Awaken Me Darkly (17 page)

“The bad kind.”

“Your sarcasm sucks.” I flicked him a glance, but he kept his profile to me. “Don’t worry. I won’t let her hurt you. If anyone gets your blood, it’s me.”

“I suddenly feel warm and giddy inside.” His tone was as dry as the air. “Are you trying to make me fall in love with you?”

I snorted.

He removed a pyre-gun from the waist of his pants. My old gun, I noticed.

“How appropriate,” I said.

He grinned, kissed the barrel with a mocking wink, lifted it, and fired over the car. “Who would have thought Mia Snow would be working with me instead of against me?” A fourth shot whizzed past him, this one nearly singeing his shoulder.

Just then, I felt something…swirl inside me. Tingling inside my veins, pulsing through my entire body. I don’t know what it was, or what caused it. I blinked in confusion. As I watched with wide eyes, the world around me began to slow down.

A fly entered my line of vision, its wings moving so leisurely I could see every flutter, see even the ripple of air. I had to be hallucinating, but…Frowning, I reached out and plucked the insect from the air.

No, no hallucination. I could feel him. What the hell was happening to me?

Three more shots soared over our car, and as I released the fly, I watched the fire meander toward Kyrin, watched him leap out of the way, moving inch by inch. I watched that fire slam into the ground behind us. I could have danced around those rays, they moved so slowly.

“Fire, Mia,” he shouted, the sound deep, almost distorted, and as slow as his motions.

I popped up, my every action fast. Too fast. My gaze blazed over the parking lot. The shooter was in mid-duck, her white hair floating above her head, her delicate features fixed in place. She moved like Kyrin, by gradual degrees. I took in her lavender eyes, which were radiating intense fury, her dainty nose, and her startling familiar high cheekbones. I’d seen her before. I knew I had, I just didn’t know where.

And then, just as suddenly as the odd swirl had hit me, it abandoned me. The tingling abandoned my veins, the pulsing left my body. Everything leaped into high gear, and for a split second, my gaze locked with the female Arcadian’s and surprise darkened her face before she disappeared behind the car.

Gasping, I hunched down and eyed Kyrin. “Holy shit.”

He was watching me with a strange, unreadable expression. I shook my head, suddenly tired, hoping an explanation for what just happened would slide into place. Nope, didn’t work. Then another blast soared past us, claiming my attention. “Do you know that woman?”

“Atlanna en Arr.”

Atlanna. The hairs on the back of my neck rose, and I grinned, pushing the weird slowdown thing out of my mind. I loved when suspects made my job easy.

I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that woman.

She could have waited until Kyrin left this area and tried to kill him in private, where there was less chance of capture. But no, she did it here, an action that screamed “Look at me, look what I can do.”

That type of behavior fit the profile of Steele’s killer. Perfectly.

I was going to have to trust Kyrin right now if I hoped to get close to Atlanna, and while that knowledge didn’t settle well inside me, I knew I had no other choice. “She was behind the green Lexis, six cars away, straight down the middle, but she’s probably running now. You go left. I’ll go right. Let’s find the bitch.”

I didn’t wait for his reply, didn’t wait to see if he followed orders. I jolted into motion. Gravel cut past my pants and into my knees, and I wished to God I could rise up and walk, but I had to stay low.

Atlanna might have come to kill Kyrin, but I’m sure she wouldn’t have minded getting rid of me, too.

“Damn it!” I heard Kyrin curse. “I found her.”

I jumped up and rounded a van as quickly as my feet would carry me, gun aimed straight in front of me. The female was running, and Kyrin was reaching out. He latched onto the long strands of her hair, but they pulled free without slowing her.

Then she disappeared completely.

I stopped and blinked, staring at the empty air where she’d been. She’d gotten away. She’d fucking gotten away. “How the hell did she disappear like that?”

He released the strands of white hair, and they floated away on the breeze. His hands dropped to his sides. “She’s been practicing her molecular transportation, is my guess.”

“That’s not poss—” I cut my words off. More and more I was learning that I didn’t really know shit about these aliens. I searched the parking lot for any sign of her and scowled. She really had transported herself away. I cursed under my breath.

“It’s painful,” Kyrin said, “and Atlanna hates pain, so I’m surprised she did it.”

