Chosen by Fate (12 page)

What a cosmic joke. She hadn’t felt pain when she’d petted Dex in wolf form, either, but it seemed unfair, given her history, that she’d feel no pain when a feline was involved, even one as small and innocent as this one.

Years ago, Wraith had made a mistake. A huge one. Weary and scared, she’d allowed herself to seek companionship. Friendship. She’d thought she’d found it in the form of a feline female named Maria. She’d known the feline for only a matter of days, but something about her manner had relaxed Wraith’s natural defensiveness. Eventually, Maria had introduced her to a mage, an evil so dark she still felt its looming presence hovering over her at times. She’d spent the next two years imprisoned. In a constant state of pain she’d never experienced before, not even with Ramsey . . .

No! Wraith gritted her teeth, chased the ghosts away, and forced herself back to the present. To the feline that she held in the palm of her hand. The one that couldn’t hurt her.

It took her several moments, but she finally managed it. Vaguely, she stared at the creature, grateful she hadn’t inadvertently crushed it during her brief but troubled trip into the past.

The kitten was a newborn, probably a week old since its eyes were open, blinking owlishly up at her. Its body shivered, its fur barely providing any protection for its fragile bones. The boy studied them—her and the damn cat—for a few seconds, then smiled.

His smile was almost enough to knock her back. She instinctively looked away.

So much innocence. So much goodness and purity in that one gaze. She couldn’t remember seeing it before, and seeing it now was almost painful.

She’d been innocent once. Scared. Wanting desperately to trust another. What had it gotten her? Nothing but pain and betrayal. First, the twisted relief of sexual pain with Ramsey, her first lover as a wraith. Then, betrayal by Maria. Then . . .

Tentatively, she lifted a hand to touch the scars on her neck.

Torture, she thought. An endless amount of time and pain. Of knowing she was alone. That no one cared. And that she couldn’t die. No matter how much she begged and pleaded, she couldn’t die. She—

Movement caught her eye as the boy moved away from her, jolting her out of her tormented memories and back to the present in which she still held the kitten. “Wait—”

The boy ignored her and returned to his seat at the front of the bus.

What was his deal? Did he really expect her to babysit while he . . . while he . . .

With a sigh of surrender, Wraith sat down, jerking when the kitten mewled and latched on to her thumb, sucking it softly before quieting. She cleared her throat and hesitantly lifted her other hand. With one finger, she rubbed the kitten’s soft head. To her amazement, it began to purr, its soft rumble vibrating against her skin so that for the slightest second, she felt warm.

She stared at the kitten for over an hour, well after it closed its eyes and fell asleep. Then, even though there was no reason to do so, she closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, as well. The rhythmic sway of the bus seemed to put her into a trance until its sudden absence made her eyes fly open.

The sun was bright and intense, indicating it was likely late afternoon.

Several seats were empty. Vacated.

Jerking up, she whipped her head around. The bus was parked in a terminal and was nearly empty. The kitten’s owner was gone.

She’d been so zoned out, so thrown off by the kitten in her hand that she’d left herself open to anything and anyone.

Idiot.

Cradling the kitten, she jumped to the window across the aisle and immediately spotted the boy in a crowd. “Hey, kid!” she shouted, causing the boy to look up. Wraith held out the kitten but the boy shook his head.

Within seconds, the bus started up again. Through the back window, Wraith watched the group around the boy disperse. People melted away until the boy stood out like a beacon, alone. Wraith’s gaze traveled the crowd, searching for the boy’s mother or aunt or family friend. No one appeared.

The bus started moving.

The boy’s figure got smaller.

The cat in her palm mewled and licked her thumb. Then something even more disturbing happened. A man, beefy and angry-looking, strode up to the boy and grabbed hold of his arm.

The boy winced in obvious pain.

Wraith shook her head. “Shit.”

She turned to the driver and yelled. “Stop.”

The driver ignored her, even though she repeated the command several times.

Walking quickly toward the front of the bus, she shifted the kitten to her other hand and whipped her pistol out from the back of her pants.

