Out of Mind Read Online Free PDF

we can all swoon over you.”
    A heavy hand landed on Ben’s shoulder and he looked into Sykes’s brilliant blue eyes. “How long have you been here?” Ben asked.
    “I was worried about Willow. Something’s definitely going on. I caught up with her in the street and came here with her—more or less.”
    Pascal shrugged as if he was out of patience. “Really, Sykes. Why not meet your sister out there like any normal man and walk with her back to the shop? Why all this silly showing off?”
    “Normal?” Sykes said with a wicked grin. “If you don’t know the reason for my caution, I’ll tell you. I was trying to see if there was something around that shouldn’t be there. With me walking along beside her in clear sight, I doubt there would be anything to see.”
    “Was there?” Marley, Pascal and Ben asked together.
    Sykes sat down and stretched out his tall body on an old fainting couch with gilded legs shaped like fish standing on their heads. He put his hands behind his neck. “Depends on what you mean by was. ” Sykes appeared all shadows and angles; his eyebrows flared and he managed to look as if he belonged on the eighteenth-century couch, even if it was much too short for him.
    A Renaissance man with muscles like steel, whip-fast reflexes and hands honed to weapons by years of chiseling stone, Sykes had made a name for himself as a sculptor.
    Marley sighed, but Winnie trotted over to plant her front feet on Sykes’s ribs and lick his dramatic face.
    “No more evasive answers,” Pascal said shortly.
    “When Willow’s hair moved away from her neck out there and she felt a sensation on her neck, was there anything there if I couldn’t see it? It made her scream.”
    Ben’s jaw tightened and he turned to look down on his old friend. “I saw her touch her neck just now. Why? You know, don’t you?”
    Sykes got up and paced. “You’re the one who’s going to find out what she felt, Ben. She may tell you. With the rest of us she won’t admit there’s anything in the world that’s not what she calls ‘normal.’ Her hair moved, or was moved. And she felt something. I thought I saw a separate shadow, but I couldn’t be sure. So was there something?”
    Ben thought about it. “Didn’t you say that after Marley and Gray came together and Willow accidentally let everyone know she can see hidden events and feelings, past and present, you thought she was ready to join the fold?”
    “Sykes is an optimist,” Marley said. She sat on the stairs and Ben was struck afresh by the appeal of the Millet women. “Willow has powers none of us had guessed at. She could see how Gray had suffered in the past, and how it affected him, but she only slipped up and let us know because she felt badly for Gray.”
    Ben screwed up his eyes. “An advanced power, I should think. And rare. Where is Gray, did you say?”
    “His office is still at his dad’s cottage in Faubourg Marigny. He’s either over there or out on the job. He’ll be back a bit later.”
    “I may need him,” Ben said. He wasn’t above confronting Willow with solid evidence of how “normal” she was. “I’ll be seeing you.”
    Ben gave Sykes a look that warned him to not follow him as he went after Willow. As powerful as Sykes was,he wasn’t the only one who could be around without others knowing it. The difference was that Ben used invisibility to travel to other locations, often returning without anyone being aware he had ever left. And in truly extreme situations he could manipulate time—which was a skill he had never told anyone about. It was dangerous and carried more responsibility than anyone could take lightly, but Ben was schooled in keeping the changes minuscule and returning time to its rightful place once he’d carried out what had to be done.
    He held out his hand for the package containing the gun. Pascal grimaced, but handed it over.
    “Good luck,” Sykes said with a sympathetic shrug. “I think it’s time for me to