Free Rise of the Fallen 1 - My Soul to Keep by Sean Hayden Page B

between my legs. She grabbed my knee with her talons and squeezed
with everything she had. He nails pierced my flesh and muscle. I had no choice but
to let go. As soon as I did, she scrambled to her feet and up a tree.
    I tried to follow her movements, but my vision was still cloudy from
my lumber shattering impact. I gasped for breath and looked around for her. I could
hear several snaps of tiny tree limbs all around me as she circled, looking for
an opening to attack.
    I felt it more than heard it. A shifting of the air behind me and I
knew she would be closing in for the kill. I didn’t turn until the very last second,
and then I did a spinning roundhouse kick just like I'd seen in every kung-fu movie
I ever watched. My foot connected with her jaw before I even saw her. The impact
sent her flying away from me and she landed on her back, twenty yards away. Not
wasting any time I scrambled over and pinned her down on the ground.
    She looked up at me and scrunched her eyes like she was having
trouble seeing. When I pinned her wrists above her head she didn’t struggle.
    “If I let you go, is this over?”
    She nodded and I let her hands loose. Immediately they wrapped around
my throat and she flipped me off of her and onto my back. I should have known. I
didn’t struggle. I just lie there as she pinned me in the exact position I had her
in moments before.
    “Don’t you ever kick me in the face again,” she snarled. Then
she bent low and locked her lips onto mine.
    I'd always pictured my first kiss being a little…different.
    * * *
    We drove in silence to the entrance of the Cedar Hills Mall. After
the kiss, she’d let me go, stood up, and waved her hands, cleaning all remnants
of battle from our clothes and skin. She did the same to her Volkswagen Beetle while
I held the door in place. The silence in the tiny car seemed deafening and the awkward
feeling in the pit of my stomach threatened to curb my appetite. Thoughts of salty
soft pretzels drifted away with a curl of my lip.
    “Why are we going to the mall?” I didn’t even look at her as I asked.
Every time I did, I blushed. I stared out the window instead.
    “Training,” came her predictable response.
    “Training for what?”
    “You are one of the Fallen now. You have duties you need to know how
to do. I’m going to show you.”
    We pulled into a spot right in front. I'd been to the mall a hundred
times in my short life, and I could have sworn the spot she pulled into was a handicapped
space yesterday. For all I knew, it could have been.
    We made our way into the warmer interior of the mall. Auntie Annie’s
whispered my name sweetly, but I ignored her twisted, salty temptations and followed
Clarisse to the center courtyard where she turned left and headed toward the food
court. I caught myself staring at the designer logo on the back pocket of her jeans
and quickly focused on her hair instead. If she turned around and caught me looking
at her butt, there wouldn’t be any trees to soften the ass whipping that would be
sure to follow.
    I, for some reason, thought that Clarisse wanted to eat and that's
why we were at the food court.
    Apparently I was wrong.
    Instead of ordering pizza, Chinese, or even a hamburger, she sat at
a table near the entrance to the movie theater. I sat down across from her and stared
at her while she looked around the mall. Her eyes settled off to the right and I
turned to look at what she saw. A geekier looking guy than me sat alone, reading
a book with a large cup of some sort of coffee beverage. My eyes slid over the paper
cup with black lid. There were tiny boxes with checkmarks in sharpie on one side.
I looked closer and saw a bunch of words that looked like gibberish. Somehow, I
knew, without a doubt, he had a caramel macchiato, extra-shot, with low fat milk,
and extra caramel. I shook my head to clear it and focused on him instead. He had
shoulder length curly black hair, a bad complexion, and wore a black hoodie with
jeans.