Free Seneca Rebel (The Seneca Society Book 1) by Rayya Deeb

weekend. The vaccination kicked my butt. You know how it goes."
    "Do I ever. I told you it wasn't going to be pretty."
    "You weren't lying."
    "Chica, Puerto Ricans never lie."
    "And what about Senecans?"
    He raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Touché."
    I looked up over his shoulder, trying to focus on the spot where I'd last seen Blue Combat Boots in S.E.R.C. Reba could tell I was pre-occupied.
    "Well, glad to see you survived. Better safe than sorry. Who wants their face eaten off by a flesh-eating parasite, right?"
    There he was. He was probably fifteen yards from the location where he’d entered his session last week. I had to get to him before he went inside. At least get close enough so that he would notice me. I ducked out from my conversation with Reba, "Gotta go, see you later?"
    "Sure, okay. Lunch!"
    At any other time I would have loved chatting with my new friend, but this mission was top priority. Our eyes had to meet again. I didn't take mine off of him. He stopped a few steps away from the door and took a look at his flexer. It was black and blue and wrapped around his wrist. I slowly moved in closer. I felt my temperature rising, my breath quickening. Every face in my periphery was blank except for his. I studied him. His serious expression, the way his sideburns faded into the stubble that traveled down around his chin and over his top lip. He was the perfect mix of babyface and rugged. I wanted to know him so bad. He was still, while everyone around him was in motion. I started in his direction, trying not to be obvious.
    In the blink of an eye, I felt myself twirled around, a door opened in the wall and I was moved through it by another body. I was in the dark, with someone else’s breath closing in on me. I stood stock-still.
    And then we were illuminated. Blue Combat Boots and me. His flexer lit the room with its screen. Not a room, but a small closet, with walls lined in liquid mercury control panels.
    "Who are you and why are you following me?"
    "I'm sorry, I was just– I wasn't following you."
    "You were. I saw you last week. Friday you came outside my first session and now you're back."
    Busted. We stared each other down, each one having a completely different reason than the other.
    "Tell me what you want."
    He looked paranoid, guarded and intent on getting answers.
    "I am so sorry, I think you have the wrong idea."
    "I don't have any idea. I just see what I see and want to know what's going on."
    "I totally get that and I realize how this might seem. Wow. I'm totally not spying on you or anything crazy. I'm Doro. I'm new here."
    "Uh huh..." It wasn't enough.
    "I just thought you looked... interesting."
    "Interesting?"
    Okay. I had dug myself into a hole. At this rate, things were not looking good. If I wanted to save face, my only option was to go with honesty. "I saw you on my first day and thought you were..." Wow. No matter what I said next, I was destined to sound like a fool–
    "Handsome."
    He breathed a sigh of relief. I allowed myself a bashful smile. He squinted but didn't blink. I welcomed the way his eyes pierced right through me. His paranoid, guarded, intent gaze morphed. He squished his lips in thought, trying to get a read on me, I could tell. Although these weren't ideal circumstances for a first meeting, I was glad that it looked like he believed me.
    "You just sent me into code red, you know."
    "I know. Bad move. I really didn't mean to cause you any–"
    "It's okay. We're good."
    He said we were good. I was closer to him than I could have imagined on this mission, and we were speaking, one on one, with no one else around. I could get used to this.
      Suddenly, our flexer notifications went off at the same time. It broke the tension and we both laughed. Session was beginning.
    "Dang." He muttered as he turned, flexer raised. The golden door opened, and he was gone.

12
    A S THE WEEKS went by, I started feeling kind of down. Becoming acclimated to Seneca was a thrill and there were