Innocence and Evil (The Arcadia Falls Chronicles #6) by Jennifer Malone Wright

chick and telling someone if you’re upset or
worried or whatever, doesn’t have any bearing on how people see
you.”
    She rolled over so she wasn’t facing me
anymore. “Don’t worry, I’ll get over it.”
    I let out a huge, dramatic sigh and crossed
my arms over my chest. “Are you kidding me, now I really want to
know? All this ‘it’s nothing’ crap just makes me want to know even
more.”
    “Fine!” She rolled back over. “I am the only
one in this house without any gifts … I feel so useless sometimes.
At least when Drew didn’t have any, I wasn’t alone.”
    I shook my head. “Luke doesn’t have any
powers.”
    “Yes he does. He’s like … psychic or
something.”
    I furrowed my brow. “He is?”
    “Yeah.” She nodded, “It’s not something like
where he gets these incredible visions of the future, but he can
sense certain things.”
    “That’s dumb, anyone can do that.”
    “Well …” She frowned. “It doesn’t make me
feel any better about it. I know I’m never going to have gifts, if
I was intended to have them, I would have already come into them by
now.”
    I heaved myself up and straddled her,
placing an arm on either side of her head so that I was staring
straight down into her eyes. “You are special. You do have gifts.”
I inched my face closer to hers. “Just because it’s not something
supernatural, doesn’t mean that you aren’t special. No one I know
can come close to throwing a knife the way you can. You have an
ability that no one else has.”
    She tried to turn her face away. I reached
over and stopped her. “No. Don’t turn away.”
    “It’s not a gift, Zander, it’s a skill.
Anyone can learn how to throw a knife.”
    “Not like you.”
    She managed a small smile. “You’re only
saying that to make me feel better.”
    I dipped down and kissed her soft lips. “Yes
and no. I do want you to feel better and I’d probably say anything
right now to make that happen. But, I do think you have an ability
that is only for you. Yeah, people can learn a skill, but it takes
someone extra special to be extraordinary at it. And you … my love
… are extraordinary.”
    Her eyes widened. “Did you just …”
    Oh crap .
    “You said …”
    Own it Zander, I told myself. You
don’t always have to be hard. You can let her in and still be the
person that you are.
    “Yeah, I called you my love, and you are.
Deal with it woman.”
    She laughed. “I know you love me, you moron.
I just never thought I would hear you say it.”
    I grasped her hands in mine, pinning them to
the pillows on either side of her. “Oh really, how do you know how
I feel about you?”
    She rolled her eyes. “You aren’t as much of
a closed book as you think you are. I can just tell, even when you
don’t say it.”
    “It’s hard to say it,” I whispered.
    “You don’t have to,” she told me in a soft
voice, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips.
    This time when I bent down to kiss her, I
didn’t pull away. I sunk into her, letting her know without words
just how special I thought she was.
    It wasn’t until later, when I was checking
the clips in my guns and putting my holster on, that I realized she
didn’t tell me that she loved me back. I knew she did, but it was
just strange that she would have a harder time admitting it than I
did. Maybe, she was truly the roughest one out of all of us.
    I made up my mind right then, I was going to
make her know that she was an asset to the group and her abilities
were ones we couldn’t do without. The fact that she didn’t have any
supernatural powers was bothering her and I didn’t want her to feel
like we didn’t need her. I needed her … and so did everyone
else.
    ***
    The entire group was gathered downstairs in
the living room. A map was spread out on the coffee table and Drew
was already giving orders on what positions each person was to
take. He glanced up when Christina and I entered the room. “Nice to
have you two join