Burning Darkness (22 page)

“You were sweating buckets.” She was almost afraid to ask. “Do you remember anything?”

He shook his head. “Lights, like the Aurora Borealis, in the darkest blackness I have ever seen. Thinking I was in hell because I was so hot. Feeling fire in my veins, probably after the injection.” He looked at the bruise inside his elbow. His gaze lifted to her and his pupils dilated for an instant.

“What?”

“Nothing. I was probably delusional.”

Did he remember their interlude? She turned away. “You’d better call your people. They’ve been tripping with worry.” She got his phone and handed it to him. “They love you loads. You’re lucky.”

His hand closed around over hers, though his gaze was somewhere else. “Yeah. I am.”

He talked to them for a few minutes and then got out of bed. That’s when he noticed he was naked. “You stripped me?” He looked shocked, giving her a raised eyebrow. “You bad girl.”

“You were drenched.”
Way to sound defensive.
Her face flushed with heat.
Oh, I did more than that.
She put her hands on her hips. “Besides, you don’t care if I see you naked anyway. Like now, for instance.”

He walked toward the bathroom, but swayed and grabbed onto the edge of the dresser for balance.

Fear spiked in her again as she rushed to his side. “Are you all right?”

“A little dizzy. I’m starved.”

“Eat first, then shower.”

“I’ll be fine.”

She rolled her eyes. “You are such a guy. I’m going in to the bathroom with you, then.”

“If you insist.”

A rush of relief and gratitude washed over her. He was the same Eric. She wanted to hug him but held back. “Go in. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

He gave her a curious look, as though he were figuring something out. Then he shook his head and started the shower. She sat on the lid of the toilet, her legs pulled up to her chest, cheek resting against her knees. The shower curtain was an opaque blue, revealing indistinct outlines of his body. She had to watch him, because he wouldn’t call out if he felt dizzy. She’d have to try to catch his bonehead ass before he hit the tub.

You are so falling for that bonehead.

The truth she’d been trying to avoid now pulsed through her. She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to push it back.

You know the psychology, girlfriend. You did it with Jerryl, and so it’s only logical that you’d do it with Eric.

Except I don’t feel the same way about Eric that I did about Jerryl. Jerryl was lust, drama. He fed my anger. Eric calms me in some ways, and makes me crazier than ever in others. But he doesn’t make me angry. He does make me feel safe.

The shower stopped and he pushed the curtain aside. Dammit, she had to stop seeing him naked. A woman could only take so much. She stood, threw a towel at him, and stalked out.

“Something I said?” he asked.

“No, something you are.” She closed the door.

Sayre parked along the road, looking down the gravel drive. He’d finally gotten into Fonda’s dreams enough to get her to clue him in as to where they were. When he had Fonda take a walk around, he recognized the place. Amy had stayed there once, and he’d given the information to Darkwell. For some reason, he couldn’t get into Eric. Well, he could have plenty of fun with Fonda. Especially once he got rid of Eric.

It took some dicking around, but he’d finally found the road. It was out in the rural area south of Annapolis. He didn’t know what this place was or who owned it, and the NO TRESPASSING signs made him wonder what the heck they were doing out here. He’d wait a bit. He had plenty of time.

E
ric could have eaten a horse, but he had to settle for a pound of bacon, ten eggs, and half a loaf of bread. Fonda wore an amused expression as she nibbled on a piece of bacon. He ought to be pissed at her, but he couldn’t quite muster it. Mostly because he had some hazy memories of her, of things she’d said to him, of her tender toughness. The erotic thing could have been his imagination, but the other stuff . . . those memories made him feel something, which made him think they were real. Then she’d said she only saved him out of honor and responsibility.

Hell, if he knew.

Magnus sat at the table, too, leaning his chair back. “So what are your plans now?”

“We’ve still got to find a way to nail this guy.”

“Amy said he wasn’t part of the original program,” Fonda said.

Eric mopped up the last of his egg yolk with the last of his bread and popped it into his mouth. “So how does he fit in?” He didn’t wait for an answer, of course. He looked at Magnus. “We’ll be out of here by noon.”

“If you need my help, I’m here. Sounds like one way or another this guy will be hunting us all down.“

Eric shook his head. “I appreciate that, but he and whoever he’s working with might not know about you. No need to put you in danger.” He looked at Fonda. “Wallace never told Darkwell about his sons. When their mother got pregnant, the program was deteriorating, and so were the subjects.”

“Didn’t seem like the right time to make the happy announcement,” Magnus said. “By the time Lachlan was born, the subjects were dying, and my father suspected they weren’t all because of mental illness. So he put my mother’s last name on the birth certificates and left his name out altogether.” He raised his thick eyebrow. “So on paper, we’re bastards.”

Eric recognized the hunger to fight in Magnus’s eyes, remembered how they were sword fighting. “If we run into a situation where we need the extra manpower, we’ll give you a shout.” He didn’t want to be responsible for another man’s death. Besides, if Magnus died, he knew that Lachlan would have his head.

