The Whole Truth (The Supercharged Files Book 1) (18 page)

He didn’t answer, just got in the
car with his leather man bag and crossed his arms.

“How cute, we both have purses.”

He still didn’t say anything. He
was probably suffering emotional upheaval from the burnout, but he was upright
and walking. He hadn’t had a stroke. I wasn’t one to look on the bright side,
but his situation could be worse.

“You can sleep in the back if you
want.” Then I’d be under no obligation to talk to him. He’d make me practice my
fade for the next five hours and lecture me on my errors.

“Take my eyes off the road? Not a
chance. I want to see the guard rail coming.”

“My driving record is practically
unblemished.” I fiddled with the radio until I found a loud rock station.

He clicked the radio off. “I
still have a headache.”

“I figured you did.” I thought
about switching the radio back on, but I wasn’t that mean.

He fell silent. I fell silent.
Atlanta traffic, a hideous, snarling monstrosity, required all my
concentration. I didn’t hear an audible sigh of relief from him once we were
free of the beast and on our way to Tennessee, but by that point I couldn’t
bear the quiet any longer.

I sighed for both of us. “I hate
city driving.”

I expected him to say, “I hate
your driving,” but he didn’t. He said, “Can you see me?”

I glanced at him. “Yeah.”

“Describe me.”

I knew this test. “You’re
slouched in the seat with your legs spread. Classic little man syndrome, trying
to take up more space than your itty bitty body needs. Sleeveless maroon
T-shirt, the epitome of classy, and ripped off khaki pants. You know, they sell
those as shorts. Hemmed and everything. A necklace with what looks like cat
food on it. Tattoo. Earrings. Since when do you wear earrings?” He had a tiny
silver hoop in each lobe.

It was weird, now that I
reflected on it, to see him out of a lab coat. His biceps were cut, and he had
a tattoo around one, black ink barely visible against his dark skin. The
T-shirt did his chest some favors I didn’t appreciate noticing. I’d always
known he was physically attractive, but I’d disliked him so much it didn’t
matter. It didn’t seem to matter to anyone, though the ladies at YuriCorp
enjoyed cataloguing the men a lot more than the men dared catalogue the ladies.

“Don’t take this the way it
sounds,” I said, “but have you been working out?”

“No.” He leaned his head back and
groaned. His full lips, lips I’d never, ever focused on before this very
moment, tightened. “Hell and damnation.”

“What?” I tore my gaze from him
and placed it on the road.

“My fade is gone.”

“Didn’t you expect it to be?” The
man was burned out. Many victims hadn’t regained their abilities, and Adam
Donning’s situation was looking dismal in many ways. His stroke had been massive.

“Doesn’t make it any easier to
tolerate.”

How would not being able to fade
affect his daily existence? Chameleoning was a touch suprasense, and he didn’t
use it in the lab. He only used it in training, which he seemed to hate as much
as he’d hated being on site. Hell, he might be happier without those
obligations.

“Does your skin feel dead?” I
wasn’t experienced enough with chameleoning to imagine what it would be like to
lose it.

“It’s not that.” We rounded a
curve, and the setting sun blasted directly into the car. He flipped a pair of
shades from his man bag and slid them on.

Maybe dead skin wasn’t making him
morose. It could be the loss of his other skill—the one that didn’t show up in
the Registry and wasn’t the invisibility thing.

“What do you feel like?” I asked.

“My head hurts. Try to fade,” he
said.

“I can’t, I’m driving.” I needed
to ask my questions so they weren’t suspicious but would produce the answers I
wanted. “How is this going to affect you at work?”

“I won’t have to go on site.”
That wasn’t the whole story. Omissions produced a light masking effect. “Fade.”

I ignored his attempt to divert
me. “If that’s all, why are you so grouchy?”

“Why are you so curious?” He
turned to face me, his brows drawing together above his sunglasses. His
soft-looking lips were darker on the outside, pinker on the inside. He had no
stubble. His sculpted face was as smooth as my legs after a hot wax.

When he slid his arm along the
back of the seat, his muscles bunched, etching out a sexy indention below his
bicep.

