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“No,” I said sharply “This is all some kind of creepy trick!”

He didn’t deign to reply to that He waited, silent, as the truth, or at least a part of it, began to sink in

“I’ punished,” I said

Again, he said nothing I wondered if I could find a way to feel what he was feeling, to know his mind as I had so easily penetrated the hts that way, I felt his mind retreat and fend me off

It was like the door handle I could see him, but I was not allowed to touch him Not physically, not mentally I was an open book to him, and he was closed to me

I am not to be touched

“Not all rim,” he said at last “This terrible matter will hold for a while And I think you could do with a change of scenery”

6

THE CHANGE OF SCENERY WAS SUDDEN AND extre over Samantha Early’s body, and the next ere in the backseat of a car The transfer was carried out by no usual earthly means and was testahtest acceleration, though we had gone in a flash from stationary to sixty-four miles an hour

A boy and a girl were in the front seat The girl was driving The boy was clowning, doing a duck-face rendition of a Rihanna song The girl laughed

“What is this?” I asked in a whisper It was a natural huun to realize that nothing I did would be seen, and nothing I said would be heard by the people atched

“This is Eer said

Lia he could have been the poster boy for an Irish tourisn Emma was very nearly his opposite She was Latina, with extraordinarily voluminous brown hair, dark eyes, and smooth skin that I admired

“Is that the place?” Liam asked as they drove past a narrow, rutted driveway marked by ati it

You can sense when a couple is a couple, when they are so close that silence is as good as talking, and when talking is a series of sentences left dangling because you know the other person knohat you mean A couple is close when most of what passes between the to outsiders I had the vague feeling that perhapsthat I had never known that kind of relationship