Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (19 page)

When he finishes
the blood, I stagger
to my feet, using the wall
to get to one of the kitchen chai
rs. Sitting in it, I pant
, “Now tie me up.”

“Red—” Russell starts
to say.

“When you’re done, knock the chair back, so I can’t walk around.
HURRY!” I order
, feeling like I’m going
to
attack him at any second and try to rip the blood out of him. Taking off
his belt, he winds
it through the back of the chair
and around my hands while I make
a concerted effort not to move.

Russell walks
around to the front of the chair.
He eases
it back so that I’m re
sting on my arms. “Don’t die, Red,” Russell pleads
softly. “Promise.”

“I won’t,
” I say
weakly, trying to smile, but I can’t see his face through my tears. “I promise.”

Russell leaps away then
and
is gone fro
m the house with the banging of a door several rooms away.
I close
my eyes
.
The house
takes on the silence of a tomb; the only sound becomes my ragged breath as it passes over
my dry lips. The silence grows
as my breathing begins to slow
and wheeze
out
the name, “
Reed...Reed...Reed...
”

As if in answer to my
mantra
, w
hispering hisses assail
me from
all
the corners of the kitchen,
Genevieve…struggl
e now…it makes us want you more
.
Opening my
eyes again, shadows
flitter and scurry, beetling along the walls like gruesome Werree
monsters
.

“Not here...
YOU
’
RE NOT HERE!” I scream at them with
tears sliding d
own m
y cheeks
as my breathing beco
me
s
erratic
once more
.

T
he smell of Eion’s blood drifts
to me from the floor
s
above, causing my e
yes to roll in agony. I strain
forward, struggling against the leather belt binding
my hands, wanting to go to him—
to feed on his dead corpse. Bashing my head hard against the back of the
chair a couple of time
s
, I try
to knock myself out so that I won’t move from here. My head feels sticky, like I might’ve cu
t it open as disorientation makes
me rest it against the seat back again.

A noise from the hallway
outside the kitchen
makes me cringe
as I imagine
every type of monster that I have met being the source of it.
I groan
while I try
to lift my head so that I can see the doorway.

The golden glint of a tip
of an arrow breaks
the plane of the doorframe. My eyes widen
, following th
e shaft of the arrow back to delicate-
looking fingertips, pu
lling the string of the bow tau
t.

A
deep, quivering
exhale
comes from me
as a
beautiful
, pale
face of a
feminine angel turns
her green-eyed gaze on me through the si
ght window of her bow. Her inky
black wing
s ri
se threatening
ly and her eyes narrow as she stares
back at me with a grim expression. Taking
a step into the kitchen, she doesn’t lower her bow, but dra
w
s
her arm back a little more, ratcheting t
he arrow tighter on the string.

“You’re not real,” I mumble
to her, staring
back
at the ceiling a
nd waiting to see if she’ll morph
into something else or just disappear.

Sweet, soft music tumbles
from her lips, sounding like she’s speaking to me in Angel. But, if she’s really here, the derisive expression on her face is letting me know that she’s not friendly.

“Blah, blah, blah,
” I mutter
fe
ebly. “You’re my hallucination. Y
ou should know that I don’t speak Angel.”

She approaches
me then, peering down o
n me. Using her foot, she catches
the base of my chair,
tipping it up abruptly. She bends
d
own so that we’re
at
eye level. Her
black hair falls
fo
rward as she speaks in Angel again.
T
he tip of her arrow
arches
close to my head.

“Okay,
” I murmur
, mo
istening my lips, “t
hat seems a little more real.”

With a scowl on h
er face, the black-winged angel
put
s
her foot on my chair again.
Kicking
the bottom of it, my chair
slid
es
back across the floor, cra
shing into the wall behind me and crushing my arms painfully.

“Bitch
!” I cringe
, my wings moving painfully, trying to get me to fight back, but my hands are still locked behind me.

Again, beau
tiful music tumbles
from
her mouth
.

“I DON’T SPEAK ANGEL!” I shout
back at her, straining my
hands to get free. H
er fingers relax
then
, releasing the string and sending her arrow spiraling toward me at a deadly velocity. Throwin
g my body to the left, I pitch
the chair over, avoidin
g the arrow aimed at my heart. I
t embeds
in the wall behind me. Hitting the f
loor, the chair breaks
, releasing my hands.