There was no reason in the world
why YuriCorp’s women wouldn’t crow about this man’s assets whenever he turned
his back. Especially when he turned his back. It couldn’t be his disposition.
They weren’t loath to objectify any and every man, despite personality or
marital status.

Why was he suddenly so striking?
I’d wanted to strike him on numerous occasions, but I’d never wanted to...

That was disgusting. Come on,
Cleo. Get a grip.

I thought about his body pressed
against mine yesterday, his hands tight on my wrists, his hips between my
thighs. Then I thought about all the mean things he’d said to me, and I got
better.

It helped to fixate on the road.
“Why am I curious? I want to know what it’s like to be burned out.”

“For you, nothing. You’re not
good enough for it to matter,” he lied.

“Asshole.” The insult didn’t have
the vigor it usually did. When you call somebody an asshole that often, it
loses its punch. “What could you do besides be a management consultant if your
ability to be a chameleon never came back?”

“Work in a lab, obviously.”

Another omission. There was
something else he felt he could do; he just wasn’t saying it.

“Did you go to school for science?”

“Yes.”

“Have you had other jobs?”

He pursed his lips, like he
couldn’t decide what he wanted to share. This was as close as we’d ever come to
a personal discussion. I’d had deeper conversations with YuriCorpers I’d only
met once.

I saw Beau every day. Way too
long every day, and I knew nothing about him.

“My first job in the supra
community was with the Registry lab,” he finally said.

“That’s interesting.” The
Registry lab was where supra DNA received the comprehensive analysis required
to determine all sensitivities, especially latent ones. He must know a lot of
things about a lot of people. “Did you like it?”

“It was a job.” He slid his arm
off the seat and faced the front.

There was something more there,
but there could hardly be less. I couldn’t stare at the lips of his mask while
I was driving. I’d have to be satisfied knowing there was a story behind his
nonexistent story. “Why are you working at YuriCorp now?”

“How is that any of your
business?” He shuffled around in his bag and pulled out an MP3 player.

He wouldn’t.

“You may not realize this, but
this is called a conversation. It’s what adults do when they’re trapped in a
car for five hours.”

Next he pulled out headphones.
“If you say so.”

Although I’d hoped he’d sleep in
the back seat, now that I was on the trail of actual facts, I did not want him
putting on those headphones. I started babbling.

“About your job at the Registry.
Did you ever run your own chart and—”

“No,” he lied. He fiddled with
the MP3 player, rolling the dials and inspecting the read-out.

I wasn’t going to get the
information that way without raising his suspicions. “They’ve got no source of
income other than what the companies provide, do they? Like a charity. I can’t
believe we haven’t gotten solicitation calls. They could sell calendars to
raise money—twelve months of sexy supras.” That put me in mind of his
appearance, which was aggravating, but I could use it. “Do you think they’d
want you for Mr. August?”

“Don’t be an idiot.”

I’d never seen a black man blush
before, and I didn’t see one blush now. Damn. “You could pose with Samantha.
She makes you look tall.”

“So do you,” he pointed out.
“Tall
and
thin.”

God, I hated him. Even if he was
only saying it to hurt me—the liar—it rankled.

“You must realize you’re a pretty
boy,” I mocked. “Wham-style double earrings. Tribal tattoo. Hemp necklace.
Trendy little dreads. All smooth-shaven and muscled up. You’re a gym bunny.
Admit it.”

“You’re being ridiculous,” he
lied.

I couldn’t see every detail of
his mask, but oh boy, did he ever have one!

“You’ve been hiding your light
under a bushel,” I guessed. “You actually care about your appearance.”

“No, I don’t.”

Lies, lies, lies! I risked a
long, careful glance. “What are you not telling me?”

“Nothing,” he said, and his mask
said,
I keep a fade all the time.

“Have you...have you been running
a fade at YuriCorp like you did at Wyse Money?”

“No,” he lied.

It was a reasonable guess, even
without reading his mask. “How does it work on me and the other chameleons?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about.” And his mask said,
Chameleons can’t see me, but I can see them. All
of them. No matter how good they are.

I opened my mouth to call him
out, but I wasn’t sure what I’d say. Such a confrontation would mean admitting
my own secret ability, like he’d unwittingly admitted his. He could fade from
other chameleons and see other chameleons who were faded.