Fonda leaned her elbows on the table. “We’ve got to find out who Westerfield is affiliated with. He showed me an FBI badge, but that could be a fake. Is he really government? Most importantly, who’s the guy on the other end of the phone? He might be the bigger threat, which means getting rid of Westerfield won’t solve our problem. Let me find him, figure out where he is. Eric, you can remote-view him and gather more information.” She looked at Magnus. “That’s what we were doing when Eric took a nosedive.”

Eric pushed his plate away, his gaze on Magnus. “Are there any dangers in astral projecting? With remote-viewing, I’m not really there. But her soul goes to where she projects.”

“Other than the psychosis, I don’t think so. Not that we ran into, anyway. But we never dealt with someone like us. Hitler, Martin Luther King, Jesus Christ—”

“You saw
Jesus
?” Eric asked.

“My father did. He was different after that, too. It was the most peaceful I’d ever seen him.”

Fonda’s face glowed. “I want to learn to do that. That would be incredible.” The glow disappeared. “But first I’ve got to focus on the present. We’re going to head out in a bit. I’m sure Lachlan will be glad to see us go.”

Magnus shrugged. “You disappointed him, Eric.”

“By not dying?”

“By not losing your abilities. Yours came back even faster than mine did. But really, he can’t get much more bitter than he already is.” He turned to Fonda. “Project from here. Let us know where this guy is, in case you and Eric never come back.”

She gave him a forced smile. “That’s optimistic.”

He stood and tapped the table. “Got to be realistic with this business. Let me know what you find out.”

Eric loaded his dishes into the dishwasher and followed Fonda down the hall to the room he’d spent the night in. He didn’t realize that he put his hand on her lower back until he’d already done it. Fonda glanced back but didn’t shrug away from him.

She climbed onto the bed and stretched out. Her lower body was encased in tie-dyed yellow jeans, and her green tank top tightened over the curves of her boobs. The pink stripe of hair caught the sunlight coming in, and her hair, parted on the side, brushed her cheek. She still wore those drippy gold earrings.

“What?” she asked when she noticed he’d stopped cold and was staring at her.

“You look . . .” He wasn’t sure what to say. His brain was still in second gear. Something was bugging him, and seeing her like that jarred it again. “This is not the kind of question a guy likes to ask, but did something happen while I was out? Did we make love?”

Her body stiffened and her face flushed. So when she said “No,” very definitely, he actually felt disappointed.

He sat on the bed. “Because I had this . . . well, I’m not sure it was a dream exactly—”

“Nothing happened.”

He crawled up next to her. “I have these memories of you in my arms. Of touching you here.” He put one hand on her stomach, his other hand around the back of her neck. “And here.” He slid his hand to her waist, and then around to her back. “And here.” He kissed her, taking her lips in his, just a taste.

Her eyes closed but her eyebrows were furrowed. Why was she fighting him? There was at the least an overpowering sexual chemistry between them. That, she couldn’t deny, and yet she was. Her body moved into his touch, her mouth slackened, and he swept in with his tongue.

He held onto the words he’d heard her say, raw emotion saturating them:
Eric, please come back to me. I need you.
He’d come back, and now she was putting up the wall again.

She pushed back, a tangle of emotions on her face. “I can’t.”

He sat back, expelling a breath. “Because of Jerryl? You still think you love him, don’t you?”

She looked genuinely surprised by his assumption. “Jerryl?”

“I saw the pictures in your bag.”

“The pictures . . . oh, yeah, those. I threw them away at my father’s house.”

“You threw them away?”

She nodded, tracing infinity circles on the sheet. “You were right; I never loved him.”

“You’re mad that I popped that bubble?”

She stretched out on her side, her gaze on her finger as she continued to trace circles. “At first, yes. You made me see things about myself, things I didn’t want to see. Even worse, it was you putting that mirror in front of my face.” She exhaled a soft breath and looked at him. “But I’m glad you did.”

He lay on his side, arm propped up by his hand, facing her. Hearing those words sent a surge of relief through him. It mattered, and given the way he felt, it mattered a lot to him that she’d come to her senses where Jerryl was concerned. He reached out and skimmed his hand along her side and the curve of her hip. He said something he didn’t think he would ever say. “Do you forgive me for putting you through that? For killing him?” That mattered, too, and he would do anything to hear her say the words.

He didn’t have to pay any price. Her eyes were clear and filled with compassion. “Yes, I’ve forgiven you.”

He cupped her cheek. “Thank you.” The words came out in almost a whisper. She did things to him, broke down his hard shell, made him into someone he’d never been before. She still had her shell, though, and he knew in that moment he would do whatever it took to break through it. He grazed her mouth with his thumb, brushing slowly back and forth. “Do you feel safe with me?”

She nodded.

He shook his head. “Some part of you doesn’t. I see it now, and whenever I touch you. I won’t ever hurt you. Do you know that?”