“Do you know where she went?”

“Do you think I would be here if I did?”

Damn it! “Well, I’m not going home a failure.” I returned my gaze to Kyrin. I’d missed a perfect opportunity to catch Atlanna, but I wouldn’t miss this opportunity to catch him. “Just stay where you are, and I won’t have to hurt you.” I aimed my gun at his heart, very aware the weapon did not possess stun capacity. Easy on the trigger, I mentally chanted.

A part of me hated to do this. We’d just worked as a team. He’d just helped me.

But it had to be done.

“I’ll give you two choices, Kyrin. You can willingly go to the hospital to help Dallas, then the station house, where you’ll answer my questions. You’ve got a lot of explaining to do. Or I can shoot you here and now.”

“You’re not going to shoot me. You need me alive.”

I lowered the barrel to his leg. “Then I’ll simply incapacitate you.”

He gave me a languid grin. “As if a puny wound to the leg would even slow me. You’ve seen how quickly I heal. And do you really want to waste my blood?”

He stepped toward me.

“Stay where you are,” I shouted. I didn’t fire. Damn him, he was right. I wouldn’t shoot him. Why had I even threatened?

Slowly and leisurely, he closed the rest of the distance between us, and I let him come. Yes, I lowered my weapon and let him come. He stood in front of me for several seconds—an eternity, perhaps

—without touching me. My breath became ragged as his energy surrounded me; my skin heated. I licked my lips. I knew what he planned to do. “What are you waiting for?” I growled. “Do it. I can’t stop you.”

“You don’t want to stop me.” His arms wound around me, and his mouth remained a whisper away. “Thank you for your help,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” I replied grudgingly.

His lips crushed mine, and his tongue swept inside my mouth. Our teeth scraped together with the force of his invasion. I welcomed him completely. I hated myself, but welcome him I did. As he’d walked toward me, need had grown inside me. Strong and hot—undeniable. He tasted of heat and passion. I pressed more deeply into him.

But I forced my hands to stay at my sides. I might enjoy his kiss, might crave it, but I wouldn’t allow myself to participate any more than I already was. Remaining still was the hardest thing I’d ever done. I hated him. I liked him. Hated. Liked.

He tore his mouth away and we stared at each other. “You risked your life, staying with me.”

“Yes, I did. For my reward I want you to tell me everything you know about Atlanna.” The words emerged breathlessly, I was ashamed to realize.

“You taste better than I dreamed, Tai la Mar.” Kyrin trailed feather-light kisses around my jaw.

“Until next time.”

He, too, vanished.

I stood in shocked silence, trying to catch my breath and staring at the empty space where he’d been. I traced a finger over my lips and frowned. Obviously, he could transfer molecularly like Atlanna.

The bastard. So why had he stayed at all? He could have left this scene anytime. Had he been trying to protect me?

I holstered my gun and shook my head. Would I ever understand these aliens?

The blare of sirens registered in my ears, and I sighed. I’d be here a while, explaining to New Chicago PD what had happened. Shit.

I didn’t allow myself to think about losing Atlanna or kissing
and
losing Kyrin as I drove home hours later. I didn’t allow myself to think about the strange…
thing
that had come over me and slowed down the world around me for those brief seconds. Thinking about it brought fear, waves and waves of fear because that kind of ability was unnatural.

Fear made a person weak. Made her lose focus.

I trudged inside my apartment and checked my messages. There were six from my dad.

“Where are you?” he asked in the first message. His voice was pleasant, almost like I remember it being when I’d been a little girl.

“Why aren’t you here?” he said in the second.

“Is this how you treat family?” he said in the third.

Pushing a series of buttons on the wall, I skipped the other messages, yet I couldn’t halt the deep pangs of regret already working their way through me. I shouldn’t care what he thought about me. He was an old, pathetic man, and I was a grown woman. I’d been on my own since the age of sixteen.

A small part of me, however, a part I despised, desperately craved his approval. Always had. I wanted the kind of approval he’d given Kane. The kind of approval he might have given Dare, if my brother had survived. The kind of approval I’d once had from him, but lost for some reason I’d never understood.

