Genius (CENTURIES series: Book #2)

15

"Caleb?"

"That depends on who's asking."

"I-I'm friends with Eli," Mia breathed, trying to control her rapidly beating heart. Now knowing that this had to be Caleb, her fear started to evaporate. The adrenaline took a little longer, though. "He's been trying to find you. You are Caleb, right?"

Caleb let go of her and Mia turned around to face him. Good God, Eli had under-exaggerated when he said Caleb looked like a choir boy. He looked like some Abercrombie and Fitch model who should be trying to sell the red hoodie he had on instead of wearing it. Tall, lean and blond with blue eyes and a cheeky face, he looked fresh and hot.

"Who exactly are you?" He asked, raising one perfect brow. "Are you and Eli fucking or something?"

But of course he had the same mouth as Eli.

"Uh... that's complicated. The real question is, why the hell did you attack me like that?" She snapped, suddenly aware that he had just attacked her from behind like a thug. "You could've come up and talked to me like a normal person! What is it with you and Eli and your thing with sneaking up on people?!"

"You could have been a nark, I had to make sure!" Caleb countered, then suddenly grinned to Mia's surprise. "Besides, I've always wanted to try that whole 'attack-from-behind' thing. I see guys in movies do it all the time, it looks fun."

"The bad guys do it!"

"So what? The joker was a bad guy, he still had his fun?"

"The joker was a psychopa—" Why the hell were they discussing this? "Never mind, listen; Why have you been hiding?" Mia asked, looking seriously at Caleb. "Eli has been going out of his right mind, what about your sister?! You just left her, you—"

"Wow easy, lady!" Caleb said, holding up his hands to stop her furious rant. "That's my business, and frankly, you're very much a stranger. A ridiculously hot one, but still. Now, as much as I'd love to have a Forrest Gump moment with you on that bench over there and share you my whole story over a piece of chocolate, I really don't have the time. Your blue-haired friend just put a bug on my computer, after she traced my IP address—"

"Zoe did that?" Mia wondered out loud. She had certainly failed to mention that during her little 'I-did-it' speech. "Why would she do that?"

"Well, if I knew, then we wouldn't be out here talking on the street this lovely, cold evening," Caleb said, giving her a deadpan look. "Look sweetcheeks, I have no beef with you or your smurf friend in there, so could you just tell her to remove the bug, or else I'm going to fry her computer's memory chip. That means losing all her data and nude polaroids, selfies, cat pictures and—"

"I know what it means, but could you not do that?" Mia snapped. "I can't tell you why Zoe decided to do that – actually, I think I can – but I'm not going to. The only thing we need to focus on is that we need to go to Eli. And you have to go see your sister, because she misses you," Mia growled. "Got it? Good, then let's go, my car's right there."

"No! I can't!" Caleb exclaimed when Mia tried to walk around him to her car. She turned on her heel and looked at him. He looked dead serious. "I can't go back there, they can't find me."

"Why not?"

"Because then they'll find him."

Mia felt as if she'd just been hit in the stomach with a bat. "Him? You mean Eli?"

Caleb pressed his lips tightly together, then looked down. When he looked up again, she noticed his eyes looked... wet. "I miss my sister... God, I do. But if I go see her, I'll lead them straight to Eli. I won't do that."