That would be handy...for
corporate espionage.

To hell with it. “Are you loyal
to YuriCorp?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. It was
true. “Jesus, Cleo. What goes on in that head of yours?”

“I don’t know. All these horrible
things happening around us. I’m sorry.” Why would he hide his ability if he was
loyal to the company? It wasn’t like mine. It wouldn’t make him a pariah.
Moreover, his running a fade at work all the time baffled me, but he’d denied
it and I couldn’t prove anything unless I told him what I could do.

“Do you want to talk about
something else?” I tried to think of a way I could get him to confirm, out
loud, that he maintained a constant fade.

“Actually, no,” he lied.

Huh.

But then he said, “If you’re not
going to practice, I’m done.” He slipped the headphones into his ears and
cranked his MP3 player so loud I could hear the tinny thump of whatever music
was filtering into his ears.

“Since I have to drive, the least
you can do is entertain me,” I grumbled, but I was pretty sure he couldn’t hear
me. His secret sensitivity, apparently, was in his eyes.

Oh, and his appearance. He seemed
pretty sensitive about that, too.

~ * ~

Two days after we returned from
Atlanta, I returned to work. Yuri had given me the weekend to recover and Beau
as long as he needed, but Monday it was business as usual for us both.

Whatever that was. With me not
gearing up to go on site, I did mornings with Beau and afternoons in consulting
studies with follow-up from Atlanta. I was drawn in on some prep on a couple
projects to see how that side of the business functioned. Yuri didn’t assign me
another job, even though other consultants hopped from site to site without
much of a break now that we were short staffed.

At least Beau’s burnout
distracted him from the tests he’d wanted to run on my DNA. But then, so did
the people who kept showing up at the lab, wanting to speak with him. And other
stuff.

The people at YuriCorp had some
dirty minds.

“I’m serious,” Roxanne said,
cracking her knuckles in the doorway of the lab. “It’s standard procedure to
come in for a checkup if you burn out.”

Beau flipped his goggles to his
forehead. “It’s my brain, not my spine.”

“You’d be surprised how much
difference an adjustment makes. You might be out of alignment and not realize
it.”

“I’m aligned,” he said.

Roxanne wasn’t wearing protective
booties and didn’t step into the lab. I perched on my corner stool, dutifully
faded, which meant neither was fully aware of my presence. Beau’s burnout had
relieved him of his ability to see other chameleons who were faded.

She flipped shiny black curls off
her shoulders and smiled with frightening rapaciousness. “I need to get my
hands on you to be sure.”

“I’ll pass.” Beau replaced his
goggles and turned back to the test tubes he was decanting into a hazardous
waste container.

That was the morning of the first
day. On the second day, Tina Harris, our new chameleon, asked him to lunch in
order to “talk to the master”, which might not have been the best approach,
considering he was burned out and surly about it. Two more single YuriCorp
women and one man also put in an appearance, and that’s just while I was
present.

The women (and gay men) of YuriCorp
had noticed Beau Walker in a big way. When he arrived at work Monday, looking
scruffy yet hot, it took everyone aback. By Tuesday, they figured out he’d been
running a fade this whole time. Several took an almost malicious pleasure in
speculating about his assets when he was within earshot, and Jolene exited LaLa
Land long enough to tease him about what was obvious to everyone.

Not that he admitted he’d been
running a fade. He treated all comers to the same hateful attitude, which goes
to show personality isn’t everything.

On Friday, Beau slammed and
locked the lab door after Sheila Hornbuckle—that slut! what about Bob?—claimed
she needed to consult with him on a possible supra. It was reasonable since he
was our DNA guy, but she’d been lying through her teeth.

She wanted a crack at YuriCorp’s
hottie of the month and had eyeballed me like I was the competition.

When she left, I snickered
loudly. Beau glowered at me and turned his back.

“Everybody hates you,” I said,
“but suddenly they all want to be your friend.” I didn’t think Sheila wanted to
be his anonymous friend and limit their exchanges to one-way notes. “Is this
because you can’t maintain your precious fade at the office?”