Page 68 of Hannah and the Hitman

HANNAH

I’d felt the electricity in the air. The way my hairs rose on my arms and the nape of my neck. It was the same zap that had happened between us ever since we met on the plane. I’d thought it was static buildup with my hair, the dry Colorado air, even the potency of what we felt for each other.

But no. It seemed like it was the sign that I was building up power to teleport. I’d felt it whenever I was around Jack. Perhaps because he brought out every emotion–until now, everything but anger. The angrier I got, it seemed, the more powerful the force.

That was what I felt when Joey Brains–God, what an awful nickname–had showed up at the library. Then, the charge built to a point that when he strangled me, I’d teleported. It had been out of my control, butso was being strangled. It was as if so many emotions–fear, panic, anger, self-preservation, and more–came out at once.

This time, I hadn’t caught on to the buildup until I was yelling at Jack, so fucking furious that the same electricity started to crackle around us. My hair rose. I got a little zap touching the fridge. Then Jack. More and more until I fueled it enough to actually make it happen.

I’d been mad, sure, but I’d wanted out of there, too. He’d kidnapped me. Jack wasn’t just a hot guy any longer. He was a murderer and I’d needed out of that apartment in a way he couldn’t catch me. I wouldn’t have made it down the exterior stairs, let alone down the alley. But teleporting?

Ha. It was the perfect double middle fingers to Mr. Doubter.

He’d stop doubting me now. I smiled at the thought.

I figured out how I’d teleported, and I caught on how to stick the landing. Meaning, until now, I had no idea where I was going to end up. It seemed Ilandedwherever I’d been thinking about right before I teleported. With Joey Brains in the library, I’d been thinking about my grocery list and ended up in the grocery store. This time, I’d been thinking about the toys Jack had bought for us.

I wasn’t standing in front of taco fixings. I was in the dildo section of an adult store.

A smiling clerk dressed in head-to-toe goth came down the aisle. “Sorry, didn’t see you come in. Can I help you with something?”

“Can I use your phone?”

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JACK

I blinked.

“What the fuck?”

I spun in a circle.

“WHAT THE FUCK?”

Hannah was gone. Like, poof.

One second, she was using every swear word in the English dictionary to tell me off and the next she disappeared. She’d been right in front of me. Poking me in the chest. Then… gone.

Was I losing my mind? I ran a hand over my face, then down the back of my neck. Jesus, didIhave a brain tumor?

I could smell her. That soft scent that drove me fucking mad. She’d been here. I wasn’t going crazy.

No, I was going crazy.

“Hannah!” I yelled, her name echoing off thebrick walls.

I ran around the loft, opening bedroom doors, peeking behind shower curtains as if she were playing hide and go seek.

She wasn’t here.

Next, I went to the door, flung it open. Dax’s car was still parked below.

What was it called inStar Trek?Did someone beam her up? Wait. She hadn’t justteleported, had she? She said her friend Brittany thought she had superpowers, but TELEPORTING?

If that really was what she did, because it seemed crazy that that was the most plausible answer, then where did she go?

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