Free Torrent (Cosmic Forces Book 1) by Elle Thorne Page A

conflicted by his role in her sister’s life, though it seemed minimal, and the idea that he had the power to take Gillie away.
    At the same time that she was in all this turmoil, she felt a sense of peace that Torrent wouldn’t do anything to hurt them. He wouldn’t do anything to hurt Gillie. He’d saved her life, after all, and he didn’t have to do that. If he really wanted to take Gillie away, he could have let the privateers kill her and then come to the apartment and taken Gillie.
    Hell, he could have come up here and killed them all quickly, quietly, and efficiently, then taken Gillie and not a single soul would have noticed.
    She leaned against the door and touched her finger to her lips. He was going to kiss her. She was certain of it. And a part of her—a very big part of her—wanted that. God, did she ever. A flush of heat saturated her chest, then traveled up her neck to her face. She put her hands over her cheeks. They were hot. Desire? Embarrassment? A combination?
    “Where’d you meet him?”
    She jerked her head in the direction of Jesse’s voice. He was in a dark corner, leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest.
    “Well?”
    She shook her head to clear it. “He came here looking for Gillie and Melissa.” More Gillie than Melissa, she told herself.
    “And the lifesaving shit you talked about?”
    Alyssa summed it up for him, brought him, Sonya, and Belinda up to date with what had transpired in as much detail as she could offer without revealing what was going on deep inside her.
    She felt like a liar, though it was a lie of omission. Her feelings weren’t something she was ready to share. She wasn’t quite sure what those feelings were yet. She wasn’t sure she even had the right to have these feelings.
    “We’ve never seen you like this.”
    “I’m not like anything. That’s Melissa’s—Gillie’s—that’s wrong. Just plain wrong.”
    “Melissa’s not around anymore,” Jesse said.
    As if that makes what I’m feeling right. Was her brother trying to make her feel better? Did he really know how she was feeling?
    “Alyssa.” Sonya put her hand on Alyssa’s shoulder. “If Torrent and Melissa… if Melissa had really cared for Torrent, if there’d been anything there worth mentioning, don’t you think she would have?”
    Alyssa nodded. Sonya did have a point. She felt a little better.
    Belinda stepped closer. “We were her closest friends. We’d have known. Think it happened that summer when she volunteered to help with the war effort?”
    “Where’d she go? That would help us figure something out,” Sonya said.
    “Melissa couldn’t say. She said she was sworn to secrecy,” Alyssa reminded them.
    “I think she came back pregnant,” Belinda added. “She really did seem different, didn’t she? Quiet, even moody?”
    “Women. Hormones,” Jesse scoffed and ducked away as Alyssa and Belinda swung at him though they knew he was playing.
    “Seriously, I’m late. I have to go.” Alyssa shoved her arms into her dark, hooded garment.
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    T his night was a short teaching night. The kids were eight blocks away, and they would all have been seniors, if they’d been going to high school. The kind of high school that used to be, before the war.
    This was Alyssa’s special class. Small in numbers, much more advanced than the other students. It made her heart ache to imagine their talent would be wasted in a factory for the rest of their lives.
    She made her way slowly and cautiously after the last couple nights’ events. The last thing she needed was to meet up with privateers tonight. A part of her hoped that Torrent was somewhere nearby, just in case. Stupid thing to hope for. As if the man didn’t have better things to do than save her ass every night.
    Two blocks to go. They held class in an abandoned building close to the kids’ homes. That way at least she didn’t have to take them traipsing through half of Houston to get to class.
    “Where you