She nodded again, and he saw the shell in her eyes, the shell and the yearning.

“I want you,” he said. “You know that, too, don’t you?”

She hesitated, shifting her gaze away. Uncomfortable territory. Yeah, well, this was unfamiliar terrain to him, too. He’d always gone into new situations without fear, guns blazing, not taking the time to think things through. He was done doing that. She was too important to risk, to scare away. Walking a fine line, however, was as foreign as what he was feeling for her.

She cleared her throat. “You know I have this thing, this weakness for someone protecting me. I based everything I thought I felt for Jerryl on that. Now I feel . . . something for you, and even though it’s different, I’m afraid it’s because of that. You’ve saved me—”

“I thought we weren’t keeping score.”

“We’re not. I’m not. You’ve done more than just save my life, like making me see the truth . . . you’ve done more than anyone else in my life has. You didn’t let me stay blind and comfortably numb. I don’t trust what I feel.”

“What do you feel?”

She searched his eyes, a flicker of panic in hers. “Eric, don’t make me—”

“Like you?” He smiled, easing the moment.

She smiled, too, and looked at the ceiling. “You made me like you. Oh, yeah, you definitely made me like you.”

A soft knock on the door preceded its opening. Magnus stepped in. “Did you find him?”

“We haven’t started yet,” Eric said.

Fonda jumped at the chance to move out of a conversation that had her teetering on the edge of either running from the room screaming or throwing herself into Eric’s arms. Of all the risks she’d taken, admitting what he’d come to mean to her was the biggest, and not one she was ready to take. Yes, she was scared that those feelings were based on what he’d done for her. Even scarier was the sense of just how deep they went.

She rolled onto her back. Much safer to focus on the psychic creep than those arctic eyes she’d once thought masked Eric’s feelings. So not true.

She pictured Westerfield’s face, his taunting voice when he talked about smelling her fear. She went through the familiar process, and then she was in a room, like a lab of some kind. She stood behind a man sitting at a desk on the far side. Westerfield. Seemed odd to find him doing something mundane like paperwork. She stepped farther out of his view.

Tacks were stuck in a random pattern on a map of the D.C./Maryland area on the wall. No indication of where this place was, though. Eric needed a location before he could remote-view. Interesting that he could talk while he did so. She tried to describe what she saw but was completely disconnected to her physical self.

She walked around a tall shelving unit filled with notebooks, intending to go through the wall. Westerfield stood there, looking right at her. Her heart jumped.
Get out!

“Got you,” he said.

She saw a blinding flash of light, felt something close in around her.
Can’t see anything. Get back, now!
She felt an odd tightening sensation, as though a cloud had surrounded her and now squeezed from all sides. She’d never felt pain in her etheric form before, but now she did. The humming was more like a searing buzz, vibrating through her being.

She couldn’t get back.
No!

The buzz lessened in its intensity and the cloud thinned. Okay, she was going back. It was just different this time. Different . . .

The cloud dissipated. Eric’s face was warped. No, not Eric. Westerfield! He was smiling at her, that much she could see, but the image was stretched and shiny. Glass. She spun around and saw glass all around her. Fear gripped her, pounding as fast as her heartbeat. She was trapped in a glass jar. Judging by the size of his face, she was small. He’d grabbed her soul! And shrunk her.

Eric wouldn’t be able to find her. How long could Westerfield keep her? What would happen to her body? Was there a way to get back to it? To Eric? She tried, focusing on that gorgeous face and his expression when she’d said she forgave him, as though she’d given him a precious gift.

Nothing. Whatever this was, it blocked her from leaving.

Everything tilted when Westerfield picked up the jar. He shook it, sending her crashing against the sides. His mouth was moving but she couldn’t hear what he was saying, only a murmur. What she could see was how pleased he was. Could he smell her emotions here? She steeled herself, cramming down her fear and anger. One feeling got through, though: grief at not being able to contact Eric. At the thought of not seeing him again.

That’s what got to her most of all.

Eric watched her body tighten, her breath come in an airless gasp. She hadn’t done that last time. He looked at Magnus, whose eyebrows furrowed. What happened next worried him even more. Her body wilted. He could feel the absence of her, like an emptiness that sucked the air out of the room.

He grabbed her hand and felt her pulse. Light and thready. “Fonda!” He shook her and kept screaming her name. No response. He gave Magnus a desperate look. “How do I get her back?”

“What you’re doing is how my father said to do it. That’s how we got Lachlan back.” He sat on the other side of her and slapped her cheeks.

Eric kept hold of her hand, squeezing it hard, leaning down next to her ear. “Fonda, get back here, now! Come back to me!”

Not a twitch, not a sign that she was in there.

Magnus looked concerned. “I’m getting Lachlan. He knows more about astral projection than I do.”

He ran out of the room, his footsteps heavy down the hall. Minutes later two sets pounded back toward Eric.