Supernormal by Caitlen Rubino-Bradway

calm and cool.  An accent, too, but it seemed to fit with this long, lean boy who somehow made a T-shirt and jeans look like a suit.
    “Ask me,” he said again.
    “Can—can you sit over there?” she managed, nodding at the opposite side of the room.
    Cam hesitated.
    “Please,” she rasped.
    He didn’t go across the room.  He took the seat right next to her, moving slow, steady.  Like he was dealing with a wild animal—Which you are, Ashley thought, and hated herself in that moment.  His scent was clouding her head; cool, clean and cool, it swirled through her in fresh, clear spirals.
    “You’re not going to do anything.”  His voice was quiet, but the words caught her up short.  She was leaning towards him, she realized, and flattened herself against the back of the chair.  Ashley shut her eyes against it.  Nose plugs.  She really needed to invest in nose plugs, if there was such a thing.  The doctors didn’t tell you about that .  Oh, no, they mentioned the speed, and the strength, they put you into a coma lecturing about changes in your metabolism, she’d had days of eye tests after the damn implants went in, but they didn’t say a word about the nose.
    “I need to talk to you.”
    What?  “What?”  She opened her eyes to stare at him.
    Blue eyes.  They filled her vision.  He had such blue eyes, and something inside her wound tighter even as she managed to make her fingers relax.  Boys shouldn’t have eyes like that.  Made it hard to look at anything else.
    “I need to talk to you,” he repeated.  “What are you doing after?”  He nodded at the doctor’s office.
    The unreality of it startled her into laughing. She could feel the sound vibrating deep in her chest, raw against her ribs.  “Are you—asking me out on a date ?”
    “Let’s just call it coffee.”  Dimples winked in his cheeks as he smiled.  “But I could get prettied up for you if you want.”
    “I don’t drink coffee.”
    “High tea, then.”  His expression turned serious.  “But I do need to talk to you.”
    “About what?”
    “About what you almost did to that boy in Paco’s.”
    Ashley shot to her feet, away from him.  “I didn’t do anything to him.”
    “I know what you almost did.  What you wanted to do.”
    He wouldn’t stop staring at her.  “What kind of freak are you?”
    “I don’t know.  What kind of freak are you?  Most girls I know wouldn’t be able to rip a man’s throat out.”
    “I didn’t —”
    The doc came out from her office.  “Is everything all right?”  She took in the two of them, then said, “Ashley, I’ve finished up, you can come in now.  Good-bye, Cam.”
    “Good-bye, ma’am, and thank you,” he said, eyes still on Ashley.  He nodded at her and left.
     

Ch. 6
     
    He waited outside, but she must’ve seen him and headed off in a different direction.  He was going to see her on Tuesday; still, when he got back, Cam called Brody’s, left his name and number, and asked Ashley to call him.
    She didn’t, but then he hadn’t expected her to.  There was a fine line between concerned and creepy, and Cam had the feeling he was on the wrong side of it.
    Cam took to wandering around the island on his off hours.  He’d pick a random direction and set off, getting in as much ground as he could, usually stopping by the police station on his way back.  They knew his name now, even if they didn’t have any work for him.  He wondered if it was normal for a town this size to have so many Missing posters.
    He told himself he wasn’t looking for her , that he wasn’t looking for anything in particular.  He was just walking, enjoying the sun and the solitude.  It wasn’t a complete lie.  But he still didn’t see anything, and it seemed she was very good at avoiding people.
    He picked the beach today.  Meg said she liked to run on the beach.  There was a trail that wound down through the sand, cutting behind the dunes.  It gave him a measure of