Read Online Axis of Aaron by Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt - Free Book Online Page B

his pursuit. He had to look the woman in the eyes and say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were someone from my office.”  
    Except that he was simultaneously quite sure he wouldn’t say that when she turned, because he did know her. She’d look back, and he’d see that she had green eyes, full cheeks, and a way of smiling that was almost a sexy kind of smirk. A girl he knew from … from …?
    Another corner. Another flash of red. Then gone. As if she knew he was behind her, and was leading him on a seductive game of follow the leader.  
    Ebon ran. And again, just as he peeked around the corner, he saw her disappear to the left. He needed to see her face. He had to know. Who was she? Why was she so damn familiar? An itch that couldn’t be scratched, like a rash deep beneath an inflexible cast. And like scratching that itch under a cast, Ebon no longer cared if he had to cut himself to reach it.
    He saw her again, and again she vanished to the left. A swoosh of bright red fabric, a tantalizing side-rear view of large breasts, then nothing.
    “Hey!” Ebon called out. “Excuse me, Miss?”  
    The blocks in the maze were short; she’d have to hear him. Except that the woman didn’t know him and wouldn’t think to stop. If she thought anything, it would be to run.  
    He made the next corner. Saw her vanish again to the left.  
    Left?
    “Miss!”  
    Ebon was nearly out of breath from the running, the exertion, and the anticipation. He’d become a strange brew of nerves, thrills, and arousal. But despite her ability to easily outpace him, whenever he saw the woman, she was walking casually as if gathering shells on the beach. She seemed to vanish from one corner and appear at the next without running the space in between. And, Ebon realized now, she’d taken at least four left turns in a row, more or less going in nonsensical circles.
    “Miss! Excuse me!”  
    Another corner. Another flash of red. Again: left.  
    “Miiiss!”  
    Aware of his panting, feeling more like a stalker and a maniac than ever (and a loud maniac; this was a summer-rental part of town but if anyone was still here they’d think him mad), Ebon drew several deep, panting breaths and felt his pulse thudding in his throat.  
    This was absurd. This was wrong .  
    “Miiii — ”  
    Ebon cut off mid-vowel, finding himself staring into a dead end. Small cottages lined each side of the narrow dirt path, but the canal was straight ahead. There was a highway railing in front of it, three diamond-shaped reflective road signs in its middle so that drunks didn’t drive right into the water. The woman was nowhere.  
    Breathing heavily enough for his shoulders to heave, Ebon looked at the cottages. She must have disappeared into one of them. But he’d been so close, and she’d had only seconds. Moving as slowly and carefree as she’d been, how could she possibly have reached one of the doors, unlocked it, opened it, gone inside, and closed it behind her?  
    Ebon saw no movement, nor heard a door seating home.  
    You’re losing it, buddy.  
    But he wasn’t losing it. Never, ever, ever had Ebon had any sort of hallucination. In movies, stress made people crazy, but Ebon, looking at the cottages, had a hard time believing that stress over Holly and her baggage could create such a vivid, nearly touchable delusion. He wasn’t lying on a bed with his head in the clouds, seeing fields of pink mushrooms and caricatures of the queen coming to life. He was standing on a dirt road with the sun slowly making its autumnal way overhead, air crisp but warming, all of his senses as alive as they’d ever been.  
    This wasn’t a mind trick. She’d really been there. Strangely fast. Lost enough to keep taking left turns. And deaf.
    Ebon could knock on the cottage doors.  
    But that was even more ridiculous than his pursuit had been. What was he supposed to say if she answered? What was he supposed to say if someone else was still down this way, in