Twenty-Three

W

e were soaked by the time a bus screeched to a stop in front of us. He pushed me in front of him onto the stairs. I fought for breath and scanned the aisles for an empty seat. Auras rose in waves above the passengers’ heads like steam off their soaked bodies. With my silver shadow behind me, I made my way through the mist of colors to the rear of the bus.

The mysterious guy openly watched me as, vibrating with shock, I took off my backpack and sat down. His silver aura wreathed his head and cascaded over his wide shoulders. Drops of water darkened the tips of his sandy hair before slipping to slanted cheekbones. He slid into the seat next to me. I removed the hood from my head, wiping rain from my cheeks with my sleeve.

“You are cold.” It was a comment more than a question. “And afraid.”

“Yes,” I answered. Those deaths and the sight of a white aura chilled me to the bone. “Those poor people,” I whispered.

I could feel his eyes on me, his intense energy on me. It was all I could do not to stare. Not because he was attractive. I mean, he was, in a classic statue sort of way. But what attracted me was his metallic aura. I appeased myself by looking at his hand resting on his thigh. I placed my own hand on my leg as well, trying to appear as normal as possible. I wanted to see our hands next to each other. To compare the glows radiating from our skin.

Our auras were identical. Silver beams leaped from our hands in spikes and flares. The longer I stared, the more pronounced the flickering became. All the hairs stood up on my arm.

It reminded me of the time my dad and I had watched a lightning storm a few miles away from our home in Santa Cruz and felt an electrical charge surge through the wire fence we were leaning on. I remember him grabbing me by the waist and running frantically into the house.

The stranger’s aura and my own shot toward each other. My arm buzzed like electrically charged ants marched all over it. Sitting next to him was like being plugged in. His fingers tensed and dug into his jeans. I jerked my hand away but found myself staring at his face, and he at mine. Searching blue eyes. Hair like the beach. Waves of wet sand. He was all rolled rocks, sea glass, and wind.

I tore my gaze away and faced the window, pretending to be absorbed in the city I’d always wanted to see, when really I had never wanted to stare at anyone more in my life. I was so excited to see an aura like mine. It made me feel…less alone. I looked at him again, trying hard to keep my eyes on his and not above his head, or over his broad shoulders, where I could see his silver flashing in time with my own pulse.

He looked at me, knowing and sad. “I believe we are here together because like attracts like.”

I raised my eyebrows. It was either the most arrogant come-on ever or completely, cosmically right. But my breath caught at his next words.

“You see it, of course?”

My response rushed out in an awed whisper. “Yes.”

He nodded. A lock of curly hair fell across one of his eyes. “I’ve been searching for someone like you.” He blinked slowly and smiled with a secret thought. “For someone like me,” he said, holding his hand out to shake mine. “I’m Giovanni Teso.”

I couldn’t deny an instant tie to him. I knew what it was like to be searching, too. “Giovanni.” I rolled his name around on my tongue.

“You can call me G if you like.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to call him G. Giovanni sounded much more exotic. His name was like gelato, cool and flavorful. We shook hands and a palpable shock wave ran up my arm and into my body. Not painful, but startling. He must’ve felt it, too, because we both snatched our hands back.

“Chrísto,” he whispered.

I sat on my hands. “I’m—I’m Cora.”

“Well, Miss Cora. I think we have much to talk about.”

I leaned back in my seat and tried to calm down. I was having major trouble getting the dead couple off my mind. I told myself they were gone even before we ran. There was nothing I could have done to help them.

Now here I sat with the silver guy. My head was a little dizzy and I fought for equilibrium. “Okay, but can we start with the basics so I can catch my breath? Where are you from?”

“Italy.”

It did explain his accent and his straight, prominent nose. The high cheekbones. He had a proud face. Imperious. I could practically envision a Roman toga and a laurel crown over his curls. “But you’re a blond with blue eyes,” I blurted stupidly.

Giovanni smiled and gave a slight nod. “My mother, she was Danish. I take after her a bit on the outside. But on the inside, I’m pure Italian.”

He sure was. Mix a young Nordic Viking with a Roman emperor and you’d have Giovanni Teso. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen. You?”

I gave him my basics. Born in Ireland but grew up in California with my dad. Came here to work on a special, er, project. But all too soon the topic turned to the obvious.

“How long have you been able to see auras?” he asked me matter-of-factly, as though he could be asking how I took my coffee.

“Um. Only a couple of months. I’m still trying to figure it all out. You?”

“Always. Ever since I can remember.”

“Wow.” I tried to imagine what it would be like to be a child who saw auras all the time. How long before he realized it wasn’t normal? I had a million questions. Suddenly, a rogue memory filtered out the way memories sometimes do, lying dormant until triggered by a smell or kicked up by an offhand comment. I had forgotten all about it, until now. “When I was little, I used to have dreams that there were rainbows around people.”

“How do you know it was dreaming?”

I pondered that. “I guess I don’t. But it stopped when I was four or five.” Right about the time my mother disappeared. “Recently, I got incredibly sick, and then the colors started up. I thought something was wrong with me. Like maybe the fever gave me brain damage or something.”

He nudged my shoulder softly with his own. “There’s nothing wrong with you. Except I think, perhaps, you have no idea how rare you are.”

I stared into his eyes, then let my gaze roam, exploring his aura. “How rare we are.” I shifted slightly away so that his shoulder would stop kindling against mine. “You are the only other person I’ve met whose aura is—”

“Beautiful?”

I bit my bottom lip. He was a wily one. “Silver.”

Giovanni leaned his face close. I could see silvery-gray specks in his blue eyes. I tried to ignore the obvious merging of our auras when he was that near. Happy agitation skipped through me, but I couldn’t tell if the thrill I felt was his or my own at finding another silver person.

“Scintilla.”

“What? What does that mean?” The word was wine-red and silky. It sounded like schinteeela in his accent.

“It’s what we call people like us.” His sky-blue gaze traveled over my face, to my aura above my head, and then slowly raked over my body. His nostrils flared a touch before he added, “Spark.”