He liked to toss me a bone every now and then when I killed an other-worlder, but that was about it. Even then I only received a weak smile and an unemotional, “You did okay.”

“You need your head examined, Mia,” I muttered to myself as I picked up the earpiece. “Dad,” I told the speaker and listened as the systematic ringing began.

My stomach churned with dread as I placed the small, fitted receptor in my ear. I could face a group of treacherous aliens and smile. Sometimes I even anticipated a fight. But I could not face my father without becoming a little girl again: nervous, desperate. Sad.

On the seventh ring, he barked a gruff hello.

“Hey, Dad. It’s me.” I winced at the neediness in my tone.

“Where have you been?” he asked, his unemotional self.

“I had an emergency at work.”

“You disrespected your brother by not attending his memorial. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know, but I’m trying to hunt down an alien serial killer.”

He paused. “Any leads?”

I couldn’t discuss the case with him, so I said, “Not yet.”

“Then we have nothing left to talk about, do we?”

Abruptly, the connection severed, and the dial tone buzzed in my ear. I held the small black earpiece in front of me for a prolonged, silent moment, blinking down at it. I shrugged off my hurt.

Overall, not a bad conversation. He’d taken it better than I could have hoped. Pushing out a breath, I replaced the receptor back on its wall hook.

I padded a perfectly straight course to the kitchen. No obstacles slowed my progress. Instead of a couch, I had a desk in the middle of my living room, cluttered high with papers and books. And in the far left corner perched a small screen, always displaying the local news. Two barstools and a snack bar in the kitchen completed the ensemble. All brown, all bland.

And that was the extent of my furnishings.

I was rarely here, and besides, the only thing I did here was sleep and work, so why spend the time and money required to make the place cozy? This modest one-bedroom apartment had never felt like home, anyway—as if I even knew what home felt like. I’d never belonged as a young girl, had always been an outsider.

I readied my coffeemaker and set the automatic timer for three hours from now. I’d have a beer, catch some sleep, and when I awoke the coffee would be hot and waiting for me. I opened my fridge, and a list of needed groceries instantly printed from the side.

“I know. I know,” I muttered. I hadn’t had time to shop in a while. Yawning, I reached for a beer

—but it slid across the distance and came to me instead.

Startled, I let go, and the glass shattered on the ground. I blinked down at the broken shards, liquid swimming in every direction. What the hell? First the slowdown at the shootout, and now this.

No, no. This had not just happened. I’d imagined it. I was tired, that was all. The bottle had not come to me. I hurriedly cleaned up the mess, not allowing myself to think about it anymore, and strode into my bedroom.

A vivid sapphire and emerald comforter topped the bed, and a three-tiered bureau was pushed against the north wall. The comforter was my only splurge. I stripped to my panties and fell onto the mattress.

When sleep claimed me, so did my dreams.

One moment my mind’s eye saw nothing; the next I saw a brilliant kaleidoscope of images. A woman’s face flashed before me—my face, I realized seconds later, though my hair continually changed colors. Red, white, yellow, brown. I was like a chameleon, and I didn’t understand the reason for the changes. Each time I almost grasped the answer, my ever-changing image floated away.

Then I saw my hero, Dare. His arms were outstretched as I ran to him for a hug. I was only six years old. He was ten. He caught me in his arms, and we both uttered carefree giggles as we toppled onto a cushion of bright green summer leaves. On impact, they propelled high in the air, then floated down around us, a multitude of colors.

“I love you, goose,” he said in that nurturing voice of his.

“I love you, too, Dare.” Anticipatory and smiling, I wiggled from his embrace and pushed to my chubby legs. “Find me, Dare. Find me.” My laughter trailing behind me, I raced into the nearby woods.

Though we’d played hide-and-seek a thousand times before, I always hid behind our towering oak, which boasted swaying branches and chirping birds.

I glanced over my shoulder as he skipped after me. He had just about reached me, had just about shouted, “Gotcha!” when the leaves scattered, disappeared, and my dream shifted. I was suddenly fifteen years old and being dragged down a dark stairwell, then a dirty hallway, by my dad. I was crying, screaming, “Please don’t do this, Daddy. Please don’t.”

“You need to learn respect, Mia.” His features remained indifferent as he jerked open the basement door and shoved me into the dark.