She pointed the gun at the driver’s temple. “I said to stop the fucking bus.
Now
.”

A
s she stepped off the bus, Wraith was once more hit with a blast of warmth; however, unlike the soothing sensation she’d experienced in the Devereaux garden, this warmth felt muggy. Stifling. For a moment she felt dizzy, but she shook her head, willing the feeling away as she strode toward the man who was now shaking the boy. His words were clipped and angry. “. . . ever do something so stupid again, do you hear me, Foster! I can’t believe you—”

Wraith gripped the man’s arm and whirled him around so suddenly that he automatically released his hold on the child. She had the barrel of her gun resting in between his eyes before his words fully faded away.

“Do. Not. Touch. Him.” Wraith ground the words out, telling herself not to blow the man’s brains out in front of the child. Not unless she had to.

Eyes wide, the man nearly swallowed his tongue. His gaze skittered from Wraith to the little boy.

Foster.

She said his name and the boy nodded.

“Who’s meeting you here?” she asked.

“I’m—” the man began. Wraith pushed the barrel of her gun even harder into his skin.

“Shut up,” she hissed. “I don’t want you saying one word, do you understand?”

Pressing his lips tightly together, he nodded.

She felt a tug on her poncho and looked down.

“He’s my dad,” Foster said, face calm and eyes dry.

“He was hurting you,” she said.

The boy just shrugged. “He’s mad at me. I ran away.”

She looked at the father again. “Maybe you had good reason to,” she purred threateningly.

Again, the man’s eyes widened as his fear increased. Wraith sniffed, but there were no sickly fumes coming from him. No hint of disease or death. He was as healthy and strong as he looked, perfectly capable of overpowering and abusing someone as small and weak as the boy next to her.

“I did,” the boy confirmed. “He was going to kill my kitten. He said it wasn’t going to make it past the night, but it did. He’s made it three nights. The three nights I’ve been gone. I showed him,” the young boy said proudly.

“Good for you,” Wraith said, although she eased off on the gun a little. Never taking her eyes off of the man in front of her, she said, “Foster, has your father hurt you? Do you want to leave with me?”

“No, wait—” the man began, and Wraith shook her head, cutting him off.

“Foster?” she said when he didn’t answer.

She looked down and was shocked to see him smiling at her, his eyes slightly glassy now. “I knew,” he whispered. “I knew when I saw you that you were the one that would take care of him. I knew I couldn’t keep him. Not now. But you’ll take care of him for me, won’t you?”

She sighed and lowered her arm, holstering her gun. With a warning glance at the man, Wraith kneeled down in front of Foster. “Your father loves you, doesn’t he, Foster?”

The boy nodded.

“And you love him? You want to stay with him?”

Again, the boy confirmed that he was, indeed, happy to be returning home.

She pretended to consider the matter for several minutes, then nodded. Standing, she held out her hand, bracing herself for the moment when the boy’s touch would cause pain to zing up her arm. It was there, but faint. Barely anything given what she was used to. Animals. Kids. Apparently she could touch them without it hurting so much. Why?

But she didn’t have time to dwell on that right now.

“Then I’ll find a home for your kitten. Because I travel a lot, and my job, well, it’s a little dangerous, so I think the kitten would be better off with someone else. Is that okay?”

Foster hesitated, twitched his mouth back and forth as he thought, then nodded.

“Good,” she said. “But first you have to promise—no more running away. You talk things out with your parents when you need to. Got me?”

Foster wiped at his eyes, then ran to hug his father and nodded. “Okay.”

His father watched her warily as he returned his son’s hug.

Wraith pressed her lips together and jerked her chin toward the parking lot. “Go on. Get out of here. And remember, don’t hurt the boy. Ever. Or you will see me again.”

 

It took Caleb almost twenty-four hours to catch up with Wraith. When he did, it was early evening and she was sitting alone on an outdoor bench at the Rock Springs, Wyoming, Greyhound Station. She was staring at something in her cupped hands before she tucked it into the front pocket of an unfamiliar-looking poncho. It was black, of course, but looked more like wool than Wraith’s standard leather. Something so insignificant, but it made her look softer. The impression of softness was magnified when, wearily, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back.

