Altered by Shelly Crane Page A

the wall. She stopped and looked back, noticing my tone. I waved her off. “Nothing, princess. Let’s get going.”
    She nodded, but I could tell that she hated the thought she’d insulted me somehow. I wiped my face with my hands. How was I going to survive this human girl who was turning me into such a pansy?
    Once we got dressed and on the road, I told her we’d stop in between breakfast and lunch for something to eat if that was fine. It seemed like all we did was stop and cater to her human needs in some form or another. I was growing tired of the anxiousness building in my gut. Ready to find Eli and the rebels, I wanted to get there as quickly as possible. Rebels being what they were, they didn’t have any phones or cells. Fay said the last thing she had from Clara was a letter telling her where she was going, but she hadn’t heard from here since. That was months ago right after the wedding.
    “She’s not ignoring you,” I told her, “they just don’t have any phones where they are.”
    “How is that possible? Everyone has phones.”
    “Not idiots who join groups who move to the middle of nowhere and take up arms for the greater good,” I mumbled under my breath.
    “I heard that,” she hissed and turned in her seat. I rolled my eyes and kicked myself. “What the hell are you talking about?”
    “Nothing.”
    “No, not this nothing stuff. You don’t get to blow me off—”
    “I can,” I insisted. “Now let me drive in peace.”
    She huffed. “Don’t start being grumpy Enoch again. Do you need to feed again already?”
    I glared at her for longer than I should have. “Really?”
    “Watch the road!” She leaned over in my lap and grabbed the wheel. “Enoch, don’t be a lunatic,” she scolded as she leaned back in her seat.
    “I’m only a lunatic when it comes to you it,” I groaned my annoyance. But for some strange reason, she took that as a compliment. Her cheeks bloomed and her fingers fidgeted as her lips opened. I stopped her by interrupting with, “And don’t even try to cover that up, princess.”
    She huffed a surprised breath, as if she didn’t know what to do next. “I don’t know what to do with you sometimes, Enoch.”
    I grinned. “I can think of a few fun things.” I looked over, expecting to see a smile at my goading, but she wasn’t smiling. She was doing the opposite of smiling and it made me want to crawl into a hole.
    “Like right now,” she admitted and turned to look out the window. “I don’t know what to do with you. I can’t tell if you’re real or not.”
    “What do you mean?” I asked quickly, not letting the moment simmer for fear that I’d chicken out.
    “I know you did something to me.” She lifted her legs up on the seat, rested her chin on her knee, and looked over. “I feel so okay with everything and that doesn’t make any real sense.” She looked right in my eyes. “Are you going to deny it?”
    I shook my head, glancing between her and the road. “No. I persuaded you to be accepting of the things going on, to protect your mind and sanity, so I could get you to your sister safely and quickly.”
    “And that’s all?” she asked and there seemed to be an underlying question she wasn’t asking. I felt my brow lower in question. “You didn’t add anything else in there, some other addendum or agenda?”
    I shook my head, knowing that she no longer trusted me, no longer cared, and no longer wanted me to be near her. The afterglow was over. The short-lived dream I had of living some normal life was done. I had been stupid to think it could be true for even a morning.
    “No, Fay,” I said and stared at the road as steadily as I could muster, but it still came out gravely and tortured. “No, I just wanted to help you.”
    She turned to look at my profile, but I didn’t look back at her. I drove a little faster than I should have, determined to get there faster. She didn’t want to be here with me any longer than necessary, not