“RUSE-EL,” she shouts
, pulling another arrow from the quiver strapped to her side. Sh
e looks like a trained assassin; her tight black outfit hugs
her every curve so that no one can grab any loose fabric to use against her in a fight.

“Wait,” I say
, stumbling to my feet and rubbing my numb
hands together. Dizziness overco
me
s
me and I
fa
ll back against the wall, sliding to the floor again.

“Ruse-el,” she snarls
between her teeth, easing the string of her bow back
and aiming another golden
arrow at my head.

“
RED! I FOUND BLOOD!” I hear
Russell shout as he
bangs
open the
f
ront door of the town house
, pounding
down the hallway
toward the kitchen.

“RUSSELL, NO!” I shout
. The black-winge
d angel turns when she hears
Russell’s voice, lowering her bow to her side.

Entering
the kitchen, Russell’s face goes
fro
m relief
to confusion as he free
ze
s
, taking in the situation before him.
“Shee
ee-
it
, Red,” Russell breathes
, seeing the angel in the midd
le of the room. His hand goes
to h
is stomach, touching it lightly. He turns
his eyes on me, seeing me sitting listlessly on the floor.

“Russell,” I whisper
. “R
un.”

Don’t Wake
M
e

Russell

Scannin’ the broken
kitchen
chair n
ext to Red, my eyes quickly go
to
her pale face before they shift
, restin’ on the black-w
inged angel between us. I touch
my stomach again, it
’
s flutterin’ and jumpin’ like it’s filled with
thousands of crickets. My face darkens
. Slowly, I set the canister in my hand down by the wall. Then, my win
gs emerge
from my back, archin’ out like thick, blazin’
banners
.
It had been a huge effort to get my wings to go back in, but it’s a relief to have them out now.

“Red, who’s this?” I ask
, takin’ a cautious
step toward her
position
on the floor by the far wall.

The b
lack wings of the other angel spread out
wide
in front of me, blockin’
my view of Red behind their long, elegant expanse.
I scan
her face;
her bea
utiful, green eyes follow
my eve
ry move. H
e
r
wings twi
tch
agitatedly, movin’ he
r
long, thick, black hair.

“I don’t know,”
Red
whispers, “b
ut
,
she’s not friendly. Y
ou need to go now.”
Splinterin’
pain
creeps
in
to
her voice. I know the pain she’s in now. It probably feels like her v
eins are turnin’ to stone.

“Yeah…that’s not gonna happen,”
I
whisper
back, feelin’ like I should be sweatin’, but I’m cold, like I’ll never be warm agai
n. “What do you
want?” I demand of the stranger in the kitchen. My hands feel weak and I
want to drop them to my sides
, but I don’t
.

Tiltin’
her head to the side, she gazes
at my face.
Her flawless skin flushes
, a soft blush spreadin’ over h
er cheeks. Then, her eyes rest
on
my neck, and her
brows sho
o
t together in a scowl. Beautiful musi
c falls
fr
om her lips in a rapid flow of A
ngelic words. It’s like how Buns sounds when she’s talkin’ to Zephyr in Angel.
She moves toward me, and I take
a
guarded
step back from her.

She stops talkin’ and just looks
at me
. There is a long pause before she says
someth
in’ else. Her eyes look strange,
like she’s expectin’ a different re
action from me. My eyes follow hers and I see
that she’s
lookin’ at my chest, seein’
blood oozin’ from the Gancanagh bites that aren’t healin’.

I touch my neck
lightly,
“Yeah…t
he blood suckers got me,” I admit
softly. “They got my girl, too. I need to give her some blood…so she won’t be hurtin’ so bad,” I
try
to explain, gesturin’ toward Red
on the floor behind her. I pick
up the canister
I had
brought
and try
again to inch around
the
seriously sexy angel in front of me.

She steps
in front of me again
,
and raisin’ her bow, she points her gold-
tipped arr
ow at me. “Okay, listen,” I exhale
, puttin’ out both of my hands to stop her from shootin’ me. “This is blo
od,” I say
, shakin’ the canister
demonstratively,
“
I need to give it to her
. You’d never believe it, but the butche
r shop that was here six hundred
years ago still exists.”
I inch
another ste
p toward Red, continuin’ to talk
like eve
rythin’ isn’t completely effed up
and out of control
. “
Coincidence
you
might say, but I’m thinkin’
that this was all in some
huge playbook and I alr
eady studied the play—
I just need to execute it.”