Her weariness echoed his own.

It reminded him that, despite her appearance and nonexistent vital signs, Wraith was more like him than she wanted to admit. True, she was far more stubborn than him, but today he was going to outlast her if it killed him.

“You were more difficult to find than I thought you’d be,” he called, even though it was a lie. He’d known where she was every minute. Mahone had made sure of that, notifying him of her coordinates via his cell. “Must be the lack of bloody bodies I was expecting.”

Wraith jerked to standing and turned to face him. Although she quickly scowled, he didn’t miss the second of relief that flashed across her features. “This is becoming a refrain, but what the hell are you doing here, O’Flare?”

He snorted. “You didn’t think I was going to let you go that easily, did you?”

Walking toward her, he watched her fumble for a response.

Good. He liked keeping Wraith unsettled. It happened so rarely, and he needed every advantage he could get when it came to her.

“You don’t ‘let’ me do anything, O’Flare. And I’m not coming back, so you can tell Mahone—”

“I’m not here because of Mahone.”

She laughed. “Bullshit. Why else would you be here?”

Her accusation made him feel guilty for about half a second. “Mahone asked me to track you down, true. He gave me a head start on where you were. But I would have come after you anyway. You know that.”

“Really? And why’s that?” Cocking a brow, she propped a hand on her hip in an arrogant gesture that was quickly dispelled by the wriggling going on in her poncho pocket. Distracted, she looked down, mumbling something.

“Because I want you. And I know you want me, too. What happened, Wraith? Did you suddenly get scared it would mean more to you than you were prepared for?”

Her head snapped up. “No. Besides, you don’t want me. You want to save me. So quit fucking around with me, O’Flare.”

His mouth twisted in a grimace of a smile. “Poor choice of words, Wraith.”

Her eyes narrowed. “You know what I mean. Don’t play—”

“I know what you mean. Now why don’t you tell me what the hell you’ve got wriggling around in your pocket so we can get to L.A. and get started on our next mission?”

Her hands came up and seemed to cup themselves protectively over the pocket lying against her stomach. It was one of those big tube pockets that a person could stick both hands in at the same time. Despite the positioning of her hands, he saw a piece of gray fur flicker in and out of the pocket, causing his brow to arch.

“Dex’ll be jealous,” he said wryly, even though his words made him uncomfortable. He hadn’t missed the fact that she and the were had bonded in some way in North Korea, nor had he missed the fact that seeing Dex in wolf form rubbing against her leg had made him want to rip the wolf’s throat out.

“Please,” she snorted. “He’d have to care to be jealous. The Para-Ops team might work well together, but its members, first and foremost, care only about one thing—what we’re going to get at the end of it all.”

Tauntingly, he asked, “So you don’t care what happens to us? Lucy? Dex?” He paused. “Me?”

She hesitated. “I . . . I didn’t say that.”

“Then you do care?”

She frowned and shook her head. “No . . .”

He stepped closer.

“No?”

She held up a hand, palm facing him. “Stop. I’m not playing your games. If you and the others want to do Mahone’s dirty work for him and risk not getting whatever the hell it is he’s promised you, then by all means, do it. I don’t give second chances.”

“Even though that’s what you’ve been given?” he asked quietly.

She startled. “A second chance? Is that what you think I am?”

“You’re the walking dead, Wraith. Seems like a second chance to me.”

“A second chance to see the evil in the world. To hurt and be hurt. To feel”—she swallowed hard—“to feel pain.” She turned away. “To be alone,” she muttered.

He saw her hand move and knew she had put her hand inside her pocket to pet the furry creature she had sequestered inside there. He remembered the way she’d stroked Dex when he’d been in wolf form. How it hadn’t seemed to hurt her then, either. How jealous he’d been at that realization.

“You’re choosing to be alone, Wraith. Choosing to leave the team. Come back with me. Help us with this mission, and I promise I’ll make sure Mahone gives you what it is you need.”