Free Shine: The Knowing Ones by Amy Freeman Page B

makes everything simple.”
    Sam stared. “Aeronautics and electricity are not simple concepts.”
    “They are to those who understand them,” Trin said. “Think about it. If you study and practice something it becomes easy. It becomes part of who you are, totally natural. Sound like anything you know?”
    Once she got past his lethal blue eyes she responded. “Dance.”
    Trin nodded. “Dance. I can tell you right now the thought of spinning around on my toes for any amount of time sounds horrifying.” Sam laughed, lowering her head. He leaned in. “And yet you do it every day, easily. What I do is no different than that.”
    “Yeah, but normal people don’t understand all the crazy stuff you understand.”
    Trin pursed his lips. “Now I’m crazy and abnormal.”
    Sam laughed out loud.
“No
. It’s just—you know what I mean.”
    “Don’t know that I do.”
    “Oh my God,”
    He sat back, a satisfactory grin on his face.
    Sam smirked. “You suck.”
    “We’ve established that, thank you.”
    She shook her head and laughed again. He watched her, playful eyes dancing through damp wisps of sun-streaked hair. She looked down at her hands a moment, then glanced up. “Can I ask you something else?”
    “Shoot.”
    “What were you doing before diving into the pool today? With the water, I mean.” She glanced at the table. “All the swimmers gave off energy, but you were...
doing
something.”
    The guarded individual from the night before returned. He nodded once, his aura morphing to the serene, golden blue that had dominated the night before.
    Sam sat up, pointing. “Right now. What are you doing and how are you doing it?”
    He paused for a moment, hesitant. “I’m cloaking my energy,” he finally said. “It’s pretty much the closest thing to privacy people like you and I have.”
    Sam tilted her head, fascinated. Before meeting Trin it would never have occurred to her there would be a need for such a thing. But having been exposed like an open book to Trin over the past twenty-four hours she could certainly see its value.
    She sat back. “I want to learn how to do that.”
    “You already know how.”
    She glanced at the ceiling. “I
really don’t know how
. Believe me, I would have been doing it all last night.”
    “You were.”
    Sam squinted in confusion.
    “You were,” he reiterated. “At least until you met
me.
”
    “What are you talking about?” she argued.
    Trin sat up a bit. “Before I brought you over last night you were totally closed,” he said. “I’ve never seen an aura seal up like that. It was the most solid cloaking I have ever seen.”
    Sam thought for a moment and then the light went on. “The dance floor.”
    Trin nodded with a slight smile. “Believe me. You’ve already got that one down.”
    Sam thought it over. “Really?”
    “Really.”
    She considered her newfound accomplishment for a moment. “Okay,” she began. “Those guys were annoying. What if I want to hide my emotions from someone I
don’t
want to kill?”
    Trin’s glacier eyes gleamed from beneath his lashes. “Hopefully you’re referring to
me.”
    “You’re very smart.”
    “Just checking,” he said. “After all the violence and name calling I wasn’t sure.”
    “Trin!”
    “Okay, okay,” he laughed. He hesitated a moment, then rested his elbows on the table again. “Cloaking is a defense mechanism. It keeps other people out.
You
can see my energy. I picked up on that when I saw you. Not wanting you to know everything about me right off I turned it on. This will sound weird, but engaging it is a confidence issue.”
    Sam stared. “What do you mean?”
    “If you feel self-conscious or inferior to someone it is nearly impossible to cloak.”
    “You don’t ever feel insecure?”
    Trin tilted his head. “Insecure, yes.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “With everything I have learned,
inferiority
is not something I deal with anymore.”
    Sam sat across from him, awed