell, I didn’t even know if the place in Tibet would allow me access to Sevella’s journals without permission from the Synod.
    I tried like hell to open the door without a beaming smile on my face. My senses were already on overload with her on the other side of the door. What would happen when we were constantly in such close proximity?
    The door creaked as it opened. It was a small cottage of a place. I’d never meant for it to house more than just me. But it was only for one more day until we headed to Tibet.
    “Hey.” She shielded her eyes against the light pouring from the tiny abode.
    “Come in,” I bid her. She carried only a small bag, but somehow I knew that small , almost weightless bag carried a mall’s worth of clothes, even though we could flash into any store, anytime of the night and get whatever she needed. I knew for a fact that she went into H&M, her favorite store, and got what she wanted in the night, grabbed the surveillance videos and then left a wad of cash on the counter as she left.
    Colby shivered as she stepped into the cottage and looked around.
    “It’s so cute—like a Hobbit house.”
    I chuckled and took the bag from her. I was right. Her bag was light as could be. She flounced onto the loveseat and picked up my notebook where I’d been taking notes. Without a second thought, she plucked her sandals off one by one and bent her legs under herself and settled into the couch as she read.
    Who did she think she was kidding? Nothing had changed between us but a shallow relationship status. Colby was just as comfortable around me as she always had been—as she always would be.
    “Can I make you some tea?” I offered. She thought about it for a second then opened her mouth to say something out, but decided, last minute, to squelch whatever it was.
    “Just say it,” I said.
    “I was going to ask you to get me something else, but I don’t know what we are anymore. I don’t know what you are to me.”
    “I’m a man the last time I